Is papal infallibility biblical?

Nothing can be more destructive of the faith than to insist that the pope cannot err, and to set his judgment above and independent of scripture. Yet this doctrine they plainly put forth.

Truth cannot be borne as a test. All that is taught is to be received without any test at all, though an apostle could say, "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good." They of Berea were noble in the apostle's eyes, because they searched the scriptures to see whether these things were so. But the test of truth cannot be endured at Rome; it is not pretended to be one of the marks of the Romish body. In place of that, it would impose all it teaches without any test at all — pretending to be infallible, which is the attribute of God only. Do I assert that man, by his own powers, is able to fathom the truth? No; but the Lord has said, "They shall be all taught of God; whosoever, therefore, hath heard and learned of the Father, cometh unto me." God may employ any one, a minister of the word, a mother, a friend, a book to present the truth — grace applies it to the heart; that, the church, even the true church, has no pretensions to do, though she is an instrument to hold the truth up before men; but God alone can bring it home.

Further, I believe God will secure by His power that the truth shall not be lost in the church to the end. It may be only in an upright godly few, as when almost all the professing church and Pope Liberius among them turned Arian. But this does not make the church infallible; yet it does prove that God will keep His elect in vital essential truth to the end. But being kept is not authority. I am persuaded I shall be kept in the truth for the end - sure of it through grace; but this is not making me an infallible authority. It is just the opposite: I am subject to the truth. So the church, the elect saints, are subject to the truth always. They may have accompanying obscurities on many points; but they will never deny saving truth to the church. Many foolish things may be brought in and added; but they will not deny saving truth.

54 Again, an individual or the church may be kept in the truth by grace, and yet have no pretension to be infallible in teaching. Now I doubt not that God will maintain the truth in the earth, and the church too; though there may be partial failure, yet in spite of failure He will preserve it. But the church has nothing to do with teaching infallibly. She has to learn and hold and profess the truth, not to teach at all. Some of her members may; but no one says they are infallible. Somewhere God will always preserve the truth, and some witness to it, in the earth. Thus, when Arianism overspread the world, and the pope received it, and put his signature to its doctrines, many, though banished and persecuted and hidden through violence for the most part, still held fast the truth. So, amid the disputes and violence which characterized the conduct of ambitious bishops (so that one very large council of them, held at Ephesus, is called "the council of robbers" in ecclesiastical history), yet God preserved the substance of the truth. And if the Eastern church erred, and patriarchs erred, and popes became Arian, still some held fast the faith and a witness for it. You may find a whole council of bishops establishing semi-Arianism at Sirmium, and accepting Arianism at Ariminum and Selinica; but yet God preserved the truth.

But no one is infallible but God. Hence, when an apostle or a prophet was inspired by Him, he spoke the perfect truth. But an apostle or prophet was not himself infallible; for Peter denied the Lord, and, even after he had received the Holy Ghost, carried away all the Jews with his dissimulation. Yet the humblest child of God, if waiting humbly upon Him, will be kept in the truth.

The alleged evidence of scripture is mere perversion, even as to Peter to say nothing of the Popes, who assume but cannot prove the smallest connection with that apostle. "The supreme authority," so far from being vested in Peter, the risen Lord declares was given to Himself, all authority in heaven and on earth. Confiding in Him therefore, Who is no longer dead but alive again for evermore, His servants were to go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them unto the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever He enjoined them, "And lo! I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age." He never "appointed Peter to be the head of the Church" (p. xxxvi.). Where? one text would suffice; not one even approaches it.

It is nothing at all to the purpose, to cite John 10:37-38, John 15:24, or Matt. 28:18-20, Mark 16:16 any more than John 14:16-17, John 15:26-27, John 16:7-13, or Luke 10:16 and John 20:21. No Christian doubts that Christ's words carry divine authority, or that what the apostles taught and wrote is no less authoritative (Mark 16:20, Rom. 1:5). But how is it that darkness so veiled the Encyclical that not one scripture referred to means that the church teaches? that every one means that the church is taught by Him or His servants? The Pope deceived himself. He undertook to prove that the church teaches, which is not even touched by one of his quotations of scripture; all of which at most show that Christ teaches the church, either by His Spirit or through servants sent and qualified of Him to that end. Timothy's committing what he had heard from Paul to faithful men (2 Tim. 2:1-2) was ministry to teach the church, the reverse of the church teaching.

There are tens of thousands of the Lord's people who cannot articulate a matter for themselves, who yet can see it the moment it is articulated for them. What then is the business of anyone ministering in the Church, be he apostle or prophet, pastor and teacher, or evangelist, or elder, or anything else? Is it not to articulate what is true in Christ? You first of all learn for yourself what is true in Him, — in your own case, of course, from the Scriptures, and in dependence upon God the Holy Ghost; — then you prove it in your own soul's experience, and then finally you pass it on for the guidance and help of all whom God, by His providence, has placed within your reach. So that authority in the Church in its true sense is not the "ex cathedra" utterance of an ecclesiastic, but the education of Christ's people, their guidance in difficulties, their help in pressure, by the application of a deep knowledge of Christ to a shallow or defective one. This is a hundred times over confirmed in the New Testament. I can quite understand that when as yet there were no Scriptures in circulation, the Holy Ghost was pleased to use apostles and prophets to utter the mind of God, and the truth of Christ for the guidance and edification of the Church. But on their passing off the scene their teachings were preserved by the wisdom and power of the Spirit of God in the form of the Scriptures. "I commend you to God and to the word of His grace" (Acts 20).

But we will now turn to the other means of infallible knowledge of the truth; the pope speaking ex cathedra, as they say, and councils. The first is soon disposed of. In the first place, we have seen Peter himself rebuked by Paul on the gravest question that could occupy the church of God. It is not possible to think of the first popes, whoever they were (for this is uncertain), as the authorized sources of truth, for the apostle John lived during the time of those who first occupied the See of Rome, and they were clearly bound to listen to and be subject to the apostle — that very apostle who says, "He that is of God heareth us." And if the first chiefs had not this authority, its descending down to others is all a fiction. But the case of the pope goes farther, and, without multiplying cases which would carry us too far, there are the plain cases of Marcellinus, who was a traditor, that is, gave up the scriptures in persecution, and offered incense to the gods; Honorius, who was publicly condemned for being a Monothelite by the sixth General Council confirmed by the pope; Liberius, who signed a semi-Arian creed. These we will notice a little more fully.

But Dr. N. tells us that normally infallibility resides in a pope and general council. "It is to the pope in ecumenical council that we look as to the normal seat of infallibility" (280). I will therefore run through the ecumenical councils, and see what we can trust to in them.

Father O. But the very word you quote declares Peter to be the rock on which the church is built, and that whatever he bound on earth should be bound in heaven.

N*. I do not admit that this scripture says so at all, but I have already enlarged on history, proving that the popes are not infallible, so that it is quite right you should have ample opportunity of stating your views.

102 Father O. It is written, "Et ego dico tibi quia tu es Petrus, et super hanc Petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam, et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam." "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."