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Roman clergy, deputed to perform its offices, to adhere to its instructions, with a salvo, that the Clergy of Rome have a permanent right to revise their acts in Synod, not merely as counsellors, but by a judicial deliberative suffrage; and it is not only a part of the sacred college, but the whole that the Pope is obliged to call into his deliberation, as some Bulls express it: "De pa

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trum nostrorum S. R. E. Cardinalium concilio, et unanimo consensu." The Pope's private decision can never be the decision of the Roman See, unless the Canonical usages are restored.

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15. The effective Clergy of Rome have more than once disapproved of acts passed by a party of Cardinals, specially summoned to form a Curia of theologians and canonists; "coram aliquibus Cardinalibus, ad id specialiter deputatis." The Curia was then on one side, the real effective See of Rome on the other; the decree was of the Curia and not of the Church, of a partial Congregation owing its institution to the Pope's will and pleasure, he choosing as he pleases their number, nation, and quality, without any regard to the effective Clergy of Rome. Let us suppose the president of a senate of two hundred members should choose ten of the said members, and decide every thing by these exclusively;

would this be a decree of that Senate? It is true, indeed, that if these ten were clever, and of good conduct, they might form decisions worthy the approbation of that Senate; but it does not therefore follow, that their exclusive decree is a decree of that senate. It is clear that the authority of those particular congregations summoned by the Pope could not be greater than the Pope's own; and since the Pope alone is not the holy See, their authority being inferior to his, could not be that of the holy See; for their power is limited at the Pope's will; a clear argument that they do not derive from original institutions. If

they had any title founded in Apostolical institu

tion, or in the form of Ecclesiastical government, established by our Saviour, they could not be modelled at his will and pleasure; they would have essential rights, which the Church itself could not alienate, limit, or modify, as proved by Dupin de potest. Eccl. There is a double authority, one of primary, the other of posterior institution. On the first, see Fleury, disc. 2, and the Canons of the first Nicene, "Antiqui mores "obtineant."

In the council of Chalcedon the order, established by the Apostles, was attacked for the first time, in compliance with the ambition of the Bi

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shop of Constantinople. But that council did not unanimously concur in it, and all the western Churches, with Pope Leo the Great at their head, protested against it, (S. Leo, Ep. 78). Privilegia Ecclesiarum, sanctorum Patrum Canonibus instituta, et venerabilis Nicænæ

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Synodi fixa decretis, nulla possunt improbitate "convelli, nulla novitate violari:" and in his Epistle to Anatolius, "Sancti illi venerabiles "Patres qui in urbe Nicæna mansuras usque "in finem mundi leges Ecclesiasticorum Cano

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num condiderunt, et apud nos et in toto orbe "terrarum, &c."

16. Thus then the doctrine of exclusive and arbitrary power is utterly annihilated. The Popes themselves are not above the Canons. The capital and monstrous error of Bellarmine, and of the other Roman court theologians and Vicars Apostolic, that error which has rendered the Catholic Religion formidable to Protestant States, consists in falsely supposing, that St. Peter was appointed absolute monarch over the other Apostles, whereas the fact is, that he is not absolute monarch even in his own Church or Diocese of Rome. The power of binding and loosing was given equally to all the Apostles. They were not St. Peter's inferior officers. They

held no power from him. He could not limit or modify or reserve to himself any part of that spiritual power of binding and loosing which they all equally received. They were his equals in every respect, except in a Primacy of general inspection for the preservation of unity of faith and morals, but not of discipline, in which all National Churches differ. So, for instance, the Speaker of the House of Commons is the first member, but not the absolute monarch of that house. He enforces its forms and usages, but he makes none: he preserves legal order, but he can introduce no new order. The members do not hold their seats from him; they cannot be expelled by his fiat; he is not master of their suffrages; he alone can decide no question. He is the head, but not the grand monarque of that assembly. His office as head is to preserve order, to enforce law.

SECT. V. The power of administering Confirmation not exclusive by Divine right.

1. "But Columbanus leaves it dubious whether "Bishops are superior to Priests with respect to the power of administering confirmation." I beg leave to refer the reader to my 3d Letter, Ad

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vertisement, p. 6, and to add what Doctors Milner and Pointer seem not to know,* that St. Jerom expressly declares, that confirmation is administered by Bishops, not from any exclusive Episcopal power, essential to the validity of that sacrament, but from the honour and the respect due to the Episcopal order, and from usage introduced into the Church.

In 541, Pope Gregory the Great wrote to Januarius, Bishop of Cagliari, to put an end to the practice which had prevailed of administering confirmation by the ministry of the second order, as appears from the 9th of his Epistles to Januarius, (Epist. i. 3, Indict. xii.) Afterwards, however, hearing that this order of his was strongly resented and opposed by the second order as an innovation,† he wrote a second Letter

*A Bishop, says Dr. Milner, is a Clergyman who exclusively administers two sacraments, Confirmation and Holy orders. Elucid. of the Veto, p. 36.

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+"Errant qui Gregorium errasse putant. Cum enim in his quæ sunt de essentia Sacramenti Romanum Pontificem mutare aliquid posse, minime concessum dicant, et illud "affirment de essentia esse ejus Sacramenti ut ab Episcopo "ministretur ; sicut primum est absolute verissimum, ita "posterius falsum.-Ut autem retundamus eorum senten"tiam de Sacramento Confirmationis, accipe quid dicat S. "Hieronymus, scribens adversus Luciferianos. Quod si

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