lexity will be increased.
For the founders of the English Church wrote and acted in an age of
violent intellectual fermentation, and of constant action and reaction.
They therefore often contradicted each other and sometimes contradicted
themselves. That the King was, under Christ, sole head of the Church was
a doctrine which they all with one voice affirmed: but those words had
very different significations in different mouths, and in the same
mouth at different conjunctures. Sometimes an authority which would have
satisfied Hildebrand was ascribed to the sovereign: then it dwindled
down to an authority little more than that which had been claimed by
many ancient English princes who had been in constant communion with the
Church of Rome. What Henry and his favourite counsellors meant, at one
time, by the supremacy, was certainly nothing less than the whole power
of the keys. The King was to be the Pope of his kingdom, the vicar
of God, the expositor of Catholic verity, the channel of sacramental
graces. He arrogated to himself the right of deciding dogmatically what
was orthodox doctrine and what was heresy, of drawing up and imposing
confessions of faith, and of giving religious instruction to his people.
He proclaimed that all jurisdiction, spiritual as well as temporal, was
derived from him alone, and that it was in his power to confer episcopal
authority, and to take it away. He actually ordered his seal to be put
to commissions by which bishops were appointed, who were to exercise
their functions as his deputies, and during his pleasure. According to
this system, as expounded by Cranmer, the King was the spiritual as well
as the temporal chief of the nation. In both capacities His Highness
must have lieutenants. As he appointed civil officers to keep his seal,
to collect his revenues, and to dispense justice in his name, so
he appointed divines of various ranks to preach the gospel, and to
administer the sacraments. It was unnecessary that there should be any
imposition of hands. The King,--such was the opinion of Cranmer given in
the plainest words,--might in virtue of authority derived from God, make
a priest; and the priest so made needed no ordination whatever. These
opinions the Archbishop, in spite of the opposition of less courtly
divines, followed out to every legitimate consequence. He held that his
own spiritual functions, like the secular functions of the Chancellor
and Treasurer, were at once determined