a right to sit in Councils This is indeed a great Question upon which depends the validity of all Councils There were some as those of Basil Constance Pisa and the Lateran by the testimony of Alemannus an Eye-witness in which Presbyters had a decisive Vote but far more even all the rest from which they were excluded If they have a right all these last Councils are unlawful if not all the first Concerning Abbots there arises another doubt They have sat in Councils now for many Ages by Priviledge The first who obtained it as Lupus n Lup. Tom. 1. p. 865. observeth was that most wicked Barsumas who made no small bawling in the Ephesine Latrocinium But it is inquired who had Power to give them such a Priviledge Certainly that Spirit which revealeth Truth and as our Saviour tells us bloweth where it listeth cannot be obliged by any humane Grant to confer Infallibility on those to whom he never promised it The Monarchists themselves acknowledge the Pope cannot confer on his Legates the priviledge of not erring How then shall either Pope or Council give it to Abbots But if they cannot then are unlawful all those Councils wherein Abbots sat those especially wherein they exceeded the Bishops in number as the Council of Lateran under Innocent III. in which by Bellarmin's o Bell. de Con cil lib. 1. cap. 5. 7. computation were present 1283 Prelates of which only 473 Bishops and that of Constance which among a 1000 Fathers had no more than 300 Bishops The same Question is moved concerning Procurators of Bishops For 't is justly doubted whether Bishops can delegate that Power of defining matters of Faith without danger of Errour and transfer it upon others that are no Bishops For if not all those Councils will be invalid wherein these Procurators were admitted Now that they cannot seemeth probable For to omit that the Monarchists affirm the Pope cannot communicate his Infallibility and that Bishops should be able to do more than the Pope seems incredible I urge that this Procuration is not allowed even in temporal Causes Judges are not permitted to substitute others who may give Judgment and pronounce Sentence in their stead And if this be thought inconvenient in judging the frail and momentany things of life how much more will it be in defining matters that relate to eternal Salvation Lastly delegated Judges can never subdelegate another unless the Delegant shall expresly grant Power of doing it Let our Adversaries therefore either shew where God hath given Bishops power to constitute Procurators to sit in Councils in their Name or confess it to be uncertain whether those Councils are lawful in which these Procurators sit They will plead Prescription perhaps for this and urge that it is not probable a Custom received and approved by so many Ages should not be lawful But they have no Right to make use of this Argument For Widdrington p Aliud est facere de facto aliud determinare quòd ita possit fieri de jure Widd. contra Schulck pag. 241. in replying to that Objection of the Assertors of the deposing Power That Kings and Emperours have been deposed by the Church and therefore may be so answers out of Sylvester That it doth no way follow it being one thing to do withing another to determine that it may be done lawfully And Richerius q Apol. ax 38. freely reprehends many things observed in the Councils Lastly Holden r Theologi passim affirmant posse quodammodo errare Synodes omnes etiam Oecumenicas in legibus ad Eccles disciplinae regimen spectantibus Hold. Anal. fid l. 2. c. 3. tells us That all Synods even Oecumenical may in some measure err in matters of Ecclesiastical Discipline as most Divines hold If in those then surely in things which they neither command nor define but only tolerate The Presidents of the Council of Trent were very much perplexed with this Question and knew not well what to do in it Cardinal Palavicini Å¿ Hist Concil Trid. lib. 21. cap. 1. relates how they consulted the Court of Rome and the ablest Canonists and employed Learned men Scipio Lancelottus and Michael Thomasius to write concerning it The Question proposed was Whether to Procurators were of Right due a decisive Suffrage in the Synod This they determined in the Negative as well because it was not a matter of contract or private business 〈◊〉 which these Procurators were employed but the common concern of the whole Church as because they bore not that Office in the Church to which God had promised the assistance of the H. Ghost in Oecumenical Synods But because the custom of the Church was contrary and some shew of Arguments appeared on the other side the Legates thought not sit to determine this Question themselves but expected to know the pleasure of the Court of Rome Thus much for the third condition Gelasius t Secundùm Scripturas sec traditionem Patrum sec Ecclesiasticas regulas pro side Catholicâ communione 〈◊〉 ad Episc Dard. epist 13. assigns many together while treating of the difference of lawful and unlawful Synods he defineth a lawful Synod to be that which acteth aocording to the Scriptures Tradition of the Fathers Eccâ—â—â—astical Rules and in defence of Catholick Faith and Communion that to be unlawful which acteth contrary I inquire not now whether all these conditions be necessary I only say that it will be very difficult this way to distinguish lawful from unlawful Synods For how few can compare the Decrees of them with Scripture Fathers and Ecclesiastical Rules Maximus requireth much fewer things For he would have nothing else inquired but only whether the Council decreed rightly For to Theodosius Bishop of Caesarea objecting That the Lateran Synod held at Rome under Pope Martin was not received because not held by the Emperour's Command he thus replieth u Si Synodos quae sactae sunt jussiones Imperatorum firmant non sua fides recipe Synodos quae contra homoousion factae sunt c. Omnes enim has Imperatorum jussio aggregavit Attamen omnes damnatae sunt propter impietatem infidelium dogmatum ab eis confirmatorum illas novit sanctas probabiles Synodos pius Ecclesiae Canon quas rectitudo dogmatum approbavit Et dixit Theodosius It a est ut asseris dogmatum quippe rectitudo Synodos roborat Disp Maximi cum Theod. inter Anastasii Collectanea à Sirmondo edita Paris 1620. p. 161 162. If the Commands of the Emperour and not their holy Faith makes Synods valid then must you receive the Synods held by the Command of Princes against the Doctrine of Consubstantiality as those of Tyre Antioch Seleucra c. For all they were called by the Emperours but all condemned by reason of the impiety of the heretical Doctrines confirmed in them For the pious Rule of the Church acknowledgeth only those for holy and lawful Synods which the truth of
Vigilius desire before the IV. and V. Councils that an equal number of Western and Eastern Bishops might be present in them For the like cause Richerius 12 Rich. Hist Concil lib. 14. cap. ult Novam inauditam rationem procedendi complaineth That in the Council of Trent there were more Italian Bishops than of all other Nations together And this he makes to be the cause of the exorbitant Power of the Pope in all latter Councils and of introducing a new and unheard of way of proceeding into them the Italian Bishops being almost all the Popes Creatures and obnoxious to him Thus he computes out of the Acts of the Council that from the beginning to the end of it there were present 187 Italian Bishops but out of other Nations no more than 80. Further our Adversaries do not deny that a Council gathered out of one half of the Christian World may totally err as for example The Council of Constantinople under Copronymus consisting of 338 Bishops who decreed Images were to be abolished To make this Council Oecumenical there wanted only the presence of two or three Western Bishops Suppose them present and opposing the Decree of all the rest How must the President then have pronounced if with the major part an Oecumenical Council would have erred and the Decree would have been Heretical in the Opinion of our Adversaries Moved with these Reasons some of our Adversaries as well Monarchists as Sorbonists deny that plurality of Votes ought to overcome in Councils and account only those Decrees certain which are established by the unanimous consent of all This was the Opinion of Cusanus 13 Ecce concordantiam maximè in iis quae fidei sunt requiri quanto major est concordantia tantò infallibilius judicium Vnde licèt in Synodis universalibus plura necessaria sint maximè tamen communis omnium sententia Cus Concord Cath. Lib. 2. Cap. 4. which he proveth from the Eighth Synod and then adds See how consent chiefly in those things which are of Faith is required and by how much the greater this consent is so much the more infallible is the Decree Whence although in Vniversal Synods many things be necessary yet most of all is the common consent of all So Holden 13 Imò tametsi plurimorum fuerit in Concilio congregatorum testimonium nisi universum Catholicum sit traditionis certitudinem perfectam non habet Hold. Anal. fid lib. 1. cap. 9. Although it be the Testimony of the major part of a Council if it be not universal and general it hath not the perfect certainty of Tradition Richerius 14 Rich. Apol ax 22. seemeth to be of the same mind although he speaks not so plainly Nor do Stapleton 15 Stapl. de princip lib. 7. cap. 9. or Duvall 16 Duval Anteloq dister from it But neither doth this Opinion want its inconveniencies For first hereby Councils are in a manner rendred useless For it cannot easily be imagined unless some Factious Conspiracy should intervene that all should think the same thing especially if they be many And indeed we have few examples of Councils wherein the Bishops were unanimous In that of Nice were some Arians at Sardica more at Ephesus many Nestorians at Chalcedon not a few Eutychians and so of the rest which according to this Hepothesis must be all expunged out of the number of lawful Councils Secondly The Infallibility of Councils will hereby become unuseful for they could never pronounce Sentence There would be always two or three Hereticks present in the Council who to prevent the condemnation of their Heresy need do no more than speak their Minds and dissent from the Votes of the rest Thus the Power of the Universal Church shall be overthrown and all methods of extinguishing Heresy eluded by the stubbornness of two or three Hereticks However it be the Council of Basil which the Sorbonists so much extol thought far otherwise and particularly the President of it Lewis Cardinal of Arles For when in treating of defining three Assertions that raised a Council above the Pope the major part voted the affirmative although many Fathers and among them the famous Canonist Panosmitan dissented and even protested against it yet the President pronounced Sentence in the affirmative and that Sentence was held valid as Aeneas Sylvius 17 Hist Concil Basil lib. 1. largely relates Whichsoever Opinion therefore our Adversaries embrace they involve themselves in inextricable difficulties But I will not any further urge them It suffi eth what none will deny that it is not certain whether the major part must take place or unanimity be required Both may be defended and neither is self-evident nor revealed by God nor defined by the Church as all acknowledge If this then be uncertain it will be also uncertain what Decrees of Councils were lawfully concluded and consequently what command and deserve belief CHAP. XIX That it cannot be known from the subsequent Approbation of the Church which were lawful Councils FRom what hath been hitherto said concerning Councils it is most evident both from the Reason of Things and the Principles of our Adversaries that the Infallibility of Councils is a meer Phantasm that if there were any Infallible Councils they must be such as are Oecumenical free lawful and rightly proceeding that it cannot be yet certainly known whether all these Conditions be singly necessary and whether all together suffice That if that were stated it were unknown what is required to make a Council Oecumenical what Free and so in the rest and much more uncertain which or whether any were so that the lawfulness freedom right intention necessary diligence and other conditions of an Infallible Council can never be certainly apply'd to any particular Synod Many of these things are of that nature that they cannot be known even by the Bishops of the Council themselves They can tell for example whether themselves have a right Intention and be corrupted with no Interest or Passion but to know whether all the rest be equally sincere is wholly impossible They no less than others must be uncertain what are the Conditions necessary to constitute an Infallible Council which neither God hath revealed the Church defined nor the consent of Doctors determined If these things cannot be known by the Fathers of a Council how shall they by the other Bishops far distant in the remote parts of the World How by every one of the common People by Mechanicks Husband-Men and Women whose Judgment is so small and Notions so obscure Again if not of the present and later Councils how of the first and ancient ones which length of time hath involved in darkness and left to be known only by Conjectures How shall the most learned Men be assured of the freedom legality and all other necessary conditions of these Councils perhaps from the testimony of one or two Historians as if infinite errors of Historians were not daily found
be endured in matters of Faith and eternal Salvation For suppose the Delegates vote Heresie shall the Delegators be bound to confirm their Suffrages The second way of delegating destroys the liberty of the Council For the present Bishops would by this means be no Judges of the Controversies proposed and all disputation or examination of the Question in hand would be wholly vain The first way therefore of Representation is useless Let us now consider the second I affirm that the absent Bishops cannot be said to have committed their suffrages to the present For first Although this may with some colour be said of those which have been lawfully and sufficiently summoned yet it cannot be applied to them who either are not summoned at all or not by him who hath the lawful Authority to do it Who this is is yet undetermined Besides what if the absent Bishops shall openly protest they will not be obliged by what the others shall decree as the French did at Trent Shall they be also supposed to have tacitely assented But to shew the vanity of this pretence more clearly I will prove that tacit delegation which in other cases may be allowed to have here no place First it doth not appear what is the peculiar Office to be performed by the Bishops in a Council Holden makes them only Witnesses of revealed Truths Others rather think them to be Judges But Judges they cannot be unless also Witnesses For how shall they define an Opinion to have been revealed or not unless they know it to be so and be Witnesses of the Revelation or at least Tradition Yet 't is certain that Proxies in witnessing are not wont to be allowed or if they be that a tacit delegation will not suffice I add if it were a matter of more external Discipline or what concerns only the Bishops themselves those who absent themselves might perhaps be supposed to quit their right and submit themselves to the judgment of the rest which meet in the Council But to imagine such a thing in a matter of Faith and Truth is most absurd Shall those Bishops who might have born Witness to the Truth be thought to have forfeited or deserted their right only because either voluntarily or by force they were absent from the Council If this were admitted errour would soon triumph over Truth and Faith over Heresie For our Adversaries confess and Experience hath often proved That the major part of Bishops in a Council may favour Heresie For suppose the heretical Bishops nearer to the place of the Council or supported by the favour of the secular Prince or mightily zealous in the propagation of their Errour all which advantages Arianisme formerly enjoyed in the East If to these be added the right of representing absent Bishops they may establish Heresie in the Church for ever and oblige the absent Bishops for a punishment of their negligence to subscribe to erroneous Definitions of Faith. Lastly If the absent Bishops tacitely delegate their suffrages to the present there is no number of Bishops so small which may not constitute a General Council nay although they be all of one Province provided the Summons were directed to all the Provinces as being interpretatively invested with the Authority of all the absent Bishops Which yet is not allowed by our Adversaries and Bellarmine k Vt saltem ex majori parte Christianarum Provinciarum aliqui adveniant Bell. de Concil lib. 1. cap. 17. himself requires as the fourth condition of a General Council that some Bishops come from at least the greatest part of the Provinces of Christendom Let the Reader now judge how that can stand which Richerius l Maximè propriè perfectissimè Rich. Apol. axiom 21. so positively affirms That an Oecumenical Council represents the whole Church most properly and perfectly On the contrary what I have already offered proves that the Church is not at all much less most perfectly represented thereby CHAP. XIII That although there were Oecumenical Councils it would be always uncertain which they were THAT there is no truly Oecumenical Councils I have proved in the precedent Chapter But grant there is We shall gain but little unless we undoubtedly know which they are that deserve that Name For the Papists will not have their Faith rely upon a Council indefinitely but upon such or such a Council as for Example upon that of Constance or Trent But their Faith cannot rely on these unless they were certain they were Oecumenical which that they can never be I shall prove in this Chapter I might perhaps supersede this labour as being already performed by Learned Men even of the Church of Rome Launoy a Laun. Epist part 8. ad Ames and the Author b de lib. c. lib. 5. cap. 2. of the Treatise of the Liberties of the Gallican Church although with a different intention For the first seems to have undertaken it only for the love of Truth the second that he might shew the necessity of depending wholly and absolutely upon the Pope But because both of them have omitted many things it will not be perhaps unuseful to add mine to their Observations First therefore The difficulty of knowing Oecumenical Councils appears from the discord of Authors in numbring them Bellarmine reckons 32 which distributing into 4 Classes he makes 18 of them to have been approved 7 condemned 6 partly approved and partly condemned and 1 the Pisan neither manifestly approved nor manifestly condemned Bosius c Bos de signis Eccl. lib. 5. cap. 8. numbers 18 expresly denying the rest to have been General Bannes d Ban. Catal. Concil praemisso Tom. 3. in Thom. 15 or at most 17. But all omit that of Siena although acknowledged to have been General by the Council of Basil e Concil Basil in quâdam resp datâ 3. Id. Maii 1436. Again of those numbred by Bellarmin some are by other Writers expunged out of the List Let us view them in order After the 1. Nicene Council of whose Universality none doubts comes that of Sardica which is thought to be General by Bellarmin Baronius Perron Lupus Natalis Alex. Maimbourg denied by the Africans Photius and Auxilius f Apud Lupum Diss de Concil Sardic among the Ancients by Richerius g Rich. de Concil lib. 1. cap. 3. and Peter de Marca h Marca de Concord lib. 7. cap. 3. among the Moderns The first Constantinopolitan Council Natalis i Orientalis duntaxat Ecclesiae Concilium istud fuit nec Oecumenicum nisi ex post facto quatenus c. Nat. §. 4. part 1. p. 236. affirms to have been only a Synod of the Eastern Church and Oecumenical only ex post facto inasmuch as the Western Church in the Roman Synod under Pope Damasus approved it Yet in the year after the Council the Eastern Bishops meeting at Constantinople and writing to the Roman Synod call their former Council Oecumenical which Valesius k Val.
Not. ad Theod. Hist lib. 5. cap. 3. doth not without cause wonder at and observes the Western Church did not of a long while after esteem it Oecumenical I find none which deny the 1. Ephesine Council to have been General Yet if any one should do it he would not want some foundation For in the first Session wherein Nestorius was condemned not only the whole Oriental Diocess subject to the Patriarch of Antioch was absent but also the Legates of the Western Bishops were not yet come Cyrill indeed supplyed the room of Pope Coelestin bat Arcadius and Projectus were sent in the name of the other Western Bishops as Lupus l Lup. diss de Concil Ephes cap. 6. observeth In the following Sessions the Oriental Bishops would not be present but making a separate Synod in the same City anathematized the other which prevailed indeed in number and reason and so may be called lawful but cannot be Oecumenical The Council of Chalcedon is acknowledged by all yet as to the 13th Session in which notwithstanding all the Canons of the Synod were made it is rejected by Baronius Lupus and many others because the Legates of Rome and the Bishops of Aegypt were then absent whereas the Greeks and others contend it was wholly Oecumenical The V. Council under Justinian which was the II. Constant inopolitan is admitted for Oecumenical by all the present Greeks and Latines Not so formerly when the Africans Italians Spaniards and Gauls rejected it And certainly it was not Oecumenical For Vigilius and the Western Bishops although then at Constantinople would not be present in it The Council in Trullo is accounted General by some Greeks and Latines as Innocent III. Gratian Bellarmine Barnes and others denied by Baronius m Bar. ad an 692. Leo Allatius n Leo All. de perp consensu and Bellarmin o Bell. de Pont. lib. 2. cap. 18. himself in another place The II. Nicene is esteemed Oecumenical both by Greeks and Latines Yet formerly Hincmar and even Theodorus Studita that great Patron of Image-Worship maintained it was only local as Lupus p Lup. dist de Concil Nicaen II. cap. 15. confesseth Certainly it was denied to be Oecumenical by the antient French Germans and English and by the Synod of Franoford who denied it could be called Oecumenical when it was proposed to them as Peter de Marca q Proposita est sacro conventui Synodus Nicaeae habita quam illi Oecumenicam dici posse negârunt Marc. de Concord lib. 7. cap. 17. acknowledgeth Yea and in the Caroline Capitular they call it an Heretical Schismatical Erroneous and Presumptuous Synod wondering at the impudence and vanity of its Bishops in ranking themselves with the six former General Councils And justly might they wonder at it For although the Roman Legates were present Yet the Western were not either by themselves or by their Delegates Not to say that the pretended Legatas of the three Oriental Patriarchs were suborned by the Council and had no Commission from those Patriarchs That the Council of Franoford was called General Baronius r Bar. ad ann 794. observes Certainly Hinomar gave it that name Nor doth Bellarmine oppose although in another place Å¿ Bell. de Concil lib. 2. cap. 8. he calls the II Nicene Synod more Universal However it could not be General since all the Greeks who were not yet divided from the Western Church by Schism were absent The VIII Synod the Latins call Oecumenical the Greeks deny it as the English French and Germans did also formerly The Greeks on the contrary reckon for the eighth General Council the Synod under Photius which is rejected by the Latins After these Bellarmine reckons eight other Councils eider than that of Constance viz. four of Lateran two of Lyons and those of Vien and Pisa But the Council of Constance t In formulâ fidei Pontifici eligendo praescriptâ admits only one of Lateran one of Lyons and that of Vien rejecting the other five Clement VII rejects yet more For in his Bull of Priviledge for the Edition of the Florentine Synod he calls it the eighth General Council whereby he proscribes all these eight the Council of Constance it self and the Constantinopolitan under Ignatius which commonly bears the Title of the Eighth of these eight that of Lyons under Innocent IV. was one wherein Frederick the Emperour was deposed This Bellarmine Onuphrius and the Assertors of the Pope's deposing Power contend to have been General Launoy and Widdrington deny it Nor is this a late Controversie This very thing was disputed in the Synod it self between the Pope and Thaddaeus the Emperour's Oratour Vid. Labbeanam Concil editionem who appealing to a future General Council was rejected by the Pope upon pretext that the present Synod was Oecumenical The Council of Constance is from the beginning to the end accounted General by the French as the Cardinal of Lorrain n Apud Gallos Constantiense Concilium in partibus suis omnibus ut generale habetur Comm. ad Briton Senat. expresly affirms and the whole Clergy of France lately confirmed with a solemn Decree The Monarchists deny it to have been General in the first Sessions because of the three Obediences but one was present So Cajetan Canus Bellarmine Duval and innumerable others Bosius x Bos de signis Eccl. lib. 5. cap. 8. and F. Cotton go farther of whom the first reckons it not at all among the Oecumenical Councils the second by the testimony of Richerius y Rich. Hist Concil lib. 2. cap. 3. wiped it out of the List of them That the Council of Basil was always held Oecumenical by the French the Cardinal of Lorrain witnesseth The same was the opinion of Eugenius IV. Bellarmine Carranza Labbé and others Duval z Duvall de potest Pont. in antelo su vehemently opposeth it and stifly contends it was never General The Council of Florence was never by the French esteemed either lawful or General saith the same Cardinal a Conc. Florentinum perinde ac nec legitimum nec generale repudiatur loc cit On the contrary the Italians and Spaniards extol it to the Skies The Council of Lateran under Leo X. Fabulottus Bellarmine and many more contend to have been Oecumenical Yet Bellarmine confesseth that some doubt of it and Duval b Quidam aiunt non fuisse verè propriè generale câ—m ei vix C. Episcopi intersuerint Duvall de potest Pont. part 4. qu. 7. That others affirm it not to have been truly and properly General forasmuch as there were scarce an hundred Bishops present in itc And himself a little after leaveth it uncertain because of the paucity of Bishops which reason might also exclude many Sessions of the Council of Trent Thus therefore it manifestly appears That there are many Councils whose universality was and is still disputed of the Latins agreeing neither with the Greeks nor among themselves