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

;PROGRESSION A UNIVERSAL LAW. 241CHAPTER VII.INFALLIBILITY.ThK crowning attribute claimed by the Church of Rome isinfallibility. This forms a wide and essential distinctionbetween that Church and all other societies. It is hercrowning blasphemy, as Protestants hold ;her peerless excellence,as Romanists maintain. These are the locks inwhich the great strength of this modern Sampson lies,andto which are owing, in no small degree, the prodigious featsthat Rome has performed in enslaving the nations.If theselocks are shorn, she becomes weak as others.Progression,and consequently change, which excludes the idea of infallibility,is an essential condition in the existence of all createdbeings. It is the law of the material universe : it is notless that of the rational creation. Man, whether as an individualor as formed into society, is ever advancing. Inscience he drops the crude, the vague, and the false, andrises to the certain and the true. In government he isgradually approximating what is best adapted to the constitutionof society, the nature of the human mind, and thelaw of God. In religion he is dropping the symbolical, andrising to the spiritual ;he is gradually enlarging, correcting,and perfecting his views. Thus he advanced from the Patriarchalto the Mosaic,—from the IMosaic to the Christianand to this condition of his being the Bible is adapted.The