THE KING'S SUPREMACY.

131

the bishop of bishops, and usurp dominion over all God's creatures? Did he exempt himself from the power of civil government; maintain wars; set princes at variance; or sit in a chair with a purple gown and regal sceptre and diadem of gold and precious stones, and set his feet on kings' necks? Did St. Peter, it was asked in conclusion, leave these affairs and others like them in charge to his successors from hand to hand?

Nor, in transferring the supremacy from the Pope to the King did the church of England act unadvisedly, however it was objected to her that civil princes should confine themselves to civil matters. Certainly, nothing could be more inexpedient, whether for the good government of the country, or its spiritual improvement, than that there should be in it two sovereign heads, each desirous to have the pre-eminence, and a struggle be thus perpetuated between politics and religion; such a mingling of hot blood with sacrifice could never be acceptable to a God of order and peace; and how was the inconvenience to be avoided except by making one and the same person in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil, supreme? Neither was this a new thing under the sun: God had of old time commissioned kings to execute many holy offices.Isaiah had spoken of them as nursing fathers of the church - Moses, the civil magistrate, had rebuked Aaron the priest for a breach of duty; -Joshua had set many things in order which pertained to God; enjoining circumcision, commanding sacrifices to be made, and the blessings and curses of the law to be sounded in the ears

1 xlix. 23.

;

of the people; David had directed and superintended the removal of the ark to Jerusalem; Solomon had reared the Temple, addressed his subjects afterwards in a godly oration, deposed Abiathar the priest, and set up Zadok in his place; -Josiah had restored and reformed the worship of his time; cleansed the Temple, broken the brazen serpent, now become an object of idolatry, and despatched his priest to enquire of the prophetess respecting the copy of the law which he had recently discovered 1; and whatever may be said of a change of times and systems since these dynasties passed away, still the principle itself is not affected by such change; and nothing can be more certain than that these persons were temporal and not spiritual governors of their nation, and yet that in matters ecclesiastical they were authorised to a certain extent to interfere: we say, to a certain extent; for neither could these sovereigns, nor can any sovereigns, as such, excommunicate, or bind, or loose, or perform, one of the priestly functions; still they may lawfully see that others duly commissioned do perform them; it is one thing to exercise the office of a bishop, and another to provide that a bishop there be, and a fit one, to execute it for himself. 2

Neither does it seem to be unmeet that they who are themselves the "ministers of God," (as St. Paul expressly calls the supreme magistrates) the "6 powers ordained of God," the men to whom " every soul," without any reservation of ecclesiastics, is to be subject "because they 12 Kings, xxii.

2 See Jewel's Defence of the Apology, p. 571.

ALLIANCE OF CHURCH AND STATE. 133

are of God," should have some voice in the approval of the servants of God's church, and some control over them; more especially when it is remembered that it is the duty of a king to rule well, and that it would be difficult for him to rule at all, with a body of men within his realm and out of his own reach, who must always possess, so long as the concerns of a world beyond the grave can touch mankind, a very powerful lever in their hands, which, however honestly it may be, and is in general applied, is nevertheless capable of misapplication, as the history of every nation can testify, and none more than our own.1 And without any refer ence to extreme cases, to the danger, for instance, of religious meetings becoming, in critical seasons, schools of sedition, and of the divine resolving himself into the demagogue; a danger, however, by no means chimerical when there is nothing to connect the system of religious instruction with the office of the civil magistrate; even in ordinary times it would be found, and it has been found, that the spirit of the independent congregation and that of the government under which it exists, but to which it owes nothing, coincide but little and that the state is apt to feel its energies crippled by the positive opposition, or at least the non-cooperation of these, its members, in their religious capacity.

It may be added, in defence of the consolidation of the supremacy, both civil and ecclesiastical, in the king, that the Romanists them

1 See The Icon Basilike, chap. xvii., quoted by Warburton in his " Alliance between Church and State."

selves could not deny that the early councils (the decrees of which are recognised by the church of Rome to this day) were summoned by the magistrate, and not by the Bishop of Rome; the council of Nice, for example, by Constantine, "who called together a synod (they are the words of Sozomen), and wrote letters to those who were set over the churches, in every place, to attend on a certain day — and there were present (he adds) at this assembly, from the apostolic see, Macarius of Jerusalem, Eustathius, the President of the church of Antioch, (who is reported by Theodoret, it may be observed, as the leader of the council, and the orator who opened it by an address to the emperor,) Alexander of Alexandria, Biton and Bicentius, presbyters of the church of Rome, Julius the bishop being absent, and in all, of bishops about three hundred and twenty, and of presbyters and deacons who attended them no small number." 1

Thus do we find Scripture lending its sanction to such an alliance between church and state, as the identification of the king with the supreme head of the church implies - early ecclesiastical history declaratory of the authority by which councils were at first summoned, giving it the approbation of primitive usage-and the necessity of one mind actuating every member of the body politic, both civil and sacred, dictating its expediency.

1 See Sozomen, Hist. Eccles. lib. i. c. xvii. Euseb. de Vit. Constantin. iii. c. vii. Theodoret, Hist. Eccles. i. c. vii.

CHAPTER VIII.

DISSOLUTION OF THE ABBEYS.-CHURCH PROPERTY. CONSEQUENCES OF THE DISSOLU

— IMMEDIATE TION.

HENRY had by this time fairly passed the Rubicon. After a long pause and much anxiety for the event, he had ventured upon an act which was a declaration of war against the Pope, and he must now on. The strength of the Pontiff lay, as we have seen, in the monastic orders, and in the Mendicants above all. The secular clergy were better subjects, and acknowledged a less divided allegiance. But the monks were so powerful a body in England that the monarch, even in times when he wore far from the semblance of a kingly crown, could scarcely balance them. Grievances are alleged against them without end in the "Supplication of Beggars;" "But what remedy?" says the author of this singular address to the King, "Make laws against them? I am in doubt whether ye be able. Are they not stronger in your own parliament-house than yourself? What a number of bishops, abbots, and priors are lords of your parliament!! Are not all the learned men of your realm in fee

1 In the time of Henry III., sixty-four abbots and thirtysix priors were called to parliament; but Edward III. reduced them to twenty-five abbots and two priors: two abbots were added afterwards; so that there were in all twenty-nine who enjoyed this honour till the dissolution.