ame of our Lord to all the
countries of the world, according to what was said to them, 'Go ye and
teach all nations.' You are to observe, my brethren, that the order we have
received is a general order, and that He intended that we should all
execute it, when he charged them with it as a duty devolving equally upon
all. We ought all to enter into the labours of those whom we have all
succeeded in dignity."

"Thus Pope Coelestine acknowledged that it was Christ Himself who
established Bishops in the persons of His Apostles, as the teachers of His
Church: He places Himself in their rank, and declares that they ought all
to concur in the preservation of the sacred deposit of Apostolical
doctrine."[59]

The importance of this testimony will be felt by those who remember that
Bellarmine specifically denies that the government of the Church resides in
Bishops generally; and that in this he is at least borne out by the last
three centuries of Roman practice.

Bossuet proceeds to remark as follows:--"From this doctrine of St.
Coelestine we draw many conclusions: first, this,--that Bishops in the
Apostles were appointed teachers by Christ Himself, not at all by Peter, or
Peter's successors. Nor does a Pontiff, seated in so eminent a place, think
it unworthy to mix himself with the rest of the Bishops. 'We all,' he says,
'in the stead of the Apostles preach the name of the Lord: we all have
succeeded them in honour.' Whence it is the more evident that authority to
teach was transmitted from Christ, as well to Coelestine himself, as to the
rest of the Bishops. Hence that the deposit of sacred doctrine is committed
to all, the defence of which lies with all; and so the faith is to be
settled by common care and consent; nor will the protection of Christ, the
true Master, be wanting to the masters of Churches. This Coelestine lays
down equally respecting himself and all Bishops, successors of the
Apostles. Then what agrees with it: that as the Apostles, assembled on the
question concerning legal rites, put forth their sentence as being at once
that of the Holy Spirit and their own, so too shall it be in other most
important controversies; and the Council of the Apostles will live again in
the Councils of Bishops. Which indeed shows us, that authority and the
settlement of the question lies not in the sentence of Peter alone, or of
Peter's successors, but in the agreement of all.

"Nor, therefore, does Coelestine infringe on his ow