222 COROLLARIES FROM THE PRECEDINGACCOUNT. tained a distinct administration from the western churches, under their own patriarchs and synods, not suffering him to interlope in prejudice to their liberty.' They, without his leave or notice, calledand celebrated synods; of which all the first great synods are instances. Their ordinations were not confirmed or touched by him; appeals were not, with public re- gard or allowance, thence made to him in causes great or little, but theydecided them among themselves. Theyquashed heresies spring- ing up among them; as the secondgeneral synod the Macedonians, Theophilus, the Origenists, &c. Little in any case had his worship to do with them, or they with him, beyond what was needful to maintain general communion and correspondence with him; which they commonly, as piety obliged, were willing to do. And sometimes, when a pert pope, upon some incidental advan- tage of differences risen among them, would be more busy than they deemed convenient in tampering with their affairs, they rapped his fingers. So Victor, so Stephanus, so Julius and Liberius of old, felt to their smart; so afterwards Damasus and other popes in the case of Flavianus, Innocent in the case of St Chrysostom, Felix and his successors in the case of Acacius, found little regard had to their interposais. So things proceeded, till at length a final rupture was made be- tween them, and they would not suffer him at all to meddle with their affairs. Before I proceed any farther, I shall briefly draw some corollaries from this historical account which I have given of the original and growth ofmetropolitical, primatical, and patriarchal jurisdiction: 1. Patriarchs are a human institution. 2. As they were erected by the power and prudence of men, so they may be dissolved by the same. 3. They were erected by the leave and confirmation of princes, and by the same they may be dejected, if great reason appear. 4. The patriarchate of the pope beyond his own province or diocese does not subsist upon any canon of a general synod. 5. He can, therefore, claim no such power, otherwise than upon his invasion or assumption. 6. The primates and metropolitans of the western church cannot be supposed otherwise thanby force, orout of fear, to have submitted to such an authority as he usurps. 7. It is not really a patriarchal power, like to that which was granted by the canons and princes, but another sort of power, which the pope exercises. 8. The most rightful patriarch, holding false doctrine, or imposing ' Vid. de Mara, lib. vii. cap. 4, 5.
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