IV. of unity" Catholic 'primacy of order' as the successor of St. Peter; and, as a DISCOURSE consequent thereof, a right (if he would content himself with it) to summon Councils, when and where there are no Chris- to the judg tian sovereigns to do it; and to join with other Bishops in ment of the making spiritual laws or canons, such as the Apostles made, Church.] and such as the primitive Bishops made before there were Christian emperors. But then those canons are the laws of the Church, not of the Pope; as those canons in the Acts of the Apostles were the laws of the Apostolical College,-"The Acts xv. 25. Apostles and Elders and Brethren,"-not the laws of St. Peter. Then their laws have no coactive obligation to compel Christians in the outward court of the Church against their wills, or further than they are pleased to submit themselves. All exterior coactive power is from the sovereign prince; and therefore, when and where emperors and kings are Christians, to them it properly belongeth to summon Councils, and to confirm their canons, thereby making them become laws because sovereign princes only have power to license and command their subjects to assemble, to assign fit places for their assembling, to protect them in their assemblies, and to give a coactive power to their laws; without which, they may do their best to drive away wolves and to oppose heretics, but it must be with such arms as Christ had furnished them withal, that is, persuasions, prayers, tears, and, at the most, separating them from the communion of the faithful, and leaving them to the judgment of Christ. The controversy is then about new upstart Papal laws: either made at Rome (such are the Decretals of Gregory the Ninth, Boniface the Eighth, Clement the Fifth, and succeeding Popes); or made in England by Papal legates, as Otho and Othobone-whether the Pope or his legates have power to make any such laws to bind English subjects, and compel them to obey them against their wills, the king of England contradicting it. The first time that ever any canon of the Bishop of Rome, or any legislative legate of his, was attempted to be obtruded upon the king or Church of England, was eleven hundred years after Christ; the first law was the law against taking investitures to Bishoprics from a layhand; and the first legate that ever presided in an English synod was Johannes Cremensis: of both which I have spoken I. PART formerly'. Observe, reader, and be astonished (if thou hast so much faith to believe it), that the Pope should pretend to a legislative power over British and English subjects by Divine right, and yet never offer to put it in execution for above eleven hundred years. (1. The legislative power in England to the It remaineth now to prove evidently, that Henry the Eighth, by his statute made for that purpose, did not take away from the Bishop of Rome any privilege which he and his predecessors had held by inheritance from St. Peter, and been peaceably possessed of for fifteen hundred years; but, on the contrary, that eleven hundred years after St. Peter was dead, the Bishops of Rome did first invade the right of the Crown of England to make laws for the external regiment of the Church, which the predecessors of Henry the Eighth had enjoyed peaceably until the days of William Rufus, "nemine contradicente:" and that the king's laws were evermore acknowledged to be true laws and obligatory to the English subjects; but that the Pope's decrees were never esteemed to be binding laws in England, except they were incorporated into our laws by the king and Church or kingdom of England. Whence it followeth by irrefragable consequence, that Henry the Eighth was not the schismatic in this particular; but the Pope, and those that maintain him, or adhere to him, in his usurpations. First, for the king's right to make laws, not only concerning the outward regiment of the Church, but even has always concerning the keys of order and jurisdiction, so far as to belonged oblige them who are trusted with that power by the Church king.] to do their duties, it is so evident to every one who hath but cast his eyes upon our English laws, that to bestow labour on proving it were to bring owls to Athens. Their laws are extant, made in all ages, concerning Faith and good manners, heresy, Holy Orders, the Word, the Sacraments, Bishops, Priests, monks, the privileges and revenues of Holy Church, marriages, divorces, simony, the Pope, his sentences, his oppressions and usurpations, prohibitions, appeals from ecclesiastical judges, and generally all things which are of ecclesiastical cognizance; and this in those times which are 328 acknowledged by the Romanists themselves to have been i [Above, c. 5. pp. 404, 412.] IV. Catholic. More than this, they inhibited the Pope's own DISCOURSE legate "to attempt to decree any thing contrary to the king's Crown and dignity;" and if they approved the decrees of the Pope's legates, they "confirmed them by their royal authority'," and so incorporated them into the body of the English laws. decrees as never been 2. Secondly, that the Pope's decrees never had the force of [2. Papal laws in England without the confirmation of the king, witness such have the decrees of the Council of Lateran as they are commonly received as called;—but it is as clear as the day to any one who readeth laws in England.] the eleventh, the six and fortieth, and the one and sixtieth chapters, that they were not made by the Council of Lateran, but some time after; perhaps not by Innocent the Third, but by some succeeding Pope: for the author of them doth distinguish himself expressly from the Council of Lateran,"It was well provided in the Council of Lateran," &c., "but because that statute is not observed in many Churches, we confirming the foresaid statute do addm," &c.; again, "It is known to have been prohibited in the Council of Lateran," &c., "but we inhibiting the same more strongly "," &c.howsoever, they were the Pope's decrees, but never were received as laws in England; as we see evidently by the third chapter; that "the goods of clergymen being convicted of heresy be forfeited to the Church;" that "all officers secular and ecclesiastical should take an oath at their admission into their office to their power to purge their territories from heresy;" that "if a temporal lord did neglect, being admonished by the Church, to purge his lands from heresy, he should be excommunicated," and "if he contemned to satisfy within a year, the Pope should absolve his subjects from their allegiance";"-and by the three and fortieth chapter, that "no ecclesiastical person be compelled to swear allegiance to a layman';"-and by the six and fortieth chapter, that "ecclesiastical persons be free from taxes." We never had any such laws; all goods forfeited in that kind were ever confiscated to the king. We never "[Ibid., can. 29. ap. eund. p. 179. D, E.] Matt. Paris., an. 1237. [p. 447.] 1 Florent. Wigorn., [Chron.,] an. 1127. [p. 505. ed. Lond. 1592.] [Canon. Concil. Lateran. IV. A.D. 1215. can. 11; ap. Labb., Concil., tom. xi. P. i. p. 164. A, B.] [Ibid., c. 3; p. 147. C-E.] P [Ibid., c. 43; p. 191. E.] [Ibid., c. 46; pp. 194. E, 195. A -C.] PART had any such oaths; every one is to answer for himself. We know no such power in the Pope to absolve subjects from their allegiance in our law. With us, clergymen did ever pay subsidies and taxes as well as laymen. This is one liberty which England hath, not to admit of the Pope's laws unless they like them. A second liberty of England is to reject the Pope's laws in plain terms. The Pope made a law for "the legitimation of children born afore matrimony, as well as those born in matrimony." The Bishops moved the lords in Parliament, that "they would give their consent" to the common order of "the Church;" but "all the Earls and Barons answered with one voice, that they would not change the laws of the realm, which hitherto had been used and approved." The Pope's legislation could not make a law in England without the concurrence of the three orders of the kingdom; and they liked their own old laws better than the Pope's new law. A third liberty of England is to give a legislative interpretation to the Pope's laws which the Pope never intended. The Bishop of Rome, by a constitution made at the Council of Lyons, "excluded bigamists" (men twice married) "from the privilege of clergy"," that is, that should marry the second time de futuro; but the Parliament made an Act, that the constitution should be understood on this wise, that "whether they were bigamists before the constitution or after, they should not be delivered to the prelates, but justice should be executed upon them as upon other lay-people." Ejus est legem interpretari cujus est condere;' they that can give a law a new sense, may abrogate it if they please. 6 A fourth liberty of England is to call the Pope's laws usurpations-encroachments-mischiefs-contrary to, and destructive of, the municipal laws of the realm-derogatory to the king's regality;" and to punish such of their subjects as should pursue them, and obey them, with "imprisonment,” with "confiscation of their goods and lands," with "outlawing" them, and "putting them out of the king's protection." Witness all those noble laws of Provisors and Præmunire, 329 IV. which we may truly call the Palladium of England, which Discourse preserved it from being swallowed up in that vast gulf of the Roman Court; made by Edward the First, Edward the Third, Richard the Second, and Henry the Fourth". All those collations, and reservations, and provisions, and privileges, and sentences, which are condemned in those statutes, were all grounded upon the Pope's laws, and Bulls, and decrees, which our ancestors entertained as they deserved. Othobone, the Pope's legate in England, by the command of Urban the Fifth, made a constitution for the endowment of vicars in appropriations, but it prevailed not; whereas our kings by two Acts of Parliament did casily effect it. No ecclesiastical act is impossible to them who have a legislative power; but many ecclesiastical acts were beyond the sphere of the Pope's activity in England. The king could make a spiritual corporation, but the Pope could not. The king could exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary, but the Pope could not y. The king could convert seculars into regulars, but the Pope could not. The king could grant the privilege of the Cistercians, but the Pope could not. The king could appropriate churches, but the Pope could nota. Our laws never acknowledged the Pope's "plenitude of ecclesiastical power," which was the ground of his legislation. Euphemius objected to Gelasius, that the Bishops of Rome alone could not condemn Acatius-" ab uno non potuisset damnari." Gelasius answered, that he was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon, and that his predecessor was but "the executor of an old law, and not the author of a new"." This was all the ancient Bishops of Rome did challenge,—to be "executors" of ecclesiastical laws, and not single lawmakers. I acknowledge, that in his Epistle to the Bishops of Dardania he attributeth much to the Bishops of Rome with a Council; but it is not in making new laws or canons, 25 Edw. I. [i. e. the Statute of Carlisle.]-27 Edw. III. [Stat. 1. c. 1.] -[16 Rich. II. c. 5.]-2 Hen. IV. cc. 3 et 4.-7 Hen. IV. c. 6. 15 Rich. II. c. 6.-4 Hen. IV. c. 12. [See Just Vindic., c. iv. (vol. i. p. 139), Disc. ii. Pt. i.] y 2 Hen. IV. c. 3. [See Just Vindic., |