=THE CHURCH, A STATE-DEPARTMENT.=
Would these orders be executed? If there remained in any university, convent, parish, or even in any wretched presbytery, a breviary in which the name of the pope was written; if on the altar of any poor country church a missal was found with these four letters unerased—it was a crime. If every weed be not plucked up, thought the king's counsellors, the garden will soon be entirely overrun. The obstinacy of the clergy, their stratagems, their pious frauds were a mystery to nobody. Henry was persuaded, and his counsellors still more so, that the bishops would make no opposition; they resolved therefore to direct the sheriffs to see that the king's orders were strictly carried out. 'We command you,' said that prince, 'under pain of our high indignation, to put aside all human respect, to place God's glory solely before you, and, at the risk of exposing yourselves to the greatest perils, to make and order diligent search to be made.[47] Inform yourselves whether in every part of your county the bishop executes our commands without veil or dissimulation. And in case you should observe that he neglects some portion, or carries out our orders coldly, or presents this measure in a bad light, we command you strictly to inform us and our council with all haste.
'If you hesitate or falter in the commission we give you, rest assured that being a prince who loves justice, we will punish you with such severity that all our subjects will take care for the future not to disobey our commands.'
Everybody could see that Henry was in earnest, and immediately after this energetic proclamation, those who were backward hastened to make their submission. The dean and chapter of St. Paul's made their protest against the pope on the 20th June. On the 27th the University of Oxford, in an act where they described the king as 'that most wise Solomon,' declared unanimously that it was contrary to the Word of God to acknowledge any superiority whatsoever in the bishop of Rome. A great number of churches and monasteries set their seals to similar declarations.[48]
Such was the first pastoral of the prince who claimed now to govern the Church. He seemed desirous of making it a mere department of the State. Henry allowed the bishops to remain, but he employed the functionaries of police and justice to overlook their episcopate; and that office was imposed upon them in such terms that they must necessarily look sharp after the transgressors. First and foremost the king wanted his own way in his family, in the State, and in the Church. The latter was to him as a ship which he had just captured: the captain was driven out, but for fear lest he should return, he threw overboard all who he thought might betray him. With haughty head and naked sword Henry VIII. entered the new realm which he had conquered. He was far from resembling Him whom the prophets had announced: Behold thy king cometh unto thee, meek and lowly.
=FORM THE CHURCH SHOULD TAKE.=
The power in the Church having been taken from the pope, to whom should it have been committed?
Scripture calls the Christian people a holy nation, a royal priesthood;[49] words which show that, after God, the authority belongs to them. And, in fact, the first act of the Church, the election of an apostle in the place of Judas, was performed by the brethren assembled in one place.[50] When it became necessary to appoint deacons, the twelve apostles once more summoned 'the multitude of the disciples.'[51] And later still, the evangelists, the delegates of the flocks, were selected by the voice of the churches.[52]
It is a principle of reason, that authority, where a corporate body is concerned, resides in the totality of its members. This principle of reason is also that of the Word of God.
When the Church became more numerous it was called upon to delegate (at least partially) a power that it could no longer exercise wholly of itself. In the apostolic age the Christians, called to form this delegation, adopted the forms with which they were familiar. After the pattern of the council of elders, which existed in the Jewish synagogues, and of the assembly of decurions, which exercised municipal functions in the cities of the pagans,[53] the Christian Church had in every town a council, composed of men of irreproachable life, vigilant, prudent, apt to teach,[54] but distinct from those who were called doctors, evangelists, or ministers of the Word.[55] Still the Christians never entertained the idea of giving themselves a universal chief, after the image of the emperor. Jesus Christ and his Word were amply sufficient. It was not until many centuries later that this anti-Christian institution appeared in history.