A QUESTION has arisen among persons of theological knowledge and fair and candid minds, about the wording and the sense of a passage in the Rambler for May. It admits to my own mind of so clear and satisfactory an explanation, that I should think it unnecessary to intrude myself, an anonymous person, between the conductors and readers of this Magazine, except that, as in dogmatic works the replies made to objections often contain the richest matter, so here too, plain remarks on a plain subject may open to the minds of others profitable thoughts, which are more due to their own superior intelligence than to the very words of the writer.
The Rambler, then, has these words at p. 122: “in the preparation of a dogmatic definition, the faithful are consulted, as lately in the instance of the Immaculate Conception.” Now two questions bearing upon doctrine have been raised on this sentence, putting aside the question of fact as regards the particular instance cited, which must follow the decision on the doctrinal questions: viz. first, whether it can, with doctrinal correctness, be said that an appeal to the faithful is one of the preliminaries of a definition of doctrine;
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