Catholic Church -- Controversial literature -- Protestant authors; Popes -- Infallibility
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’
{3a} on a shoreless ocean of uncertainty and error, you will repose with
comfort and unruffled calm in the quiet haven of infallibility.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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