or COUNSEL, in a general sense, an assembly of divers considerable persons to concert measures relating to the state.

AULIC COUNCIL. See AULIC.

CABINET COUNCIL. See PRIVY-COUNCIL.

COMMON COUNCIL, in the city of London, is a court wherein are made all bye-laws which bind the citizens. It consists, like the parliament, of two houses; an upper, composed of the lord mayor and aldermen; and a lower, of a number of common-council men, chosen by the several wards, as representatives of the body of the citizens.

PRIVY COUNCIL, the primus mobile of the civil government of Great Britain, bearing part of that great weight in the government which otherwise would be too heavy upon the king.

It is composed of eminent persons, the number of whom is at the sovereign's pleasure, who are bound by oath to advise the king to the best of their judgment, with all the fidelity and secrecy that becomes their station. The king may declare to, or conceal from, his privy-council whatever he thinks fit; and has a select council out of their number, commonly called the cabinet council, with whom his majesty determines such matters as are most important, and requires the utmost secrecy.

Privy-counsellors, though but gentlemen, have precedence of all the knights and younger sons of barons and viceroys, and are styled right honourable.

COUNCIL OF WAR, an assembly of the principal officers of an army or fleet, occasionally called by the general or admiral to concert measures for their conduct with regard to sieges, retreats, engagements, &c.

in church history, an assembly of prelates and doctors, met for the regulating matters relating to the doctrine or discipline of the church.

NATIONAL COUNCIL, is an assembly of prelates of a nation under their primate or patriarch.

OECUMENICAL OR GENERAL COUNCIL, is an assembly which represents the whole body of the universal church. The Romanists reckon eighteen of them; Bullinger, in his treatise de Conciliis, fix; Dr Prideaux, seven; and bishop Beveridge has increased the number to eight, which, he says, are all the general councils which have ever been held since the time of the first Christian emperor. They are as follows: 1. The council of Nice, held in the reign of Constantine the Great, on account of the heresy of Arius. 2. The council of Constantinople, called under the reign and by the command of Theodosius the Great, for much the same end that the former council was summoned. 3. The council of Ephesus, convened by Theodosius the younger, at the suit of Nestorius. 4. The council of Chalcedon, held in the reign of Martianus, which approved of the Eutychian heresy. 5. The second council of Constantinople, assembled by the emperor Justinian. Justinian, condemned the three chapters taken out of the book of Theodorus of Mopsuestia, having first decided that it was lawful to anathematize the dead. Some authors tell us, that they likewise condemned the several errors of Origen about the Trinity, the plurality of worlds, and pre-existence of souls. 6. The third council of Constantinople, held by the command of Constantius Pogonatus the emperor, in which they received the definitions of the five first general councils, and particularly that against Origen and Theodorus of Mopsuestia. 7. The second Nicene council. 8. The fourth council of Constantinople, assembled when Lewis II. was emperor of the west. The regulations which they made are contained in twenty-seven canons, the heads of which are set down by M. du Pin, to whom the reader is referred.