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

;250 INFALLIBILITY.equally good, were it to run thus :" The Church of Rome isinfallible because she is infallible ;"''' and much unnecessarywrangling would be saved, were the Romanist, before commencingthe controversy, to tell his opponent, that unless heconceded the point, he could not dispute with him.*Moreover, the boasted advantage of this infallible methodof determining all doubts and controversies is a gross illusion.When the person closes the Bible, and sets out inquest of this infallible tribunal, he knows not where to seekit. To this day Romanists have not determined where thatinfallibility is lodged ; and whether the person goes to thecanon law, or to the writings of the fathers, or to the decreesof councils, or to the bulls of the popes, he is met bythe very same difficulties, but on a far larger scale, whichRomanists urge, though on no good ground, against theBible as a rule of faith. These all have been, and still are,liable to far greater diversity of interpretation than theholy Scriptures; and if the objection be valid in the onecase, much more is it so in the other. That the fathers arenot only not infallible, but are not even exempt from thefaults of obscurity and inconsistency, is manifest from thevoluminous commentaries which have been written to maketheir meaning clear, as well as from the fact, that the fathersdirectly contradict one another, and the same father sometimescontradicts himself. We do not find one of themclaiming infallibility, and not a few of them disclaim it.they are right in disclaiming it, then they are not infallibleand if they are wrong, neither are they infallible, seeing theyerr in this, and may err equally in other matters. " Thesense of all these holy men" [the fathers], says MelchiorCanus, " is the sense of God's Spirit." " That which thefathers unanimously deliver," says Gregory de Valentia," about religion, is infallibly true".*f" So say the monks; butIf* See " The Case stated between the Church of Rome and the Churchof England," pp. 30-40 ; London, 1713. See also "A Discourse againsttlio Infill libility of the Roman Church," by William Chillingworth.+ Poole's Blow at the Root of the Romish Church, chai5. iii. prop. iii.