the Holy Ghost, approves certain doctors, receiving their doctrine as true, it necessarily follows that the doctrine of such (writers), delivered by way of assertion, and never otherwise retracted, is true and ought to be held by all the faithful with firm belief, in so far as it is received by the Universal Church; otherwise, the Universal Church would appear to have erred in approving and accepting their doctrine as true, which however was not true.'[1]
And Stapleton lays down, 'Bishops … when they treat of the Scripture as doctors, have not this certain and infallible authority of which we are speaking: until their treatises, approved by sacred authority, are commended by the Church as Catholic and certainly orthodox interpretation, which Gelasius first did,' &c.[2]
I will give one more example, as it is eminently in point.
The Church has approved in a special manner the works of St. Augustine as containing the true doctrines of grace against the Pelagian and semi-Pelagian heresies.
In this particular, his works have been declared to be orthodox by St. Innocent I., St. Zosimus, St. Boniface I., St. Celestine, St. Hormisdas, St. Felix IV., and Boniface II. For that reason Clement XI. justly condemned the book of Launoy called 'Véritable tradition de l'Eglise sur la Prédestination et la Grâce,' &c., as 'at least impious and blasphemous, and injurious to St. Augustine, the shining light and chief
