transcribing²²⁹ the judicious²³⁰ comment of a learned Romanist, Tostatus of Avila, who flourished in the fifteenth century: “The universal or Catholic Church never errs²³¹, because it never errs in all its branches.  The Church of Rome (ecclesia latinorum) is not the Catholic Church, but only a certain branch of it; and, therefore, although the whole of that branch should have erred, the whole Church could not be said to err.  Because the genuine Catholic Church remains in the unerring branches, whether they be more or fewer than the branches which err.” [23]

Again, the injunction of our Lord to “tell the Church,” if taken apart from, and not in connexion with the preceding context, might seem to have some distant bearing upon this question.  But on examining the whole passage, we perceive that our Saviour makes allusion to secular, not to spiritual concerns; and is speaking only of private differences among his followers²³².  “If thy brother shall trespass²³³ against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.”  Three successive steps are next recommended for effecting an accommodation: first a private interview; then the influence of mutual friends; and lastly, the authority of the Church to which the parties belong.  The contumacious²³⁴ wrong-doer who could not by these methods be brought to reason, was no longer to be regarded as a Christian brother, but as a heathen.  He was liable to excommunication, or expulsion from the society; and reparation of the injury committed might now be sought for in a court of law.  We do not find in these directions the remotest allusion to infallibility.

The encouraging promise; “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” is not a grant of infallibility, but a promise of assistance, protection, and consolation²³⁵; and was indispensably required, when our Lord delegated to his Apostles the

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