of their church to any extent which was necessary to gain the aid of the Roman pontiff, at that time the most powerful ruler of the West. It would have been any thing but laudable in the Eastern church to have accepted the communion of the Roman see under such conditions. They would have inflicted a lasting injury on the church of Christ by doing so. They would have stimulated a spirit of aggression and usurpation still more. They could not conscientiously yield at the demand of the papal authority, which they and the church universal in every age, deemed inferior to that of general councils, those rights and liberties which general councils, approved by the universal church, had confirmed to them. In this respect, therefore, they are entirely free from blame, and consequently, even if any one maintains communion with the Roman see as essential, generally speaking; yet he must admit that these churches, being excluded from the external signs of that communion without their own fault, were not really, but only apparently, separated from the church.

The sentiments and mode of argument common in those ages, are exemplified in the conference at Constantinople, between Anselm, bishop of Harvelburg in Saxony (ambassador from the emperor Lothaire), and Nechites, archbishop of Nicomedia. On the primacy of the Roman church Nechites said, "We do not refuse her the first rank among her sisters the patriarchal churches, and we acknowledge that she presides in a

says,

Even the Romanist Milner "Nor is the vindication of the rights of an ancient church, at any time, a denial of the pope's general supremacy." End of Controversy, Prefatory Address, p. xii. M. Trevern,

bishop of Strasburg, in his Discussion Amicale (t. i. p. 231.), regards the exaggerated opinions of the Ultramontanes on the papal power, as the principal obstacle to the reunion of the Eastern and Western churches.

general council; but she separated from us by her pride, when, exceeding her power, she divided the empire, and the churches of the East and West. When she celebrates a council of Western bishops without us, they ought indeed to receive and observe the decrees made by their own advice and consent; but as for us, though not divided from the Roman church in faith, how could we receive its decrees made without our knowledge? For if the pope pretends to send us his orders, fulminating from his lofty throne; to judge and dispose of us and our churches without our advice, at his own discretion, and according to his good pleasure; what fraternity or what paternity is there in that? We should only be slaves, not children of the church. . . . The Roman church alone would enjoy liberty, and give laws to all others, without being subject to any herself. ... We do not find in any creed that we are bound to confess the Roman church in particular, but one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. This is what I say of the Roman church, which I revere with you, but I do not with you believe it a duty to follow her necessarily in every thing, nor that we ought to relinquish our rites, to receive her usage in the sacraments, without examining it by reason or the Scriptures," &c. The Greek prelate altogether argued in a very rational and convincing manner, but the Latin "interrupted this discourse, not being able to endure, he said, that the Greek archbishop should break out so against the Roman church." He could offer no reply, however, except to assure him that the most perfect reliance might be reposed in the religion, sincerity, equity, goodness, &c. of the Roman church.

Fleury, Hist. liv. 69. sect. 42. This conference took place in 1137.

The Eastern churches then were perfectly justified in refusing to accept the proffered communion of the Roman see, and of the churches which it swayed in the West; because the only terms on which that communion could be obtained, were unreasonable and subversive of their ecclesiastical rights and liberties, which had descended from the remotest ages. The Western churches were under the dominion of the Roman pontiff, partly from an exaggerated reverence for the apostolical see, partly from fear of its power; therefore it was impossible for them to renew their communion with the Eastern church; and though not free from blame, yet their condition exempts them from the charge of formal schism.

(7.) THE EASTERN CHURCHES ARE FREE FROM heresy.

It would have been absurd in the Western churches to have accused the Greeks of heresy, after the division in the time of Cerularius, for they taught no doctrines which they had not taught for ages before, when the East and West were in full communion. They had uniformly objected to the addition made to the Nicene Creed by the Western churches, and they had not on this account been deemed heretics. Yet this was the only point relating to faith which was in controversy between the East and West, as we learn from St. Anselm, from Gregory VII. of Rome", and from his successor Innocent III. The latter speaks twice of the Procession of the Holy Ghost, as the only point of difference between the churches: but this difference had been tolerated, for at least two centuries before the time

* Perpétuité de la Foi, t.i.p.176. h Ibid. Baronius, ad an. 1074. n. 54.

i Innocentii III. Epist. lib. vii. 154. See also Raynaldus,

an. 1205. n. 10.

of Cerularius, and the reason of this was, because the difference was rather verbal than real. That it was so, is maintained by the Master of the Sentences, by Thomas Aquinas, Bandinus, Bonaventure, Scotus, Grosteste, among the scholastics, and in more modern times by Bellarmine, Clichtovæus, Tolletus, Azorius, Fricius, Thomas à Jesu of the Roman communion, and by Field, Laud, and other Anglo-catholic theologians". Therefore both the Eastern and the Western churches are free from heresy in the question of the Procession.

It may be objected, that the Eastern churches are heretical, since they have not received the definitions of faith concerning the papal primacy, purgatory, &c. made in the several synods of Lyons, Florence, &c. but, as I shall elsewhere prove (in Part IV.), these synods did not possess sufficient authority to make absolutely binding decrees in controversies of faith; and if the Eastern churches were a part of the catholic church at all, their consent was absolutely necessary to give validity to those synods; for the Western churches were not evidently greater and more numerous than the Eastern, and therefore their acceptance of the above synods was not a sufficient proof of the approbation of the majority of the catholic church. This position is of so much importance that it deserves a more particular notice.

(8.) THERE IS NO REASON TO SUPPOSE THAT THE WESTERN CHURCH WAS GREATER THAN THE EASTERN, AT THE PERIOD OF THE SEPARATION, OR THAT THE NUMBER OF ITS BISHOPS EXCEEDED THOSE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH.

The ancient churches of the countries which were at this time divided between the Eastern and

" See Field, Of the Church, p. 50, &c. Laud, Conference, s. 9.

Western church, were about equally numerous on each side.

According to the "Notitia," compiled in the time of the patriarch Photius, and the emperor Leo Sapiens, about A.D. 891, compared with other accounts collected by Bingham, the Asiatic bishopricks under the patriarchate of Constantinople, including the province of Isauria, taken from the patriarchate of Antioch, were in number 432; the European bishopricks in Illyricum, Dacia, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, &c. were 160; those under the patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem were 240; under the patriarch of Alexandria, 108; in Cyprus, 15; making a total of 955, besides the dioceses in Armenia, Assyria, Chaldea, and other dominions of the Persians, in which alone twenty-four bishops suffered martyrdom about the same time; and among the Homerites under the archbishop of Tephra, the Indians, and the Saracens, who had probably a bishop in each tribe. It will not be unreasonable to calculate, that there might be seventy bishops in these different barbarous nations beyond the Roman empire; so that we may state the whole number of the Eastern dioceses at upwards of 1020. Let us now turn to the Western church. In Africa there were 466 bishoprics, in the time of St. Augustine; in Italy, Sicily, and the adjoining isles, 293; in Spain, 76; in Gaul and Germany, to the Rhine, 122; in Britain and Ireland, perhaps nearly 70; making also a total of upwards of 1020 sees. Such was the ancient state of the Eastern and Western churches, as nearly as possible equal in numbers. In fact it is impossible to determine which was the more numerous or great.

But it will be alleged, that many of these ancient Eastern bishopricks had been lost before the eleventh