Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1817-10-07

az Ilta,lIGliity, ne endesvors 7" parry u
by saying the latter was at first true
ucumeuiral council, but after wards turn.
ed 10 schismatiea! conventicle, viz
there were some things in that council!
which he did not like, Now, is not this
going through all the degrees Of uneer-
taiuty They who place the intallibilIty
iu councils, will need another infallible
Judge to determine these disputes can
corning councils /; which are truly gene
raj, and which are not; which are partly
so, and which throughout; and what part
of those that ase throughout have been
corrupted BY heretics, if that can be call
ed true throughout which is corrupted in
any part. And when one council con.
demns another, which shall we believe /:
Is there any certainty here, far less infal-
libili;y j?
But allow the supposition Of those Wri-
tiers, that the couRcil TO be truly lawful
must be received by the whole church.
They must take with it the rule Of the
lawyers, qai sentit commodum senta ct
onas-benefit and convenience mus, So
together. And the inconvenience in this
case is, that they pull down with one
hand that iniallibility which they builtuP
with the other. For how can the council,
or pope, or both united, possess infalliblll-
ty, il the. church's non-reception Of it may
dissolve it ? lam sure If we're Ro-
man Catholic I should be for making the
pope umpire in this uproa,; for, who
could say more effectually to the winds
and waves, "be STILL" than he Of whom
We read this passage in the l.ateran
councl, taken from an Grafton delivered
before the council-the pope hath q po,cer
abOrs erery Po,cer in hearea or earth.
Another attribute Of true council is,
that it be rightly constituted and order
ed. "Councils may err" says st Clara,
q if they do not proceed eonciliariter."
Ruffinensis, in his prologue TO Luther and
Horantius, says, {" if thew proceed with
out carnal affections, ard with love to
the truth, then, and not otherwise, they
are gathered in Christ's name" Thus,
Bellarmine, pressed and bewildered BY
the authority Of the council Of Chalcedon
against the Pope's supremacy, says tba,
" a lawful council may err in those things
wherein it acts most lawfully" So say
Pet,us Soto ( "a and Pope Leo lin
epist. s4.1
The sum then, agreeably to these wri.
tiers, is this: iDfallibiIity is a gift, not
dispensed proniscuously, to pope OF
bishops. or councils, but as they behave
well !; that is " if they act with diligence
fidelity, sincere love to the truth, and a
pure conscience" Now, have these quail.
tiles distinguished the popes and bishops
which have constituted the councils Of
the Roman church ? He that reads
their own historians would think that the
name Of holiness was given by way Of an
tiplraSs, and that in mere pity they
were allowed the name because they did
not pretend to the thing. The papal
chair is called by them cuthsdra pestilen-
tiq, a pestilential chair. Genebrard,
though sworn vassal to the popes, con-
fesses that for one hundred aud fifty
years together the popes were cpostatici
nm ap0stoleS. apostates, not apostles
Platina, another aid-de camp says "all
the popes from Sylvester the second, e.
ven to Gregory tie seventh, (including
about is poPes) were masicians." They
may be indicated, indeed, frsm being
conjurers, for many Of them did not un-
derstand grammar. AS to the STATE Of
councils, take one testimony for all, from
one Who was an eminent part and mem.
Der Of them, Cardinal Julian, who, in
his epistIe to Eugenius 4. in the council
Of Basil, tells him that &C all the councils