From the fourth, it appears, that a novelty in discipline is established, and made obligatory on the Churches of both Empires by a handful of Bishops belonging to one of them :-and from the fifth, that the Bishop of Rome, if he deemed a judgment erroneous, might convene a new Council and send deputies to it, for the purpose of reconsidering the matter. These two Canons are, no doubt, very flattering to the ambitious projects of the Roman Pontiff, and accordingly, they are pleaded in behalf of his Supremacy but how preposterous is it to ascribe that to a human law, which it is asserted, belongs to him by the Law of GOD? There are other Canons regulating the intercourse between Bishops and the Imperial Court; after such a manner, however, as to make the Bishop of Rome the Judge of the propriety of the petitions, which they intended to prefer.

Notwithstanding all this, and that my late opponent Doctor Milner, has, on the authority of Bellarmine, cited all these Canons in proof of the recognition of Papal Supremacy by the Christian Church in the fourth century; they can never be rescued from the imputation of being FORGERIES:-for first, they were never received by either the Eastern, or African Church, as general laws. At the sixth Council of Carthage, Austin strenuously denied the right of Appeal to the Roman See, although a

Letter has been forged in his name, strenuously contending for it, which is now deposited among the pious frauds of the Vatican.

It happened also, in the early part of the fifth century, that Appiarius, who had been excommunicated by the African Bishops, applied to Zosimus, Bishop of Rome. This Pontiff forthwith sent them the Sardican Canon, which conferred on him the right of Appeal. This, they indignantly rejected; inasmuch as their * predecessors, who attended the Council of Sardica, left no record of it, and because the Eastern Patriarchs, whom they consulted on the occasion, not only disclaimed all knowledge of any such Canon being in existence; but furnished their brethren with an exact copy of the Nicene Canons, among which, the Sardican one was not to be found. The curious reader will find these points fully discussed in the DEFENCE of my REPLY to Doctor Milner's END of CONTROVERSY; p. 361-369.

Secondly. The Sardican Canons were not inserted in the Code of Canons approved of by the Council of Chalcedon.

Thirdly. The Council, which passed them, is not reckoned even by the Church of Rome, as one of the eighteen General Councils, whose authority it acknowledges; nor does Bellarmine

* Cæcilian, Bishop of Carthage, is here alluded to..

himself say, that it is one of those Councils, which his Church receives in part, and rejects in part.

Fourthly. When the Western Bishops entreated the Emperor Theodosius to summon a Council, A. D. 407; so far from a distant allusion of Appeal to the Roman See, that they distinctly disclaimed the thought of such a prerogative, and only sought the fellowship of a common arbitration.

*

And lastly; if, as the historian says, the Sardican Synod wrote to Julius, Bishop of Rome, to apprize him of what they had done, and of their decrees being drawn up in the spirit of the Council of Nice; the purport of the Letter was not as strong as that, which they addressed to the Church of Alexandria, in which they pray it t to give its suffrage to the determination of the Council.

From all these circumstances taken together, it is evident, that no value is to be attached to the decrees of this obscure Council, and that although due respect was paid to St. Peter's Chair, it was no acknowledgment of the superiority of its possessor. In this early age, the seed of the Word had been preserved uncorrupted and in its native purity; rites and

* SOZOMEN, Lib. iii. c. 11. p. 31.

+ Labb. p. 670, and Binnius, p. 439, col. 2.

observances, innocent in themselves, had not degenerated into a debasing superstition; nor had Popery as yet disfigured the beautiful simplicity of the Gospel of Christ.

It should be observed, that the venerable Hosius, whose signature appeared at the head of the Nicene Fathers, likewise took the lead of those, who subscribed to the decrees of this Synod.

THE

ARIAN AGE, OR FOURTH CENTURY.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL HELD AT CON

STANTINOPLE, A. D. 381.

THIS Ecclesiastical Assembly, which consisted of 150 Bishops, was convened by the Emperor THEODOSIUS, the Elder, for the purpose of completing the theological system, which had been established at the General Council of Nice. The final and unanimous sentence, which they passed respecting the perfect equality of the Holy Ghost, to the Father and the Son, went at the same time to condemn an inconsiderable and inconsistent sect, headed by Macedonius, who, while they admitted, that the FATHER and the SON were consubstantial, were unwilling to acknowledge the divinity of the third Person in the Trinity, or His co-equality with them. To this sentence all the Christian Churches in the world have in all ages given their assent; while,