Ουδε τι πε συνοδοισιν ὁμοθρονος εσσομ' έγωγε Χηνων ἡ γερανων ακριτα μαρναμένων Ενθ' ερις, ενθα μόθος τε και αισχεα κρυπτα παροιθεν Nunquam ego sedebo in synodis anserum aut gruum temere pugnantium. Illic contentio, illic rixa, et probra antea latentia sævorum hominum in unum locum collecta." I shall make a supposition, which may at first appear extravagant, but which will, I hope, on examination, be found entirely apposite to the case in hand. Suppose that a single province in the empire had been visited with the pestilence, and that the distemper raged with so much violence that few in that neighbourhood escaped; suppose further, that the ruling powers had, in their great wisdom, determined to summon from all the provinces, infected and uninfected, the whole medical tribe, physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, sound and diseased indiscriminately, in order to consult together, and fix upon the most effectual method of extirpating the latent poison; would it have been difficult to foresee the consequences of a measure so extraordinary? The diseased in that assembly would quickly communicate the infection to the sound, till the whole convention, without exception, were in the same wretched plight; and, when all should be dispersed and sent home again, they would return to their respective countries, breathing disease and death wherever they went; so that the malignant contagion, which had at first afflicted only a small part, would, by such means, be rendered universal, and those who ought to have assisted in the cure of the people, would have proved the principal instruments of poisoning them. Exactly such a remedy were the decisions of councils to the plague of wrangling, at that time not less terrible, if its consequences were duly weighed. What an ecumenical council is, has never yet been properly ascertained. If we are to understand by it an assembly wherein every individual church is represented, there never yet was such a council, and we may safely predict never will be. There was so much of independency in the primitive churches, before the time of Constantine, that at first their provincial and diocesan synods (for they had not then any general councils) claimed no authority over their absent members, or even over those present who had not consented to the acts of the majority. Thus they were at first more properly meetings for mutual consultation and advice, in what concerned the spiritual conduct of their flocks, than societies vested with legislative powers even over the members of their own community. In proportion as the metropolitans rose above the suffragans, and the patriarchs above the metropolitans, the provincial synod in concurrence with the metropolitan, and the diocesan synod in concurrence with the patriarch, acquired more authority and weight. But when, after the establishment of Christianity, ecumenical councils, or what, in a looser way of speaking, were called so, were convoked by the emperor, (which continued for ages to be the practice in the church), if the patriarchs or exarchs themselves were divided, as each was commonly followed by the bishops of his diocese, there was no one person of weight enough to unite them. Sometimes, indeed, the emperor, when bigotted to a side, interfered in their debates; and when he did, he rarely failed, by some means or other, to procure a determination of the dispute in favour of his opinion. But this, though commonly vindicated by those who were, or who chose to be of the emperor's opinion, was always considered by the losing side as violent and uncanonical, notwithstanding that his right to convene them was allowed on all hands. However, as it never happened, even in their most numerous councils, that every province, nay, that every civil diocese or exarchate, I might say, that every Christian nation, had a representation in the assembly, so there was not one of those conventions which could, with strict propriety, be called ecumenical. With those who were not satisfied with their decisions, there were never wanting arguments, not only specious but solid, against their universality, and consequently against their title to an universal submission. Certain it is, that no party was ever convinced of its errors by the decision of a council. If the church came to an acquiescence, the acquiescence will be found to have been imputable more to the introduction of the secular arm, that is, of the emperor's authority, who sometimes from principle, sometimes from policy, interposed in church affairs, than to any deference shewn to the synodical decree. Accordingly, when the imperial power was exerted in opposition to the council's determination, as was frequently the case, it was to the full as effectual in making the council be universally rejected, as, on other occasions, in making it be universally received. I may say further, that this power was equally effectual in convoking councils to establish the reverse of what had been established by former councils. In what passed in relation both to the Arian and to the Eutychian controversies, and afterwards in those regarding the worship of images, these points are to every intelligent reader as clear as day. Indeed, the doctrine of the infallibility of councils is, comparatively, but a novel conceit. Those of the ancients who paid the greatest deference to their judgment, did not run into this extravagance. What was St Gregory Nazianzen's opinion of the matter, may be learnt from the quotation I gave you from that author in the preceding prelection. But the futility of recurring to this method for terminating disputes, is what the whole Christian world, Greek and Latin, Protestant and Papist, seems now to be sufficiently convinced of; insomuch that, without the spirit of prophecy, one may venture to foretell, that unless there is a second dotage which the church has yet to undergo, the council of Trent will remain the last, under the name of ecumenical, assembled for the purpose of ascertaining articles of faith. But to return to the steps and maxims by which the papal power arose. I have already mentioned two things very remarkable in the Roman policy: one is, the steadiness with which they pursued a measure once adopted; the other, the sacrifice they always made of every other consideration to the advancement of their authority and grandeur. In the controversies that sprang up, I have observed the advantages the Latin church derived from the following circumstances—to wit, that they were commonly later than the Greeks in becoming acquainted with the subject in debate, had much less of a controversial genius, and were more united among themselves. In many of the disputes, especially the earlier disputes, we cannot say of one of the two opposite tenets more than of the other, that it tended to advance the hierarchy. Several of them, as we have seen, were either mere verbal cavils, or such jumbles of ill-adapted ideas into the form of propositions, as were quite incomprehensible, and no otherwise connected with practice than in the general, but very strong tendency they had, to divert men's attention and zeal from what was essential and useful, to what was entirely imaginary and frivolous. Nevertheless in these, however unimportant in themselves, it was of great importance to Rome, for the advancement of her authority, that her explicit declaration on either side should prove decisive of the question. In the latter controversies, indeed, such as those concerning purgatory, image worship, transubstantiation, indulgences, the indelible character, the efficacy of the opus operatum, that is, the exterior of the sacramental action, and some others, we may say with truth, that ecclesiastical authority was clearly interested on one side of the question. It would even imply an uncommon degree of stupidity not to discern, how much in those questions the victorious side, or that which obtained the sanction of catholicism, tended to exalt the priesthood. But, before these controversies came upon the carpet, the power of Rome was so far advanced, that she had not the same occasion as formerly for reserve and caution in making her election; accordingly, her election was invariably on the side which most advanced her power. It is for this reason that the very origin of such doctrines, as well as the methods she employed in supporting them, are not improperly imputed to priestcraft. In regard to the maxim above-mentioned, (which is indeed of the essence of priestcraft), namely, to make every consideration give way to the aggrandizement of her priestly authority, we have already produced one strong evidence of it, in the manner wherein the peace was effected after what is called the great schism of Acacius, or the first schism of the East. But in nothing does this Roman maxim appear more glaring, than in the encouragement invariably given to those who, from any part of the world, could be induced to appeal to the Roman pontiff. For many centuries, always indeed till the right of receiving such appeals came by custom to be firmly established, it was the invariable maxim of the Roman court, without paying the smallest regard to the merits of the cause, often without examining it, to decide in favour of the appellant. No maxim could be more unjust. At the same time, for a power which had, by her opulence and arts, and some peculiar advantages, become so formidable, no maxim, ere the practice of appealing to her judgment had taken root, could be more politic, or more effectually tend to encourage and establish that practice. That ye may be satisfied I do not wrong the Romish hierarch, do but examine a little how the case stood in some of the first causes that were in this manner brought before his tribunal. Indeed, in the very first of any note, his holiness was rather unfortunate in following the maxim I have mentioned. The appeal I allude to was that of the heresiarch Pelagius, and his disciple Celestius, from the sentence of an African synod, by which their doctrine had been condemned, and they themselves, and all the teachers and holders of their tenets, had been excommunicated. From this sentence they appealed to Rome. Zozimus, then Pope, agreeably to the maxims of his court, immediately, but very unfortunately for himself, declared in their favour, vindicated their doctrine, and, in a letter directed to the African bishops, upbraided these prelates in the strongest terms for the temerity of their procedure; ordered the accusers of Pelagius and Celestius, within two months, to repair to Rome, to make good their charge before him, declaring that, if they did not, he would reverse the sentence which had been pronounced. And as to Heros and Lazarus, who had taken a principal part in the prosecution,-men who, if we may credit the testimony of St Prosper and St Jerome, (for Rome is in this confronted by her own saints), were eminent for the purity of their lives as well as for their faith and zeal,-the Pope, in a summary manner, without so much as giving them a hearing, or assigning them a day for offering what they had to plead in their own defence, deposed and excommunicated them. The steadiness of the Africans, however, co-operating with other causes, at last compelled the pontiff not only to relax, but totally to change his style and conduct. Though neither the bishops, nor Paulinus the accuser, whom the Pope had summoned by name, paid the least regard to his summons, or to his declared intention of having the cause tried anew at Rome, they gave it a re-hearing in another and a very numerous African synod, convened at Carthage, wherein, with |