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

INFALLIBILITY VERSUS REASON. 2-i9manist, this is the plan that God ought to have adopted.The theory of the Roman Catholic Church proceeds on theidea that there is but one man in the world possessed of hissound senses.Accordingly, he has charged himself with thesafe keeping of all the rest ; and for this benevolent endhe has established a large asylum called Catholicism. Thedesign of this establishment is not to restore the inmates toreason, but to keep them away from their reason. Heremen are taught that never are they so wise as when mostcompletely bereft of their faculties ;rationally as when least aided by their senses.nor do they ever act soBut by this line of argument the Roman Catholic Churchundeniably falls into the deadly sin of requiring men touse their private judgment. Granting that the best wayof leading men to heaven is to provide them with a livinginfallible guide ;their reason ?what have they to discover that guide butBut if we may trust our reason when it tellsus that an infallible guide is necessary, why may we nottrust it when it tells us that the Bible is silent as to theChurch' of Rome being that infallible guide? Why is reasonso useful in the one case,—why so useless in the other 1Can our belief in anything be stronger than our belief in thereason that assures us of its truth ? Can we possibly reposegreater confidence in the findings of our reason than in ourreason itself ? But our reason is useless ; therefore its findingthat an infallible guide is necessary, and that that guideis the Roman Catholic Church, is also useless. If it isanswered, that the Scriptures, rightly interpreted by theChurch, bid us believe this guide, this, we grant, is renouncingthe inconsistency of grounding the matter on privatejudgment ; but it is a return to the circle within which theinfallibility rests upon the Scriptures and the Scripturesupon the infallibility.If the Protestant cannot use his reasonwithin that circle, it is plain the Romanist cannot usehis out of it. He never ventures far from it, therefore, andon the first appearance of danger flies back to it. The argumentwould be greatly more brief, and its logic would be