Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/306

 286 for His kingdom." After the decision he wrote: "For myself I did not call it inopportune, for times and seasons are known to God alone … nor in accepting as a dogma what I had ever held as a truth, could I be doing violence to any theological view or conclusion of my own." No one will scrutinise too closely, or make exacting demands of rigorous self-identity, in letters written in the strain of so vast a change as that which the new Decree had wrought. Yet the various statements are part of the evidence to the effect produced, by the doctrine, upon the gifted mind then straining all its efforts to reassure the unsettled and retain them in the fold.

The second great question to be answered was, Does the Infallibility Dogma accord with History? Upon this subject Roman writers were greatly divided. Some asserted boldly that Papal Infallibility had always been held in the Church. Manning stated this in its extremest form. The doctrine had always been of divine faith. Newman was quite unable to accept this view, and supported Gladstone in rejecting it.

According to this view then of Newman, Papal Infallibility was not to be sought in history. It would not