"The author of the Traite des Conciles, and the others referred to here, confirm the doctrine of Mabillon.* And really is it to be expected that an ancient Irishman will surrender the faith and discipline of his ancestors, to a sycophant intrigue.

IV. That the second order always gave their Suffrages in Irish Synods.-Extracts from

the Irish annals.

1. There is yet extant in an ancient Cotton Manuscript, an epistle from the Presbytery of the Roman See, (Sede Vacante) to the Irish Clergy, the title as well as the whole tenour of which, as published most accurately in Usher's Sylloge, proves that the second order of the

"Les Clercs avoient une sorte d' inspection sur l' Eveque

"meme, etant temoins continuels de sa doctrine, et de ses "mœurs. S'il eut entrepris d'ein seigner, ou de faire quelque "chose contraire aux traditions Apostoliques, les anciens "Pretres, et les anciens Diacres ne l'eussent pas souffert. Ils "accordoient tous les differends, ils avoient la Souvraine dis" position de tous les tresors de l'Eglise." Traitè de l'etude des Conciles Paris 1724, p. 52. Constitut. Apostol. 1. 2, c. 28, 45, 46, I. 3, c. 20, 1. 6, c.29, 1. 8, c. 4, 27, 28, c. 12, 41, 42.

nion, those who had apostatized ?*.-I have elsewhere given the great Mabillon's opinion,

on the right of the second order, to vote definitively, on matters of faith and discipline in Synods. If all the Buonapartes in the world, had collected all the sycophant Bishops of France and Italy, to hold an obsequious Synod under their influence, they, all together, could never get over the irresistable evidence of these texts and authorities united.

# "Cypriano visum Apostolicam Sedem, tametsi Pastore "vacantem, in re tanti momenti consulere." Epist. 23, et 29° "Iis autem acceptis, Clerus Romanus, matura consulatione "habita, &c. Cypriani sententia gestisque confirmatis, de "cætero nihil ante creationem Episcopi Romani innovandum "decreverunt. (Apud Cypr. Ep. 30, 31,) eademque Romani "Cleri decreta per totum mundum missa esse, et in notitiam "Ecclesiis omnibus perlata Cyprianus asserit." Ep. 42 ad Anton. Baronius, ib. No. xiii. p. 264.

+ The fourth Council of Toledo assigns their proper place in Synods to the second order as well as to the first, on benches behind the Bishops.-The oldest edition excepts such Priests as the Metropolitan may wish to have near himself, who are to judge and to define as his counsel.---" Quos secum sessuros, "Metropolitanus elegerit, qui utique et cum eo judicare et “definire possent." Mabillon says on this passage---" Obser ❝vandus est hic locus de Suffragio Presbyterorum in Synodo "etiam Provinciali." Musæum Ital. t. 2, n. 3.

"The author of the Traitè des Conciles, and the others referred to here, confirm the doctrine' of Mabillon. And really is it to be expected that an ancient Irishman will surrender the faith and discipline of his ancestors, to a sycophant intrigue.

§ IV. That the second order always gave their Suffrages in Irish Synods.Extracts from the Irish annals.

1. There is yet extant in an ancient Cotton Manuscript, an epistle from the Presbytery of the Roman See, (Sede Vacante) to the Irish Clergy, the title as well as the whole tenour of which, as published most accurately in Usher's Sylloge, proves that the second order of the.

"Les Clercs avoient une sorte d' inspection sur l' Eveque meme, etant temoins continuels de sa doctrine, et de ses mœurs. S'il eut entrepris d'ein seigner, ou de faire quelque "chose contraire aux traditions Apostoliques, les anciens "Pretres, et les anciens Diacres ne l'eussent pas souffert. Ils "accordoient tous les differends, ils avoient la Souvraine dis

position de tous les tresors de l'Eglise." Traitè de l' etude des Conciles Paris 1724, p. 52. Constitut. Apostol. 1. 2, c. 28, 45, 46, 1. 3, c. 20, 1. 6, c.29, 1. 8, c. 4, 27, 28, c. 12, 41, 42.

Noetus cast out, as a broacher of new doctrines, by the counsel of the senior Presbyters of Ephesus, as related by Epiphanius?" They "cited him, says he, to give an account of his

faith, and they condemned both him and his "followers." A. D. 245. *-Does not Pope Siricius inform the Church of Milan in 385, that," when Jovinian and his followers were "detected by a judicial sentence of the Priests "of Rome-Sacerdotali judicio detecti―he held a Presbytery to examine their cause, (facto

igitur Presbyterio) and that there a sentence

passed against them by common consent?"

This was the er Cathedra decision of the

57 Priests subscribed with 72 Bishops; as in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, under the same Pope. Pope Felix held a council of 43 Bishops and 74 Priests. The council of Tarracon, 1200 years ago, enacts thus-" Let Letters be sent "by the Metropolitan to his brethren, that they bring "with them unto the Synod, not only some of the Presbyters "of the Cathedral Church, but also of each Diocese."

At the great Council of Lateran, under Innocent III, there were 492 Bishops, and of the second order above 800! Platina in Innoc. 3. Dupin says, " Etiam in Conciliis Provinci"arum sedisse legimus Presbyteros et cum Episcopis judicasse.”

De Antiq. Eccles. Discip. p. 249-250, Pairs 4to 1686.

Roman See, the only species of decision by which we can know the doctrine of any church; and really could the Roman Clergy who wrote to the Irish in 639, be ignorant of this?-Most certainly not. They well knew that in the most ancient councils, the second order attended, even in greater numbers than the first; in the council of Eliberis, which preceded that of Nice, A. D. 306, and was held to reform the discipline of the church, the Bishops were only 19, the Presbyters 26. *

Eusebius says that so many of the second order attended in the great council of Nice, that it would be tedious to mention them individually. Tillemont computes them 2048, and Beausobre agrees.||-Five hundred and twenty attended at the great council of Chalcedon, where the Bishops were only 356.§

Concil. Hisp. Cardinalis D' Aguir. t. 1, p. 241, 292. + See Columbanus, No. iii, p. 22.

Tillemont, t. vi, p. 915, Dupin ibid.

Beausobre's Hist. du Manich. t. 1, p. 529.

§ "Labbe, p. 833. Sandini's Life of of Leo the Great,

not. 5, p. 147."