All old or new ecclesiastics, archbishops, bishops, cures, vicars, preachers, hospital and prison chaplains, superiors and directors of seminaries, professors of seminaries and colleges, are to state in writing that they are ready to take this oath: moreover, they must take it publicly, in church, "in the presence of the general council, the commune, and the faithful," and promise "to maintain with all their power" a schismatic and Presbyterian Church .-- For there can be no doubt about the sense and bearing of the prescribed oath.

It was all very well to incorporate it with a broader one, that of maintaining the Constitution.

But the Constitution of the clergy is too clearly comprised in the general Constitution, like a chapter in a book, and to sign the book is to sign the chapter.

Besides, in the formula to which the ecclesiastics in the Assembly are obliged to swear in the tribune, the chapter is precisely indicated, and no exception or reservation is allowed.[2274] The Bishop of Clermont, with all those who have accepted the Constitution in full, save the decrees affecting spiritual matters, are silenced.

Where the spiritual begins and where it ends the Assembly knows better than they, for it has defined this, and it imposes its definition on canonist and theologian; it is, in its turn, the Pope, and all consciences must bow to its decision.