not held to be in Pope and particular Council. 277

voice of a Pope and a particular Council. For those letters of the Pope which were so examined, had already been accepted by Roman Councils. The Westerns were probably misinformed as to the meaning of the Second Council of Nice, and so resisted its decree, as holding it to contradict the second commandment. But, in matter of form, both the Council of Frankfort and the writers of the Caroline books claimed, as Sismundi says, that they were opposed, not to an Ecumenical Council, but "to a Council which still lacked the adherence of so many provinces, and almost of the whole West+." The fact that the Pope had been the author of the letters which the Council accepted, and had accepted the Council itself, did not hinder the French Bishops from considering it as an open question, or, with the leave of Eugenius II., sending him "collections from the books of the holy Fathers to aid him in answering the inquiries of the Greeks 5."

The VIIIth General Council, as the Westerns count it, was on no matter of faith; but still the same forms were preserved. ·

Bossuet sums up the result of his examination of the eight first Councils thus:

"We have seen this tradition deduced from the Apostles

Sismund. adn. ad can. ii. Conc. Francof. Conc. vii. 1055, in Boss. vii. 31.

5 Boss. from the Common. Lud. Pii. Conc. vii. 1548, 1549. 6 Ib. vii. 33.

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Bossuet's summary of the

to the eight first General Councils. Which eight General Councils are the foundations of the whole Christian doctrine and discipline; the four first of which the Catholic Church, after S. Gregory", venerates no otherwise than the four Gospels. Nor is less observance shown to the rest, since, acted upon by the same Spirit, they have the same authority. Which eight Councils, with a great and unanimous consent, placed the irrefragable force of defining in nothing else than the consent of the fathers. The six last [rather iii.—vii.] subjected to a legitimate examination the promulged judgment of the Roman Pontiff even as to faith, with the approbation of the Apostolic See, the question being put thus, 'Are these decrees right or no?' as we read in the Acts.

8

"Let Stapleton then, and the authors quoted in the treatise, 'The Doctrine of Louvain,' and the anonymous author on the Gallican liberties who follows them, hold their peace, who pronounce thus against the truth of the Acts: 'In all those Coun`cils, the fore-judged sentence of the Roman Pontiff was held to be the norm and rule of faith;' and, which is the same, 'that a dogmatic Epistle of the Apostolic See to the Synod held the place of a full and unquestionable tradition;' whereby alone they attest that they never read thoroughly with attention or sound judgment the Acts of the Synods, since these contain a legitimate consideration and examination of dogmatic Epistles.

"We have never seen the judgments of a General Council so reconsidered, but all at once readily obeyed; nor after that examination was any new inquiry allowed to any one, but punishment was inflicted. So Constantine; so Marcian; so Celestine; so Leo; so all the rest, whom we have seen in the Acts. The Christian world acknowledged all this as certain and unshaken.

"Add that saying of S. Gelasius, an excellent Pontiff, "A good and Christian Synod, once passed, cannot and ought not to be discredited by any reiteration of a new Synod.' And

7

Greg. M. Epp. i. 25 (Opp. ii. 515), and iii. 10. Ib. 632, &c.

See Doct. Lov. and Tract. de Libert. &c., vii. 4 and 5.

• Gelas. Ep. 13. ad Episc. Dard. Conc. iv. 1204, 1205.

eight first General Councils.

279

again, 'There is no ground why a good Synod should be reconsidered by another Synod, lest the re-considering itself should detract from the firmness of its enactments.' Those things, then, which are settled by the ultimate and certain judgment of the Church stand irrefragable. For the judgment of the Holy Spirit is discredited, whensoever it is reconsidered by a new judgment. But a judgment propounded by a Roman Pontiff is of such sort, that it was reconsidered by a new judgment. It was not then that last and ultimate judgment of the Church.

"Nor is that declaration of Gregory the Great less clear, wherein he compares the four General Councils to the four Gospels, recording the reason, since they were constituted with universal consent, whoever presumes either to loose what they bind, or to bind what they loose, destroys himself, not them.'

"Now, then, our question is finished by the tradition of the ancient Councils and of the Fathers. All ought to be satisfied with this power of the Roman Pontiff, explained according to the decree of the Council of Florence from the practice of General Councils. The vast difference between the judgment of a Council and of the Pontiff is manifest, since after the judgment of a Council no question remained, but only the obedience of the subjugated understanding; but the judgment is, after examination, so approved in such wise, that, if occasion were, it could be disapproved"."

I have occupied your attention, my dearest friend, with these long extracts from Bossuet's memorable Defence of the Declaration of the Gallican Clergy, on different aspects of the Pontifical authority, with a view partly to the actual, partly to a possible state of things.

280 The principles of Bossuet well adapted

Bossuet, of course, could not but have disapproved, under any circumstances, our isolation from the Roman See.

present state of

But if the autho

rity of the Roman See in the time of Henry VIII. had only been that which Bossuet speaks of as the legitimate exercise of that authority-enforcing the observance of the canons, but regulated and limited by them, leaving the right of appointment to ecclesiastical offices to those in whom they were of old canonically vested, as they were secured in France by the Pragmatic Sanction-there would have been no room for the abuses which were complained of for centuries and unremedied, and which furnished an excuse, to which Henry VIII. appealed.

And now too, I believe that the recognition of the principles of Bossuet would remove the objections both of people and Clergy.

We English-whether from our Saxon character, or from our national institutions, which are its outgrowth and which have re-acted upon us, or from a right instinct as to human frailty, or from past experience, or from all mingled togetherhave a great dread of irresponsible power. We have never known of the Papacy as any other; our historians relate how, during centuries, our forefathers groaned under the pecuniary exactions of the Court of Rome, and the intrusion of foreign Bishops, who understood not the language of their flocks, and did not know their sheep. Or at a

to the character of the English.

281

later time, fruitless as it was, we remember the deposition of two sovereigns, the freeing of their subjects from their allegiance, and the giving away of England to a foreign invader, if any had been found willing to accept the gift which the Pope bestowed so freely. The hereditary oath, very gratuitously required of us who have no temptation to hold what is disavowed, as to the power of the Pope, direct or indirect, over the realms whose Sovereigns he excommunicates, has impressed this on successive generations of English

men.

This, which we remember in history, is still a living system among you. In your communion too, as in our own, that saying seems to have its fulfilment, “Two nations are in thy womb;" and which shall have the ascendancy, and expel or absorb the other, none knows save He in Whose hands are the hearts of His creatures.

Mgr. Maret, in his recent work, states the two opposite systems of the Italian and Gallican schools; and this, although belonging himself to the Gallican school, he does with great reverence and tenderness for the authority of the Pope.

"A celebrated school, worthy of respect, hesitates not to recognize that the Bishops are not simple vicars of the Pope; that they are 'true princes,' possessing an authority which specially belongs to them, and, in part, of Divine origin. The theologians of this school own that the Pope could not suppress the Episcopate and govern the Church by Vicars Apostolic. They agree that the Bishops may participate in the