A 30 INTRODUCTION. That the pope claims, assumes, and exercises a sovereignty over the church, endowed with such prerogatives, is sufficiently visible in experience of fact, is apparent by the authorized dictates in their canon law, and shall be distinctly proved by competent allegations, when we shall examine the branches of this pretended authority. In the meantime it suffices to observe, that in effect all clergy- men avow so much, who, bonafide and without prevarication, sub- mit to take the oaths and engagements prescribed to them of course by papal appointment; for this surely, according to the pope's mean- ing (by which their obligation is to be measured), is designed in the profession ordained by Pope Pius IV., wherein every beneficed clergyman is enjoined to say, "And I do promise and swear true obedience to the Roman pontiff, the successor of St Peter, and the vicarof Jesus Christ; "1 which profession was appointed in pursu- ance of a sanction made by the Trent council, that all such persons "should vow and swear to abide in obedience to the Roman church ; "a and consequently, how hard soever its yoke should be, they would not shake it off: which infers most absolute sovereignty of that church, or of the pope who rules the roast in it. But what that " true obedience" imports, or how far the papal authority in the pope's own sense, and according to the public spirit of that church, stretches, is more explicitlysignified in the oathwhich all bishops at their consecration and all metropolitans at their in- stalment are required to take; thewhich, as it is extant in theRoman Pontifical,' set out by order of Pope Clement VIII., runs in these terms: " I, N, elect of the church of N, from henceforward will be faith- ful and obedient to St Peter the apostle, and to the holy Roman church, and to our lord, the lord N, Pope N, and to his successors, canonically coming in. I will neither advise, consent, nor do any thing that they may lose life or member, or that their persons may be seized, or hands any wise laid upon them, or any injuries offered to them, under any pretence whatsoever. The counsel which they shall intrust me withal, by themselves, their messengers, or letters, I will not knowingly reveal to any to their prejudice. I will help them to, defend and keepthe Roman papacyand the royalties ofSt Peter, saving my order against all men. The legate of the apostolic see, going and coming, I will honourably treat, and help inhis necessities. The rights, honours, privileges, and authority of the holy Roman church, of our lord the pope, and his foresaid successors, Iwill en- ' Romanoque pontifici, B. Petri successori, ac Jesu Christivicario, veram obedientiam spondeo acjuro.Bull. Pii IV., super forma juram. 2 Provisi de beneficiis in Romance ecclesia; obedientia se permansuros spondeant ac jurent.Cone. Trid., sess. xxiv. cap. 12. 3 Pontif. Rom. Antwerp., anno 1626, pp. 69, 86.
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