come effectual. The fears which are sometimes affected, that he will abuse his power to the detriment of national or individual rights, are wholly groundless. It is used to sustain right and justice, not to violate them but in the event of such an abuse, nations are secure in their own strength, and individuals in their own conscience. It is well observed by De Maistre, that whatever may be said in the abstract, of the plenitude of Pontifical power, any attempt to exercise it wantonly, would provoke general and successful resistance. "What," he asks, can restrain the Pope? Every thing: canons, laws, national usages, sovereigns, tribunals, national assemblies, prescription, representations, negociations, duty, fear, prudence, and especially public opinion, the queen of the world."* 66 The providing of pastors necessarily appertains to him to whom the charge of the whole flock has been entrusted by Christ our Lord: yet the exercise of this power admits of much variety, according to the circumstances of time and place, as is evident from ecclesiastical history. Whatever arrangement may be made for the election or appointment of bishops, with the concurrence and approbation of the Holy See, may be deemed just and proper. The bishops thus created are not mere deputies, or vicars, much less vassals of the Pope; but successors of the apostles, exercising under him and with him the powers of binding and loosing, and respecting his high rank without detriment to their own: SALVO MEO ORDINE. Their order is perpetual, and their jurisdiction cannot be capriciously withdrawn ; but if they abuse their power, there are laws by which they can be judged, and the Pope is authorized to pronounce sentence. The relations of the Pope to a General Council of bishops have been the subject of much discussion. The right of summoning them to meet in solemn consultation for the general interests of the Church, manifestly belongs to him, as he is the only one whose authority extends to all. The Great Council of Nice was convened by Constantine; but according to the sixth General Council, Silvester concurred in the convocation;t the emperor Theodosius, in like manner, at the request of Damasus, convened the Oriental bishops at Constantinople. Marcian, at the request of Leo, summoned the council of Chalcedon. No public assembly could be held without the imperial mandate, which was, in this instance, accompanied with the privilege of the free use of the public vehicles. Since the Christian religion has extended far beyond the limits of the empire, and the bishops live * Du Pape ch. xviii. † Act. xviii. Theod. 1. v. hist. c. viii. under various governments, there is no civil ruler whose mandate could ensure universal attendance: but the voice of the chief Pastor reaches to the most distant regions, and is respectfully heard by all his colleagues. The right of the Pontiff to preside in the assembly of his brethren results from the eminence of his station, and is universally admitted. In the Eastern councils it was exercised by legates, who, to whatever rank they belonged, even if only deacons, as representatives of the chief Bishop, got precedency of the highest prelates. In the Nicene council, Vitus and Vincentius, priests of the Roman Church, legates of Pope Sylvester,* got precedency of the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, and Osius, bishop of Corduba, an obscure diocese in Spain, was honored in like manner, doubtless in his representative capacity, which, although not declared in the acts now extant, is attested by Gelasius of Cyzicum, a Greek writer of the fifth century, and is fairly inferred from the fact, for which no other plausible reason can be furnished.† At Ephesus, Cyril of Alexandria, presided, by special delegation of Pope Celestine, whose legates, sent directly from his side, came with instructions not to mingle in the discussions, but to pronounce judgment. At Chalcedon, Paschasinus and Lucentius, most reverend bishops, and Boniface, a most religious priest presided, "holding the place of the most holy and most beloved of God, Leo, Archbishop of ancient Rome."§ In the synodical letter of the fathers to Leo, they say, that he presided over them, in the persons of his legates, "as the head over the members." The fathers of the fifth council earnestly besought Vigilius to preside over them,|| at their deliberations on "the three chapters," and read his letter, permitting the examination, as their authority for proceeding in his absence. Two priests and a deacon are mentioned in the sixth council, at the head of all the bishops, as "holding the place of the most blessed and holy Archbishop of ancient Rome." The like is observable in the acts of the seventh and eighth councils wherein the legates qualified their assent, by reserving final judgment to the good pleasure of the Pontiff. It was customary also to seek from the Roman Bishop, the solemn confirmation of the decrees of the Council. As the Nicene acts are imperfect, and the first council of Constantinople is not Ecumenical in its original character, and the doctrinal letter of Celestine preceded the council of Ephesus, and was its guide in the proceedings, I shall at Theod. 1. i. c. viii. † See Fleury 1. xi. §. v. hist. Eccl. Letter of Celestine to Cyril c. xiii. Act. conc. Eph. col. 3123. Hard. t. i. § T. ii. Hard. p. ii. p. 64. Collat. i. p. 62 col. Hard. t. iii. once refer to the synodical letter of the fathers of Chalcedon, wherein they beseech the Pope to confirm their decree in favor of the bishop of the imperial city. "We pray you to honor our judgment by your decrees, and as we have added the harmony of our assent to our head in what is good, so may your Holiness vouchsafe to supply to your children what is wanting." The Pope, nevertheless, felt it to be his duty to annul this decree as contrary to the ancient usages and rights of the patriarchs recognised at Nice. It is needless to exhibit in detail the proofs of the exercise of these prerogatives in the Western Councils, in several of which the Pope presided in person, and subsequently ratified their decrees by his solemn confirmation. The Fathers of Trent acted in conformity with the precedents of former councils, when they gave to the Pontifical legates the presidency of their assembly, and at the close of their proceedings sought the confirmation of their acts by the Pope, whereby they might be recommended to the veneration and observance of all the Churches. I deem it unnecessary to pursue the inquiry into Papal prerogatives in further detail, or to speculate on possible contingencies. In the convulsions of the Church at the period of the council of Constance, when three pretenders claimed the keys, the assembled fathers deemed that they could do all things which might be necessary to restore unity and order. Nearly three centuries have elapsed since the last General Council, during which time the Church has been governed with wisdom and moderation, by a series of holy and enlightened Pontiffs. The heresy of Jansenius, and numberless kindred errors have been condemned: the purity of Christian morals has been vindicated against relaxed casuists, and the sweetness of the yoke of Christ has been maintained, despite of the repulsive austerity of innovators: discipline has been enforced, or mitigated, as circumstances rendered expedient: and all things appertaining to the government of the Universal Church have been regulated by the foresight, discretion, and zeal of the Roman Bishop. He has had the services and aid of enlightened counsellors, composing the various, boards, or congregations of Cardinals, to whose examination he commits the different matters on which he is to pronounce judgment; he has also been seconded and sustained by his colleagues throughout the world: but the Providence of God, as if to cut short the disputes of the schools, has suffered this long lapse of time to pass away without the assembling of a General Council, as was also the case in the first three centuries of the Church. It seems to me superfluous, if not injurious, to discuss what power a council may exercise in certain extraordinary circumstances, since the actual government of the Church is plainly in the hands of the Pontiff. If the object be to point out the limits of Pontifical power, and the remedy for its abuse, there is but a faint hope of remedy in an assembly, the holding whereof is generally of extreme difficulty, if not utterly impracticable, and may be indefinitely postponed. The true security lies in the nature of the Pontifical authority, which, being derived from Christ, is essentially just and paternal, and ceases to bind the conscience, when it is flagrantly abused. Our hope is in the ever-watchful Providence, which guards the Church, that the passions of men may not defeat the divine counsels. If in calamitous circumstances an extraordinary remedy be necessary, the same Providence will apply it: but the discussion of the powers of an assembly convened at such a crisis, is in my opinion safely left to its members. I do not deem it necessary to explain in detail the power which the Pope exercises in pronouncing judgment on the sanctity of deceased servants of God, or in granting indulgences, or in many like ways, as it has not been my intention to write a treatise with the precision of a canonist or scholastic divine. My object has been to give a just idea of the main exercise of pontifical authority. I have purposely avoided throughout this work any reference to the famous collection of canons bearing the name of Isidore, which the learned have condemned as a clumsy invention of the ninth century, that, thus using only documents of undoubted authenticity, the strength of the evidence might be undiminished. Some have rashly charged the Popes with originating this imposture, with a view to the enlargement of their prerogatives; but the learned trace its origin to Mentz in Germany, and allow that the extension of papal power was not the primary object of the compiler. "It was not in fact," says Guizot, "compiled for the exclusive interest of the Popedom. It appears rather on the whole, according to the primitive intention, more especially destined to serve the bishops against the metropolitans and temporal sovereigns." It must be borne in mind that this compilation consisted in a great measure of authentic materials, namely, extracts from the Fathers of the Church, the writings of Popes, the decrees of councils, or the Cesarean laws. The imposture consisted in giving them an undue antiquity, and a different author, by ascribing them to the Popes of the first three ages. The success of the fraud is accounted for by the fact, that the received discipline was the basis of the arrangement, and scarcely any innovation was introduced abhorrent to general usage. Had they been brought forward to sanction novel and exorbitant pretensions, their authenticity would scarcely have escaped question, even in an unenlightened age. It is absurd to trace the prerogatives of the Holy See to these false decretals, whilst unquestionable documents of far higher antiquity plainly establish them. * Cours d'histoire moderne t. iii. p. 84. 363 CHAPTER XXII. CIVILIZATION. Ir may not be useless, before terminating this treatise, to consider the influence of Papal authority on the general condition of mankind. It is no exaggeration to affirm that morals, order, and all that is understood by civilization, may be traced to the efforts of the Popes, either discharging the immediate functions of their high office, or using for the general good the influence and power which they possessed in the actual state of society. In order to estimate their services, it would be necessary to go over the records of missions in various ages, and to consider the condition of the aborigines, or early settlers of each country. Children of nature, with no rule but impulse, and no restraint, but the fear of vengeance-with no affection, but for objects of momentary gratification, and no ambition, but to slay an enemysunk in sensuality, without even the restraint of shame, they scarcely presented any thing to distinguish them from the brute beast. For the salvation of such degraded beings, the Popes uniformly sighed, and when occasion offered itself, sent forth the heralds of the gospel to enlighten, humanize and save them. The naked savage and the painted barbarian stood aghast—the huntsman and the warrior tribe were arrested in their course, at the sight of the missionaries of the cross: the tones of sacred music fell on their delighted ears, and they listened to the tale of wonder which the strangers recounted; finally, they clung to them as fathers, and learned from them to control their unruly passions, and worship the Great Spirit. The condescension of the Popes in yielding to these reclaimed children of the forest whatever the Divine Law did not forbid, and leading them gradually to the perfection of Christian discipline, shews extraordinary wisdom and true philanthropy. Among the most civilized nations, most attached to liberty, slavery prevailed when the Gospel was first preached, and the apostles, careful not to disturb the actual order of society, inculcated to the slave submission, to the master humanity. The Popes faithfully followed their example, as has been shewn by the late lamented bishop of Charles |