"Our troubles and dissensions, however, (you are taught to answer) are limited to externals; those of the Protestants affect the unity of the faith." Such is the last shelter, the citadel, of your infallible-church theory, See, then, the series of assumptions, doubts, and evasions of which that theory consists, and observe its inevitable consequences. 1st. You assume that which is in question, the necessity of an infallible judge of faith. 2dly. Upon the strength of that assumption, you interpret certain passages of Scripture, so that they are made to prove the existence of such a judge. 3dly. You are then in doubt as to the identity of the judge himself, without being able to determine by any fixed rule, whether the supernatural gift of infallibility belongs to the Pope alone, or to the Pope and the general council*. 4thly. When, to evade this difficulty, you avail yourselves of the term church, as embracing the privileges of the Pope and council; you are still obliged to contrive another method, which may meet the objections arising

* Note E.

from such dissensions between the assembled bishops and their head, as took place in the instances above mentioned. This you do by allowing no council to be infallible till it has been approved by the Pope, and thus resolve church infallibility into the opinion of the Roman see. 5thly, and finally, You intrench yourselves within the distinction of infallibility on abstract doctrines of faith, and liability to practical error. Now, observe, I entreat you, the consequences to which the whole system leads. The only sensible mark of a legitimate council, being the approbation of the Pope; and the only sensible mark of a legitimate Pope, being his undisputed possession of the see of Rome'; you have, in the first place, entailed the gift of infallibility upon the strongest of the rival candidates for that see; and, as moral worth is, by the last distinction, denied to be a necessary characteristic of the vicar and representative of Christ, you have added, in the second place, one chance more of having for your living rule of faith that candidate who shall contend for the visible badge of his spiritual and supernatural office, under the least restraint of moral obliga

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tion. If we find, therefore, upon consulting the history of the Popes, that no episcopal see has oftener been polluted by wickedness and profligacy, the fact is explained by the preceding statement. What chance of success to be head of the Christian church could attend a true disciple of Jesus, when a Borgia was bent upon filling that post? Gold, steel, and poison, were the familiar instruments of his wishes; whilst the belief that faith was still safe in the custody of such a monster, prevented opposition from the force of public opinion. The faithful still revered in Alexander VI. (be the blasphemy far from me!) the true representative of Christ on earth.

The strength of mind which enabled the reformers to disregard the generally received distinction between exemption from doctrinal errors, and liability to misconduct, cannot be adequately valued by those who have never imbibed that scholastic prejudice. When a distinction of this kind has once become incorporated with common language, men seem to be placed out of the reach of conviction on the points it affects. If my observations of intellectual phenomena do not deceive

me, the mass of those who may be said to think at all can go no farther in a reasoning process, than just to perceive one difficulty against their settled notions, and to catch some verbal quibble which removes the difficulty from their sight. The process of examining the usual fallacies of such answers is, to most men, so painful that any serious attempt to urge them upon it, seldom fails to rouse their anger. There are, indeed, but few who can take a true second step in reasoning.

The stand which is generally made at the first stage of an argument, is more resolutely taken when arguments are brought against a system which is itself a palliative of some previous objection. The case now before us is perhaps the best illustration of my view of popular intellect.

Christianity was at an early period systematized according to the notions and habits which some of its learned converts had acquired in the philosophical schools. It was soon presented to the world in the shape of a new theory, where the links which appeared to be wanting between the clearly revealed doctrines were supplied by the

ingenuity of inference. Nothing, we know, is so opposed to this vulgar systematic spirit as taking facts as they are. The chasm between what is, and an assumed standard of what should be, must be filled up. Few men refuse to grant what is demanded with this object; for fragments of real knowledge are not to the taste of the multitude. Having agreed that the Gospel was a revelation from God, they could not conceive the possibility of doubt affecting it directly or indirectly. Optimism is the system of the many: a revelation which could not remove every doubt, and silence every objection, must certainly fail to suit their previous notions.

Had these Christians, however, studied the Scriptures without the bias of such notions, they would have found that the divine author of Christianity has nowhere provided a remedy against doubt and dissent. There were heretics when the church was still under the personal guidance of the Apostles; yet the New Testament mentions them without allusion to any infallible method of ending these first disputes on