church, without having ftudied in the feminary of Geneva, and without producing a certificate of the descriptions pointed out in the preceding article.

XIV. The regulations refpecting the administration and internal police of thefe feminaries, the number and the qualifications of the profeffors, the mode of inftruction, the fubjects which are taught, together with the form of the certificates of application, good conduct, and capacity, are to be approved of by the government

Of the Organization of the Churches

of the Confeffion of Augsburg. Section I.-General Regulations. XXXIII. The churches of the confeflion of Augsburg fhall have paftors, local confifiories, infpections, 'and general confiftories.

Section II.-Of the Minifters, Paftors, and local Confiftories of each

Church.

XXXIV. With refpect to paftors, the regulation of the confiftorial churches, which was prefcribed by the 2d Section of the preceding title as applicable to the reformed paftors and churches, is to be obferved.

Section III.-Of Infpections. XXXV. The churches of the confeffion of Augsburg fhall be fubject to infpections.

XXXVI. Five confiftorial churches fhall form the bounds of an infpec

tion.

XXXVII. Each infpection fhall be compofed of a minifter and an elder from each church of the dif trict. It fhall not affemble without the permiffion of the government. At its first meeting, the oldeft of

3

the minifters of the district shall pre fide. Each infpection shall choose two laymen and one clergyman, who fhall take the title of inspector, and whofe duty it fhall be to watch. over the conduct of the minifters,, and to preferve good order in the different churches: the choice of the infpector and the two laymen fhall be confirmed by the first conful.

XXXVIII. The infpection fhall not affemble, without the authority of government, in prefence of the prefect or fub-prefect, or without having given previous intelligence to the counsellor of fiate, whole bufinefs it is to watch over religious. affairs, of the fubjects that are to come under difcuffion.

XXXIX. The infpector fhall vifit the churches of his diftrict, and he may adopt the affiftance of the two laymen named with him, as often as circumftances fhall appear to require. He fhall be charged with the convocation of the general affembly of infpection, no decree of which, however; fhall be put in force, till it has received the approbation of the government.

Section IV.-Of General Confiftories.

XL. There shall be three general confiftories: one at Strafburgh for the proteftants of the confeffion of Augsburg, belonging to the departments of the upper and lower Rhine; the fecond at Mentz, for thofe of the departments of Laffare and Mont Tonnerre; and the third at Cologne, for thofe of the department of the Rhine and Mofelle, and la Roer.

XLI. Each confiftory fhall be formed of one lay prefident, of two ecclefiaftical infpectors, and a deputy from each inspection: the pre

fident

The Pope's Brief.

Pius VII. to his venerable Brethren the Archbishops and Bijhops of France, having the Communion and Favour of the Apoflolic Chair.

Venerable fathers, Health and apoftolic benediction! So many and fo fignal are the fervices which, both as a general body, and as individuals of the catholic faith, you have performed, that on this account you have ever merited from us and from our predeceffor Pius VI. now happily at reft, the highest commendations and the higheft praise of your virtue.

But although what you have done for the church, and for the advantage of the faithful, be very great, and highly glorious to you, yet the ftate of the times forces us to notify to you, that you have not yet fulfilled that meritorious career of glory for which the counfels of divine Providence have referved your courage in thele times. Greater facrifices, O venerable fathers, ftill remain to be added to thofe by which you have diftinguished yourfelves, and you have ftill to add higher claims to those which you now have to the gratitude of the holy church.-The prefervation of the unity of the holy church, the re-establishment of the catholic religion in France, demand a new example of virtue and of greatnefs of foul in you, which may teach all nations, that the holy zeal with which you burn for the church has for its object its advantage, and not your own. Your ecclefiaftical feats are voluntarily to be refigned, and the fame must be given up freely into our hands. It is requiring much of you, venerable brethren; it is, however, equally neceffary,

both that we should make this demand, and that you should comply with it, in order to re-establish order in France in the affairs of the church. We feel, indeed, how much it muft coft your hearts to abandon those flocks which are fo dear to you, to the safety of which you have given fo much attention, and which, even in your absence, have been the object of your most tender folicitude. But the more bitter the facrifice, the more agreeable will it be to God; the reward which you will have to expect from it will be proportioned to your grief and to his benevolence. With the whole energy of our fout, do we call upon your virtue; we call upon you by the blessed name of Jefus, to complete this facrifice for the prefervation of unity.

A knowledge of the diftinguifhed piety, and of the remarkable virtue which we have ever remarked in you in the moft trying circumstances of the church, makes us certain that you will immediately forward to us your voluntary letters of abdication. We cannot entertain a doubt that any of the wife and virtuous paftors of the French church can for a moment hefitate to comply with our pa ternal advice, and to follow the illuftrious example of Gregory Nazianzen, when he refigned the bishopric of Conftantinople, And certainly, in the fituation in which we stand, what reafon can we have to fufpect that any of you would refift our counfels and our entreaties, if he recollects what the church in general has refolved, and what St. Auguftine has faid-Contra Crefcentium, lib. 2. c. xi.-" We are not bishops for our own fakes, but for the fakes of thofe to whom we administer the facrament of the Lord: and for thele, as neceffity fhall require, we are ei

ther

ther to be or not to be, as it is not for ourselves, but for them that we govern."

For you know, venerable brethren, that many of the most diftinguished prelates of the church, that they might conform to this principle of the church and preferve unity, have voluntarily abdicated their feats; and almost three hundred catholic bithops, a little before the celebrated collation of Carthage, openly professed themfelves to be ready, and thought themselves bound, to abdicate their bishoprics, if it should be conceived that their abdication would tend to remove the fchifm of the Donatifts. Many of you, indeed, venerable brethren, had before your eyes these examples, and adopted fimilar fentiments, when, in confequence of the letter of the 3d of May, 1791, of the late Pius VI. of happy memory, our predeceffor, you profeffed yourselves willing and ready to refign your charges, if the good of religion fhould require it, for which that most wile pontiff bestowed on them the greatest praife. Nor were there wanting fome of you lately who fignified to us in your letters, that you would cheerfully do the fame, if it fhould feem neceffary for the prefervation of religion in France. Now fince we have arrived at thole times, in which the voluntary abdication of your charges is abfolutely necessary for the good of the catholic religion, we cannot doubt that you will yield this obedience to God by making this new facrifice, to offer which to him you know yourselves bound, and have already fo laudably profeffed yourselves ready, fhould the good of the church require.

Confidently trufting, therefore, in confequence of the opinion which

we have always entertained of your religion and virtue, that on perufing our letter, both to increase your merits to the church, and to preferve the unity of it to France, you will, without delay, implicitly comply with our exhortation, we first congratulate you on account of that immortal glory which you will obtain from this fplendid teftimony of virtue, religion, and obedience, which you are now about to give to the whole church. This glory, indeed, will be fo great as to be far fuperior to the praifes you have already obtained, by undergoing fo many dangers and enduring fo many calamities with fo much conftancy, for preferving religion in the churches intruffed to your fidelity.-For, according to what the fame St. Auguftine writes, in his letter to Caftorius, "It is far more glorious to have laid down the burden of epifcopacy, in order to ward off the dangers of the church, than to have undertaken it for the sake of ruling." We also congratulate you on those ample rewards to which this facrifice will entitle you from God, the rewarder of the good. For, as the fame St. Gregory Nazianzen writes, "Those who abdicate thrones will not lofe God, but will acquire a heavenly throne, much higher and fafer." In the laft place, we congratulate you, confidering thofe advantages the whole priesthood will receive from thefe memorable examples of minds labouring, not for themfelves, but for the things which belong to God and the church: thefe inftances of obedience, humili ty, faith, and of all epifcopal holinefs, with which you are about to crown the end of your epifcopacy -this virtue of yours, indeed, will fhut the mouths of thofe detractors of the priesthood who calumniate the X 3

ministers

minifters of the fanctuary, by affert ing that they find nothing in them but pride, haughtinefs, and avarice. This new glory, by which you will render yourselves illuftrious, will ex tort an involuntary admiration of your virtue, from men who will be obliged to confefs, in regard to the church, what the fame St. Auguftine affirms in the above-mentioned let ter to Caftorius: "That there are fome men in its bofom who feek not thofe things which are their own, but the things of Jefus Chrift."

We are compelled by the exigen cy of the times, which even exercifes its violence on us, to fignify that it is abfolutely neceflary for you to give a written anfwer within ten days, and that your answer be tranfmitted to the perfon by whom the prefent letter will be delivered to you, which you ought to teftify by an authentic document that you have received. We muft alfo fignify to you, for the fame urgent caules, that the anfwer given must be definitive, not dilatory; fo that unlefs a definitive anfwer be given within ten days (and that you will do fo, we entreat you again and again), if a dilatory anfwer is returned, we shall be obliged to confider you as having refuled to comply with our request.

But that this you will not do, we have reafon to hope, from your ardent defire both to preferve religion, and to promote the peace of the whole church; from your obedience to us, which is the peculiar duty of children; and from that anxiety which you have always fhown of affifting by your virtue our infirmity, under that great load of cares with which we are oppreiled. Nay, we are certain, that, with cheerful and ready minds, you will obey our commands, with which we are obli

ged to try your virtue, in order to establish the good of the church; especially fince you poffefs too much penetration not to know, that if you refufe to comply with our requeft, that no obftacles may be opposed by us to preferving the unity of the catholic religion, and reftoring the tranquillity of the church (we declare with grief, but we must declare, while fo much danger bangs over the Gallican church from us), we must neceffarily have recourse to that conduct which will remove all impediments, and by which alone the good of religion can be promoted.

By the favour and good will which we have always fhewn towards you, venerable brethren, by the opinion we have always had of your virtue, dignity, and merits, we flatter ourselves that you are to per fuaded that we do not think it neceffary to expend many words in affuring you, that nothing has been omitted on our part which could tend to prevent you from being expofed to this bitternefs. But it is with great grief we must confess that all our anxiety, and all our labour to refift the neceffity of the times, has been fruitles. We are compelled to yield, that the catholicreligion may be benefited by this facrifice. After maturely weighing. thefe circumftances, we thould feem to question the fincerity of your religious profeffion, if we should conclude that you will prefer your own advantage to the prefervation and good order of the church, forgetting what. St. Augufline faid, in the name of the African bifhops, to the tribune Marcellinus, when he declared that thofe bifhops were ready to abdicate their chairs: "Why thould we helitate to make that facrifice of

humility