§ III. Canonical Restraints on the abuse of Episcopal power. Bishops to be freely elected -Priests to vote judicially in Synods-Not to be deprived without a trial. 1. In my former numbers I have adduced many Canons of the most venerable Councils, forbidding Bishops to name their own successors. The foreign Vicars however alledge precedents of a contrary practice, from the conduct of S. Augustin, and S. Francis of Sales.-Alas!-Imitate the Saints!-Ay trulybut not in what they themselves acknowledge to have done amiss!-S. Augustin confessed his fault in having done that which was forbidden by the Council of Nice.* Qui secutus es errantem, sequere pænitentem.” If some few exceptions to general rules, are to be alledged as reasons for violating the laws of General Councils, there is an end of all law. If a Bishop is unfit to preside, let him resign on a pension, and let there be a new election.— *See Columbanus, No. I, p. 42, No. IV, p. 31, &c. Qui est plus obligè a observer les Canons que "I' Eveque? says the learned Duguet, qui les "observerà s'il ne les observe pas ?" ” If precedents are to be laws, there are precedents for Simony, for unjust Censures, and for Waterford and Jamestown excommunications! S. Augustin of Canterbury named his own Successor.-Ay, but Bede alledges a strong case as his Apology, "lest upon his death, the state of "the Church, as yet so unsettled, should begin "to faulter."-Bede therefore knew that he had violated the Laws of the Church. The state of the infant Church of England, attacked on all sides by Pagans, was so unsettled that it must have failed.-Is that the state of the Church of Ireland? Will any one of the Bishops who have, by private correspondence with Cardinal Antonelli or Gerdil, named their own Successors, pretend that their Churches would have failed if they had not done so? • Traité des devoirs d' un Eveque. + This translation cannot be objected to. It is Stephens's London 1723, book 2. c. 4, P 124. Could they not have resigned on a pension if they were superannuated, or invalides, and called their Clergy to a Canonical election? When Charlemegne requested of the Patriarch of Aquileia, then on his death bed, to name his successor.-"No," said he, I will not "add that to my sins."*-When S. Boniface, Apostle of Germany, asked Pope Zachary's leave to name his own Successor "ut sibi liceret "eligere et consecrare successorem.”—The Pope replied that he could not consent, because it would be a violation of the Canons. " Quia "Ecclesiastica Regulæ et institutis Patrum repugnaret."-S. Augustin quotes a Canon of the first Nicene which forbids two Bishops in one Diocese.-The same Canon is quoted by Pope Innocent I. by Baronius, and by Labbe. Councils, t. 2, p. 74. *Monachus S. Gallensis in Vita Caroli. M. 1. 2, c. 27. + Concil. Gall. t. 2, p. 530, and again p. 574. Ep. 110, and again Ep. 118. § Annal. an. 395, n. 31, 32. See it also in Sozomen, 1. 8, c. 26. "Non nisi electione, Episcopos suffectos in mortuorum "locum certissimum est, idque in sequenti capite mon 2. Petavius proves from a collation of the Fathers of every age, as well as from the Canons of General, and of Provincial, Councils universally received, that Bishops must be elected by the Clergy of each Vacant See,' coram facie Ecclesie, with unfolded doors, in the presence of all who choose to attend. He adds, that the decrees for the maintenance of this discipline are innumerable, "Innumera "sunt hujusmodi decreta de eligendis Episco"pis, suffragante et subscribente Clero, consen"tiente populo,"* and S. Cyprian maintains professedly that this Discipline is of Apostolical institution."† "strabitur," says one of the most learned men the Christian world ever produced, Petavius De Eccl. Hier. 1. 1, c. 12, Paris 1644, t. 3, p. 719.-" Negamus, continues he, vel duos "istos Romanos Pontifices Soterem et Elutherium, vel alios quoscunque tam Romæ, quam in aliis Ecclesiis Epicopos alio " modo quam electione creatos esse." ib. and again c. 13, p. 721. Are the Irish Bishops more learned than Petavius ? Let Canonical elections be restored, and the second order be reinstated in their Synodical rights, and then we may talk of Synods. Otherwise, Synods may be Gunpowder Plots. * Ibid. p. 722. + His 68th Letter is professedly on this subject, "hunc 3. I know it has been asserted, and what is it that may not be asserted, that the 4th and 6th Canons of Nice, the 12th of Laodicea, and the 19th of Antioch ordain that Bishops shall be elected by the Provincial Bishops, making no mention of the Clergy of the Vacant See. But let these Canons be closely examined, let them be compared with the discipline of the Eastern and Western Churches, at the time, and after the time they were enacted, and it will be found most clearly, most decidedly, that those Councils never meant that the ancient form of election by the Clergy of the Vacant See, should be disturbed; they advert only to the interference of the Provincial Bishops, who used to attend at the elections; stating how far it was allowed to them to intermeddle, particularly in the election of a Metropolitan, at which the Senior Bishop of the Province had an undoubted right to preside. They are silent as to morem antiquissimum fuisse testatur Cyprianus, ac de tra"ditione Divina et Apostolica." Ibid. Was Petavius a heretick? Was S. Cyprian? |