obedience to the Roman Pontiff, successor of the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ." This is distinct and unambiguous: just as much so is St. Augustin's "orbis terrarum." "For this the whole world says to them (the Donatists,) an argument most briefly stated, but most powerful by its truth. The case is, the African Bishops had a contest between themselves; if they could not arrange between themselves the dissension which had arisen, so that the wrong side should either be reduced to concord, or deprived, and they who had the good cause remain in the communion of the whole world through the bond of unity, there was certainly this resource left, that the Bishops beyond the sea, where the largest part of the Catholic Church is spread, should judge concerning the dissensions of their African colleagues,"[50] &c. No doubt the Bishop of Rome was one, and the most eminent of these Bishops beyond the sea; but St. Augustin refers the decision of the Donatist controversy not to him specially, but to the Bishops generally. This is the very principle, for which the Eastern Church for a thousand years, and the English Church for three hundred, have contended against the Church of Rome. I know not whether what St. Augustin says or what he does not say is strongest against the present Roman claim; but I think his _silence_ in his book "De Unitate Ecclesiae" absolutely convincing to any candid mind. Let us hold for an infallible truth his dogma, "Securus judicat orbis terrarum;" but the Latin communion is not the "orbis terrarum." In truth, the papal supremacy at once cut the Church in half; the West, where the Pope's was the only apostolical see, unanimously held with him; the East, with its four patriarchs, as unanimously refused his claim, as a new thing which they had never received. Even De Maistre observes, (Liv. 4. ch. 4,) "It is very essential to observe that never was there a question about dogmas between us at the beginning of the great and fatal division."