In pope and general councils must reside;
Both lawful, both combined; what one decrees
By numerous votes, the other ratifies;
On this undoubted sense the church relies.—P. [164].
Dryden does not plead the cause of infallibility so high as to declare it lodged in the pope alone; but inclines to the milder and more moderate opinion, which vests it in the church and pope jointly. This was the shape in which the doctrine was stated in the pamphlets generally dispersed from the king's printing-press about this time; whether because James really held the opinion of the Ultramontane, or Gallican church, in this point, or that he thought the more moderate statement was most likely to be acceptable to new converts. In a dialogue betwixt a Missioner and a Plain Man, printed along with the Rosary, in a very small form, and apparently designed for very extensive circulation, the question is thus stated:
"Plain Man. How shall I know what the church teaches, and by what means may I come to know her infallible doctrine?
"Missioner. In those cases, she speaks to us by her supreme courts of judicature, her general councils, which, being the legal representatives of her whole body, she is secured from erring in them as to all things which appertain to faith."
But mark how sandy is your own pretence,
Who, setting councils, pope, and church aside,