testant country, and in the midst of all manner of controversial warfare, The admission of a doubt as to any revealed doctrine is fatal to faith in that doctrine.
4. It would appear, not only to be opportune that this doctrine should be placed beyond the reach of doubt by a dogmatic decree, but that such a decree would be specially opportune at this time, because the formal and systematic denial of the truth in question has arisen since the last General Council.
It may at first sight appear that this statement is at variance with the common assertion of theologians, that the denial of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff had its rise in the circumstances of the Council of Constance. Two distinct periods must be noted in this subject. From the Council of Constance to the Council of Trent this denial was confined to the opinions of a handful of men, and to the disputation of the schools in France. So little was it known elsewhere, that when the Church met in the Council of Florence, it made, without hesitation, its celebrated decree on the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff as the Universal Pastor and Doctor of the Church. Nevertheless the erroneous opinion lingered on from the time of Gerson, Peter d'Ailly, and Almain, in what De Marca calls the 'Old Sorbonne,' to distinguish it from the Sorbonne of his own day. It is certain, then, that before the Council of Trent this opinion had not assumed the systematic and elaborate form given to it by the Assembly of 1682, and by those who have defended the Four Articles. This modern and dogmatic form of the denial of the
