Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/169

compared with his valuation of the Papacy is almost contemptuous. Councils are, in his view, periodical or intermittent exhibitions of sovereignty. They are extremely rare, purely accidental, without any regularity of recurrence; easier to assemble in primitive days when the extent of Christendom was comparatively small. But in modern times an Ecumenical Council is a mere chimera. It would take five or six years to arrange. If the objection is made, Why were all these Councils held if the decision of the Pope sufficed? De Maistre adopts for his reply the following—"Don't ask me; ask the Greek Emperors, who would have these Councils assembled, and who convoked them and demanded the consent of the Popes, and raised all this useless fracas in the Church." De Maistre goes further still. Quoting the opinion of Hume on the Council of Trent, that "it is the only General Council which has been held in an age truly learned and inquisitive," and "that no one expects to see another General Council until the decay of learning and the progress of ignorance shall again fit mankind for these great impostures"; he calmly observes that while in its spirit this is a "reflexion brutale," yet in its substance it is worthy of consideration. Hume is right to this extent: that "the more the world becomes enlightened the less it will think of holding a General Council." The world, he adds, has become too great for General Councils, which appear better adapted for the youth of Christianity. He admits that a Council may, indeed, be serviceable, and that perhaps the Council of Trent did what only a Council could do. But he is so exceedingly jealous of its possible interference with the absolute sovereignty of the Pope that he can find no more than this in its favour; except to conclude this portion of his remarks with a curiously incongruous protestation of