done, as well of good men as of many Catholic bishops—­that is, to remedy our own churches by a provincial synod.  For thus know we the old fathers used to put in experience before they came to the public universal council.  There remain yet at this day canons written in councils of free cities, as of Carthage under Cyprian, as of Ancyra, Neocaesarea, and Gangra, which is in Paphlagonia, as some think, before that the name of the general council at Nice was ever heard of.  After this fashion in old time did they speedily meet with and cut short those heretics, the Pelagians and the Donatists at home, by private disputation, without any general council.  Thus, also, when the Emperor Constantine evidently and earnestly took part with Auxentius, the bishop of the Arians’ faction, Ambrose, the bishop of the Christians, appealed not unto a general council, where he saw no good could be done, by reason of the emperor’s might and great labour, but appealed to his own clergy and people, that is to say, to a provincial synod.  And thus it was decreed in the council at Nice that the bishops should assemble twice every year.  And in the council at Carthage it was decreed that the bishops should meet together in each of their provinces at least once in the year, which was done, as saith the council of Chalcedon, of purpose that if any errors and abuses had happened to spring up anywhere, they might immediately at the first entry be destroyed where they first began.  So likewise when Secundus and Palladius rejected the council at Aquileia, because it was not a general and a common council, Ambrose, bishop of Milan, made answer that no man ought to take it for a new or strange matter that the bishops of the west part of the world did call together synods, and make private assemblies in their provinces, for that it was a thing before then used by the west bishops no few times, and by the bishops of Greece used oftentimes and commonly to be done.  And so Charles the Great, being emperor, held a provincial council in Germany for putting away images, contrary to the second council at Nice.  Neither, pardy, even amongst us is this so very a strange and new a trade.  For we have had ere now in England provincial synods, and governed our churches by home-made laws.  What should one say more?  Of a truth, even those greatest councils, and where most assembly of people ever was (whereof these men use to make such an exceeding reckoning), compare them with all the churches which throughout the world acknowledge and profess the name of Christ, and what else, I pray you, can they seem to be but certain private councils of bishops and provincial synods?  For admit, peradventure, Italy, France, Spain, England, Germany, Denmark, and Scotland meet together, if there want Asia, Greece, Armenia, Persia, Media, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, and Mauritania, in all which places there be both many Christian men and also bishops, how can any man, being in his right mind, think such a council