It were easy to multiply passages to the same effect from the decretals and bulls of many other Popes of Adrian IV., of Alexander III., of Gregory IX., of Boniface VIII., of Pius V. but it is not necessary. The rights in question were assumed and justified as legitimate deductions upon scriptural authority, and were acted on in scores of instances and for the space of ages. It may be difficult, indeed, always to see the justness of the scriptural exposition; though the exegesis must, we think, be conceded to be quite as clear, and the deduction quite as undeniable as those by which the supremacy and prerogatives of the entire succession of Romish bishops are demonstrated from such a text as, 'I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church;' or from that still briefer one, 'Feed my sheep.'-Criticisms by infallibility are always peculiar. Could we in reason expect them to be otherwise ?*

*Some are disposed to account for what appear these precarious interpretations of Scripture, by supposing the Popes of the Middle Ages to have been misled in their interpretations through the errors into which the pretended 'Donation of Constantine,' the 'Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals,' and other acknowledged forgeries, deceived their infallibility! But if so, Protestants are apt to say that their infallibility was of a peculiar character, since it could see the meaning of the deepest and most mysterious passages of Holy Writ, and could not see the falsehood of the most transparent and impudent forgeries; or rather that, on such supposition, they must have made the false decretals the rule of Scripture interpretation in these cases! Who, Romanist or Protestant, can be satisfied with such a solution? With regard to their not detecting the forgeries,-infallible as they were, perhaps a candid inquirer might make some excuse for them. Pascal's Jesuit father tells us that it would be a sin in a judge to receive a bribe for giving a just sentence, inasmuch as that would be selling justice, but that it does not follow that it would be unlawful to receive a bribe for giving an unjust sentence, inasmuch as it is not forbidden to sell injustice. In a somewhat

Now either the Popes erred in thus interpreting Scripture, or they did not. If the latter, then at least on this theory of infallibility (and Protestants affirm that a difficulty of a like kind will be found to attend every remaining theory of infallibility), we must admit the 'plenitudo potestatis,' concede the extreme ultramontane theory, and become proselytes to Rome and traitors to our country at the same time. If the former, then on this same theory, the Popes, so far from having been unfailing interpreters of Scripture, have been, in their numerous acts of deposition, enormous perverters of it, and inculcated and practised for ages the most comprehensive violations of the plainest precepts of the divine law. So far from its being true that the Pope is the 'infallible living interpreter' of Scripture, it becomes absolutely ludicrous to style him so; and so far from being disposed to ask, with Jeremy Taylor, 'What excuse is there in the world for the strange uncharitableness or supine negligence of the Popes, that they do not set themselves in their chair and write infallible commentaries;' or with Chillingworth, 'Why the Church thus puts her candle under a bushel, and keeps her talent of interpreting Scripture infallibly, thus long wrapt up in napkins?'- Protestants will be inclined to declare that the specimens of papal criticism and exegesis already given to the world are quite suffisimilar manner, the Pope might infallibly interpret Scripture, for that (as Romanists say) was his proper office; but was he obliged infallibly to interpret forgeries? Again, it may be urged, that infallible eyes, like other eyes, are doubtless made to see in the light and not in darkness: and hence no wonder that the Popes, in dealing with forgeries, chanced to be mistaken! But it is certainly very unfortunate they should have attempted to reinforce their infallibility, and, as they allege, their scripturally-derived rights, by such authority.

cient, and that they willingly excuse any more extensive assumption of this special prerogative. The Church, they will add, may felicitate herself that the great living interpreter seldom interprets! Equivocal as may have been many of his employments, they could hardly be more disastrous to the Church than his attempt to discharge his proper functions.

To resume. The Protestant will further say;-let us suppose that by a variety of limitations (concerning which, however, and their application, we must request the Romish Church for authoritative rules, and not this or that opinion that they exist and may be applied,)— let us suppose that by a variety of limitations, it may be doubted whether any such bulls and decrees as those just adverted to were pronounced ex cathedrâ, or can properly be represented as de fide, or whether they are not vitiated by the application of one or other of the 'seven' tests of the validity of all such utterances mentioned by the Professor of Canon Law to Mr. Seymour, then it will appear, (alas! for our perplexities,) that the ultimate rule of the Romish Church-which excludes all private judgment—is an infinite enlargement of its duty; and with this unspeakable perplexity attached, that infallibility is no longer to be the guide of 'private judgment,' but private judgment is to be the discoverer of infallibility! The Bullarium is infinitely more bulky than the Bible; is composed in a dead language, not always in 'infallibly' correct Latinity; contains much of acknowledged, and much of suspected, spuriousness; and much more, which, though not spurious, is unintelligible, or, which comes to the same thing, is unhappily intelligible in two or three different senses; in a word, infinite matter for dispute, as regards both text and interpretation. And supposing these preliminary

7.

difficulties vanquished or eluded, it is still necessary to apply to a genuine bull the seven following tests to constitute them infallible: -1. It is necessary that before composing and issuing the bull, the Pope should have opened a communication with the bishops of the Universal Church, and solicited their prayers that the Holy Spirit would infallibly guide him. 2. That the Pope should carefully seek all possible and desirable information touching the matter of the bull. 3. That the bull should not only be formal but authoritative, and claim to be so. 4. That the bull should be promulgated universally. 5. That it should be universally received. 6. The subject matter of the bull must be one touching faith or morals. That the Pope should be free. Now Protestants will be apt to say that to ascertain all these conditions would require them to be infallible as the Pope himself, and that some of them, indeed, could not be ascertained without express inspiration; that if he is to be infallible, they must be omniscient! For our own parts we are less rigorous; and profess that we are not unwilling to say that we shall humbly receive all the bulls as infallible, of which we can ascertain the above particulars. But most of our Protestant countrymen, we fear, will not be equally docile; they will say that the task involves an infinite enlargement of the inevitable duty of private judgment; and that the very process of their conversion would require more than patriarchal longevity to effect it. We are not surprised, therefore, that the worthy Jesuit professor proposed to Mr. Seymour his curt solution-of referring the private individual to his bishop, or rather to his parish priest. The Protestant, we fear, will still reply-1st. That this is to make each bishop and priest infallible, instead of the Pope; and, 2dly,

That the individual will be obliged to believe many and opposite infallibilities, since priests aud bishops are not agreed as to what the Pope has delivered ex cathedrâ! *

In this way, will Protestants say, you do indeed free us from all our political doubts as to the unqualified supremacy of the Pope over us, by admitting that he has often been a fallible interpreter of Scripture, but you reduce us, at the same instant, tó surrender all hope of finding the Romish Church infallible.For Protestants will argue thus:-Be it so, that by some logical contrivances, (in which, however, there will be boundless scope for 'private judgment' among the ultramontanists and the opposite party,) the infallible head of the Church is shown to have simply erred in supposing the above interpretations of Scripture correct; that somehow they are not ex cathedrâ interpretations;--still, surely, it is true that the Pope thought that he was right in thus interpreting Scripture; and yet, it seems, he was infallibly wrong. How shall we be sure then in other cases that he is infallibly right, except by the above impossible exercise of private judgment?

Further still; putting the question of Scripture interpretation quite out of sight, either the Pope erred in assuming his enormous 'rights' over sovereigns and nations, or he did not. If he did not, we still owe him the plenitude of allegiance' he has so

Jeremy Taylor, after noticing a great variety of hair-breadth escapes from apparent awkward decisions in the Decretal Epistles, on the ground that they are not de fide, drolly exclaims, 'And this serves their turns in everything they do not like; and therefore I am resolved it shall serve my turn also for something, and that is, that the matter of the Pope's infallibility is so ridiculous and improbable, that they do not believe it themselves.'