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secondly, against the encroachments of a state government, which he in his conscience thought had equally no right to rule in things ecclesiastical. Against each of these extremes this venerable Bishop contended. The supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and under it the implied forcing of modern uncatholic doctrines on the conscience of real Catholics (for fear you should mistake me I mean members of the Church of England), the forcing of mere local decrees of one Bishop, or at any rate of a comparatively few Bishops, as though they were decrees of the Universal Church, upon the whole of Christendom; this unjustifiable power,—denied by the whole of the Eastern Church, denied by the English Church, denied by Rome herself against Constantinople,[1]—this unjustifiable power was abhorrent to that good Bishop whose remains lie buried among you. As that power was abhorrent to him, so is it abhorrent to me.
Again, the supremacy of the State; whether that State shall be vested in the people or in the despotic authority of kings (I mean, of course, in things spiritual as such),—that supremacy was singularly abhorrent to the venerable Bishop.
First, in regard of kings. When a Roman Catholic King James II. desired the Bishops to conform to an unjustifiable decree which was to promote and advance the Church of Rome, the Bishop of Bath and Wells refused. This is the account of his refusal.
"The Bishop of S. Asaph and others replied, that they had adventured their lives for his majesty, and would lose the last drop of their blood rather than lift up a finger against him."
The king having remonstrated in urgent terms, positively declared he "would be obeyed."
The Bishop of Bath and Wells replied, "We are
- ↑ The 4th and 6th Canons of the Council of Nice, the 2nd and 3rd Canons of the Council of Constantinople, and the 22nd Canon of the Council of Chalcedon, are all manifestly against any claim of the Bishop of Rome to the supremacy as now claimed for him by the Roman Church.
