divinely provided? We shall not be told, that by merely joining the communion of the church, and submitting ourselves to her authority, we thereby become perfectly safe for time and eternity. This will hardly be insisted on, for every one must have become acquainted with persons who were devout and even servile followers of the religious ceremonies and requirements of the Romish church, and who yet were far from leading such lives as to encourage any one to consider them secure of heaven.

Hence it is clear, that to become a Roman Catholic does not of itself give the enquirer that which he needs, perfect security, and an assurance that he is secure. Thus he is driven once more to ask, Which is the safe, the unerring way, to the discovery of religious truth? If he is not to rely upon the scriptures-and these he is told will mislead him-on what is he to rely? He is told that he must 'hear the church;' but where, he begs to know, is he to hear her? Does she speak through her ministers, and can he be sure that each of these ministers is so far divinely preserved from error, as to be actually incapable of misleading him? Only assure him of this, and he will feel that a great point is gained. He will then have reached a height from which all the important truths connected with salvation will be clearly discernible.

No such pretension, however, will be put forward. If every individual minister of the church were divinely preserved from error, then it would follow that they must all maintain the same doctrines, and differences and discords must be unknown. But this is notoriously not the case, nor ever has been. One of their saints, Hilary, anathematizes, in his epistles now ex

C

tant, Pope Liberius, the then 'successor of St. Peter.' At a later period, Platina, one of their own writers, says, that 'towards the close of the tenth, and beginning of the eleventh centuries, the chief object of the popes seemed to be, to reverse the decrees of their predecessors.' The disputes of the Jesuits and Jansenists are matter of history, as well as the ecclesiastical censures incurred by Fenelon and Pascal, men of whose virtues they now are very ready to boast, but who, when living, were treated by the church of Rome as almost heretics. And, to come down to the present time, in the volume already quoted, lately published by Mr. O'Croly, he charges one of his brethren, another Roman Catholic priest, with having put forward a disgusting farrago of falsehood, superstition, and blasphemy.' Clearly, then, it is impossible that it should be seriously contended, now-a-days, that each individual priest is, of himself, a vessel of infallibility, and divinely preserved from holding or teaching error.

--

It was only a short time back that a resolution was advertized in various newspapers, which had been adopted at a public meeting of Roman Catholics, held at Birmingham, and which ran as follows:'That although the Theology of Dens has been recently published in Ireland, and adopted by certain of the Irish prelates, as a guide to the ecclesiastical conferences held in their dioceses;' yet the mere opinions of Dens, or any other individual theologian, form no part of Catholic faith.' The same resolution further added, that certain sentiments put forth by Dens had been distinctly disclaimed by the Romish archbishop of Dublin. It would seem, then, that we cannot even resort to a system of theology which has

6

been put forth under the sanction of a conclave of Romish bishops, without falling in the way of errors which an archbishop is obliged to disclaim?

It will not, then, we apprehend, be questioned, that the priests, individually, are liable to err. In fact, it is never denied that some priests, some bishops, and even some popes, have actually preached and published dangerous heresies. Still, however, we shall be told, that the promise of God remains unshaken, and that in the church as a whole, and with the great body of her pastors, the Holy Spirit constantly remains, as a safeguard and a defence; and with them, consequently, error can find no abiding home.

The obvious rejoinder is, that it is still left in doubt, where the enquirer is to find this unerring rule. It is admitted, that it is not a mere adherence to the church that will confer on him this vast immunity. It is admitted, also, that with each individual priest, error may be found, for that other priests, and even bishops, nay, even popes themselves, have already erred. Where, then, is he to go to find this 'church,' this great body of her ministers,' with whom actual infallibility abides? Does the church exercise this divine gift for the benefit of her children, or not? and if she does, in what assembly, or in what record shall he find it? She is the divinely-empowered expounder of the holy scriptures, it is said;-has she then, during the fifteen hundred years of her existence, given her children an infallible commentary on the word of God? If so, surely that guide which the enquirer needs, and which, he is told, the mere books of the Old and New Testaments, uninterpreted, can never supply, is already provided.

But no!-this great work is still a desideratum.

There is no comment which bears even the seal of the church's authoritative recommendation-much less is there any interpretation pretending to the least share of the church's collective infallibility.

Where, then, is the seeker after salvation to turn? Does any collective body exist, with whom Christ's presence, which the Romish writers claim, operates perceptibly and undeniably in purifying away every tendency to error?

Here the difficulty rather increases than diminishes. Many of the general councils of the Romish church have occupied themselves in denying and refuting the decisions of former councils, and in anathematizing the infallibles' of the preceding age. And as to the pope himself, his infallibility is the very point which has for centuries been disputed with the greatest heat among Roman Catholics themselves. In England and in France, good Romanists openly question the pope's personal infallibility. In Italy, and some other Catholic countries, to deny the sovereign pontiff this attribute is looked upon as little better than deadly heresy!

To what point, then, has our enquirer been conducted? What progress has he made? The holy scriptures are denied to be any guide whatever, for, we are told that- Jesus Christ wrote no part of the New Testament himself, and gave no orders to his apostles to write it, nor did he intend it to be, together with the Old Testament, the sole rule of religion.'' We then ask for some other rule, and are referred to the church,' as the body in which Christ always dwells, and with whom error finds no lodge

'End of Controversy, p. 97.

ment; but beyond this general and vague direction we cannot advance one step. The priests of this church are not, it is confessed, gifted with personal and individual infallibility. They have no infallible comment to put into the enquirer's hands, nor can they direct him to any person or body of persons, on whose directions he may rely, without the possibility of error. Is he not, then, altogether mocked by these pretenders to infallibility? an infallibility which is ever in existence, but never to be approached, or heard, or rendered tangible;—an infallibility which answers admirably the purpose of maintaining the authority of the priesthood, but vanishes into air the moment it is invoked for any useful purpose.

What remains, then, but to retreat, disappointed, from this bootless search after an ignis fatuus of infallibility; and to resort to the intelligible principle of Protestantism. This book, which I hold, and which I can read, is God's own revealed word: That is my rule, my guide; I can have no better, and I want no other.'

A strange objection is the next that is offered. We have no right, it is said, to the use of the holy scriptures, while we are separated from the Romish church. It is insisted, by Dr. Milner, that the whole right to the scriptures belongs to the church. She has preserved them; she vouches for them; and she alone, by comparing the several passages with each other, and with tradition, authoritatively explains them. Hence it is impossible that the real sense of scripture should ever be against her and her doctrine; and hence, of course, I might quash every objection which you can draw from every passage in it, by this short reply: the church understands the pas