172 BARD WORK FOR ONE DECREPIT OLD MAN. laws to the different humours and fashions of so many nations? Shall a decrepit old man, in the decay of his age, parts, vigour, such as popes usually are, undertake this? May we not say to him, as Jethro did to Moses, Ultra vires tuas est negotium; " The thing thou doest is not good; thou wilt surely wear away, both thou and this people that is with thee; for this thing is too heavy for thee: thou art not able to perform it thyself alone," Exod. xviii. 17, 18. If the care of a small diocese has made the most able and indus- trious bishops, who had a conscience and sense of their duty, to groan under its weight, how insupportable must such a charge be! The care of his own particular church, if he would act the part of a bishop indeed, would sufficiently take up the pope; especially in some times, when, as Pope Alexander says, Ut intestina nostrce specialis ecclesice negotia vix possemus ventilare, nedum longinqua adplenum extricare; " Scarcely can we sift the internal affairs of ourown particular church, much less fullyunravel those at a distance." If it be said that St Paul testifies of himself that he had "a care of all the churches" incumbent on him (2 Cor. xi. 28), I answer, that he (and other apostles had the like), questionless, had a pious solicitude for the welfare of all Christians, especially of the churches which he had founded, being vigilant for occasions to edify them. But what is this to bearing the charge of a standing government over all the churches diffused through the world? That care of a few churches then was burdensome to him: what is the charge of so many now to one seldom endowed with such apostolical graces and gifts as St Paul was? Howweak must the influence of such an authority be upon the circumferential parts of its oecumenical sphere! How must the outward branches of the churches faint and fade for want of sap from the root of discipline, which must be conveyed through so many obstructions to such a distance! How discomposed must things be in each country for want of seasonable resolution, banging in suspense till information travel to Rome, and determination come back thence!' How difficult, how impossible will it be for him there to receive faithful information or competent testimony, whereupon to ground just decisions of causes! I P. Alex. II., Epist. ad Ger. Rhem. Bin., p. 284. 9 Tanta me occupationum onera deprimunt, ut ad superna animus nullatenus eriga- tur, &c. Greg. L, lib. i., Ep. 7, 25, 5. "Such a weight of employment presses me down, that my mind can by no means be raised to things above." Si administratio illius temporis mare fuit, quidde praesenti papatu dicendum erit ? Caly. Inst. iv. cap. vii. 22. "If the ordering of affairs in those times was aboundless sea, what shall we say of the present papacy?" [Calvin refers, in these words, to Gregory's complaint, that he was " so tossed by the tempests of a tumultuous life that he might say, ' I am come into the depths of the sea.' "En.]
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