But our ingenuity must again be exercised in finding our way through this labyrinth: for, first of all, no Scriptural reason can be found, or is even pretended, for the limitation of infallibility to councils of the description mentioned. The authority, therefore, exists only in the well-stored imagination of our Romish friend. {26} And in addition, we are perplexed to ascertain how two authorities, separately fallible, should become infallible by their conjunction. The council is fallible. The Pope is fallible. But unite these two fallibles, and you give them infallibility. If it be asked, Is the council liable to err which passes the decree?—Certainly, is the answer: for otherwise the council would, without the Pope, be all-sufficient. If it be further demanded, Is the Pope, also liable to err who confirms the decree?—Certainly, is again the answer: for he would otherwise be all-sufficient without the council. This is a strange dilemma: we must believe the decree to be infallibly determined, and yet must neither ascribe infallibility to the council which passes it, nor to the Pope who confirms it. Another consideration is the uncertainty and arbitrariness of this papal act of confirmation. The Protestant must not take for granted that the eighteen Councils, acknowledged by the Church of Rome to be general, have the seal of St. Peter affixed to all their canons and decrees. In some cases a general council is partly confirmed and partly rejected (_partim confirmatum_, _partim reprobatum_); {27a} in some cases neither confirmed nor rejected (_neque approbatum neque reprobatum_): in some it is pronounced uncertain whether the decrees are confirmed or rejected; and in others they are confirmed by one Pope, and rejected by another. Sometimes the general council did not proceed with due form (_conciliariter_), or did not proceed with due deliberation (_re diligenter examinatâ_); sometimes the questions to be determined were not stated with sufficient clearness (_satis apertè_), and sometimes there is a want of evidence whether the council was general or provincial. “All this,” exclaims Bishop Taylor, “is the greatest folly and most prodigious vanity.” {27b}