provinces called Suburbicarian. And that by taking upon him to excommunicate others unjustly, and where his power did not reach, he had excommunicated himself. And then he was so far from being head, that he was not so much a member of the church. And they mind him, as likewise du Pin in the treatise before mentioned, p. 263, of the stout resistance made by the bishops of France to the Pope who threatened to excommunicate all of them that would not submit to his decision; but they resolutely answered, that they would not submit to his will, and that if he came there to excommunicate them, he should go back excommunicated himself. Si excommunicaturus veniret, excommunicatus abiret. what is that head can be excommunicated by its members? What is that supremacy can be limited and controuled by its subjects, and of which they are the judges, and can say to it, as God to the sea, "hitherto shalt thou come and no farther, here shall thy proud waves be stayed?”

Now

L. The church of France place the absolute supremacy and the infallibility, not in the Pope or church. of Rome, but in a General Council.

G. Which, as I told you, never was, and it is next to impossible ever should be.

And this gives up your whole foundation, for the popes and not councils pretend to be the successors of St. Peter, and heirs of all the promises made to him.

In the next place, you are not agreed among yourselves concerning general councils. Bellarmin (de Concil. 1. 1. c. 6.) gives a list of general councils which

are to be rejected, concilia generalia reprobata, some for not being approved by the Pope, some for heresy, and some (he might have said all) as not being received by the universal church, but he meant only the church of Rome. And chap. 7 is of General Councils, partly confirmed, and partly reprobated. And chap. 8. is of a General Council neither manifestly approved, nor manifestly rejected. This is going through all the degrees of uncertainty. And c. 5. and de Rom. Pont. J. 4. c. 11. he says, the several things in those councils allowed to be general were foisted in by heretics, he knows not how. This was to get rid of some objections against these councils he could not answer otherwise. And (de Eccles. Milit. c. 16.) he quotes the last council of Lateran condemning the council of Basil, which he says wasat first a true cecumenical council, and infallible, but afterwards turned to a schismatical conventicle, and was of no authority at all. The church of France receive the councils of Basil and Constance wholly and throughout: but the church of Rome reject both in part. So that they who place the infallibility in councils, will need another infallible judge to determine these disputes concerning the councils; which are truly general, and which not; and which are partly so, and which throughout; and what part of those that are throughout have been corrupted by heretics, if that can be called true throughout which is corrupted in any part. And when one council condemns another, which shall we believe? And if we must not believe every council that calls itself œcumenical, we can believe no other council against it,

for the same reason. The second council of Ephesus is generally condemned in your church ; yet it called itself œcumenical, and was as much so as any of the others. And what a thing is it to say, that a council is partly right and partly wrong? And who is judge of that? Is there any certainty in this, far less infallibility? And we must have an infallible method too to preserve the acts of these councils, that they be not adulterated, as Bellarmin says they have been; and they continue so to this day in the volumes of their councils. Why then are they not amended, and these suppositions and adulterated parts (these are Bellarmin's own words) struck out? But the several editions of their councils are in the hands of other churches, and therefore they can make no alteration, in them without being detected.

So that the scheme of the infallibility you place in your councils stands thus; the church of Rome makes herself the universal or Catholic church, insomuch that all who are not of her communion (which are by far the greatest part of the Christian churches in the world) are out of the pale of the Catholic church: and schismatics and heretics are no part of a Ca. tholic council: thus a small part of the Latin church (exclusive of the Greek and all other churches) is the whole Catholic church, and these little party councils, under the direction of the Pope, are universal and infallible!-But, as is shewn, the church of Rome has no right to the title of the Latin church itself, far less of the universal. And she has now but a small part of the Latin church left her. The Re

formed, with Russia, and the Greek church, will outnumber her in Europe, and she has no National church in her communion any where else.

L. But there are some of her communion in most countries.

G. Not so many as of the Jews, who by this are more universal than your church, and so more Catholic. And none of the scattered seminaries of Rome in other Christian churches can be said to represent those churches in a general council, more than two or three titular popish bishops in England could represent the church of England as it now stands. But, on the contrary, their living in a separate communion in other christian churches, shews those churches not to be of their communion; and therefore cannot be represented in any of their councils. And these calling themselves oecumenical, as the Roman empire did, shews only how little criticisms upon words will avail against plain matter of fact; which I have shewed to be the case as to those texts urged for the supremacy of St. Peter. And that if words would do it, there are more, nay, and facts too, for the Universal Supremacy of St. Paul, at least over all the Christian churches of the Gentiles, which are all now in the world.

L. But there must be an infallibility some where in the church, and if it be neither in pope nor council, or that as you say, there never was, nor well can be a general council, truly so called, that is, of all the churches in the world, where do you place the infallibility?

G. No where, my lord, nor can it be among men who are all fallible.

L. We trust not in men, as men, but assisted by the infallible spirit of God. And this he has promised shall never depart from his church, as he has said, Isa. lix. 21. My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever." And he has said, "that the Priests' lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts." Mal. ii. 7.

G. Read the next words, "but ye are departed out of the way ye have caused many to stumble at the law: ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord." The first is what they should or ought to have done, the second is what they did do, which was quite contrary.

And notwithstanding the promise made in the first text you quoted, yet "they were all gone out of the way, they were together become abominable, there was none that did good, no not one :-that all the world might become guilty before God," as well the church as the rest of the world. Rom. iii. 12, 19. And of the church it is said, "the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint: from the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises, and putrifying sores." Isa. i. 5, And God says, "mine heritage is unto me as a

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