only affects the character of Henry VIII. and of those immediately engaged in it; it does not affect the Reformation of the church of England. We have an equal right to set aside the question of the suppression of monasteries. That suppression may perhaps show that the temporal promoters of the Reformation had temporal motives. We do not deny it. All we insist upon is, that the church of England is not to be made responsible for those motives. She never was invited to approve their avarice or other evil passions. She herself suffered from that avarice, just as the French, the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese churches have suffered under the extortions or confiscations of their temporal rulers. It must be confessed, however, that in England, as well as in other countries, the clergy viewed without any extreme regret the extinction of the various orders of monks and friars, who (though in some things commendable) had degenerated from the purity of the ancient rule, interfered with the unity and discipline of the church, and sustained the most extravagant pretensions of the Roman pontiffs, subversive of the liberties of churches. struction of the Canaanites. The bishops and convocations of England, the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Orleans, Angiers, Bourges, Tholouse, Bolog na, Padua, &c. and a multitude of theologians, judged that any human dispensation in this case was null. CHAPTER II. ON THE ABOLITION OF THE PAPAL JURISDICTION, AND THE SCHISM. THE objections advanced against the abolition of the papal jurisdiction in England are, that it was effected by Henry VIII. in revenge for the refusal of the Roman pontiff to sanction his marriage with Anna Boleyn; that it was carried by false arguments; that the papal jurisdiction having existed since the foundation of Christianity in England, it was schismatical to remove it; and that the church of England then separated herself from the catholic church, and from Christian unity. I. Now, as I have already observed, the private motives of King Henry were not matters on which the church of England could judge. His public professions were unexceptionable. According to them he was influenced by a desire of reforming abuses, reviving usurped rights, and relieving the church and state from foreign oppressions and exactions. The church of England was then bound to examine the question of the abolition of the papal jurisdiction on its own merits; and if she was convinced that abolition was right and advisable, she was justified in acquiescing in the various laws of the civil powers, made for that purpose. Let us examine those laws. The various acts of parliament made in England, against certain parts of the papal power, all relate to those peculiar branches of ordinary jurisdiction, which had been acquired in process of time over the church of England, and which in no degree concerned the precedence of the Roman see in the catholic church. The learned primate Bramhall has observed, that these acts were not intended to deprive the Roman pontiff of any really spiritual power; they only cast out some branches of his exterior jurisdiction which were not instituted by Christ, nor by the catholic church". They did not deny the precedency of the bishop of Rome in the universal church, nor his right (in conjunction with Christian princes) of summoning and presiding in general councils, nor his power of defining questions of faith in conjunction with the catholic church, nor his right to exhort all bishops to observe the canons, nor his being the centre of catholic unity when he is in communion with all the catholic church. None of these things (the chief privileges of the Roman primacy according to Romanists) were affected by the acts of parliament for abolishing the usurped jurisdiction of the Roman bishop in England; and therefore it is vain to impute schism or heresy to the church of England on this account, even on the supposition that the primacy of the Roman see is of divine institution. The several acts of parliament alluded to, are concerning Annates, Bulls, Appeals, and Dispensations. * Bramhall, Works, p. 340. h Ibid. p. 382. VOL. I. Ff ANNATES.-In 1532 it was enacted, that annates, or first-fruits, and all other pecuniary payments for bulls, pensions, and annuities, to the Roman see, should entirely cease; and this act having been in vain suspended from execution, in order that the pope might redress those exactions, it was confirmed by another act in 1533, which ordered that no person from henceforward should pay any money for annates, first-fruits, or otherwise for any bulls, briefs, or palls. It was also enacted, that no one should pay any pensions, censes, portions, Peter's-pence, or other impositions, to the use of the bishop of Rome'. No one can pretend that there was any schism or heresy in the suppression of these pecuniary payments or taxes, which being of an entirely temporal nature, could never have been lawfully levied without the consent of the civil magistrate. They were generally too of comparatively recent imposition. Thomassin, presbyter of the Oratory, proves that annates began to be exacted by Boniface IX. about 1392, and they were enforced by a refusal of the bulls of nomination to benefices or sees. They had been suppressed by the edict of Charles VI. king of France, in 1406, 1417, and 1418. They had been again suppressed by Louis XI. in 1463 and 1464"; and what is more, they had been already prohibited in England, by act of parliament, in the reign of Henry IV." Even now in Austria, annates are not allowed to be paid, except in the case of newly-created bishops. Pensions began to be fixed on benefices, by the popes for their cardinals, or for the Roman court, about the same time that annates arose P; and Peter's-pence were alms which the kings of England had very long been accustomed to pay to the see of Rome, but which there could be no religious obligation on them to continue. Therefore in all this enactment there was nothing to which the church of England could rightly object. BULLS.-In 1532 it was enacted, as above, that no one should pay any money for bulls, or papal letters of institution to bishopricks; and that if those bulls were refused, the bishop elect should be consecrated in England without them; and the law which confirmed this in 1533, enacted that no one in future should be presented to the pope for any see, nor send or procure any bulls, briefs, or palls there'. The necessity of papal bulls, even for archbishopricks, was only founded on the laws of the Roman pontiffs, collected by Gregory IX. in the Decretals; for it is well known, that for many centuries the metropolitans were confirmed and ordained by the provincial synods of bishops; but these laws derived their authority in England entirely from the consent or permission of the catholic church here". The English bishops, as Tho Select Committee on Regulation Act 23 Hen. VIII. for repression of annates, and 25 Hen. VIII. c. 20. for the non-payment of first-fruits to the bishop of Rome. s Thomassin. tom. iii. p. 430. 'De Marca, De Concord. Sacerd. et Imperii, lib. iv. c. 4. Thomassin. tom. ii. p. 426, &c. "The canon law was only partially received in England. Bramhall, Works, p. 72, 328. Even the laws of general synods in matters of discipline, are not obligatory in particular churches until they are received there; e. g. the discipline of the Council of Trent has never been universally |