siastical power itself cannot,
with any effect or working, compel bishops, especially if the bishops of
another province, or kingdom, or patriarchship, be to be convocated. For
because the church can work by her censures, and deprive them who refuse
of her communion, if they come not, yet they shall not therefore come to
the council if they contemn the censure; therefore that no man may be able
to resist, it is necessary that they be called by a coactive authority,
which can constrain them who gainstand, both with banishments and bodily
punishments, and compel the bishops, not only of one province, but also of
the whole kingdom or empire, to convene." 3. In the main and substantial
respects, the convocations of councils pertaineth to the ministers of the
church, that is, as councils are ecclesiastical meetings, for putting
order to ecclesiastical matters, they ought to be assembled by the
spiritual power of the ministers, whose part it is to espy and note all
the misorders and abuses in the church, which must be righted; but because
councils are such meetings as must have a certain place designed for them
in the dominions and territories of princes, needing further, for their
safe assembling, a certification of their princely protection; and,
finally, it being expedient for the better success of councils, that
Christian princes be present therein, either personal or by their
commissioners, that they may understand the councils, conclusions, and
decrees, and assenting unto the same, ratify and establish them by their
regal and royal authority, because of these circumstances it is, that the
consent and authority of Christian princes is, and ought to be, sought and
expected for the assembling of synods.

As for the right of presidency and moderation, we distinguish, with
Junius,(1054) two sorts of it, both which have place in councils, viz.,
the moderation of the ecclesiastical action, and the moderation of the
human order; and with him we say, that in councils, the whole
ecclesiastical action ought to be moderated by such a president as is
elected for the purpose; even as Hosius, bishop of Corduba, was chosen to
preside in the first council of Nice: which office agreeth not with
princes; for in the point of propounding rightly the state of questions
and things to be handled, and of containing the disputation in good order,
_certe praesidere debet persona ecclesiastica, in sacris literis erudita_,
saith the Archbishop of Sp