- Very nice and clean copy of the second edition (first published in 1686) of this controversial Gallicanist work on the teachings of the church fathers which was on the Index of Forbidden books until 1948. Louis Ellies Dupin, a theologian, born 1657, of a noble family in Normandy died 1719. From the beginning of his studies he had accumulated notes on the works and teachings of the Fathers. In 1686 there appeared the first volume of the "Nouvelle bibliothèque des auteurs ecclésiastiques", covering the first three centuries. In it Dupin had treated simultaneously biography, literary criticism, and the history of dogma; in this he was a pioneer leaving far behind him all previous efforts. He was also the first to publish such a collection in a modern language. But the learned historian involved himself in controversy with the advocates of Papal supremacy by publishing this "De Antiqua Ecclesiae disciplina", in which he defended with much zeal the liberty of the Gallican Church. In this work he carefully distinguishes the universal Catholic Church from the Roman Church, and shows that the power of the Papacy was not founded on any warrant of Holy Scripture, nor on the judgments of the Fathers. He allows that the power of keys was given to St. Peter, but not to one man individually, but to the whole Church represented by him. This plain speaking did not commend itself to the occupier of the Papal throne, nor to his tool Louis XIV., who deprived Dupin of his professorship and banished him to Chatelleraut. NBG 15, col. 303-306.; Small defect to vellum at foot of spine, With library ex-libris inside front-cover.