FOURTH PAPAL ASSUMPTION LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY. 271 man (no wiser nor bettercommonly thanothers) should be preferred before the common agreement of his brethren, being of the same office and order with him, so that he should be able to overthrow and frustrate the result of their meetings and consultations, when it did not square to his conceit or interest, especially seeing there is not the least appearance of any right he has to sucha privilege, grounded in holy Scripture, tradition, or custom ; for, seeing that Scripture has not a syllable about general synods, seeing that no rule about them is extant in any of the first fathers till after three hundredyears, seeing there was not one such council celebrated till after that time, seeing in none of the first general synods any such canon was framed in favour of that bishop, what ground of right could the pope have to prescribe unto them or thwart their proceed- ings? Far more reason there is, in conformity to all former rules and practice, that he should yield to all his brethren, than that all his brethren should submit to him: and this we see to have been the judgment of the church, declared by its practice in the cases before touched. IV. It is, indeed, a proper endowment of an absolute sovereignty, immediately and immutably constituted by God, with no terms or rules limiting it, that its will, declared in way of precept or proclama- tions, concerning the sanction of laws, the abrogation of them, the dispensation with them, should be observed. This privilege, therefore, in a high strain the pope challenges to himself, asserting to his decrees and sentences the force and obliga- tion of laws; so that the body of that canon law, whereby he pre- tends to govern the church, in greatest part consists of papal edicts or decretal epistles, imitating the rescripts of emperors, and bearing the same force. In Gratian we have these aphorisms from popes concerning this their privilege: "No person ought to have either the will or the power to trans- gress the precepts of the apostolic see."' "Those things which have at several times been written by the apostolic see, for the catholic faith, for sound doctrine, for the various and manifold exigencies of the church, and the manners of the faithful, how much rather ought they to be preferred in all honour, and by all men, upon all occasions whatsoever, to be reve- rentl' received ! "a Nulli fas est vel vellsvel posse transgredi apostolicse sedispiæcepta. P. Greg. IV., Dist. xix. cap. 5. 2 - (panto potius qua ipsa (sedes apostolica) pro catholica fide, profanis (1. pro sanis) dogmatibus, pro variis et multifariis ecclesim necessitatibus, et fidelium moribus, diverso tempore scripsit, omni debent honore prteferri, et ab omnibus prorsus in qui- buslibet opportunitatibus discretion vel dispensation magistra reverenter assumi! P. Nie. L, Ep., Dist. xix. cap. 1.
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