AUTHORITY IN MATTERS OF FAITH.
The question we propose to discuss in this article is opened in the note we introduce, answering an objection to the infallibility of the church, made by a lawyer through a third person, and by an elaborate note from the lawyer in reply, and urging another and, in his judgment, a still more serious objection. The editor’s note is:
“The objection of your friend against the infallible Bible interpreted by a fallible reason, as a sure rule of faith, is unanswerable. Nothing stronger could be said against the Protestant position.
“His objection against the church, so far as it goes, if I understand it correctly, is also unanswerable. It is quite evident that no agglomeration of fallible men can make an infallible church, either by the personal authority of the individuals or in virtue of their agglomeration. But that is by no means the question with us.
“We deny that the church is simply an agglomeration of men; and we deny that the infallibility comes by the authority of its members in any way.
“As Christ is a Theanthropical person, so also the church is a Theanthropical society, of which Christ is the head, the Holy Ghost the soul, and the regenerated men the body. The infallibility comes from the Holy Ghost, through Christ, to the body.
“If it is so, it is evident that the infallibility will remain as long as the union shall last. And in that supposition the learned lawyer cannot fail to see that infallibility does not, in any way, come to the body by the authority of its members, but from God, the only authoritative and absolute power in the world, which can bind the minds as well as the wills of men.
“That is the Catholic question, and the real position we maintain.
“If each man is his own authority, according to the preceding remarks in this book (and that is conceded), then an authoritative church is impossible, because it presents an authority external to me, and then asks me to accept it. I admit that, if there is to be any church, it must be of divine origin. Even were the Bible inspired and infallible, I, being fallible, must interpret it fallibly, and therefore it must be the same to me for all intents and purposes as if it were a fallible book. The same argument applies to the church as a divine, authoritative institution—what is outside of the man—that is, the so-called fact is not an authority for him; but he is the authority for it; if not an absolute authority, at any rate, the only authority possible. The trouble arises from the Baconian philosophy, which has attempted to build up a system on facts so-called—without rejecting the authority for those facts—as if the authority were in the fact itself.”
This speaks for itself, and the position