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

—OF ORIGINAL SIN. 271CHAPTER IX.OF ORIGINAL SIN.We have examined the rock on which the Church of Romeprofesses to be built, and find that it is a quicksand. Tlieinfallibility is in the same unhappy predicament with thecrocodile in the Indian fable,—it has not only to supportitself, but all that is laid upon it to boot. Having disposedof it,we might be held, in point of form, as having disposedof the whole system. But our object being, first of all, toexhibit, and only indirectly to confute, the system of Popery,we proceed in our design, and accordingly now pass to theDoctrine of the Church. And, first, to her doctrine on thehead of Original Sin.The doctrine of original sin was one of the first points tobe debated in the Council of Trent ; and the discord anddiversity of opinionthat reigned among the fathers strikinglyillustrates the sortof unity of which the Roman CatholicChurch boasts.In discussing this doctrine, the councilconsidered, first, the nature of original sin ;second, its transmission; and, third, its remedy. On its nature the fatherswere unable to come to any agreement. Some maintainedthat it consists in the privation of original righteousness ;others, that it lies in concupiscence ; while another partyheld that in fallen man there are two kinds of rebellion,