Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

18 The Exigency of Truth.
made dependent upon acknowledging the acts
of the Pope as the acts of GOD, even when
lie pronounces upon matters of fact. Or, to
it seems hard that we
change our example,
should have to acknowledge the monarchy of
the Church, which grew up by little and little,
partly by assumption, partly by Divine Right,
and very greatly by fraudulent documents, to be
alone Divine as against the Patriarchal system
o */
which was established in the most orderly and
regular manner, and by authority of the wiiole
Church. We do not deny the Primacy. Our
Bishops, in the time of the first James, allowed
that : we do not deny that that Primacy the Pope
enjoys as 8. Peter s representative and successor,
and this is all, as being Divine, which we ought
to be compelled, under pain of continued
excommunication, to admit.
It is obviously impossible, by mere force of
advancing claims which all history tells us are
additions to the
primitive faith, to induce men
to accept them. To the extent to which these
claims are extravagant, to that extent a persist
ence in advancing them will provoke opposition
on the one side, just as, on the contrary, a per
sistence in denial of what we know to be
primitive and well-founded must provoke deter
mination not to say obstinacy on the other.
But surely if each side could be induced to
believe that the other is unprejudiced, and that