PROLEGOMENA. U, 



it is in the Pope, and regulated by the councils of 

 the church, harmonises these various propensities, 

 and prevents their deg-enerating into the vices of 

 idiocrasy, by regulating, as it were, the bent of 

 each individual genius, according to the joint 

 wisdom of all, guided by a rule of conduct which 

 has God for its author. Perfection, therefore, 

 like secular life, may be practised under a variety 

 of rules, provided only that every rule be ap- 

 proved by the head of the church, guided by her 

 councils, which, as I have already shown, con- 

 stitute the best criterion of truth that the nature 

 of man is capable of affording. And how strikingly 

 will the whole history of Christianity, if studied 

 by an unbiassed mind, prove the sound policy of 

 this arrangement. How strictly conformable to 

 all we see of partial imperfection is it, to say that 

 no individual mind can be supposed so perfect in 

 all its powers, as to preclude partial imperfections 

 of judgment ; and consequently how excellent 

 appears that contrivance by which our pious 

 ancestors, in the convocation of councils, erected 

 a standard whereby truth should be tried, com- 

 posed of a pluraUty of individuals, each ex- 

 celling in some particular perfection, and all 

 submitting their common verdict to the approval 

 of a centre of unity in the Pope, whom the ex- 

 perience of ages has proved to have been guided 

 in the consistency of the pontifical decisions, by the 



