Taking it for granted, that a universal council is a true representation of the Church,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n. . . which is what the Christian Church had always taught . . .<\/p>\n
they set out with this principle, and, at the same time, lay it down as incontrovertible, that such councils are under the immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit, and therefore cannot err.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThat was the case with the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:25, 28-29), and all true councils. Why would Calvin think that this state of affairs is no longer<\/em> applicable in the Church? Jesus (John, chapters 14-16) said we would have the Holy Spirit to guide us. Has Calvin lost faith in that ongoing guidance? It is a spectacle to behold such continual lack of faith in God\u2019s promises and manifest examples in Holy Scripture. Man-centered outlooks descend to that level.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
When one puts one\u2019s faith in God, to guide sinful men for His sovereign purposes, it\u2019s very different. Calvin wants to emphasize God\u2019s sovereignty, which is good, but seems to repeatedly deny it when it comes to examining how God leads men for His sovereign purposes.\n
But as they rule councils, nay, constitute them, they in fact claim for themselves whatever they maintain to be due to councils.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nIt\u2019s not circular reasoning, as he implies, but a biblical notion, as just shown.<\/p>\n
Therefore, they will have our faith to stand and fall at their pleasure, so that whatever they have determined on either side must be firmly seated in our minds; what they approve must be approved by us without any doubt; what they condemn we also must hold to be justly condemned.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThat is, whatever is believed by all, everywhere, from the beginning (apostolic succession). Calvin cleverly makes out that there is some sort of \u201cepistemological equivalence\u201d between the Protestant rejection of so many Catholic doctrines, and the Catholic position which had been consistently maintained for 1500 years. That is ludicrous in and of itself. But it plays well to the crowd, in making out that it is supposedly a matter of \u201carbitrary Catholic dogmatism and power vs. biblical Protestantism.\u201d It\u2019s superb propaganda, but it is nonexistent reasoning.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, at their own caprice, and in contempt of the word of God, they coin doctrines to which they in this way demand our assent, declaring that no man can be a Christian unless he assent to all their dogmas, affirmative as well as negative, if not with explicit, yet with implicit faith, because it belongs to the Church to frame new articles of faith.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Church had always done this. Why should it cease now? Even granting Calvin\u2019s perspective that his alternative Christian worldview and \u201csystem\u201d is equally plausible as the Catholic Church, it is foolish to condemn the very\u00a0notion<\/em>\u00a0of an enforced orthodoxy (by anyone), since, after all, Calvin\u2019s \u201cchurch\u201d acted in exactly the same way, sometimes to the point of death for those who disagreed.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
What he needs to do is show how some Catholic doctrine or other is false, from Scripture and history and reason. But that is too much work. Empty rhetoric suits his purposes just fine. The\u00a0
Institutes<\/em>\u00a0is nothing if not preaching to the choir and riling up the true believers to oppose Harlot Rome.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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