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The king is a corporation in

The king, in his political capacity, is a his political ca corporation fole: now "corporations fole pacity. confist of one perfon only and his fucceffors in fome particular ftation, who are incorporated by law, in order to give them fome legal capacities and advantages, particularly that of perpetuity, which in their natural perfons they could not have had. But as all perfonal rights die with the perfon, and as the neceffary forms of invefting a series of individuals, one after another, with the fame identical rights, would be very inconvenient, if not impracticable, it has been found neceffary, when it is for the advantage of the public to have any particular rights kept on foot and continued, to conftitute artificial perfons, who may maintain a perpetual fucceffion, and enjoy a kind of legal immortality." So in this fenfe is it faid, that the king never dies: and thofe, who are his heirs. in his natural capacity, are called his fucceffors in his political capacity; for a corporation can have no heirs, as nemo eft hæres. viventis, and a corporation never dies.

Blak, Com. b. i. c. xviii.

CHAP.

CHAP. X.

OF THE SUPREME HEAD OF THE CHURCH

I

OF ENGLAND.

Shall follow the common order of affo

ciating our ideas of church and ftate, by first confidering the king as fupreme head of the church of England. Now, although in this difcuffion I fhall rather confider, what the conftitution now is, than what it heretofore was; yet, as whatever ecclefiaftical fupremacy over the church of England is now vested by the constitution in the perfon of the king, is generally fuppofed to be vefted in him by the continuance, recognition, revival, or transfer of an old power, and not by the crea tion, donation, and inveftiture of a new one, as I fhall endeavour to make appear, it will be incumbent upon me to make fome researches into the origin and establishment of Spiritual or ecclefiaftical power in this country. I will prefume it useless to repeat any thing I have heretofore faid, to prove that the majority of the community, who must conclude the whole, have not only an indefeafible right, but an indispensable obligation and duty to adopt that divine cult or worship,

What ecclefi aftical fupremacy vested in the king.

Right and duty

of individuals

to follow the

dictates of God,

Acknowledg ment of the pope's fpiritual

fupremacy no ufurpation.

which they fhall conscientiously think God requires from them, and to countenance and support it with what civil fanctions they fhall think proper. My examination there. fore will not be, whether our ancestors exercised their right, and fulfilled their duty more or lefs judiciously or perfectly than their fucceffors; but in what manner and to what extent they actually made a reli gious establishment an effential part of their civil conftitution. This difcuffion has often been a fubject of fuch rancorous controversy, that I am not totally free from fear, left the liberality even of the prefent day, may be at first unequal to form a perfectly unbiaffed judgment upon the fubject. I am now to examine the truth, not the reafon of facts.

As true as it is, that in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of king Henry VIII. the majority of the people of England did, by the act of their representatives in parliament, renounce and throw off the fpiritual fupremacy of the pope of Rome; fo true is it, that they had uninterruptedly acknowledged and fubmitted unto it for near one thousand years before the twenty-fourth of Henry VIII. A. D. 1532. It is frivolous in the extreme, to treat this fpiritual fupremacy

of

of the pope as a papal ufurpation; for who can be fo fimple as to believe, that fuch fubmiffion could have been forced upon the English nation, who were ever jealous of their liberty, against their confent, by one hundred and feventy-one popes, who during that space of time filled the papal fee.

We must allow to our ancestors the fame right and the fame obligation of following the dictates of their confciences, which we claim and acknowledge ourselves. By the tenets of the religion, which they then profelfed, the fpiritual primacy of the visible fucceffor of St. Peter was an effential article of their belief; their fubmiffion therefore to the bishop of Rome, as fuch visible acknowledged head of the church was as free, as their adoption of the religion, which taught the neceffity of fuch a primacy. What an abfurdity would it not be, to fpeak of the belief and profeffion of the Roman catholic religion in Poland or Portugal as an ufurpation? And if our ancestors thought proper Confent of the to make a free voluntary tender and security to the bishops of Rome, either of Peter pation. Pence, firft fruits, or any other civil advantage, or benefit, how can that be called an ufurpation, which could neither have been originally impofed, nor continue to be en

forced

nation inconfiftent with ufur

King Henry's beat and Fomiffion to the pope's fupromney the

of its actual existence.

forced by any civil or human means, without the confent of the nation? The fact demonftrates the truth! For from the moment, in which the nation withdrew their confent, from that moment the bishop of Rome enjoyed no more civil or temporal rights, benefits, nor advantages within this kingdom, than St. Peter did from our hea then British ancestors, who inhabited the ifland in his days.

As to this point, I know of no authority, that can be fo conclufive, as that of king Henry himself, who, about ten years before the pafhogproof fing of this act, in defence of the fpiritual fupremacy of the pope against Martin Luther, wrote a book, which he fubfcribed with his own hand, and fent to pope Leo X. by Dr. Clerke, the bifhop of Bath and Wells, and for which he obtained the title of defender of the faith, which has been ever fince kept up by our fovereigns to this day.

"I will not offer fo much injury unto the pope, as earnestly and carefully to dif pute heere of his right, as though the matter might be held in doubt; it is fufficient for that, which now we haue in hand, that this enemy (Luther) fhewed himfelf fo much

Henry VIII. in Def. Sacram. cont. M. Luth.

to

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