1682, as it is at this moment, on the eve of the first Council of the Vatican.
In 1579 the clergy of France, assembled at Melun, decreed as follows:—
Bishops and their vicars, to whom this charge is committed, shall take care that in all synods, diocesan and provincial, all and every one, both clerics and laymen, shall embrace, and with open profession pronounce that faith which the Holy Roman Church, the teacher, pillar, and ground of the truth, professes and cherishes. For with this Church, by reason of its [principality] primacy, it is necessary that all Churches agree.'[1]
In 1625 a document was drawn up by the Assembly under the title of 'Address of the Assembly-General of the Clergy of France to the Archbishops and Bishops of the Kingdom.' It was never published, for some reason not clearly known. It is given in the 'Procès-Verbaux,' printed by order of the Assembly in 1762–5. In the 157th article it runs as follows:—'The bishops are exhorted to honour the Holy Apostolic See, and the Church of Rome, the Mother of the Churches, founded in the infallible promise of God, in the blood of the Apostles and Martyrs. … They will respect also our Holy Father the Pope, visible Head of the Church universal, Vicar of God on earth, Bishop of Bishops and Patriarch of Patriarchs, in a word, the Successor of S. Peter; with whom the Apostolate and the Episcopate have had their beginning, and on whom Jesus Christ has founded the
- ↑ Roskovány, ibid. tom. ii. p. 105.
