The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

—noFOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY.on catholic principles, we cannot wonder. That powerarose and disappeared with the institutions which producedor supported it, and forms no part of the doctrine held bythe Church regarding the papal supremacy."'"'* What sortof power, then, is it which these writers attribute to thePope ? A purely spiritual power, which, however, vtiay^ asthey themselves admit, and mud^ as we shall show, carryvery formidable temporal consequences in its train. Asingle term expresses the modern view of the supremacy,direction.It is not, according to this \\e\\^ jurisdiction^ butdirection., which rightfully belongs to the pontiff. He sitsupon the Seven Hills, not as the world's magistrate, but asthe world's casuist. He is there to solve doubts and guidethe consciences, not to coerce the bodies, of men.as theIt is notdictator, but as the doctor of Europe that he occupiesPeter"'s chair. But this is just Bellarmine''s theory ina subtler form. The mode of action is changed, but thataction in its result is the very same : we are led, in no longtime, and by no very indirect path, to the full temporalsupremacy. If the Pope be the director and judge of allconsciences ; if he be, as Romanists maintain, an infallibledirector and judge ; must he not require submission to hisjudgment,—implicit submission,—seeing it is an infallibleand supreme judgment ?Suppose this infallible resolver hadsuch a case of conscience as the following submitted to him,—it isno hypothetical case :—The Grand Duke of Tuscanysolicits the papal see to direct his conscience as to whether itis lawful to permit his subjects to read the Word of God inthe vernacular tongue, or topermit Protestant worship inthe Italian language in his dominions ; and he is told it isnot. The Pope does not send a single shirri to Florence ; hesimply directs the ducal conscience. But the Grand Duke,as an obedient son of the Church, feels himself bound to acton the advice of infallibility.appear in theImmediately the gens d'^armesProtestant chapel, the Waldensian ministers* Wiseman's Lectures, lect. viii. pp. 264, 265.