Now the instance which I have been taking suggests another remark; the
number of those (so called) new doctrines will not oppress us, if it
takes eight centuries to promulgate even one of them. Such is about the
length of time through which the preparation has been carried on for the
definition of the Immaculate Conception. This of course is an
extraordinary case; but it is difficult to say what is ordinary,
considering how few are the formal occasions on which the voice of
Infallibility has been solemnly lifted up. It is to the Pope in
Ecumenical Council that we look, as to the normal seat of Infallibility:
now there have been only eighteen such Councils since Christianity
was,--an average of one to a century,--and of these Councils some passed
no doctrinal decree at all, others were employed on only one, and many
of them were concerned with only elementary points of the Creed. The
Council of Trent embraced a large field of doctrine certainly; but I
should apply to its Canons a remark contained in that University Sermon
of mine, which has been so ignorantly criticized in the Pamphlet which
has been the occasion of this Volume;--I there have said that the
various verses of the Athanasian Creed are only repetitions in various
shapes of one and the same idea; and in like manner, the Tridentine
Decrees are not isolated from each other, but are occupied in bringing
out in detail, by a number of separate declarations, as if into bodily
form, a few necessary truths. I should make the same remark on the
various theological censures, promulgated by Popes, which the Church has
received, and on their dogmatic decisions generally. I own that at first
sight those decisions seem from their number to be a greater burden on
the faith of individuals than are the Canons of Councils; still I do not
believe that in matter of fact they are so at all, and I give this
reason for it:--it is not that a Catholic, layman or priest, is
indifferent to the subject, or, from a sort of recklessness, will accept
any thing that is placed before him, or is willing, like a lawyer, to
speak according to his brief, but that in such condemnations the Holy
See is engaged, for the most part, in repudiating one or two great lines
of error, such as Lutheranism or Jansenism, principally ethical not
doctrinal, which are divergent from the Catholic mind, and that it is
but expressing what any good Catholic, of fair abilities, though
unlearned, would say himself,