the Popes themselves received the Papacy from the Emperor. The first that ever was elected Bishop of Rome after Emperors were Christians, and without the Emperor’s consent, excused himself by letters to the Emperor with this: that the people and clergy of Rome forced him to take it upon him, and prayed the Emperor to confirm it, which the Emperor did; but with reprehension of their proceedings, and the prohibition of the like for the time to come. The Emperor was Lotharius, and the Pope Calixtus the First.
A. You see by this the Emperor never acknowledged this gift of God was the gift of the Pope, but maintained that the Popedom was the gift of the Emperor. But in process of time, by the negligence of the Emperors (for the greatness of Kings makes them that they cannot easily descend into the obscure and narrow mines of an ambitious clergy), they found means to make the people believe, there was a power in the Pope and clergy, which they ought to submit unto, rather than to the commands of their own Kings, whensoever it should come into controversy: and to that end devised and decreed many new articles of faith, to the diminution of the authority of Kings, and to the disjunction of them and their subjects, and to a closer adherence of their subjects to the Church of Rome; articles either not at all found in, or not well founded upon the Scriptures; as first, that it should not be lawful for a priest to marry.
B. What influence could that have upon the power of Kings?
A. Do you not see, that by this the King must of necessity either want the priesthood, and therewith a great part of the reverence due to him from the most religious part of his subjects, or else want lawful heirs to succeed him? by which means, being not taken for the head of the Church, he was sure, in any controversy between him and the Pope, that his people would be against him.
B. Is not a Christian King as much a bishop now, as the heathen Kings were of old? for among them episcopus
