INTRODUCTION. 33 says Bellarmine. The Cardinal of Lorraine, on thecontrary, " But I," says he, " cannot deny but that I am a Frenchman, and bred up in the church of Paris, which teaches that the Roman pontiff is sub- ject to a council, and theywho teach the contrary are there branded as heretics."' There are those who affirm the pope, if he undertake points of faith without assistance of a general synod, may teach heresy, (which opinion, as Bellarmine thought, Both " closely border on heresy,"') and those who conceive that popes may be, and have been, heretics; whence Christians sometimes are not obliged to admit their doctrine or observe their pleasure. There are those who maintain the pope, ne less than other bishops, subject to the canons, or bound to observe the constitutions of the church; that he may not infringe them, or overrule against them, or dispense with them; and that to him attempting to do soobedience is not due. There are those who maintain that the pope cannot subvert or violate the rights and liberties of particular churches, settled in them agreeably to the ancient canons of the church universal. There are those who assert to general councils a power of reform- ing the church, without or against the pope's consent. There are those who, as Bellarmine tells us, allow the pope to be no more in the ecclesiastical republic than as the Duke of Venice in his senate, or as the general of an order in his congregation; and that he therefore has but a very limited and subordinatepower.' There are, consequently, those who. conceive the pope notoriously erring, or misdemeaning himself, to the prejudice of the Christian state, may be called to an account, may be judged, may be corrected, may be discarded bya general synod.. Such notions have manifestly prevailed in a good part of the Roman communion, and are maintained by most divines in the French church; and they may be supposed everywhere common where there is any liberty of judgment, or where the inquisition does not reign. There have been seasons wherein they have so prevailed as to have been defined for catholic truths in great synods, and by them to have been applied to practice. For, In the first great synod of Pisa it was declared that councils may "reform the church sufficiently, both in head and members;"4 and Ego vero negare non possum quin Gallus aim, et Parisiensis ecclesiEe alumnus, in quaRom. pontificem subesse concilio tenetur, et qui docent ibi contrarium, ii tanquam haretici notantur.Card. Loth., apud Laun., Ep. i. 1. 2 QuEe sententia videtur omnino erronea et hoeresi proxima.Bell., iv. 2. S Bell. de Conc., ii. 14. 4 Anno 1409; Conc. Pis., Bess. xvi., 'vii. VOL.L 3
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