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NAtional Synods shall be called once a Year, if possible may be, And this Rule shall be observ'd for the Con∣vocation, that at the end of every National Synod, a Pro∣vinte shall be chosen which shall have the charge to assign to the others, the time and place of the next Synod.
The Third Council of Carthage in the Year of our Lord 397; * 1.1 Ordains in the Hundreth Cannon, That the General Council of Africa be assembled once a Year, to which all the Provinces that have Primates are to send their Deputies, to the end nothing should be want∣ing to the Authority of such an Assembly. The Seventh Cannon also makes mention of such a General Coun∣cil, which was assembled once a Year, And the Eigh∣teenth of the African Code contains in substance the same Decree, And in the Nineteenth there is mention made of the Universal Council which was held every year. * 1.2 The Third Council of Tolledo which was thought was held in the year of Christ 589, was compos'd of all the Bishops of Spain and of Gallicia, that is to say, it was a National Synod; And as I conceive, it is to these sorts of Assemblies which the latter part of the Eigh∣teenth Cannon of the same place must be re∣ferr'd, And before that time Pope Leo the First in his Ninety Third Epistle speaks of the Celebration of a General Council in Spain; however it be, Our Disci∣pline which requires National Synods to be assembled from year to year, does nevertheless add this conditi∣on to its Ordinance, * 1.3 if it may be done; The Bishops of Africa which were wont, as has been shewn, to call yearly a General Synod of the whole Nation, or as they also term it, a Plenary Council, found in time, that it was a thing not to be done without giving too much pains and trouble to the Bishops; therefore they con∣cluded not to assemble it but in case of Necessity; that is to say, when the common Laws of all the Churches of Africa obliged them to do it. The Fourth Council
of Toledo, which was National, and which was assem∣bled in the year of our Lord 633, * 1.4 declares in the Third Cannon, That these National Synods should not be assembled, but when there was Question of matter of Faith, or of some other business wherein all the Chur∣ches of the Nation were concern'd.
The Article we examine demands yet another thing which we must not pass under Silence, to wit, That at the end of each National Synod, some one Province should be appointed to assign to the rest, the time and place of the following Synod, which amounts neer hand to what the First Council of Orange Ordained Anno Dom. 441, in the Twenty Ninth Cannon, * 1.5 That a Synod should not break up till they had assign'd another: The Eigh∣teenth Cannon of the Third Council of Toledo, of which we spake before, prescribes the same thing, and it may be also the 73 of the African Code, and it appears by the 95th Cannon that the Church of Carthage caused to be convocated the National Synods of Africa as oc∣casion required.
Tom. 1. Conc. p. 710.
Tom. 4. Conc. p. 493. & 56.
Cod. A∣tric. can. 〈◊〉〈◊〉.
T••m. 4. Conc. p. 582.
Tom. 1. Conc. Gall. p. 74.