is extinct; the
ultramontane theory alone has now life and vigour in the Roman Church. It
seems to absorb into itself all earnest and self-denying minds, while the
other is left to that treacherous conservatism which would use the Church
of Christ as a system of police, for the security of worldly interests.
What the ultramontane theory is, we see from Bellarmine. It proclaims that
the government of the Church is a monarchy, concentrating in one person all
the powers bestowed by Christ upon the Apostles. In this the student of
history is bound to declare that it stands in point-blank contradiction to
the decrees of General Councils, to the sentiments of the Fathers, and the
whole practice of the Church for the first six hundred years; for much
longer indeed than this, but this is enough. Well may Bossuet ask, "if the
infallible authority of the Roman Pontiff is of force by itself before the
consent of the Church,--to what purpose was it that Bishops should be
summoned from the farthest regions of the earth, at the cost of such
fatigues and expense, and Churches be deprived of their Pastors, if the
whole power resided in the Roman Pontiff? If what he believed or taught was
immediately the supreme and irrevocable law, why did he not himself
pronounce sentence? Or if he pronounced it, why are Bishops called together
and wearied out, to do again what is already done, and to pass a judgment
on the supreme judgment of the Church? Would not this be fruitless? But all
Christians have imbibed with their faith the conviction, that, in important
dissensions, the whole Church ought to be convoked and heard. All therefore
understand that the certain, deliberate, and complete declaration of the
truth is seated not in the Pope alone, but in the Church spread
everywhere."[162] "This too is certain, that when General Councils have
been holden, the sentence of the Roman Pontiff has generally preceded them;
for undoubtedly Celestine, Leo, Agatho, Gregory the Second, Adrian the
First, had pronounced sentence, when the third, fourth, sixth, seventh
Councils were held. What was desired therefore was, not a Council for the
Pontiff about to give judgment, but, after he had given judgment, the force
of a certain and insuperable authority."

In fact, on this theory, as we have seen above, St. Cyprian, St. Firmilian,
St. Hilary of Arles, the African Bishops in 426, the Fathers of Chalcedon
in 451, in passing their famous 28th Canon, the Fathers of