An Inquiry into the History and Theology of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses

addressed; and thence—all other professing Christians being either Heretics or Schismatics, or both—that The Romish Church exclusively is the Church Catholic.

But, instead of adopting this obvious and satisfactory line of argument, the Bishop exactly inverts the process. Instead of proving his Church to be the alone true Church Catholic from the solitary, unvarying soundness of her doctrine and practice, by a singular sort of Hysteron-Proteron A logical fallacy where the conclusion is assumed in the premises (circular reasoning)., he would prove the solitary unvarying soundness of her doctrine and practice—and thence her assured infallibility—from the alleged circumstance of her being the Church Catholic to the exclusion of all other Churches.

Hence, in such an unusual mode of demonstration, there is evidently this great inconvenience: the Bishop assumes the precise point which he ought to have proved—namely, The Exclusive Catholicity of the Romish Church—and then, for the purpose of confounding the whole race of Protestants, he argues from this very assumption (which his adversaries do not admit) that His Church must needs be infallible, and that Her doctrine and practice cannot but be perfectly sound.