GENERAL COUNCILS.

            “I think it will evidently follow from this account that the determination of councils and decrees of synods, as to matters of faith, are of no manner of authority, and carry no obligation upon any Christian whatever. I will mention here one reason, which will be itself sufficient if all others were wanting; viz., that they have no power given them in any part of the gospel revelation to make these decisions in controverted points, and oblige others to subscribe to them; and that therefore the pretence to it is an usurpation of what belongs to the great God, who only hath and can have the right to prescribe to the conscience of men. But to let this pass, what one council can be fixed upon that will appear to be composed of such persons, as upon impartial examination can be allowed to be fit for the work of settling the faith, and determining all controversies relating to it? I mean in which the majority of the members may in charity be supposed to be disinterested, wise, learned, peaceable, and pious men? Will any man undertake to affirm this of the Council of Nice? Can any thing be more evident than that the members of that venerable assembly came, many of them, full of passion and resentment; and others of them were crafty and wicked; and others ignorant and weak? Did their meeting together in a synod immediately cure them of their desire for revenge, make the wicked virtuous, or the ignorant wise? If not, their joint decree as a synod could really be of no more weight than their private opinions, nor perhaps of so much; because it is well known that the great transactions of such an assembly are generally managed and conducted by a few; and that authority, persecution, prospect of interest, and other temporal motives, are commonly made use of to secure a majority. The second general council were plainly the creatures of the Emperor Theodosius, all of his party, and convened to do as he bid them. The third general council were the creatures of Cyril, who was their president, and the inveterate enemy of Nestorius, whom he condemned for heresy, and was himself condemned for rashness in this affair. The fourth met under the awe of the Emperor Marcian, managed their debates with noise and tumult; were formed into a majority by the intrigues of the Legates of Rome, and settled the faith by the opinions of Athanasius, Cyril, and others. I need not mention more; the farther they go the worse they will appear. As their decisions in matters of faith were arbitrary and unwarranted, and as the decisions themselves were generally owing to court practices, intriguing statesmen, the thirst for revenge, the management of a few crafty, interested bishops, to noise and tumult, the prospects and hopes of promotions and translations, and other like causes, the reverence paid them by Christians is truly surprising.”—Introd, Hist. Inquis.

            “All the world knows the dreadful cruelties committed in these unhappy centuries: they maintained sieges in their monasteries; they battled in their councils; they treated with the utmost cruelty all whom they but suspected to favour opinions, which too often proved to be such as nobody understood, not even those that defended them with the greatest zeal and obstinacy. “These,” says Barbeyrac, “are the great lights of the church! These are the holy Fathers whom we must take for men of true piety and knowledge!”

            “One council,” says another historian, “was summoned to annul what another had done, and all things were managed with that faction, strife, and contention, as if they laboured to quench the spirit of meekness and brotherly love, so often recommended in the gospel. Some were banished, some were imprisoned, and against others they proceeded with more severity, even to the loss of their lives.”—Echard, Rom. Hist.

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