The apology of the Church of England, and an epistle to one Seignior Scipio…

18. SO it was decreed in the Nicene Council, that twice in the year, and in a Carthaginian Council, that at least once in a year Meetings of the Bishops should be celebrated in every Province, which the Council of Chalcedon saith was done, that if any Errors or Abuses arose any where, they might presently and upon the spot be extinguished. And so when Secundus and Paladius rejected the Council of Aquileia, because it was not a Public and General Council, St. Ambrose Bishop of Milan ⟨p. 129⟩replied, that it ought not to seem new or strange, if the Bishops of the West assembled in Provincial Conventions or Synods; for it had been not seldom done by the Western Bishops before, and was very frequently by the Greek Bishops. So Charles the Great, Emperor of Germany, held a Provincial Council in Germany, for the taking away Images out of the Church against the second Nicene Council, which had determined for them; nor is this thing new and unheard of in England, for we have heretofore had many Provincial Synods, and have governed our Church by our own domestic Laws, without the Interposition of the Popes of Rome, or any other foreign Bishops or Churches. What need is there of many words? Certainly those greatest and fullest Councils, of which these Men so often Glory, if they be compared with all the Churches which throughout the World own and confess the Name of Christ, what I pray can they seem to be, more than some Private Councils of the Bishops, and a sort of Great Provincial Synods? For tho perhaps Italy, France, Spain, England, Germany, Denmark and Scotland should meet: yet, Asia, Greece, Armenia, Persia, Media, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India and Mauritania, in all which places there are many Christians and Bishops would yet be absent: And how could such a Council as this ever be reputed a General Council by any understanding Man? And when so many and such considerable parts of the World are absent, how can they pretend to have the Consent of the whole World? Or what kind of Council was the last at Trent, or how could it in any sense ⟨p. 130⟩be said to be General, when only Forty Bishops met there, out of all the Christian Kingdoms in Europe; and some of them too were so very Eloquent, that it had been fit to send them to the Grammar Schools again; and so Learned, that they had never in all their Lives read the Bible over.

18. SO it was decreed in the Nicene Council, that twice in the year, and in a Carthagenian Council, that at least once in a year Meetings of the Bishops should be celebrated in every Province, which the Council of Chalcedon saith was done, that if any Errors or Abuses arose any where, they might presently and upon the spot be extinguished. And so when Secundus and Paladius rejected the Council of Aquileja, because it was not a Publick and General Council, St. Ambrose Bishop of Milan