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

178 SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION.our reason be unfit to determine the question ?Before wecan submit to infallibility, we must first satisfy ourselves asto several things, such as the truth of Christianity, thevicarship of Peter, and the transmission of the supremacydown to the living pontiff; for on these grounds is the infallibilitybased. The private judgment that can determinethese momentous points might, one should think, competentlydecide others. To affirm that the sound judgment ofmen can conduct them so far, but no farther, looks very likesaying, that the moment men submit to the infallibilitythey take leave of their sound judgment.unfit, says the Church of Rome ;Their reason isand yet they are required,with an unfit reason, to reason fitly out the unfitness oftheir reason.If they succeed in reasoning out this proposition,does not their very success disprove the proposition ?and if they do not succeed, how can they know the propositionto be true ? And yet the Church of Rome continuesto exhort men to use their reason to discover that reason isof no use ; which is just as sensible as to bid a man walk afew miles along the highway, in order to discover that hislimbs are incapable of carrying him a single yard from hisown door. This conclusion, that reason is of no use, istrue, or it is false. If it is true, how come men to arriveat a sound conclusion with a reason that is altogetheruseless? and if it is false, what becomes of the dogma ofRome ? To tell a man, " Your reason is useless, but here isinfallibility for your guide, only you must reason your wayto it,"" is very like saying to a man in a shipwreck, " True,friend, you cannot swim a single stroke ; but there is a rockhalf a league off; you can take your stand on it."The Protestant rule is the Scripture. " To the Scripturethe Roman Catholic adds, first, the Apocrypha ; second,traditions ; third, acts and decisions of the Church, embracingnumerous volumes of the popes'* bulls, ten foliovolumes of decretals, thirty-one folio volumes of acts ofcouncils, fifty-one folio volumes of the Acta Sanctorum, orthe doings and sayings of the saints ; fourth add to these