Page:Faithcatholics.pdf/153

 Bishop, Innocent I. in the following words:"Since it has pleased God, by his special grace, to seat you in the apostelic chair, and so to qualify you in these our times, that it would be criminal, not to lay before you what is for the Church's interest—we do beseech you to use your pastoral care in looking after the infirm members of Christ. For a new heresy is lately broached.-But we hope by the mercy of our Lord, who helps you in the discharge of your duty, and hears your prayers, that the abettors of this pernicious doctrine will submit to the authority of your holiness, which authority is derived to you from the authority of the Scriptures."' ''Conc. Gen. T. 11. Conc. Gen. T. 11. p. 1545-6.

St. Leo, L. C. In conformity with this sentiment of the African Church, St. Leo, who in the year 439 was raised to the pontifical chair, and who on his accession had received complaints from that Church; in his answer, having spoken “of the care of the universal Church laid on him by the divine institution," observes: “But if other causes should arise appertaining to the state of the Churches and the concord of the Priesthood, it is our will that they be examined by you, and that a full relation be sent hither; in order that my sentence may confirm what you, agreeably to ecclesiastical custom, shall have equitably adjusted.” Conc. Gen. T. iii. p. 1394. In 455 he writes to the Bishop of Alexandria : _“You and I should think and act together. For as the blessed Peter received the Apostolic Headship from the Lord, and the Roman Church adheres to his institutions, it is not allowable to believe that his holy disciple Mark, who first governed the Church of Alexandria, should have regulated his ordinances by other rules of tradition. Doubtless, the spirit of the Disciple, and of the Master, drawn from the same source, was one.—Let us not then suffer, professing as we do to be of one faith and one body, that we differ in any