prudence, and attention to the just criteria or rules for the discernment of spirits. Nor can any private revelations ever be of the same weight and certainty with those that are public, which were made to the prophets, to be by them promulgated to the Church, and confirmed to men by the sanction of miracles and the authority of the Church.
The learned divine, John de Torrecremata, afterwards cardinal, by the order of the council of Basil examined the book of St. Bridget’s revelations, and approved it as profitable for the instruction of the faithful; which approbation was admitted by the council as competent and sufficient. It, however, amounts to no more than a declaration that the doctrine contained in that book is conformable to the orthodox faith, and the revelations piously credible upon an historical probability. The learned Cardinal Lambertini, afterwards Pope Benedict XIV., writes upon this subject as follows: “The approbation of such revelations is no more than a permission, that, after a mature examination, they may be published for the profit of the faithful. Though an as-
