hinder it from being so it was some time before the Fifth could deserve that Title however it came by it at last but the greatest fault of this Council in Trullo is that it approves f Can. Trull 36. and confirms the second Canon of C. P. and the twenty eighth of Chalcedon in which the Latins are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Balsamon observes However the hundred and two Canons of this Synod are cited in the second Council of Nice g Act. 4 5 6. And Adrian the First in his Epistle to Tarasius says that he receives the sixth Council with all its Canons by which he can mean no other but this for the sixth as it is distinguished from this made no Canons Nicholas the First in an Epistle to Michael the Greek Emperour says that they were confirmed by Pope John the Seventh at the request of Justinian the Second whom that Pope commends there as a most holy Emperour besides Gratian attributes them to the sixth Council and so does the Council of Florence h Sess 5. All which was so convincing to Caranza i Sum. Conc. that he sets them down as the Canons of the sixth General Council and after him Sylvius chose rather to distinguish and refine upon the thirty sixth Canon than to reject them all Angelus Roccha k Bibl. Vatic p. 71. says plainly it was a continuation of the former Synod not a new one since both were subscribed by the same Bishops The second Council of Nice A. D. DCCLXXXI vel DCCLXXXV vel DCCLXXXVII secundum Labbé as he proves out of the Second Council of Nice § VI. 1. The second Council of Nice which is the seventh General Council is a Council they find themselves as much concerned to defend as any of them all and have had as much trouble in defending it unless this be General the worship of Images is at a great loss for Authority from Antiquity and yet to defend this Council is almost as difficult as to defend the worship of Images without it 2. Gregory the l Lib. 9. Ep. 9. Great is well known to have been against the worship of Images but his Successours not long after were for promoting it what they could so zealous they were in the Cause that great Contentions arose between the Iconoclastae and the Iconolatrae for no wonder if some were moved to break those Images which they could not but abhor to see others worship These m Cedren Hist Zonar Annal. heats grew to that height that the Emperour Leo the Third forbad by his Edict the worship of Images following herein the Example of two of his Predecessours and commanded them to be removed out of all Churches considering that the lawfull use and ornament of Images might much better be spared than the worship of them suffered n Cedren p. 453. Gregory II. upon this calls a Council at Rome This some attribute to Gregory the Third who Platina says excommunicated and deposed Leo Hic statim ubi Pontificatum iniit Cleri Romani consensu Leonem Tertium Imperatorem Constantinopolitanum imperio simul communione fidelium privat quod sacras Imagines è sacris adibus abrasisset Statuas demolitus esset quodque etiam de Homusio malè sentiret Platina in Greg. Tert. So natural is it for every one to be made an Heretick who withstands the Corruptions and Innovations of the Church of Rome determines for Image-worship and anathematizeth the Emperour and moreover forbids that Taxes or Tribute should any longer be paid to him from Rome or any other part of Italy in short he denys obedience to him and betakes himself to the Franks Leo Isaurus being dead his Son Constantinus Copronymus calls a Synod at C. P. in which the worship of Images is condemned in DCCLIV In this state o Conc. Tom. 7. col 655. things continued till about DCCLXXX when the Empress Irene being left a Widow by the death of Leo the Fourth with her young Constantine the Sixth resolved to call another Synod at C. P. to null the late Council held there under Constantinus Copronymus and to determine for the worship of Images but the People and the Souldiery of the City would endure no such thing and they had most of their own Bishops so far on their side as to instruct and encourage them against such worship The Citizens were not difficultly persuaded to be constant in their old Professon which Edicts and Councils and their own Practice required them not to abandon but they were led by too violent a Zeal to betake themselves to a way not justifiable and together with the Souldiers were immediately in an Uproar upon these Proceedings of the Empress The Council was forced to adjourn to Nice no fewer than three hundred and fifty Bishops in number and there they did the business the following year There were none p Con. Tom. 7. col 55. from the West in it but the Pope's two Legates and such was the freedom used in their Debates that the Bishops who had been against Images abjure in the beginning of the Council and so are admitted to take their places in it This happened DCCLXXXVII as the last Editours compute it Adrian the First sent his Legates thither who brought a Copy of the Acts home with them signed by Constantine and Irene those the Pope procured to be turned into Latin q Anastas in Adrian I. p. 172 173. and put them into his own Library They were not so confined there but they soon caused no small debate in the Western Church The Pope sends them r Hincmar Rhemens ad Laudunens cap. 20. to Charles the Great to be examined and approved by him and his Bishops The Emperour opposed them and either wrote himself against them or however sent a Confutation to Adrian and caused it to be published by his Authority whether this was written in the Council of Franckford as Bellarmin and Baronius suppose or after it or before it has been doubted Labbé and Cossartius place it in the same year with the Council of Nice and Adrian ſ Ep. ad Carolum M. pro Synodo Nicaena II. Con. Vol. 7. styles it onely a Capitular without taking notice that a Council had any thing to doe in it which he would scarce have omitted of a Council in which his own Legates were present and dissented from the rest of the Bishops as Baronius and Bellarmin imagine or if they had agreed with them yet this probably had been intimated either by the Emperour or the Pope But that which puts this Controversie beyond all dispute is that the Book it self t Opus Carolinum p. 7. informs us that the Synod in Bithynia against which it is written was held not quite three years before whereas the Council of Franckford was held seven years after that of Nice so that the Book was writ above four years before the Council of Frankford However this be The Pope
sets himself to answer it from point to point and scorns to stick v Pro Syn. Nic. II. in Actione 5. c. 26. p. 927. at any thing where that Council of Nice says that as the People of Israel were healed by looking upon the Brazen Serpent so we beholding the Images of Saints shall be saved he goes on to defend it at any rate for the satisfaction of Vnbelievers and the direction of the Franks His best Proof is a hearty Exclamation or two Ænei Serpentis inspectione credimus Israeliticum populum à calamitate injectâ liberari Christi Dei nostri Sanctorum effigies aspicientes atque venerantes dubitamus salvari We believe that the people of Israel were freed from the calamity that was thrown upon them by looking upon the brazen Serpent and shall we doubt of salvation if we look with veneration upon the Images of Christ our Lord and the Saints Strange indeed Vnde pro nimio amore quem erga vestram mellifluam gerimus Regalem Excellentiam unde pro vestrâ mellifluâ Regali dilectione this must needs raise strong passions especially in his Honey Emperour as he calls Charles the Great in his Epistle to him prefixt to his defence of the Council but his arguments are not so powerfull all the Patheticks he could use would not persuade them to speak one word to the purpose as any one may discern that will but be at the pains to peruse them One Basilius an Archbishop had it seems in a Profession of Faith which he read in the Council inserted after the Belief in the Father Son and Holy Ghost the kissing and adoring of Images and Relicks adding that he believed that Sanctification was partaken of from these and leaving out in the mean time the Articles of Remission of Sins the Resurrection of the Dead and Life everlasting The Pope resolved to defend all w Ibidan Act. 1. cap. 4. Col. 942. and not to stand out in the least at any thing whatsoever justifies Basilius that sanctification may be had from Images and Relicks and afterwards maintains x Ibid. Act. 4. Col. 949. that a man had better visit all the Stews in the City than refuse to adore the Image of our Lord or of the Blessed Virgin. But how stout a Champion soever the Pope was for the Council of Nice the Emperour was not in the least satisfied he was for good sense rather than Honey words and therefore calls a Council at Frankford DCCXCIV consisting of three hundred Bishops who determined so unanimously against the Council of Nice that Bellarmin and Baronius think the Opus Carolinum which Adrian endeavoured to answer was drawn up there The Pope had his Legates in the Council but they were either brought to a consent with the rest of the Fathers or however could get nothing by their opposition which perhaps might be the less peremptory and pertinacious and so the less regarded because the Emperour himself was present 3. Thus we see that not onely the Acts of the seventh General Council have lately been called in question but that the Council it self was at first opposed by as General a Council held at Frankford soon after and which is strange the same Pope's Legates were present at both and the Pope himself sent his Letters to both and if we believe Binius confirmed both For he would persuade us that the second Nicene Council was confirmed not condemned by this of Frankford though nothing can be more plain than that the second Canon condemns the Worship of Images in contradiction to a Greek Synod which had commanded it under pain of Anathema and herewith agree all the y Bellarmin de Concilio lib. 2. cap 8. p. 886. Ancient Writers Hincmarus Aimoinus Rhegino Ado Abbas Vrspergensis besides the Books which go under the name of Charles the Great purposely written against that Council of Nice appears to have been written in the time of the Emperour both from the Answer to them by Adrian and from Hincmare's Testimony Bellarmin and Baronius could not resist so strong conviction but were both forced to confess that the Council of Frankford had condemned this of Nice they were ashamed to say bluntly that either these Books were corrupted or the Authours lied this was too course for Bellarmin and Baronius though Copus Surius and Sanders made no scruple of it and Binius z Vid. not ad Concilium here leaves the two Cardinals his usual Guides to follow these But Bellarmin and Baronius were men of more slight and fineness than to make use of so confident an argument they acknowledge that the Council of Nice was condemned at Frankford but say they the Fathers of Frankford were imposed upon they knew not that the Pope had confirmed the Council of Nice and besides mistook the sense of that Council Sirmondus a Admonit Conc. vol. 7. Col. 1054. here falls in with Bellarmin and Baronius well knowing that they had pitched upon the onely thing that could with any tolerable colour be said in the case for he owns the Books of Charles the Great and the Canons of Frankford to be now generally accounted genuine beyond all dispute among learned men And thus much Maimburg and Natalis Alex. cannot deny that they were written by that Emperour himself or by his order 4. But first what did the Legates doe there if they could not acquaint the Bishops that the Pope had approved the Synod of Nice how could they be ignorant of what the Pope had done on so important an occasion or what that Doctrine was which he had confirmed They were very extraordinary men and their Instructions were extraordinary if they knew no better what they came about Besides the Authour of the Opus Carolinum b p. 180. supposes the Pope and Tarasius Patriarch of Constantinople agreed upon the point of Images He was c p. 88. not unacquainted with the distinction of the Nicene Council between the worship due to Images and that due to God himself and he d Pp. 257 258 275 293 401. frequently makes use of Greek which shews he was no such stranger to that Tongue but that he might very well inform himself as it appears he had done what the Nicene Doctrine was whether this Book was composed by Alcuinus or by Ingilramnus or by whomsoever else is not much material to my present purpose but if it were writ in the Council of Frankford as Bellarmin and Baronius think or before it e p. 7. as appears from the Book it self or though it were writ afterwards yet can it be supposed that all the Bishops at Frankford with the Emperour whose name this work bears should be so great strangers to the Doctrine of Nice so fully set forth and confuted in this Book Bellarmin indeed says the Book gives a wrong account of the Doctrine but 't is plain he gives a wrong account of the Book for it does as f p. 88. accurately
distinguish betwixt Latria and Doulia as Bellarmin himself and then proves that neither of them may be given to Images That the Council of Frankford could be ignorant of the Doctrine established at Nice can seem probable to no man who considers that the Pope had caused the Canons of Nice to be translated into Latin that his Legates were present at Frankford and that they refused to consent to the Decree of that Council as Bellarmin and Baronius affirm To imply that the Bishops at Frankford did not understand Greek might pass well enough from Sirmondus but might have been spared by men of no greater accuracy in that Tongue than the two Cardinals if not one among them all were skilled in the Greek yet why could they not read the Translation why could they not consult the Legates The Cardinals perhaps might be sensible enough how liable men are to mistakes for want of a little Greek and Anastasius a Praefat. in septim Synod Concil Tom. 7. Col. 29. says the Translation was very perplext and hardly intelligible but I can never be persuaded that the Legates would stand by and deny their consent and yet not endeavour to undeceive the Council and at least advise them to send to Rome for Instructors Pope Adrian wrote himself in defence of the Synod of Nice which he had confirmed and so must be allowed to understand it and Greek could then be no very strange Language at Rome nor consequently at Frankford neither among three hundred Bishops gathered together from all parts of the West when the Pope had so lately renounced his Allegiance to the Greek Emperour and yet still a correspondence was held between Rome and C. P. by Adrian with Constantine and Irene and Tarasius b Concil Tom. 7. as appears by their Letters 5. But 't is in vain to argue from probabilities if the Canon it self as is pretended be grounded upon a mistake Allata est in medium quaestio de novâ Graecorum Synodo quam de adorandis Imaginibus Constantinopoli fecerunt in quâ scriptum habebatur ut qui imaginibus sanctorum ita ut Deifici Trinitati servitium aut adorationem non impenderet anathema judicaretur qui supra sanctissimi Patres nostri omnimodis orationem aut servitutem eis impendere renuentes contempserunt atque consentientes condemnaverunt The question about the new Greek Synods held at C. P. about Worshipping of Images was then debated therein it was written that whosoever should not pay that Service or Adoration to the Images of the Saints which he would pay to the B. Trinity should be anathematized whereupon our Holy Fathers by all means refusing to pray to them or pay them service despised and unanimously condemned it Here is first C. P. mistaken for Nice and then it is said that the same Worship is under Anathema commanded to be given to Images which is given to the blessed Trinity Sirmondus c Not. in Concil Francoford Conc. vol. 7. Col. 1066. is so ingenuous as to propose a way of reconciling the first mistake of C. P. for Nice by supposing that the Synod is said to have been at C. P. not that it was held in that City but because it was in the Constantinopolitane Empire and at the command of the Greek Emperour Constantine and his Mother Irene This I must confess seems to me strained but it were yet a grearer force upon the imagination to be told that Charles the Great with three hundred Bishops met together to condemn the Worship of Images decreed in a General Council about seven years before should yet not be certified where this Decree was made nor be able to distinguish Nice from C. P. and that the same Pope should send his Legates to both Synods and yet give them no better instructions than to suffer them to be ignorant in so late a matter of Fact which must be known all over Europe For when the Worship of Images which had undergone so much debate and had been the cause of so great Troubles and occasioned the calling divers Councils but had never the good luck to succeed was at last in a General Council enjoyned under Anathema and when the Popes Legates at their coming from the Council brought a Copy of it subscribed by Constantine and Irene which the same Pope that now sent his Legates to Frankford commanded to be translated into Latin and placed in his Library when the Pope himself had answered the objections propos'd by the Emperour against this very Council of Nice who can conceive that the whole Transaction should not be noised abroad and talked of in all places and among all persons and in all its circumstances so exactly known that it would have been impossible to have picked out three hundred men of any tolerable rank and conversation who could be ignorant that the General Council of Nice had at length decided the vexatious controversie about Images If its judgment had been acquiesced in as infallible or but of sufficient Authority to enforce any submission upon the conscience it certainly had been taken more notice of than to be unknown to any man of ordinary observation in its less material circumstances of time and place and number of Bishops the Doctrine however had been taught and practised every where among all sorts of People or if it had been rejected by some yet these would have found themselves obliged to give an account why they rejected it and so to enquire thorowly into it but to suppose so many Western Bishops with the Pope's Legates among the rest and the Emperour himself in the midst of them so grosly and even stupidly ignorant as to know neither the Doctrine it self nor the place where the Synod was held but seven years before is to cast too great a blemish upon the Western Church and would be apt to make men suspect that the Western Clergy at that time could make no pretence to the least share of infallibility either in a Council or out of it The Emperour's Book mentions the Greek Council as held in Bithynia and it were extreme weakness to imagine that Charles the Great after he had been at the pains to write a Book upon the subject or had ordered one to be written had not intelligence good enough to set the Synod right in the circumstance of place at least if any will be so free with him as to say he was rash enough to oppose he knew not what 6. But to free that wise and great Emperour and the whole Western Church from so stupid an absurdity It can be no wonder that the Decree concerning Image-worship should be related in the Council of Frankford as made at C. P. to him who remembers that the first meeting of the Nicene Fathers was at C. P. and that there first they began to Anathematize those who were against the worship of Images but finding C. P. too hot for them were forced to remove to Nice And this may give a
HISTORICAL EXAMINATION OF THE AUTHORITY OF General Councils SHEWING The false dealing that hath been used in the publishing of them AND The difference amongst the Papists themselves about their Number LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard and at the White-Hart in Westminster-Hall MDCLXXXVIII THE PREFACE THE chief Controversies between the Church of England and the Church of Rome have of late been managed to the best advantage on both sides The more judicious seem to be satisfy'd and others to be tired out with a close and eager debate of above two years continuance all seem to be settled now and fixed in their Principles and every one sees or thinks he sees on which side the Truth lies I am confident all has been said for Popery that can be said though I am not so well assured that much more might not have been said against it which has been spared out of a regard to our common Christianity and to Religion in general besides the respect due to a great and gratious Prince of that Communion But our Adversaries have not been wanting to their own Cause in this opportunity nor in the least favourable to ours At first they would seem to be satisfied if they could be truly represented and rightly understood but those colours were soon wiped off and something must be done to blacken us when they could not appear so lovely as they desired Laborious attempts therefore have been made against the chief Points of the Reformation against our Office of the Eucharist against our Church-Government and Ordination and all this by a Person who has been so little convinced by these Books that while he had them by him he liv'd in our Communion for many years however now they come to operate upon him but if they have no speedier effect upon others than they have had upon him they seem to be designed for the Conversion of the next Age and indeed they hitherto have had but little success upon this But I leave him to God and to his own Conscience though the world may justly expect an Account from him to shew that any thing has been ever said to give us a worse Representation of Popery than such a Practice may doe 'T is certain nothing has been left unattempted which might blemish the Church of England in its Doctrine or in its Discipline And to give the Work its last and heroick Turn and shame Men into a sense of Religion and into a true Notion of the Catholick Church Beasts have been made to dispute in the Magnificence of Verse above the ordinary capacities of Men and if this fails to work upon a sullen and obstinate Age nothing can ever doe it Herein the Authour follows the wisedom of the Ancients who were wont to instill their Doctrines by Fables and Allusions but as his manner is he has mightily improv'd this way beyond whatever the Ancients knew For their Beasts were wont to speak as you would imagin Beasts to do if they had the use of speech but his Beasts are all Heroes and exceed most Men that ever I met with Æsop and Phaedrus were content with Beasts as they found them onely they made them prate after a brutish kind of Fashion Horace's Brutes too were as unheroical Brutes as any of Æsop's and Virgil himself could not advance his Beasts one pitch above their nature no his Monarch of the Bees did not that I can understand make one heroical Buz. But our Poet to the confusion of Mankind has made Brutes speak such rare things as no Man ever spoke nor perhaps can understand Yet after all that has been said in Verse or in Prose against us or in behalf of the Church of Rome I am not convinced but that she is the same Church of Rome still which she was an hundred years ago nay she would not be thought otherwise that were as much as her Infallibility is worth There is not the least concern of ours to discover the Church of Rome to be worse than she is now represented to be but we should be glad if we were mistaken and could find her so much altered for the better It were inexcusable in us to dislike or not to acknowledge any thing of a Reformation which was carried on here by degrees and we pray God to prosper any Beginnings of it in other Countries but if the Church of France must be put upon us for the whole Roman-Catholick Church and the Sentiments of some particular Men for the Doctrines of that Church if we must be persuaded that all the varieties and diversities of Opinions in the Church of Rome have ever been infallibly the same and that Italy will subscribe to what France shall dictate or that even all or the greatest part of the Clergy of France will agree to the Bishop of Meaux's softnings and refinings these are strange things and will not readily be admitted France has indeed all the Learning of the Roman Communion confined in a manner within it self and seems to set up for an Empire of Arts and Religion as well as of Arms and that must needs pass for Catholick Doctrine that has so much Learning and so many Legions to defend it The Jesuits have a known distinction between the Popery of France and the Popery of Rome as F. Cotton confessed in the Point of Allegiance and they are of late much concerned for the Interest of the French Church and for the Pope's infallibility even in matters of Fact at the same time so that if at any time by the Power of France they can get a Pope of their Society by virtue of a very convenient Doctrine that the Pope may chuse his own Successour they have at once an infallible and a perpetual Pope and then the Jesuits Morals may be Gospel though the present Pope has term'd them scandalous but that may be scandalous at one time which is not so at another Suarez asserts that the Pope may change the manner of Election now in use apud Carleton Curs Theologic Tom. Poster Disputat 22. Sect. 6. 'T is certain that Popery is carried on in all its heights even in France it self and the Gallican Privileges betrayed by that very sort of Men who would now be thought the chief defenders of them The Authour of a Book entituled The Pernicious Consequences of the new Heresie of the Jesuits against the King and the State published Febr. 1. MDCLXII being an Advocate of Parliament complains that the opinion of the Pope's infallibility had got ground in France and that there was great likelihood of its spreading daily it being the general opinion of the Jesuits who are a vast Body diffused throughout all parts of the world and have the Education of Youth wherever they come Duvall endeavoured to introduce this Doctrine into the Sorbon but attempted it warily saying that neither the one nor the other side of the Question is de fide But though he was all his
gainsay Which made the Authour of the e Mabillon ibid. p. 27. Annales Berliniani observe that the eighth Synod had defined concerning Images contrary to what the Orthodox had defined before For the controversie about Images was again under debate at C. P. when Nicholas the First f Nichol. I. Epist Conc. vol. 8. sent his Legate thither and their chief business was to decide it for they were to act nothing in the cause of Photius but onely to enquire how things had been managed Afterwards under Adrian the Second DCCCLXX while the eighth General Council was sitting there appears to have been another Synod opposing the worship of Images which they anathematize and it was one part of their business to establish that worship * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Conc. Tom. 8. col 1360. So that this Council of Nice was received neither in the East nor in the West during one Century after it was held Nay it has been lately shewn that till the fifteenth Century the veneration of Images was rejected by the most eminent persons of the Western Church g Fallibility of the Church of Rome demonstrated from the second Council of Nice c. 4. sess 6. Afterwards Images and the Council of Nice had a blessed time of it and the People grew fond of these which they call Laymens Books when their Priests could scarce reade any other And though it may well be expected that the extravagance of this dotage should be much abated since the Reformation especially in France where Popery is new modelled and refined to that degree yet even there sober men complain and lament but cannot remedy the excess of it in our days †Mabil ib. p. 28. Richer Hist Gen. Conc. Lib. 1. cap. 11. § 13. The eighth Gen. Council or the fourth C. of C. P. An. DCCCLXX The Dates of thse 3 Councils are according to Labbe's Edition VII 1. There are no fewer than four Councils which lay claim to the title of the eighth General Council and the Pope was present either in person or by his Legates in them all Three of these were held at C. P. The first DCCCLXI in which Ignatius Patriarch of C. P. was deposed the next DCCCLXX in which he was restored and Photius deposed the third DCCCLXXIX when after the death of Ignatius Photius was again placed in that See. The fourth * Vid. Not. ad Conc. C.P. IV. col 1491. Conc. vol. VIII which goes under the name of the eighth General Council is that of Florence of which I shall forbear to speak till we come to it in order 2. The Council of C. P. which condemned Photius is esteemed the eighth General Council by the Latins generally and that which restored him by the Greeks by Zonaras Balsamon Psellus Nilus c. Marcus Ephesinus h Sess VI. in principio in the Council of Florence maintains in the name of the whole Greek Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Marc. Ephes in Conc. Flor. Ses 6. col 87. Conc. vol. 13. that the Council of C. P. which restored Photius had nulled the Council which the Latins call'd the eighth General Council in which Ignatius was restored and Photius deposed and that this Council was confirmed by John the Eighth and that in the same Synod it was determined that the addition of Filióque should be taken out of the Creed and therefore from that time in the Great Church at C. P. they used he says to denounce Anathema to whatever had been written or spoken against the holy Patriarchs Photius and Ignatius To this the Cardinal Julian with whom Marcus Ephesinus had the Dispute could find nothing to reply for which he is very much blamed by another Cardinal who never was at such a loss but he always had something to say I mean Baronius 'T is plain the Bishop of Rhodes who in the next Session undertook to answer Marcus Ephesinus knew very little of the matter for he pretends to speak onely upon Probabilities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I say that this does not by any means seem probable He objects that the Pope nor his Legates did not preside in Photius's Council as if the Greeks had ever thought that necessary he makes no exceptions against any particulars in the Acts of the Synod as not authentick but would prove in general that there never was such a Synod because the Pope nor his Legates did not preside in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. col 127. for if they had argues he there would have been some remembrance of that Synod in the Latin Church whereas the Epistles and Commonitorium of John the Eighth shew that there was such a Synod and that his Legates did preside in it and Baronius proves that his Legates for their compliance were excommunicated at their return to Rome 3. Nor is it a Pretence of the Greeks onely that this styled the fourth Council of C.P. wherein Photius was condemned is vacated but the Epistles of Pope John the Eighth to this very purpose are cited by Ivo Carnutensis i Parti 4. cap. 76 77. in his Collection of Decrees The Constantinopolitan Synod which was made against Photius is to be rejected Constantinopolitanam Synodum eam quae contra Photium facta est non esse recipiendam Joannes VIII Patriarchae Photino Illam quae contra Photium facta est Constantinopolitanam Synodum irritam fecimus omnino delevimus tum propter alia tum quoniam Adrianus Papa non subscripsit in ea De eodem Joannes Apocrisiariis suis Dicetis quod illas Synodos quae contra Phorium sub Adriano Papa Romae vel Constantinopoli sunt facta cassamus de numero sanctarum Synodorum delemus John the Eighth to Photinus the Patriarch We have vacated and entirely abolished the Constantinopolitan Synod which was made against Photius as well for other reasons as because Pope Adrian did not subscribe in it Of the same thing John to his Apocrisiarii Ye shall say that we vacate and dash out of the number of the holy Synods all those Synods which were held against Photius under Pope Adrian at Rome or at Constantinople The same Authour in his Prologue or Preface quotes another of Pope John's Epistles at large written to the Eastern Churches wherein he tells them that they had been too hasty in restoring Photius without his knowledge but for all that he was well enough contented and brings several arguments to shew that Photius might be restored notwithstanding any sentence which had passed upon him He there compares Photius's cafe not with that of the Donatists but of St. Athanasius St. Cyril and Polichronius of St. Chrysostome and Flavianus and then concludes that if the Donatists who had been cast out of the Church by a General Council Nullâ—s excuset pro Synodis contra eum peractis nullus sanctorum Praedecessorum meorum Nicolai Adriani sententias contra eutn causetur De ipso enim