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A TREATISE OF THE FIFT GENERALL COVNCILL held at Constantinople under Iustinian, in the time of Pope Vigilius: Wherein the exceeding fraud and falshoods of Cardinall Baronius are clearely discovered.
CAP. I. That the Emperour IVSTINIAN assembled the Fift Generall Coun∣cill, to define a doubt of Faith, about The three Chapters.
CONCILIA generalia mea sunt; primum, ulti∣mum, media, saith their Romane a 1.1 Thraso; Generall Councils are all ours, the first, the last, & the middle. Alls mine, as said the De∣vill to the Collier. A vaunt too vaine, too Thrasonicall. Divide the Councils aright, and let each have his own due part and por∣tion, and then all the five first, and so much as they account the sixt, that is, all which were held for 600. yeares and more; All the golden Councils, and of the golden ages of the Church, are ours onely, and not theirs, in many and even in the maine points of Religion, repugnant to them and their doctrines: but in every Decree, Canon, and Constitution of faith, so consonant to us, that we not onely embrace, but earnestly defend them all, as the rightfull and proper inheritance left unto us by those holy Fathers of the ancient and Catholike Church. The middle ranke, beginning at the second Nicene, unto the Councill of Florence, which were held in those ages of the mingled and con∣fused Church, none of them are either wholly ours or wholly theirs, those miscellane Councils, are neither thine nor mine, but they must all be divided. The two last, the one at Laterane, the other at Trent, which are the very lees and dreggs of Coun∣cills, held onely by such as were the drosse of the Church quite severed from the gold, wee willingly yeeld unto them: they and they onely are wholly theirs, let them have, let them enjoy their Helenaes, we envy not such refuse Councils unto them.
2. When first I set my selfe to the handling of this argument