Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/188

176 Synod, or singly one by one, following the immemorial custom of the Churches of the Catholic unity—for, as Tertullian says, "what is found in all places is not error, but tradition"—have faithfully guarded the form of primitive order, especially when any new peril threatened the dogma of faith, by bringing their causes or controversies to the Apostolic See. This they did "that the breaches of the faith might be repaired," as St. Bernard said, "by the authority in which faith cannot fail." These are the words of St. Bernard, but they ought not to be new to Englishmen, for they are almost the words of two Archbishops of Canterbury. St. Thomas, in a letter to the Bishop of Hereford, asks:—

St. Anselm almost anticipates the decree of the Council of Florence. He writes as follows:—

Sometimes the Pontiffs have proceeded by consultation with the bishops dispersed throughout the