tion upon them. Three hundred years we have controverted it with impunity. Has the Church waited for peace and security down to this our age, until the seventeenth century is almost at an end? Plainly, then, the security of pious souls must rest in the consent of the Universal Church. It cannot be that they should acquiesce in the doubtful Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. … A doubtful Infallibility is not that Infallibility which Christ bestowed. If He had granted it at all He would have revealed it to His Church from the very beginning. He would not have left it doubtful, inadequately revealed, nor useless for want of an indisputable tradition."[1]
What made the Pope's advocacy of Ultramontane ideas additionally distressing to Bossuet and others was that in their presentation of Catholic Truth to Protestants no mention whatever had been made of Papal Infallibility as pertaining in any way to Catholic principles. In Bossuet's famous Exposition de la Doctrine Catholique, written expressly to explain the fundamental Catholic Dogmas to men of other Communions, he had spoken of "the authority of the Holy See and of the Episcopate," thus acknowledging a double power.[2] He said that it was not necessary to speak of matters disputed in the theological schools because they formed no part in the Catholic Faith. And this Exposition was published with papal approbation.[3] It had been singularly effective in commending the Roman Church to its opponents, and in gaining their submission. But if it was known that the Pope resented these principles, still more, if he openly ventured to condemn them as errors approximate to heresy, Protestant converts could hardly fail to retort: We submitted to the Church on the distinct assertion that no Catholic was required to
