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

2G0INFALLIBILITY.ranee, or of heresy, on the north of these mountains.is the man to do in such a case 1WhatIf he side with the Frenciibishops, he finds that the Italians are against him ;and ifhe takes part with the Italians, he finds that he has arrayedhimself against the Iberian and Gallican clergy. Truly itmay be said, on the subject of the in/allihilit^, that " hethat increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."But granting the possibility of the man seeing his waythrough all these conflicting opinions, to something like asatisfactory conclusion : he finds he has come so far only toencounter fresh and apparently insuperable difficulties. Hehas, last of all, to satisfy himself in reference to the stateof the pontifical mind when the decree was given.Did thePope''s judgment move in obedience to an influence fromabove, which guided it into the path of truth and infallibility?or was it drawn aside into that of error by some exteriorand earthly influence,—a desire, for instance, to servesome political end, a wish to conciliate some temporal potentate,or a fear that, should he decide in a certain way,he might cause a rent in the Church, and thus shake thatinfallible chair from which he was about to issue his decree?How any man can determine with certainty respecting thepurity of the motives and influences which guided the pontificalmind in coming to a certain decision, without averyconsiderable share of that infallibility of which he is inquest, we are utterly at a loss to conceive. And thus,though the Romish doctrine of infallibility may do wellenough for infallible men who can do without it, it is not ofthe least use to those who really need its aid.We have imagined the case of a man engaged on a singlebull, and attempting to solve the question of infallibilitywith an exclusive reference to it. But the foundation of aPapist's faith is not any one bull, but the Bullarium. Thismust necessarily form an important item in every estimateof the difficulties attending the question of infallibility. TheBullarium is a work in scholastic Latin, amounting to betweentwenty and thirty folio volumes. To every one of