But if the Scripture, instead of being totally silent on the subject, had plainly and categorically declared, that general councils are infallible, we should only be involved in fresh perplexities: for the question would immediately arise, _what is a general council_? How do we know a spurious from a genuine council? Councils have been assembled by opposite parties on purpose to give opposite decrees; and how shall we distinguish the fallible and heretical, from the orthodox and infallible assembly? This vital question cannot be determined by the numbers present, or the portion of the Christian world represented by them. The orthodox Athanasius was condemned successively by councils representing the Eastern and the Western Church. Various councils condemned by the Church of Rome for heresy, were as numerously and respectably attended, as more orthodox conventions. The Council of Milan consisted of 300 Bishops. At Ariminum not less than 400 Bishops were assembled. The Council of Ephesus included 10 Metropolitans and 130 Bishops. The Council of Constantinople included 338 Bishops. And when the rival Councils of Sardica and Philippopolis fulminated mutual anathemas, the latter, which was heretical, consisted of 94 Bishops, while their orthodox opponents amounted only to 76. As most of these councils were convened by imperial authority; represented large portions of Christendom; and included men of the greatest learning and ability, there seems nothing to distinguish them from other synods, which are acknowledged to be general and infallible—nothing, if we except the sanction of the Roman Pontiff. Here we are informed by our pertinacious disputant, that the papal sanction is commonly regarded in the Church of Rome, as the essential distinction between a mere provincial synod, and a general council; that the decrees of an alleged general council, not ratified by the Pope, are not infallible; while the decrees of any council, after that ratification, must be looked upon as infallibly determined.