111. munication with a curse. A man of Formosus his temper, DISCOURSE who was indeed a Bishop of an Apostolical Church, though he violated his oath to obtain it, and who supposed himself to be not only the Patriarch of Britain but a master (of misrule) in the Church, might adventure far: but, to do him right, I do not believe that this was any formal sentence; that had been too palpably unjust before a citation. I remember not that any other author mentions it, which they would have done, if it had been a solemn interdict, in those days. And this nameless author calls it but an "epistle." Moreover he tells us of "honourable presents"" sent to the Pope, but not a word of any absolution; which had been more to his purpose, if this had been an excommunication. It could be nothing but a threatening, that unless this abuse were reformed he would hold no communion with them; as Victor a much better Pope, and in much better times, dealt with the Asiatics, over whom he had no jurisdiction. There is a vast difference between formal excommunication, and withholding of communion; as also between imposing ecclesiastical punishment, and only representing what is incurred by the canons. Where observe with me two things. First, R. C. his great mistake, that here was a 'command to erect new Bishoprics,' to which the canons of the Fathers oblige not and therefore it inust proceed from sovereign authority. Whereas here was only a filling or supplying of the empty sees. The author's words are "de renovandis Episcopatibus," of "renewing," not "erecting," Bishoprics; and, "per septem annos destituta Episcopis "_"they had wanted Bishops for seven years :" lastly, the names of the sees supplied, which were all ancient Episcopal sees from the first conversion of the West-Saxons, do evince this,—Winchester, Schireborne or Salisbury, Wells, Credinton now Exeter, and the Bishopric of Cornwall, called anciently St. Germans ". Secondly observe, that whatsoever was done in this business, was done by the king's authority. "Congregavit Rex Edwardus synodum"-" King Edward assembled a synod," saith the same author in the place cited; and he calls the sentence of the synod "decretum regis"—"the king's decree." PART I. [Kinulphus and Offa.] This is more to prove the king's political Headship in convocating synods, and confirming synods, than all his conjectures and surmises to the contrary. "They with all humility admitted legates of the Pope in the time of Kinulphus and Offa, and admitted the erection of a new Archbishopric in England y." Why should they not admit legates? What are legates but messengers and ambassadors? The office of an ambassador is sacred, though from the Great Turk. But did they admit them to hold legantine courts, and swallow up the whole ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the kingdom? King Offa desired to have a new Archbishopric established at Lichfield within his own dominions; and, before he had the concurrence of Pope Adrian, had excluded the Archbishop of Canterbury out of the Mercian kingdom by royal authority. On the other side Kinulphus desired to have the Archbishopric settled, as it was formerly, at Canterbury 2. This is nothing to enforced jurisdiction. England always admitted 196 the Pope's legates and his Bulls with consent of the king, but not otherwise. Here again he cites no authority but his own. Clergymen They professed that it belonged to Bishops to punish priests and religious" men, and "not to kings "." not ex empted from secular judges. a No man doubts of it in their sense, but they who leave nothing certain in the world. Here is nothing but a heap of confused generalities. In some cases the punishment of clergymen doth not belong to kings, but Archbishops; that is, cases of ecclesiastical cognizance, tryable by the canon-law, in the first instance. In other cases it belongs not to Archbishops, but to kings, to be their judges, as in cases of civil cognizance, or upon the last appeal; not that the king is bound to determine them in his own person, but by fit deputies or delegates. Plato makes all regiment to consist [Surv., c. iv. sect. 1. p. 59; quoting] Edgar., in Oratione ad Episcopos, ap. Ealred., [(or Aelred, De Reg. Angl., as printed from MS. in Harpsfield, Hist. Eccl. Angl., sæc. x. c. 3. pp. 186, 187. ed. 1622): and] Withred, [in Act. Concil. Becanceld. (A.D. 695),] ap. Spelman., Concil., [tom. i.] p. 192. III. of these three parts, knowing, commanding, and executing; Discourse the first belongs to the king and his council, the second to the king in his person, the third to the king by his deputies. So the king governs in the Church, but not as a Churchman; in the army, but not as a soldier; in the city, but not as a merchant; in the country, but not as a husbandman. Our kings did never use to determine spiritual or ecclesiastical causes in their own persons, but by meet selected delegates; persons of great maturity of judgment, of known. dexterity in the canon laws, of approved integrity; and lastly, such (at least some of the number) as were qualified by their callings to exercise the power of the Keys, and to act by excommunication or absolution, according to the exigence of the cause: and who more proper to be such delegates in questions of moment than Archbishops and Bishops? This is so evident in our laws and histories, that it is not only lost labour but shame to oppose it. King Edgar's words in the place alleged were these,"Meæ solicitudinis est," &c. "It belongs to my care to provide necessaries for the ministers of Churches," &c. "and to take order for their peace and quiet; the examination of whose manners belongs to you, whether they live continently, and behave themselves honestly to them that are without, whether they be solicitous in performing divine offices, diligent to instruct the people, sober in their conversations, modest in their habits, discreet in their judgments "." No man doubts of this. But for all this Edgar did not forget his kingly office and duty: see the conclusion of the same Oration to the Clergy." Contempta sunt verba, veniendum est ad verbera," &c. -"words are despised, it must come to blows. Thou hast with thee there the venerable Father Edelwald Bishop of Winchester, and Oswald the most reverend Bishop of Worcester. I commit that business to you, that persons of bad conversation may be cast out of the Churches, and persons of good life brought in, by your Episcopal censure, and my royal authority d." So Edgar did not forget his political Headship. What King Withred said was spoken in the council of Becancelde, where he himself sat as a civil president and I. PART where the decrees of the council issued in his name and by his authority," Firmiter decernimus," &c. His words are these,-"It belongs to him" (the king) "to make earls, dukes, noblemen, princes, presidents, and secular judges, but it belongs to the Metropolitan or Archbishop to govern the Churches, to choose Bishops, Abbots, and other prelates," &c. If King Withred had said, it belongs to the Pope to govern the Churches, it had made for his purpose indeed; but saying as he doth, "It belongs to the Metropolitan," it cuts the throat of his cause, and shews clearly what we say, that our Metropolitans are not subordinate to any single ecclesiastical superior. As for the bounds between the king and the Archbishop, we know them well enough; he needed not trouble his head about it. Rome hath no cer tainty of g "They suffered their subjects to profess, that 'qui non communicat Ecclesiæ Romanæ hæreticus est; quicquid ipsa statuerit, infallibility. suscipio; et quod damnaverit, damno 8' ”—“He is a heretic that holds not communion with the Church of Rome; what she determines, I receive; what she condemns, I condemn." Supposing these to be the very words of Ealred, though I have no reason to trust his citations further than I see them; and supposing them to have been spoken in R. C. his sense; yet Ealred was but one doctor, whose authority is not fit to counterbalance the public laws and customs and records of a whole kingdom. Neither doth it appear that they who sat at the stern in those days did either suffer it, or so much as know of it. Books were not published then so soon as they were written, but lay most commonly dormient many years, 197 or perhaps many ages, before they see the sun. his sense was not the same, it could not be the same, with R. C. his. No man in those days did take the Church of Rome for the Roman-Catholic or Universal Church, but for the diocese of Rome; which their best protectors do make to be no otherwise infallible than upon supposition of the inseparability of the Papacy from it, which Bellarmine himself confesseth to be but a probable opinion," Neque Scriptura е But Ealred [Act. Concil. Becanceld., ap. Spel- ing] Ealred., Serm. [15,] in Isai. c. xiv. man., Concil, tom. i. p. 191 ] [The passage is in Serm. 23, in c. xv. vv. 1-4, ap. Biblioth. Patr., tom. xiii. p. 54. B; and is accurately quoted.] III. neque Traditio habet, sedem Apostolicam ita fixam esse Roma, DiscOURSE ut inde auferri non possit”—“There is neither Scripture nor Tradition to prove that the Apostolic see is so fixed to Rome that it cannot be removed from it 1." Therefore these words of Ealred cannot be applied to this present question, because the subject of the question is changed. And if they be understood simply and absolutely of an universal communion with the Church of Rome both present and future, they are unsound in the judgment of Bellarmine himself. It remains, therefore, that they are either to be understood of communicating in essentials; and so we communicate with the Church of Rome at this day or that by the Church of Rome Ealred did understand the Church of Rome of that age, whereas all those exceptions, which we have against them for our not communicating with them actually in all things, are either sprung up since Ealred's time, or, at least, since that time made or declared necessary conditions of their communion. Lastly, I desire the reader to take notice, that these words of Ealred do contain nothing against the political supremacy of kings, nor against the liberties of the English Church, nor for the jurisdiction of the Court of Rome over England, and so might have been passed by as impertinent. tions to Popes. "They indited their letters to the Pope in these words, Superscrip'Summo et Universali Ecclesiæ Pastori Nicholao Edwardus Dei gratia Angliæ Rex debitam subjectionem et omnimodum servitium !'" i It seemeth that the copies differ; some have not "Pastori" but 'Patri,' nor "Universali" but Universalis Ecclesiæ,' and no more but obedientiam' for "omnimodum servitium › ̧” But let him read it as he list, it signifies nothing. There cannot be imagined a weaker or a poorer argument than that which is drawn from the superscription or subscription of a letter. He that enrolls every man in the catalogue of his friends and servants, who subscribe themselves his loving or Bellarm., De Roman. Pontif., lib. iv. c. 4. [Op., tom. i. p. 962. B.] [Surv., c.iv. sect. 1. p. 59: quoting] Ealred, De Vita et Mirac. Edw. Confess., [c. 6. § 19, ap. Acta SS. Bollandi, tom. i. p. 297; but with the three various readings mentioned below in all of which also both Cap grave (Nov. Legend. Angl) and Surius [So Bolland., &c., and Baronius, |