councils of the Church.

At the Council of Trent some one rose to inquire whether all the
traditions recognized as genuine by the Church could not be named; he
was told that he was out of order. (Pallavivini, VI, 11, 9; 18, 7.) Hase
has invited the Roman Church to say whether all the traditions are now
known. He has not been answered. (_Protest. Polem_., p. 83.) If
Romanists answer: Yes, the reasonable request will be made of them to
publish those traditions once for all time, in order that men may know
all that God is supposed to have really said to men that is not in the
Bible. If they answer: No, the conclusion is inevitable that the
Christian faith is an uncertain thing. Any tradition may bob up that
upsets a part of the Creed.

Add to this the dogma of papal infallibility, promulgated July 18, 1870,
which asserts for the Pope "the entire plenitude of supreme power" to
determine the faith and morals of Christians, and we have reached a
point where it becomes plain to any thoughtful person that the Bible is,
from the Catholic view-point, not at all such a necessary book as men
have believed. Nor can the faith of a Romanist be a fixed and stable
quantity. Any papal deliverance may bring about a change, and the
conscientious Catholic must study the news from the Vatican with the
same vital interest as the merchant studies the market reports in his
morning paper, and a very pertinent question that he may ask his wife
over his coffee at the breakfast table would be, "Wife, what do we
believe to-day?"


12. Luther's Visit at Rome.