Transcribed from the 1850 Francis & John Rivington edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
LONDON:
GILBERT & RIVINGTON, PRINTERS,
ST. JOHN’S SQUARE.
AN
ESSAY
ON
PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.
BY THE VENERABLE
JOHN SINCLAIR M.A.
ARCHDEACON OF MIDDLESEX,
AND VICAR OF KENSINGTON.
LONDON:
FRANCIS & JOHN RIVINGTON,
ST. PAUL’S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE.
1850.
ON PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.
“Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”—Sixth Article of Religion.
“As we deny not those things that are written, so we refuse those that are not written.”—Jerome. [1]
“The Spirit of God, therefore, is the only infallible judge here; and has declared as plainly as any successive judges can, in those things that are necessary to life and salvation, what is to be believed and to be done; which if we believe and practise in particular, and do also in general, and implicitly believe and stand in a readiness to obey the rest of the Scripture, when the sense thereof appears to us, we are in a safe condition, and need not doubt but it will go well with us in the other state.”—Works of Henry More, pp. 453, 454.
Every reflecting Christian, as soon almost as he is capable of reflection, must have continual occasion to observe with sorrow and anxiety the multiplied varieties of opinion that divide the Church of Christ, on every point or article of Christian faith; the confidence with which every sect lays claim exclusively to the possession of saving knowledge, and the unqualified severity with which each party reprobates the other, as being implicated in unpardonable heresy. On hearing (and who can escape hearing?) the fulmination of these mutual anathemas, we not only grieve for the state of dreadful peril in which, if we admit such principles, a large proportion of our neighbours, friends, and fellow Christians must be involved: but we grieve likewise on our own account. We are visited with doubts, misgivings, and apprehensions, lest we ourselves, through ignorance or prejudice, should have adopted unawares into our creed some article containing deadly error; or should have omitted something indispensable to salvation.
In this state of intellectual and spiritual perplexity, if we want the Christian industry and moral courage to work out for ourselves, by the help of God, this greatest of all problems, we are in a state of passive readiness to receive counsel from the first adviser. Among the multitude of counsellors who present themselves, none is more importunately obtrusive, or more dictatorially confident than the Romanist; and I propose, for the subject of this essay, to examine successively the remedies and expedients he suggests for calming our disquietude, and restoring our religious peace.