Side note Page
Diversity of religious opinions a source of anxiety [1]
On account of others and on our own [1]
Confusion from the number of guides [2]
Motives of credibility for an infallible living arbiter [2]
Fallacy and presumption of these à priori arguments [3]
Probable arguments at best are no ground of infallible assurance [5]
Argument for infallibility from the analogy of the Jewish Church [6]
. . . answered [6]
Transmission of the Scripture no proof of infallible interpretation [8]
Three requisites to afford us infallible assurance [8]
First requisite wanting. Organ of infallibility uncertain [9]
Second requisite wanting in the Three Organs of infallibility. The Pope singly [11]
Pretensions of the Pontiff scripturally considered [11]
Pretensions of the Pontiff traditionally considered [14]
Pretensions of the Pontiff morally considered [18]
Difficulties of ascertaining infallibly when the Pope speaks ex cathedrâ [19]
Papal inconsistencies and heresies [20]
Second alleged Organ of Infallibility [21]
A general council singly [22]
Pretensions of a general council Scripturally considered [22]
Difficulties of knowing what is a general council [25]
Third organ of infallibility [25]
Pope and general council in conjunction [26]
Uncertainty of the Papal sanction to a council [26]
Additional argument against Popes and Councils jointly [27]
Third requisite to afford infallible assurance. This requisite wanting [28]
Theory of Development [31]
Right path to saving knowledge [32]
Difference of this Scriptural principle from the three preceding [33]
Rules for acquiring sound Christian knowledge [33]
Concluding exhortation [37]

FOOTNOTES.

[1] Ut hæc quæ scripta sunt non negamus, ita ea quæ non sunt scripta renuimus.—Hieron adv. Helvid. oper. t. iv. pars ii. p. 141. ed. Ben.

[3a] Eph. iv. 14.

[3b] The theologian will here observe, that the argument from “motives of credibility,” as they are termed, is in this view more presumptuous and objectionable than the claim so loudly and so vehemently objected against Protestants. Surely there is more presumption in claiming a right to prejudge what God must have done, than in claiming the right of private judgment to ascertain what God has actually revealed.

[5] “But it is more useful and fit (you say) for deciding of controversies, to have, besides an infallible rule to go by, a living infallible judge to determine them: and from hence you conclude, that certainly there is such a judge. But why then may not another say, that it is yet more useful, for many excellent purposes, that all the Patriarchs should be infallible, than that the Pope only should? Another, that it would be yet more useful, that all the Archbishops of every province should be so, than that the Patriarchs only should be so. Another, that it would be yet more useful, if all the Bishops of every diocese were so? Another, that it would be yet more available that all the parsons of every parish should be so? Another, that it would be yet more excellent, if all the fathers of families were so? And lastly, another, that it were much more to be desired, that every man and every woman were so? just as much as the prevention of controversies is better than the decision of them; and the prevention of heresies better than the condemnation of them; and upon this ground conclude, by your own very consequence, that not only a general Council, not only the Pope, but all the Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, Pastors, Fathers—nay, all the men in the world, are infallible? If you say now, as I am sure you will, that this conclusion is most gross, and absurd, against sense and experience, then must also the ground be false from which it evidently and undeniably follows, viz., That that course of dealing with men seems always more fit to Divine Providence, which seems most fit to human reason.”—Works of Chillingworth, vol. i. p. 296.

[6] Deut. xvii. 8–14.

[7a] Deut. xvii. 8.

[7b] Exod. xxxii. 4–7.

[7c] 1 Kings xii. 28.