: An Essay on Papal Infallibility by Sinclair John - Catholic Church Controversial literature Protestant authors; Popes Infallibility

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LONDON: GILBERT & RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.

AN ESSAY ON PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

BY THE VENERABLE JOHN SINCLAIR M.A. ARCHDEACON OF MIDDLESEX, AND VICAR OF KENSINGTON.

LONDON: FRANCIS & JOHN RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE.

ON PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

EVERY reflecting Christian, as soon almost as he is capable of reflection, must have continual occasion to observe with sorrow and anxiety the multiplied varieties of opinion that divide the Church of Christ, on every point or article of Christian faith; the confidence with which every sect lays claim exclusively to the possession of saving knowledge, and the unqualified severity with which each party reprobates the other, as being implicated in unpardonable heresy. On hearing the fulmination of these mutual anathemas, we not only grieve for the state of dreadful peril in which, if we admit such principles, a large proportion of our neighbours, friends, and fellow Christians must be involved: but we grieve likewise on our own account. We are visited with doubts, misgivings, and apprehensions, lest we ourselves, through ignorance or prejudice, should have adopted unawares into our creed some article containing deadly error; or should have omitted something indispensable to salvation.

In this state of intellectual and spiritual perplexity, if we want the Christian industry and moral courage to work out for ourselves, by the help of God, this greatest of all problems, we are in a state of passive readiness to receive counsel from the first adviser. Among the multitude of counsellors who present themselves, none is more importunately obtrusive, or more dictatorially confident than the Romanist; and I propose, for the subject of this essay, to examine successively the remedies and expedients he suggests for calming our disquietude, and restoring our religious peace.

He informs us that our state of mind is the necessary consequence of adhering to a Protestant communion; and that we never can obtain repose and satisfaction until we enter the Catholic Church--until, with the other wandering sheep dispersed over the forbidden pastures of the earth, we return with humble penitence to the fold which we have left; until, in short, we renounce all dependence on the conclusions of uncertain reason, and establish our Faith for ever upon the dictates of infallibility. "That there must," he adds, "be some where upon earth an infallible living judge, an arbiter of religious controversy incapable of error, an authority from whose decision on points of faith there can be no appeal, is a plain and obvious principle, which, on proper reflection, you will find impossible to be rejected. Not to insist on arguments from Scripture, although sufficiently conclusive, and capable in themselves of proving that such an arbiter has been appointed, there are independent considerations in favour of infallibility which ought to satisfy every reasonable mind: for the wise Creator of man would never grant a revelation to his creatures, and then leave them to the direction of their own erring judgment in ascertaining the truths revealed. The benevolent Creator of man must know that man is fallible; that he needs indispensably a conductor; and that without some infallible conductor the benefits of revelation would be doubtful and precarious. But if infallibility exist at all in the Church, it must exist in the Papal communion, which alone makes the least pretension to the privilege. Therefore, only reconcile yourself to our infallibly directed Church, and you will no longer find occasion for uneasiness. You will be guided safely through all the mazes of theological disputation. Instead of being 'tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine' on a shoreless ocean of uncertainty and error, you will repose with comfort and unruffled calm in the quiet haven of infallibility."

But God has not fulfilled these expectations, though to all appearance highly reasonable. He has left both men and angels to the freedom of their own wills; and has created them not only capable of abusing that gift of freedom, but of involving themselves in sin and wickedness, and in everlasting ruin. He has afforded no infallible, no demonstrative evidence of his own existence and perfections; but has left mankind to ascertain these fundamental truths from principles of abstract reason, and by reflections on the works of nature and of Providence. He permits contending nations to decide their quarrels by an appeal to arms: and notwithstanding all the mischiefs consequent upon war, has not thought fit to make that effectual provision against this widely desolating source of evil, which our human wisdom, if appealed to, would probably have suggested; namely, the appointment of an unerring and authoritative arbiter. We are, therefore, not entitled to argue that God in his kingdom of grace must unquestionably have pursued a course, which, in his kingdom of Providence, He has not pursued; nor to maintain that to silence all religious controversies, He must indispensably have had recourse to an expedient which, in political disputes, He has neglected. We are not entitled to infer, that He must necessarily have determined, by the authority of an infallible judge, the less essential truths of religion; when He has left the fundamental truths of all, to be determined by our own erring reason. We are not entitled to infer, that the Creator of men must have made infallible provision against their falling into heresy or "believing a lie," and thus frustrating the means for their restoration to a state of holiness and happiness; when He made no provision of that kind against their fall.

But granting to our Romanist adviser that his representations were as sound as they are fallacious; still they could only lead us to a probable, and never to an infallible conclusion. The strength of the building must be proportionate to the solidity of its foundation. If our faith in the supposed infallible arbiter is to be founded on the validity and force of the arguments and conjectures which have been stated; our faith in the decisions of that arbiter cannot be greater than our faith in the arguments and conjectures which support his infallibility. Since these proofs, at the very utmost, are any thing but demonstrations, and are only probabilities, we cannot under any circumstances have more than probability to guide us: and we therefore end as we began, and our disquietude even on our admission of an unerring judge, remains exactly as before. Our Romish advocate, however, is not discomfited. He proceeds to affirm that the pretensions of his Church are supported by analogy. He reminds us that the Church of God, under the Jewish dispensation, was directed by an infallible human authority; and that the same high privilege, being equally wanted, might be equally expected in the Christian oeconomy. He quotes for this purpose those magnificent assurances of God's peculiar favour and protection, to be found throughout the books of Moses and of the prophets; and relies especially on the remarkable rule established by the legislator of Israel to this effect: "If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, thou shalt come unto the Priests, the Levites, and unto the Judge that shall be in those days, and inquire, and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment. And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the Priest, or unto the Judge, even that man shall die."

Besides, however encouraging the language of the Jewish Scripture respecting God's "everlasting kindness" to his "chosen people," we know on the authority of their own historians, that they went continually wrong. Even in the days of undoubted divine interposition we read that "the people corrupted themselves, and turned aside quickly out of the way which God commanded them." "Aaron" "made a golden calf, and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt:" again, we are informed concerning Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that "he took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem, behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." Further, it is recorded of Elijah, that he complained of the Church of Israel, as if it had entirely apostatized and disappeared from the earth. He exclaims in his address to God, "The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only am left." We read of Ahab that he gathered his prophets together, about four hundred men, and that there was only one individual, Micaiah, "a prophet of the Lord." Jeremiah laments over his corrupt times, exclaiming, "A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land: the Prophets prophesy falsely, and the Priests bear rule through their means; and my people love to have it so." Isaiah complains of the Jewish priesthood in his time, under the figurative name of "watchmen," that they were "blind," that they were all "ignorant shepherds that could not understand." But finally, to omit many less remarkable instances of error and apostasy, our blessed Saviour Himself was condemned by the Jewish Church and crucified. Since therefore the Jewish Church was not infallible, the argument from analogy, whatever value our Romish friend may attach to it, is all distinctly on our side. If previous to the Christian aera no unerring director was appointed, none may be appointed now.

The next resource of our ingenious disputant is to affirm, that unless the Church possessed infallibility we could have no certain nor infallible belief of the Scriptures, for which his Church is our authority. To this sophism we can easily reply, by corresponding cases. The copyists and librarians who have preserved to us the Greek and Latin classics are not, on that account, infallible expositors of classical antiquity. Supposing, therefore, that we are exclusively indebted to Romanism for transmitting to us the sacred oracles, it does not follow that Romanists interpret them infallibly. It happens also, that we are not indebted to any local tradition, such as that of the Church of Rome, for the preservation of the canonical books of Scripture; but to the universal tradition of Christendom. Perhaps we are more under obligation to the Greek than to the Latin Church; both because the writings of the New Testament were originally in Greek, and because the chief authorities to prove their genuineness and authenticity, as well as the earliest enumerations of them are not Romish, but oriental productions.

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