One more quotation shall be the last. In the Session of the Assembly on the 24th November, 1682, the Promotor Chéron, after saying that Louis XIV. surpassed David in gentleness, Solomon in wisdom, Constantine in religion, Alexander in courage, all the Cæsars and all kings on earth in power, applied to him this Byzantine text; which I do not translate, but leave as I find it. 'In exercitu plus quam rex, in acie plus quam miles, in regno plus quam imperator, in disciplina civili plus quam prætor, in consistorio plus quam judex, in Ecclesia plus quam sacerdos.'[1]
You will remember that in the former Pastoral I only said that Gallicanism was a Royal Theology, and no part of the Catholic tradition of the glorious Church of France. I here give the first proof of my assertion; and shall be ready, if need be, to add more hereafter.
In the Pastoral on the Centenary I recited the prompt and repeated censures of the acts of the Assembly by Innocent XI., April 11, 1682; Alexander VIII. in 1688 and in 1691; the retractation, by the French Bishops and by the King, of the Acts of 1682; and finally, the condemnation of the insertion of the Four Articles in the Synod of Pistoia by Pius VI., in the Bull 'Auctorem Fidei.' To this, much might be added; but as one Pontifical condemnation is enough for those with whom we are now dealing, I forbear to add more.
Such, then, is the present state and aspect of this question. We have traced it, first, through its first
- ↑ Ibid. p. 301.
