“Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”—Sixth Article of Religion.

    “As we deny not those things that are written, so we refuse those that are not written.”—Jerome. [1]

    “The Spirit of God, therefore, is the only infallible judge here; and has declared as plainly as any successive judges can, in those things that are necessary to life and salvation, what is to be believed and to be done; which if we believe and practise in particular, and do also in general, and implicitly believe and stand in a readiness to obey the rest of the Scripture, when the sense thereof appears to us, we are in a safe condition, and need not doubt but it will go well with us in the other state.”—Works of Henry More, pp. 453, 454.

Every reflecting Christian, as soon almost as he is capable of reflection, must have continual occasion to observe with sorrow and anxiety the multiplied varieties of opinion that divide the Church of Christ, on every point or article of Christian faith; the confidence with which every sect lays claim exclusively to the possession of saving knowledge, and the unqualified severity with which each party reprobates the other, as being implicated in unpardonable heresy.  On hearing (and who can escape hearing?) the fulmination of these mutual anathemas, we not only grieve for the state of dreadful peril in which, if we admit such principles, a large proportion of our neighbours, friends, and fellow Christians must be involved: but we grieve likewise on p. 2our own account.  We are visited with doubts, misgivings, and apprehensions, lest we ourselves, through ignorance or prejudice, should have adopted unawares into our creed some article containing deadly error; or should have omitted something indispensable to salvation.

In this state of intellectual and spiritual perplexity, if we want the Christian industry and moral courage to work out for ourselves, by the help of God, this greatest of all problems, we are in a state of passive readiness to receive counsel from the first adviser.  Among the multitude of counsellors who present themselves, none is more importunately obtrusive, or more dictatorially confident than the Romanist; and I propose, for the subject of this essay, to examine successively the remedies and expedients he suggests for calming our disquietude, and restoring our religious peace.

He informs us that our state of mind is the necessary consequence of adhering to a Protestant communion; and that we never can obtain repose and satisfaction until we enter the Catholic Church—until, with the other wandering sheep dispersed over the forbidden pastures of the earth, we return with humble penitence to the fold which we have left; until, in short, we renounce all dependence on the conclusions of uncertain reason, and establish our Faith for ever upon the dictates of infallibility.  “That there must,” he adds, “be some where upon earth an infallible living judge, an arbiter of religious controversy incapable of error, an authority from whose decision on points of faith there can be no appeal, is a plain and obvious principle, which, on proper reflection, you will find impossible to be rejected.  Not to insist on arguments from Scripture, although sufficiently conclusive, and capable in themselves of proving that such an arbiter has been appointed, there are independent considerations in favour of infallibility which ought to satisfy every reasonable mind: for the wise Creator of man would never grant a revelation to his creatures, and then leave them to the direction of their own erring judgment in ascertaining the truths revealed.  The benevolent Creator of man must know that man is fallible; that he needs indispensably a conductor; and that without some infallible conductor the benefits of revelation would p. 3be doubtful and precarious.  But if infallibility exist at all in the Church, it must exist in the Papal communion, which alone makes the least pretension to the privilege.  Therefore, only reconcile yourself to our infallibly directed Church, and you will no longer find occasion for uneasiness.  You will be guided safely through all the mazes of theological disputation.  Instead of being ‘tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine’ [3a] on a shoreless ocean of uncertainty and error, you will repose with comfort and unruffled calm in the quiet haven of infallibility.”

On the promulgation of these assurances our disquietude would at once be tranquillized, if we could but persuade ourselves that the promise of infallible direction, would be as certainly fulfilled, as it is confidently made.  But here lies the difficulty.  The assertions of our Romish counsellor are bold, but the principle from which he argues is fallacious.  The assumed principle, that the human mind is capable of prejudging what conduct the Creator must pursue towards his creatures, or of pre-determining what benefits he must bestow, is incompatible with our nature, and irreconcilable with experience. [3b]  We may perhaps admit, that if infallibility be found at all in the Church, it must be found in that branch which alone pretends to the privilege: but are we warranted to conclude that God must have granted this extraordinary privilege, merely because we think it likely, or proper, or desirable, that He should grant it?  Can we safely infer, in any case, that God must have done what we think it right that He should do; and make this inference independently of all proof, that He has actually done so?  Is it not dictatorial, and hazardous in the last degree, to determine by abstract reasonings, what line of conduct it would be proper for an all-perfect, and all-wise Being to adopt, till evidence appear p. 4that He has really adopted it?  We may indeed rest assured, in general, that God will do nothing arbitrary or irrational; but how often and how fatally should we be misled, did we venture to predict that a certain course of Divine action is alone rational, benevolent, and just—and, therefore, must have been the course actually followed by the Almighty!  If we admit this mode of reasoning, and hazard speculations of this kind, we should certainly think it reasonable, that if God created sensitive beings, He would make infallible provision against every error or mistake, which might render them liable to fall from a state of holiness into a state of guilt and misery.  We should think it further reasonable for Him to cause those most essential truths of religion, his own existence and perfections, to rest on evidence infallible and demonstrative; so as to preclude all doubt or hesitation in the most sceptical inquirer.  Or, (to suppose another case,) in disputed questions of political importance among nations, since war and bloodshed cannot otherwise be prevented, we should think it reasonable for Him to appoint some great judge of international law, by whom all differences might infallibly be determined, and the blessings of tranquillity and peace secured to all the kingdoms of the earth.

But God has not fulfilled these expectations, though to all appearance highly reasonable.  He has left both men and angels to the freedom of their own wills; and has created them not only capable of abusing that gift of freedom, but of involving themselves in sin and wickedness, and in everlasting ruin.  He has afforded no infallible, no demonstrative evidence of his own existence and perfections; but has left mankind to ascertain these fundamental truths from principles of abstract reason, and by reflections on the works of nature and of Providence.  He permits contending nations to decide their quarrels by an appeal to arms: and notwithstanding all the mischiefs consequent upon war, has not thought fit to make that effectual provision against this widely desolating source of evil, which our human wisdom, if appealed to, would probably have suggested; namely, the appointment of an unerring and authoritative arbiter.  We are, therefore, not entitled to argue that God in his kingdom of grace must p. 5unquestionably have pursued a course, which, in his kingdom of Providence, He has not pursued; nor to maintain that to silence all religious controversies, He must indispensably have had recourse to an expedient which, in political disputes, He has neglected.  We are not entitled to infer, that He must necessarily have determined, by the authority of an infallible judge, the less essential truths of religion; when He has left the fundamental truths of all, to be determined by our own erring reason.  We are not entitled to infer, that the Creator of men must have made infallible provision against their falling into heresy or “believing a lie,” and thus frustrating the means for their restoration to a state of holiness and happiness; when He made no provision of that kind against their fall. [5]

But granting to our Romanist adviser that his representations were as sound as they are fallacious; still they could only lead us to a probable, and never to an infallible conclusion.  The strength of the building must be proportionate to the solidity of its foundation.  If our faith in the supposed infallible arbiter is to be founded on the validity p. 6and force of the arguments and conjectures which have been stated; our faith in the decisions of that arbiter cannot be greater than our faith in the arguments and conjectures which support his infallibility.  Since these proofs, at the very utmost, are any thing but demonstrations, and are only probabilities, we cannot under any circumstances have more than probability to guide us: and we therefore end as we began, and our disquietude even on our admission of an unerring judge, remains exactly as before.  Our Romish advocate, however, is not discomfited.  He proceeds to affirm that the pretensions of his Church are supported by analogy.  He reminds us that the Church of God, under the Jewish dispensation, was directed by an infallible human authority; and that the same high privilege, being equally wanted, might be equally expected in the Christian ?conomy.  He quotes for this purpose those magnificent assurances of God’s peculiar favour and protection, to be found throughout the books of Moses and of the prophets; and relies especially on the remarkable rule established by the legislator of Israel to this effect: “If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, thou shalt come unto the Priests, the Levites, and unto the Judge that shall be in those days, and inquire, and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment.  And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the Priest, or unto the Judge, even that man shall die.” [6]

To this argument from analogy we may reply, that the alleged fact on which the analogy depends, is unfounded.  The Jewish Church was not infallible.  The evidence adduced to prove it so is totally inadequate; and unanswerable evidence may be brought forward to prove it otherwise.  With respect to the text in question, it has not the remotest connexion with matters of faith: it relates entirely to matters of civil government.  The introductory words of the passage, if quoted fairly, and at full length, must satisfy every reader, that they apply only to secular litigation: that what is here enjoined by the Mosaic law is submission to the legal magistrate, not assent to any article of Faith: that the contumacy here forbidden under p. 7penalty of death, was not heresy but rebellion; not obstinate error, but obstinate disobedience.  “If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, &c.” [7a]—an evident reference this to civil litigation.

Besides, however encouraging the language of the Jewish Scripture respecting God’s “everlasting kindness” to his “chosen people,” we know on the authority of their own historians, that they went continually wrong.  Even in the days of undoubted divine interposition we read that “the people corrupted themselves, and turned aside quickly out of the way which God commanded them.” [7b]  “Aaron” (their supposed infallible guide) “made a golden calf, and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt:” again, we are informed concerning Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that “he took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem, behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” [7c]  Further, it is recorded of Elijah, that he complained of the Church of Israel, as if it had entirely apostatized and disappeared from the earth.  He exclaims in his address to God, “The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only am left.”  We read of Ahab that he gathered his prophets together, about four hundred men, and that there was only one individual, Micaiah, “a prophet of the Lord.” [7d]  Jeremiah laments over his corrupt times, exclaiming, “A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land: the Prophets prophesy falsely, and the Priests bear rule through their means; and my people love to have it so.” [7e]  Isaiah complains of the Jewish priesthood in his time, under the figurative name of “watchmen,” that they were “blind,” that they were all “ignorant shepherds that could not understand.” [7f]  But finally, to omit many less remarkable instances of error and apostasy, our blessed Saviour Himself was condemned by the Jewish Church and crucified.  Since therefore the Jewish Church was not infallible, the p. 8argument from analogy, whatever value our Romish friend may attach to it, is all distinctly on our side.  If previous to the Christian ?ra no unerring director was appointed, none may be appointed now.

The next resource of our ingenious disputant is to affirm, that unless the Church possessed infallibility we could have no certain nor infallible belief of the Scriptures, for which his Church is our authority.  To this sophism we can easily reply, by corresponding cases.  The copyists and librarians who have preserved to us the Greek and Latin classics are not, on that account, infallible expositors of classical antiquity.  Supposing, therefore, that we are exclusively indebted to Romanism for transmitting to us the sacred oracles, it does not follow that Romanists interpret them infallibly.  It happens also, (unfortunately for Romanist pretensions,) that we are not indebted to any local tradition, such as that of the Church of Rome, for the preservation of the canonical books of Scripture; but to the universal tradition of Christendom.  Perhaps we are more under obligation to the Greek than to the Latin Church; both because the writings of the New Testament were originally in Greek, and because the chief authorities to prove their genuineness and authenticity, as well as the earliest enumerations of them are not Romish, but oriental productions. [8]

It thus appears that infallibility is not demonstrable by abstract reasonings and analogies, but must be proved, if it be proved at all, by direct evidence.  To evidence of this latter description we readily give attention, and request our Romanist to inform us what he has to offer in the shape of an explicit promise from God to support the claims of the Romish Church.  At the same time we give him warning, that before he can satisfy our minds, he must lay before us full and categorical information on the following particulars: namely,

1.  By what organ the infallible oracles of Rome are delivered.

2.  By what evidence the claim to infallibility, as existing in that organ, is established; and

p. 93.  On what security we can rely, that our own fallible reason will not mistake nor misconceive the doctrine propounded for our belief.

Our desire of satisfaction on these points is not expressed in any captious spirit, but is suggested by the necessity of the case.  For if we cannot infallibly discover in what person or persons infallibility resides; if the Romanist cannot prove to us by infallible arguments, that infallibility belongs to the person or persons for whom he claims it; and if further, we cannot obtain from our instructor in Romanism some infallible security that we shall understand the doctrines proposed to us: it plainly follows that the infallibility he so pertinaciously insists upon, must be to us a matter of indifference, attended with no one practical result.  Our doubts and perplexities will continue unresolved, and we shall be compelled to seek some other guide to the peace and certainty we so anxiously desiderate.

But unhappily in all these respects the promises of our Romish advocate, the more they are examined, appear the more unstable and unsafe.  For first of all, when we inquire by what organ the infallible oracles are promulgated; he is obliged to acknowledge, that this important point has been for ages a subject of much dispute, and a question very far from being yet infallibly determined.  Various are the conflicting authorities, the whole of which it would be needless, or perhaps impossible to enumerate. [9]  Some learned Romanists are of opinion that infallibility p. 10is lodged in the Roman Pontiff, as successor to St. Peter: others of equal learning are inclined to place it in a general Council: a third party, not conceiving that a Pope or Council singly is infallible, ascribe infallibility to both in conjunction: and fourthly, there are not wanting numerous and learned authorities who insist that even the decrees of a general Council, ratified by the Pope, are not to be accounted infallible, until they have been received by the Church Universal.

This explanation is very far from satisfactory: for we thus perceive, (according to the avowal of Romanists themselves,) our liability to continual mistakes and misapprehensions respecting the real quarter where infallible direction can be found.  If we take a Pope or Council singly for our guide, we have no security for avoiding deadly heresy; for a Pope or Council singly may be heretical.  On the other hand, if we study to avoid this danger by attaching our faith exclusively to a Pope and Council in conjunction, (that is, to the decree of a general Council ratified by Papal sanction,) we fall into another danger, and may reject or omit some necessary doctrine, to which a Pope or Council singly has affixed the seal of infallibility.

This admitted uncertainty as to the quarter of the earth towards which we are to look for infallible guidance, is a ground of fair presumption, perhaps even of demonstration, that infallibility is in no quarter to be found.  For the very object of infallibility is the removal of all doubt; but doubt can never be removed while the question, who is the remover of it, remains unfixed, and impossible to be decided.  To receive assurances the most positive and solemn, that all our doubts shall be resolved; and yet to be told that the authority for resolving them is doubtful, is to use a cruel mode of trifling with our simplicity.  For it has been long and painfully remarked, as the reproach of Romanists, that, on their principles, the greatest controversy among Christians is, how to fix the organ by which, or by whom, controversies shall be unerringly determined. [10]

p. 11Finding ourselves disappointed that this great question, in what place the infallible oracle resides, remains still in agitation, we next entreat our Papal adviser to explain the grounds on which the several parties he has mentioned claim the lofty privilege ascribed to them.  And since a living judge, sitting constantly in one spot, and therefore always ready to be consulted, is incomparably more desirable as the organ of unerring truth, than an assembly of divines, whom it is often difficult to call together; we are all attention, waiting eagerly to hear in the first place the claims of the Roman Pontiff, and to receive, if possible, such clear and convincing arguments for Pontifical infallibility, that henceforward we shall be able to rely upon it with infallible assurance.

In compliance with this request, our Papal guide adduces what he considers evidence from Scripture, and rests the Papal cause upon the following declarations of our Lord.  First, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church;” secondly, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven;” thirdly, “I have prayed that thy faith fail not;” and lastly, “Feed my sheep.” [11]

When we learn that these quotations are brought forward as sufficient grounds for establishing an infallible assurance of Papal infallibility, our first impression is of surprise: and our surprise increases into amazement, the more we try to follow our guide, and to rest an infallible assurance upon reasons so uncertain and precarious.  There is throughout the texts quoted, no mention of the Roman Pontiff whatever, nor any distinct allusion to the subject of infallibility.  It therefore seems extremely difficult to comprehend how any reasoning man should thence infer that the Pontiff is infallible.  But here we are next given to understand that his Holiness, as successor to St. Peter, inherits all the privileges of St. Peter; and that what our Saviour promised to that Apostle was not promised to him personally, but to his successors in all ages.  Yet, on examining p. 12the authorities again, we find no warrant for the conclusion asserted.  There is nothing to assure us infallibly, nothing which would even lead us to suspect that our Lord looked further than to the Apostle himself, or conferred upon him any privilege not shared in common with his brethren.  Our Saviour’s prayer that the faith of Peter might not fail, and his subsequent restoration of him to the Apostolic office by the thrice repeated charge of “Feed my sheep,” have obvious reference to the character and conduct of that disciple—at one time an apostate, afterwards an accepted penitent.  They can relate to no other person, and to no other circumstances.  And “it is absurd,” as Bishop Stillingfleet observes, “to infer an impossibility in the Pope of falling, from a promise to St. Peter of recovery” and restoration. [12a]  Again, the promise, “whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,” [12b] conveys no peculiar advantage or pre-eminence to St. Peter; for the very same power is conveyed afterwards by our Lord Himself to the whole number of the Apostles.  “Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” [12c]  In respect to the privilege with which that promise is introduced, “I give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” if these words really have any meaning distinct from the power already mentioned of binding and loosing, they refer prophetically to St. Peter, as the person by whose instrumentality the gates of the Church would be opened to mankind.  And accordingly with one key the Apostle, on the day of Pentecost, opened the gate of the Church to the believing Jews and proselytes, when by the sermon which he preached at Jerusalem he converted about three thousand souls; and with the other key he afterwards opened the gate of p. 13the Church to Cornelius and his friends, who were the first Gentile converts. [13a]

The declaration, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock [13b] I will build my church,” is a text of very ambiguous meaning, and cannot therefore be the ground of infallible assurance.  We have no means of clearly ascertaining whether our Lord refers to the person of St. Peter as a foundation for the Church, or to the confession of St. Peter made in the preceding verse.  “Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God.”  A large proportion of the fathers, including Hilary, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, and Augustin, [13c] understood our Saviour’s declaration as referring solely to the confession of Faith made so distinctly and so zealously by the Apostle.  The text itself seems evidently to require the interpretation.  To speak strictly, Christ Himself is the sole foundation of the Christian Church; and an Apostle could only be so in a secondary sense.  In this secondary sense, however, the Church is not founded upon St. Peter only in particular, but on the Apostolic college in general; as St. Paul more than once affirmed.  “Ye are built,” he says to the Ephesians, “upon the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.” [13d]  “Other foundation,” he says to the Corinthians, “can no man lay.” [13e]  And again, addressing the Church of Corinth, (when the same inspired writer reckons up the different gradations of Christian ministers,) he does not mention St. Peter first, as nearer the foundation than any other member of the Apostolic college; but speaks of the whole body in the following general terms; “God hath set some in his Church, first Apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers.” [13f]  The Revelations of St. John describe in like manner the wall of the holy city, as having p. 14“twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.” [14a]

There is not a vestige therefore of scriptural evidence, much less an infallible demonstration, that the successors of St. Peter, whoever they may be, are possessed of infallibility.  And supposing his successors to be infallible, there is not the slightest scriptural ground for believing that his successors are the Bishops of Rome.  On this point, so vitally essential to the Papal cause, the sacred writings are wholly silent.  They indeed inform us that this Apostle preached at Jerusalem, at C?sarea, at Joppa, and at Antioch, but they no where even intimate that he ever was at Rome: still less therefore can we expect them to affirm that he was local Bishop of that See; and least of all, that the Roman Bishops (in preference to the Bishops in other churches of which he was the founder,) were heirs of his peculiar privileges; and along with other Apostolic privileges, inherited infallibility, while they lost the gifts of miracles and of tongues. [14b]

The absence of proofs from Scripture in favour of the Papal claims, is by no means compensated by a plenitude of evidence from antiquity.  In ancient times the pretension to infallibility, instead of being universally acknowledged, was not even alleged.  It was never so much as mentioned.  Churches and Fathers, in the primitive age, on occasions of their dissenting from the Roman Pontiff, so far from yielding reverently and implicitly to his opinions, openly contested them like those of any other bishop, metropolitan, or patriarch.  Nay, they even sometimes excommunicated their infallible superior. [14c]  The p. 15Roman Pontiff, on the other hand, so far from crushing opposition by the verdict of infallibility, endeavoured always to support his doctrine by the authority of Scripture, of reason, or of antiquity.  When appeals were made to him by disputants in a later age, it was never stated or imagined to be their ground of selecting him as their arbiter, that his decision would be infallible; but only that he merited such a tribute of respect, either in consideration of his private character, as a wise, just, and holy individual, or by virtue of his official rank as bishop of the imperial city. [15a]

When Byzantium was raised to the same imperial eminence, by the name of Constantinople, or New Rome, the Byzantine Patriarch was declared by the second general council held A.D. 381, to be of equal dignity with his Roman brother.  Precedence only, or nominal priority, was reserved to the episcopate of the more ancient capital.  This reservation was confirmed A.D. 451, by the fourth general council held at Chalcedon; in the decrees of which the reason given for this nominal priority of Old over New Rome is merely political, and has nothing to do with spiritual concerns.  “The Fathers,” say the members of this later council (referring to their predecessors), “have justly assigned the eldership to the seat of elder Rome—on account of the kingly or imperial authority of that city (δι? τ? βασιλε?ειν τ?ν π?λιν ?κε?νην), and they have assigned equal privileges (τ? ?σα πρ?σβεια) to New Rome, rationally judging that the city which was honoured by the imperial power and by the residence of the Senate, and which enjoyed equal privileges with Royal Rome, its elder sister, should, like her, be exalted in ecclesiastical rank.” (π?λιν κα? τ?ν ?σων ?πολα?ουσαν πρεσβε?ων τ? πρεσβυτ?ρα βασιλ?δι ??μη?.) [15b]

p. 16That the Roman Bishops were never allowed to arrogate infallibility by the ancient Church is further evident from the fact, that they were not allowed even to claim supreme jurisdiction.  The Patriarch of Rome had no ecclesiastical authority beyond certain provinces and churches termed suburbicary (ecclesi? suburbicari?), including, at the most, certain districts of Italy, together with the adjacent islands. [16a]  The other four Patriarchs (of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem,) were entirely independent of their Roman colleague, and of each other.  When John, Patriarch of Constantinople, towards the close of the sixth century, put forth a claim to supreme and universal rule in the Church, encouraged in this insolent pretension by the residence of the emperor within the limits of his See—the Popes of that period, Pelagius and Gregory the Great, resisted with great energy his pretensions; not however as interfering with their own supremacy, but as being in themselves presumptuous and anti-Christian.  “Pay no attention,” says Pelagius, “to the power which he unlawfully usurps under the name of universality.  Let no patriarch ever apply to himself so profane a title.  You may foresee, my dearest brethren, the mischievous consequences from such beginnings of perverseness among the priesthood.  For he (antichrist) is near, of whom it is written that he maketh himself king over all the sons of pride.” [16b]  “No one of my predecessors,” says Gregory the successor of Pelagius, “ever thought of using so profane an appellation; for if one Patriarch assumes the title of universal, it is lost to all the others.  But far, very far be it from the mind of p. 17a Christian, to grasp at any thing by which he may appear in any the slightest measure to derogate from the honour of his brethren.” [17a]  In another passage he thus energetically addresses his overbearing fellow patriarch; “What wilt thou say to Christ, the Head of the Universal Church, in the trial of the last judgment, who, by the appellation of Universal, dost endeavour to subject all his members to thyself?  Whom, I pray, dost thou mean to imitate in so perverse a word, but Him, who, despising the legions of angels, constituted in fellowship with Him, endeavoured to break forth unto the height of singularity, that He might both be subject to none, and alone be over all?  Who also said, ‘I will ascend into heaven, and will exalt my throne above the stars.’—For what are thy brethren, all the Bishops of the Universal Church, but the stars of heaven, to whom, while by this haughty word thou desirest to prefer thyself, and to trample on their name in comparison with thyself; what dost thou say, but I will climb into heaven?”  In other places he brands the titles which John had assumed, as “pompous,” “foolish,” “proud,” “perverse,” “wicked,” and “profane:” as names of “singularity,” “elation,” “vanity,” and “blasphemy.”  He insists that there was “one sole Head of the Church, viz. Christ,” and sums up all with this strong prophetic denunciation: “I may confidently declare, that whenever any man styles himself, or desires to be styled, universal priest, such a man, by so exalting himself, becomes forerunner of antichrist, because by pride he sets himself above his brethren.” [17b]

The attempts which have been made to reconcile the p. 18indignant language of Pelagius and Gregory, with the usurped prerogatives of their successors, by ingeniously exaggerating the pretensions of the Eastern Patriarch, are utterly ineffectual.  Indeed, if evidence were required to prove that the assumptions of the Papacy in the present day are not inferior to those of the Patriarch of the East, we need not go farther in quest of such evidence than the Papal Brief of September last.  For we do not read that John of Constantinople ever ventured of his own will and pleasure to extinguish two ancient archiepiscopal sees, together with the whole diocesan Episcopate of both provinces.  We do not read that John ever had the hardihood to abolish all the Constitutions and Canons, however ancient, of an independent National Church, and to substitute for them the jus commune, or common law of Constantinople.  We do not read that John ever presumed to grant territorial designations, and titles of honour, to his own nominees, contrary to the civil constitution of a powerful and independent kingdom, within which those titles and dignities were to be assumed.  On the contrary, we know that John, so far from perpetrating aggressions on the prerogatives of foreign sovereigns, was entirely subordinate to the civil power of his own country, and depended solely on the favour and authority of the emperor for the support of his assumptions.  And yet Pius the IXth ventures to do what John of Constantinople never even attempted; and has shut his eyes to the fact that he has thereby exposed himself to the anathemas of his infallible predecessors.  Strong language has been used, (on some occasions too strong,) by a justly indignant people in reprobation of his presumption; but however strong that language may be, it has not as yet approached the acrimony of the expressions used by Pelagius and Gregory the Great on far inferior provocation.

We have seen that Scripture and antiquity are utterly irreconcilable with the pretensions of the Papal chair.  We may now adduce the moral character of the Pontiffs themselves, as a fair ground of presumption that they have not the privilege of infallibility.  If indeed we could be satisfied from history that they had all, or most of them, in long succession, been pious and holy and exemplary men, p. 19in a degree beyond the ordinary standard of Christian excellence; that they had been rich in faith and in good works; that they had been exalted models of disinterested beneficence, of real purity, and almost ascetic moderation; men whose affections were fixed unquestionably upon the glory and felicity of the heavenly state, to the exclusion of all concern for mere earthly interests, and the little vanities of secular ambition:—we might have been disposed to scrutinize with less distrust the claims of such truly virtuous and estimable Christian pastors.  But since the Papal character has been acknowledged even by the ablest advocates of the Papacy, to have been in general the very opposite of what we have been describing, we have a strong presumptive argument that such men were not infallible. [19]

Other strong objections to Pontifical infallibility arise from the want of any certain rule for determining the validity of elections to the popedom, and for issuing the infallible decrees.  Before these decrees can be infallibly relied upon, the following particulars must be infallibly ascertained: who are the persons divinely entitled to give a vote in the choice of a Pontiff? and how do those persons establish their Divine title?  What proportion of th............