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

262 INFALLIBILITY.cal end. Till then we shall hold ourselves fully warrantedto follow the dictates of that book which Christ has commandedus to " search," which " is able to make wise untosalvation," and which Papists themselves acknowledge tobe the Word of God, and therefore infallible.We have examined at great length the two questions ofthe primacy and the infallibility, because they are fundamentalones in the Romish system. They are the Jachinand Boaz of the Papacy. If these two principal pillars areoverthrown, not a single stone of the ill-assorted, heterogeneous,and grotesque fabric which Rome has built uponthem can stand. We have seen how little foundation theprimacy and infallibility have inScripture, in history, or inreason. Romanism stands unrivalled alike for the impudenceand the baselessness of its pretensions. To nothingcan we compare it, unless to the famous system of Indiancosmogony. The sage of Hindustan places the earth uponthe back of the elephant, and the elephant upon the back ofthe crocodile ;but when you ask him on what is the crocodileplaced ? you find that his philosophy can conduct himno farther. There is a yawning gulph in his system, likethat which opens right beneath the feet of the sorely burdenedand somewhat insufficiently supported crocodile.Thegreat props of the Papacy, like those fabled animals whichsupport the globe, lack foundation. The Romanist placesthe Church upon the Pope, and the Pope upon the infallibility; but when you ask him on what does the infallibilityrest ? alas ! his system provides no footing for it ; and if youattempt to go farther down, you are landed in a gulph acrosswhose gloom there has never darted any ray of light, andwhose profoundOver this gulph floats the Papacy.depths no plummet has ever yet sounded.