LECTURE VI. THE RT. REV. ARTHUR C. A. HALL, D.D., Bishop of Vermont. THE SYLLABUS AND PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.* The subject assigned to me, Papal Infallibility, naturally falls under two chief heads. It may be viewed in two aspects: I., Historical, and II., Theological. I. First, we examine the claim of infallibility in the light of history, and ask, a posteriori, how far it is justified by facts. Have the popes been *The Lecturer would refer for his authorities in this discourse to the following books, which can be found in libraries : The Infallibility of the Church, by George Salmon, D.D., Provost of Trinity College, Dublin. (Murray, 1890.) Pope Honorius and the New Roman Dogma, by E. F. Willis. (Rivingtons, 1879.) Rome and the Newest Fashions in Religion: three tracts, The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance, a infallible, and have they been regarded by the Church as endowed with this gift? II. Secondly, we examine the claim in the light of Scripture promises, and ask, a priori, whether such a gift was to be expected. Is there any warrant for supposing they would be infallible? III. So far as time allows, the application of the claim to political and other subjects suggested by the syllabus will be a third point for consideration. That we may be clear, and fair, in apprehending the position controverted, let me quote the assertion of the claim to Papal Infallibility formally made by the Roman Catholic Church. The Constitution, or doctrinal decree, called the Pastor æternus, promulgated by Pius IX, "with the approbation of the Sacred Vatican Council," on July 18, 1870, after making other claims for the Roman Bishops, as that in St. Peter Christ pro Political Remonstrance; Vaticanism; Speeches of the Pope. By W. E. Gladstone. (Tauchnitz Edition, No. 1,524, 1875.) A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk, on occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Expostulation, by John H. Newman. In Vol. II. of The Difficulties of Anglicans. (Pickering, 1876.) The Roman Claims Tested by Antiquity, by Wm. Bright, D.D., Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Ox ford. (English Church Union Office, 1877.) vided a primacy of proper jurisdiction over the whole Church, which was to continue with St. Peter's successors, the Bishops of Rome, in its 4th chapter also claims for the pope a supreme teaching office. "We teach and define it to be a dogma divinely revealed that, when the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, in discharge of the office of Pastor and Teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines that a doctrine regarding faith or morals is to be held by the Universal Church, he enjoys, by the Divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed His Church to be endowed in defining a doctrine regarding faith or morals; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, irreformable."* I. In the historical consideration of the subject we will pass over earlier times, with pertinent questions that might well be raised with reference to Zephyrinus and Callistus and Hippolytus, and come at once to the great Arian controversy that shook Christendom and tried the faith of the Church to the uttermost. Then, if ever, an infal * Constitutio de Ecclesia, cap. iv., de Romani Pontificis Infallivili Magisterio, |