Secondly, it is certain that the illustrious Bishop of Meaux has only escaped an explicit censure for his part in the four Propositions of 1682, through the benign and paternal forbearance of the Holy See. Benedict XIV., in a letter to the Grand Inquisitor in Spain, on the subject of the works of Cardinal Henry Norris, adds: 'No doubt a work will be known to you, printed and published not many years ago, which, though it bears no author's name, all men well know to be by Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, which he had written at the command of Louis XIV., King of France, but left in manuscript in certain libraries. The whole work is taken up with asserting the Propositions affirmed by the Gallican clergy in the Assembly of 1682. It is difficult, indeed, to find any other work equally opposed to the doctrine, which is received everywhere out of France, concerning the infallibility of the Supreme Pontiff, when defining ex cathedrâ, his superiority over Œcumenical Councils, his indirect power, if the high interests of religion and the Church require, over the supreme power of temporal princes. In the time of Clement XII. of happy memory, our immediate predecessor, there was serious consideration of proscribing the work; and at length it was decided to refrain from proscribing it, not only on account of
horum factam in synodo tot vitiis affectam adoptionem, velut temerariam, scandalosam, ac prsesertim, post edita prædecessorum nostrorum decreta, huic Apostolicæ Sedi summopere injuriosam, reprobare ac daranare.'—Const. Pii VI. Auctorem Fidei, s. lxxxv.
