Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/199

 Rh a Pope's sickness, in excess of what he would have sanctioned if acting himself, Alexander  ordered that those invested with powers of deputation, even though by a Chirograph signed by the Pope's own hand, under no circumstances should be capable henceforth of granting any favour, except with the assent of two Cardinals, subscribing, in the Pope's presence, the deed of concession, which, without their signatures, shall be null and void. This Bull, issued in the first instance to restrain the arts and practices by which the spirit of the former prohibitions against Nepotism was evaded, determines, beyond all controversy, the scope of those earlier Papal decrees with which it stands connected, and in conjunction with which subsequent Popes have sworn to it. The assertion, therefore, that the Pope (who, in every other respect, is invested with absolute powers exceeding those of every other Prince) holds his temporal sovereignty by ties involving a limitation on his executive, for which there is no precedent in the conditions attached to the tenure of any other Crown,—ties that would reduce him to the condition of a helpless bondsman in a matter recognised to lie