Illuminator
Well-Known Member
Because popes know what "represents" means, explicitly or implied. You're beating a dead horse.
Now, according to Scriptural usage, conclusively established by Dr. Murray, this expression, ‘I am with you,’ means a special divine efficacious aid and protection to the Apostles, ensuring the faithful discharge of their mission. And this divine assurance and pledge of success is not limited to the Apostles themselves; it is equally promised to those who are to continue the Apostles’ work till the end of time. Now, were it possible for the Church to teach false doctrines, how could the God of Truth be said to be with her, aiding her in doing so? How could He lend His efficacious positive assistance to the propagation of falsehood? Since, therefore, He has pledged Himself to be with His Church in her work of teaching, the Church’s teaching must be always true.
This is our doctrine. It is intelligible; it is consistent; it ensures to as the possession of that true faith without which salvation is impossible; it secures us against those wretched systems that make shipwreck of the faith. Isaias saw in the distant future the beauty of the Bride of the Lamb, and St. Paul described her admirable symmetry, when the reality was before him; but instead of the beauty foretold by Isaias; instead of the order and symmetry insisted on by St. Paul, heresy shows us a deformed thing, corrupt and corrupting, and asks us to recognize it as the spotless Spouse of Christ.
Instead of the harmony which Scripture everywhere attributes to the Kingdom of God on earth heresy presents to us a picture of that other kingdom in which no order but everlasting horror dwells; and we are told that our Lord preached up and propped up this other Babel, and called it the Ark of His Covenant with men; that He left His Church a mistress of manifold error, and called her, at the same time, ‘the pillar, and the ground of truth.’ Surely it can be no difficult task to vindicate the God of Truth against such an imputation as this — and this imputation is the sum and substance of Dr. Salmon’s lectures.
Our dogmatic theologians give several arguments, from the written and unwritten Word of God, to prove the Infallibility of the Church; they develop those arguments at considerable length, and answer the objections both to the doctrine and to the proofs; but Dr. Salmon conveniently ignores the arguments, and repeats the objections, with as much apparent confidence as if they had never been answered. When the powers of his young controversialists come to be tested they will discover that the Doctor’s training of them was not the best. And not only does Dr. Salmon not consider our argument for Infallibility, but he actually maintains that we can have no argument at all; and that he has ‘a perfect right to put out of court all Roman Catholic attempts to prove the Infallibility of their Church, as being attempts to build a fabric without a foundation’ (page 79).
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