"resistance, lest I proceed to other censures, "which it is in my power to inflict."

13. I always believed that Priests are obliged "to give a reason for the faith that is in them;" that he who calls for evidence must, before he submits to that evidence, examine its value, canvas its credibility, and judge of its conclusiveness. I thought that one of the most effectual methods for restraining new opinions in religion, is to recal them to the only one rule of Catholic faith -"Divine Revelation, proposed as such by the universal Church ;" and that he who pretends to erect himself into a rule of faith, demanding blind assent to any doctrine he proposes, or to any censure he inflicts, is an enemy not only to the humility of the lamb of God, but also to the fundamental doctrines of revelation. I little imagined, that, amid the lights of the Gallican, of the Saxon, and of the Irish Churches, which blaze around us, any Bishop would inculcate blind obedience, instead of the rationabile obsequium of St. Paul, or that he would exclude from the Synods of the Christian world, the second order of the Priesthood, deny them the right of discussion, even in matters relating to their own temporal affairs, and render his spi

ritual power a temporal sword, whose hilt is somewhere in France, and whose point lunges at every Catholic in the British islands !

SECT. II. That Bishops cannot appoint their own Successors, nor degrade or suspend Priests without a Canonical judgment.

1. At my ordination, I vowed canonical obedience, and that obedience I never have violated, and, with the blessing of God, I never will.But am I, therefore, to submit to the most daring violations of the canons ?-to the bequeathing of dioceses?-to the uncanonical, perhaps, the simoniacal appointment of favourites to episcopal Sees ?-to the vilifying of the second order of the Priesthood?-to the excluding and absolute monarchy principles now introduced into the Church? Why has not Dr. P.'s zeal been displayed in combating those abuses? Why?-because he has been uncanonically appointed himself!-Inquire-Inquire-Have I

*The most important temporal concerns of the second order of the Irish clergy, have been discussed and determined, without their knowledge, in the Secret Synod of Dublin in 1799, as in Columbanus's 1st Letter, Appendix, No. 1.

not elsewhere shown, that not even the Pope can nominate his own successor?*

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*Pope Pius IVth's Bull enjoins that the ancient Canons shall be strictly adhered to in the elections of Popes; that no Pope shall, in any case whatsoever, even though all the Cardinals should unite in a petition to that purpose, elect his own successor, or even a coadjutor cum spe successionis. "Redintegrata lege lata a Bonifacio 2do (see Columbanus, No. 1, pag. 41), decrevit Romanum Pontificem non posse sibi successorem eligere, neque adjutorem sibi adsciscere postea suċ"cessurum in locum suum, quamvis id Cardinales consentirent." Raynaldus ad ann. 1561, § 9. Compare the original Bull (Constit. 63, Pii IV.) which expressly states, that the Pope only renews the ancient decrees of the Church, and of the Popes Boniface II. a. D. 531, Alexander III. Gregory X. Clement V. Clement VI. Julius II. which had fallen into disuse.

Sandini observes: "Vides ne Pontifici quidem Romano, "nedum Episcopis, licere designare successorem suum." Vita Bonifacii 2di, tom. i. p. 178, not. 1. He repeats the same doctrine, tom. ii. p. 653, Diana agrees, part 10, tract 5, also Fagnani, part 2, primi Decretal. c. Accepimus de pactis, No. 16. All these were Roman court theologians. So that our Bishops and Vicars have exceeded even the abuses of the court of Rome. There are actually three Archbishops of Dublin; and though the Protestant Archbishop labours under a grievous infirmity, such delicacy however has been observed in this point, to our shame be it said, that no coadjutor has yet been appointed to him, while Catholic Cork, Catholic Fernes, London district, &c. have violated every principle of the ancient discipline of the Church!-And, good reader, yet we are not to mention abuses, lest we incur excommunication!

2. I have given the Nicene Canon on this subject, from the ancient MS, copy of the Acts of that Council, collected by Dionysius Exiguus, which is preserved in the Bodleian Library, inter codices Justellianos Mus. 220, 221, 222, Canon liii. De ordinandis Episcopis, as in my first letter, p. 40, where it will be found to correspond with the French copies published by Labbe.* Pope Boniface II. indeed elected his own successor, in a packed Roman Synod of the year 531; but a subsequent Roman Synod compelled him to do penance for so daring a violation of the Canons, He tore in pieces the decree by which he obtained the signatures of the clergy to that scandalous election, and this he did in the presence of the clergy and of the people of Rome. He burned it before St. Peter's confessional; and he threw himself on the forgiveness of the christian world by a public recantation.† Previously to the

* The third Lateran Council is so scrupulous on the subject of elections, as to enjoin that no Papal election shall be deemed valid, unless carried by a majority of the free suffrages of twothirds of the Cardinals. Our Bishops, however, have piously monopolized all elections to themselves!

+"Bonifacius II. coacta Romæ Synodo anno 531, succes"sorem sibi, pessimo exemplo, designavit Vigilium Diaconum, ❝clero consensum suum chirographis et jure jurando præbente et firmante. Sed postmodum altera Synodo congregata,

Pontificate of Boniface, Pope Symmachus convened a Roman Synod in 499, at which all the Bishops of Italy assembled, to deliberate how the Nicene Canon, already mentioned, should be enforced, with relation to the Holy See; and then and there it was determined, that if, during the Pope's life-time, any Clergyman should promise his suffrage, either in writing or by word of mouth, to any man, for a future election, or should hold any private conventicle for the purpose of designating a future successor, or even of deliberating on that subject, he should be degraded and excommunicated; and that he only should succeed who was fairly elected, sede vacante, by the free suffrage of all the clergy of Rome, or by a majority of voices, canonically, that is freely, collected and obtained.* Some of

"pœnitendum et Canonibus contrarium decretum rescidit, et "ante confessionem St. Petri, præsentibus clero et senatu "flammis tradidit, ut testatur Anastasius Bibliothecarius in "ejus vita. Ambitione Vigilii et consilio ad tam insolitum "facinus impulsum Bonifacium, ex Silverio Papa colligeretur, "in decreto anathematis adversus Vigilium, si genuinum esset." Natalis Alexandri Hist. Eccl. fol. Paris, 1699, t. v. p. 375.

* "Symmachus, anno Christi 499, Pontificatus sui I. Italiæ "Episcopos Romam ad Synodum convocavit, quæ kalendis "Martii, ipso præside, in Basilica St. Petri celebrata est, ut "de tollendo ambitu in comitiis Pontificiis, deque præcludenda