degree help forward the point at issue. If God have given one infallibility, and my fallible mind may mistake it, why may not my mind misunderstand the second infallibility likewise. Is God, with deepest reverence I ask it, more fallible than the pope? Can I comprehend the dictates of man, but the infallible word of God, written expressly as our unerring guide, must be considered incomprehensible? I repeat, it will not advance the question of infallibility one point, even if its advocates heaped infallibility upon infallibility. And as I am aware, that neither pope nor council have fully and fairly stated what that infallibility is, for which they contend, nor where it resides, may not I who am but fallible, mistake it.

As I purposed calling your attention to the scriptural grounds which are asserted for the doctrine of infallibility, I came provided with the Douay Bible, but I defer their examination to a future period, to my next lecture. But before I close, allow me to urge on you an instant examination of the subject. Place no reliance upon any infallibility, except the infallible word of God. Trust to no standard but the standard of truth, and pray that the Holy Spirit may so enlighten your mind in its serious contemplation, that you may be led to embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which God the Father hath given to us in His well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

SERMON III.

1 THESSALONIANS V. 21.

"Prove all things: hold fast that which is good."

THERE are two points of view in which the claim of infallibility may be considered. 1. As a question of right, i. e., that there be a clear, established authority for the doctrine. 2. As a question of fact, i. e., has the Church of Rome ever exercised such authority? I purpose, God willing, to consider the subject in both points of view. First as to the right. We shall examine it by the Scriptures: for they are the earliest authentic documents on the subject of religion which we possess; and if the grant of infallibility have been made, we shall find it mentioned by the great founder of the church. Here the Romanists join issue with us, not in saying, that they will not prove infallibility from any other source, but by an appeal to Scripture for their authority. To those passages, then, on which they place most reliance, we shall call your attention. The first we meet with, is in the Old Testament. Deut. xvii. I shall read the words, together with the note, as they stand in the Douay version, and then make a few remarks on the contents of the note. I shall read from the 8th to 13th verse inclusive: "If thou perceive that there be among you a hard and doubtful matter in judgment, between blood and blood, cause and cause, leprosy and leprosy; and thou see that the words of the judges

within thy gates do vary arise and go up to the place which the Lord thy God shall choose. And thou shalt come to the priests of the Levitical race, and to the judge that shall be at that time: and thou shalt ask of them, and they shall shew thee the truth of the judgment. And thou shalt do whatsoever they shall say that preside in that place, which the Lord shall choose, and what they shall teach thee, according to His law; and thou shalt follow their sentence: neither shalt thou decline to the right hand nor to the left hand. But he that will be proud, and refuse to obey the commandment of the priest who ministereth at that time to the Lord thy God, and the decree of the judge, that man shall die, and thou shalt take away the evil from Israel: and all the people hearing it, shall fear, that no one afterwards swell with pride."

We now come to the note, 'v. 8-If thou perceive, &c. Here we see what authority God was pleased to give to the church-guides of the Old Testament, in deciding, without appeal, all controversies relating to the law; promising that they should not err therein and surely he has not done less for the church-guides of the New Testament?'

In bringing forward this passage as support for the claim of infallibility, its advocates have adopted a practice, which I cannot avoid noticing.

In quoting the

sacred writings to substantiate their peculiar doctrines, they, in multiplied instances, build their interpretation of scripture upon the sound rather than upon the sense of the passage they adduce. What follows from this system of interpretation? that the passage under consideration, (Deut. xvii. 8, 13.,) if it prove infallibility,

will establish the infallibility of the Jewish Church. But we will examine the quotation in order to learn whether it will bear the interpretation given. If it prove infallibility, it will prove that of the civil as well as that of the ecclesiastical power: for, in addition to coming to "the priests of the Levitical race," the Jews were directed to go to the civil authority,-" to the judge that shall be at that time." I therefore conceive, that, as the advocates of infallibility will not assent to this view, the note in their version brings out more than is contained in the text, because there is not in the entire passage any thing like a religious decision referred to. The dispute is between blood and blood, between cause and cause," &c. It is exclusively for the civil authority to decide.I cannot dismiss this passage, without referring to an alteration which has taken place in the above note. In former editions of the Douay Bible, that note contained a most atrocious and horrible sentiment. It taught, in short, that every one who did not submit to the decisions of the church of Rome, was to be punished with death!*

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There are several passages quoted from Isaiah by those who claim infallibility for Rome. Instead of noticing them here, I shall direct you to 'A Table of References,' at the end of the Douay Bible, where you will find them under the head: 'The church is infallible in

*The note referred to, runs thus: ver. 8. If thou perceive, &c. Here we see what authority God was pleased to give to the church guides of the Old Testament, in deciding without appeal all controversies relating to the law, promising that they should not err therein, and punishing with death such as proudly refused to obey their decisions, and surely he has not done less for the church guides of the New Testament.-Vide, 'The complete notes of the Douay Bible,' &c., by the Rev. R. J. M'Ghee.

matters of faith,' and shall only bring forward one quotation from that prophet, there being a note attached to it. Isaiah lix. 20, 21: "And there shall come a Redeemer to Sion, and to them that return from iniquity in Jacob, saith the Lord. This is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: my spirit that is in thee, and my words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth, and for ever." The note on the 21st verse is as follows: CHAP. lix. 21; my covenant, &c. Note here, a clear promise of perpetual orthodoxy to the Church of Christ.'

We must here go back to first principles. If these words contain a promise of unerring and continued orthodoxy, they contain it for the Jewish church. But we have already seen the nature of her infallibility. If we take them more generally, as divines do some passages, in a sense of futurity, i. e., when the passage does not agree with one church, to refer it to another, though not even then in existence. If we thus view the passage, it must refer, not to any individual church, but to the holy catholic, or universal church. If Romanist writers assert that it does not refer to the universal church, we must endeavour to refute their assertion. There are a variety of passages in the New Testament, which are quoted as authority for infallibility; if they prove the grant, they prove it for the Jewish church, but if we prefer referring them, as divines do, to a future church, they must apply to the universal church of Christ. They prove, therefore, the infallibility of the universal, not of any individual church. Wherefore,