Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/544

512 accessible and infallible authority on disputed points. If the assembly at Jerusalem was really a council, then even where Paul and at least one of the original twelve apostles were present, the settlement of a question with vast doctrinal and practical issues was arrived at by means of open debate amongst the members of the synod. Unhesitating belief iu frequent and miraculous manifestations ef the divine will was universal for centuries ; yet when the illumination of the Holy Spirit was most urgently needed for the establish ment of Christian truth, recourse was had to the collective opinion of assembled representatives, to discussion more or less calm and candid, and to the counting of votes, a most noteworthy feature in the development of the church. And it deserves to be remarked that thus, in times of all- embracing despotism, the church secured for the representa tives of the Christian community one side of corporate and individual freedom, a measure of independence such as could not fail to keep alive a feeling hostile to the extension of imperial, though Christian, tyranny into at least one of the provinces of thought and action. The infallibility of universal councils, ultimately admitted by the whole Catholic Church, was early claimed. &quot; It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us,&quot; words occurring in the Jerusalem decree, could not but surest to the successors of the apostles that the synods assembled under them were favoured by the special superintendence of the Holy Ghost ; and this was distinctly asserted by Cyprian. But the sanction of the Pope has always been held by modern Catholics as necessary to the infallibility of any council ; and the decrees even of the minor councils attain to infallibility if approved by the Pope and accepted by the church at large. A limitation of synodical authority that merely recognized the Pope as an integral part of the church might be agreed to even by those who asserted that oecumenical councils are superior to the popes, a theory long and vehemently contended for and against in the church. That the councils are above the popes was the view of the Councils of Constance and Basel, and was formulated as one of the four Gallican propositions; whereas at the 5th Lateran Council Pope Leo X. roundly asserted the authority of the Pope over all councils. Yet the infallibility of universal councils was most con fidently accepted by the very parties in the church which were least disposed to concede absolute authority to any other ecclesiastical institution, notably by the Gallicans and by the German Reformers in the early stages of the Reformation. And the institution of councils, both of occasional councils called for special purposes and of those meeting statedly, was inherited by the Protestant churches. The Synod of Dort is an instance of a general council of churches adhering to the Reformed confessions ; the West minster Assembly was designed to be a national council. It is of course in the Presbyterian churches that councils have received their most systematic development, and, without claiming infallible authority, retain the most extended powers as legislative, administrative, and judicial. In the Church of Scotland the regular gradation of kirk sessions, presbyteries, provincial synods, and general assem bly of representative ministers and elders supervises and regulates all the functions of the church, and forms a com pact and balanced system of constitutional government. In non-presbyterian churches synods have various decrees of deliberative or decisive authority. Even now the re organization of the synodical system of the United Pro testant Church of Prussia is regarded both by churchmen and by statesmen in Germany as one of the ecclesiastical questions of the day.

1em  COUNCIL BLUFFS, a town of the State of Iowa, United States, near the left bank of the Missouri, opposite to Omaha in Nebraska, and on the line of the great con tinental railroad from Chicago to San Francisco. It is a rapidly growing place, and in 1870 had 10,020 inhabitants. Open prairie surrounds it on all sides. A mile west of tho town the Missouri is spanned by a great iron bridge, one of the finest in the country.  COUNSEL. See,. ; and, ..  COUNT, COUNTESS (Latin, Comes, Comitissa). In the peerage of Great Britain and Ireland the Continental title count, in its highest and most dignified acceptation, is represented by earl, an earl s wife, however, being styled countess. In the times of the Roman commonwealth, personages of different degrees of rank, who in various capacities officially accompanied the proconsuls and pro prietors into the provinces, bore the common designation of comites, either a comitando or a commeando. At a later period, the comites, as personal companions and counsellors of the prince, whose name they always added to the title of their office, became lords of the palace, whence the origin of their style as counts palatine. At a considerably later era, this same title implied princely rank, dignity, and power enjoyed by the bearer under a supreme imperial sovereign. By Constantino the title comes was first established as a definite dignity ; but this same title, within a short time after its first formal establishment, was conferred indiscriminately upon various classes of public officers, of whom a long list, specifying the capacity in which each one served, is given by Du Cange. After the fall of the Roman empire the governors of provinces and cities who commanded in war and during peace presided over the administration of the laws retained the titles of duces and comites (dukes and counts) ; occasionally also the distinction between these titles failed to be observed, and some counts became governors of provinces. Under the last king of the second royal dynasty of France, the dignity of the counts of the highest rank was rendered hereditary, when they even aspired to independent sovereignty. From the inability of Hugh Capet to maintain the supremacy of the Crown against their encroachments, these great peers assigned to his reign their first assumption of coronets with their arms, to denote their enjoyment of sovereign power in their particular counties or territories. In after times, the dignity of count, hereditary in the male line, was granted by a sovereign upon his erecting a territory into a county, with a reserve of sovereignty and jurisdiction to the Crown, and also with reversion to the Crown in default of heirs male. At the present day, from the custom of styling all the sons of a count also counts, the titular bearers of this designation on the Continent are very numerous, while their rank is little more than nominal. In Germany the equivalent for count is Graf, and the several orders of these German counts are distinguished by the formation of com pound titles, as &quot; landgraves,&quot; &quot; palsgraves,&quot; &c. See.  COUNTY is the chief of the administrative areas into which England is divided. This is an ancient division, and, according to the popular manner of accounting for the origin of social institutions, is attributed to the wisdom of our early kings, and more particularly of King Alfred. It is tolerably clear, however, that this theory is a reversal of the natural process, and that, instead of counties having been formed by the division of the country, the country itself was formed by the aggregation of counties. The county, in fact, is the representative of an independent 