“In the first case, who is to offer the proofs that ‘the thing ordained as necessary to salvation’ is taken out of Holy Scripture? This the Church of England has forgotten to tell us!… Moreover, an authority whose decrees, in order to have a binding power, must be proved to be taken out of Holy Scripture, is by that very fact subordinate to those who are called to examine the proofs.[187] The chief authorities of the church assembled in a general council are thus rendered as inferior to the faithful as the claimant is inferior to the judge who is about to pronounce sentence upon his claims. The teaching and governing body of the church is consequently no more than an assembly commissioned to frame, ‘as necessary to salvation,’ laws to be submitted to the approbation of the faithful!
“Is this serious? Is it even respectful to human intelligence?”
Again, if the word “declare” must be taken in the sense of a declaration, Father Tondini asks: “But by whom is such a declaration to be made? Assuredly not by the council itself—‘judice in causâ propriâ.’ An authority liable to err, ‘even in things pertaining unto God,’ and to ordain ‘as necessary to salvation’ things which have ‘neither strength nor authority,’ is liable also to mistake the sense of Holy Scripture. To seek such a declaration from this fallible authority would be like begging the question.
“The declaration must, then, be made by some authority external to the general council. But the ‘archbishops, bishops, and the whole clergy of England’ have omitted to inform the faithful where such an authority is to be found. Moreover, since a general council—that is, the ‘selected and typical witnesses’ of the whole Church of Christ—may err (according to Article XXI.), it necessarily follows that portions of the whole church of Christ may err also. In fact, this natural consequence is explicitly stated in Article XIX. The zeal displayed by the Church of England in asserting the fallibility, both of the whole church of Christ and of portions of that church, may be said to rival that of the most fervent advocates of the infallibility of the Pope.”
This XIXth Article modestly asserts that, “as the Churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.”
Whereupon “a legitimate doubt arises whether the Church of England, too, might not have erred in issuing the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. This doubt is very material. These Articles ordain several things as ‘necessary to salvation.’ Are they, or are they not, ‘taken out of Holy Scripture’? Have they, or have they not, ‘strength and authority’?”
Shortly after their promulgation, we have it upon the authority of King James I. himself that this doubt gave rise to “disputations, altercations, and questions such as may nourish faction both in the church and commonwealth,” and his majesty adds that “therefore, upon mature deliberation,” etc., he “thought fit” to make the declaration following:
“That the Articles of the Church of England … do contain the true doctrine of the Church of England, agreeable to God’s Word, which WE do therefore ratify and confirm.”
“May we” (with Father Tondini) “be allowed respectfully to ask whether King James I. was infallible?”
And if so, why should Catholics be charged with having forfeited their mental and moral freedom, etc., etc., because they admit the infallibility of the Pope, which results, by the law of development, from several passages of Holy Scripture; whereas, on the contrary, no “brain power” will ever be able to discover a single word in Holy Scripture which can, by the most vigorous process of development, bud forth into the infallibility of a King of England?