Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/105

 back to the old laws of our land, which were recognized by the Conqueror and even by kings before his time. The clergy were willing to acknowledge the Sovereign as the Protector of the Church. But not in the sense that Henry at first requested. He desired to call himself to "Protector and Supreme Head of the Church." But the clergy would not have a royal Pope, even though they wanted to be rid of the Pope of Rome. They therefore insisted in their convocation on inserting a clause in the document, asserting the extent of the king's power. Henry should be supreme over the Church. "Quantum per Christi leges licet," in so far as this be agreeable to the laws of Christ. This attitude of the subject Henry himself took in later years. He wrote to the Bishop of Durham: "We be as God's law suffereth us to be, whereunto we do and must conform ourselves." The clergy did not look upon the Sovereign as having authority over the spiritual affairs of the Church. Henry also shows us that he agreed to this. In his letter to the Convocation of York, he says:—

"As to spiritual things, meaning by them the Sacraments, being by God ordained as instruments of efficacy and strength, whereby grace is of His infinite goodness conferred upon His people, forasmuch as they be no worldly nor temporal things, they have no worldly nor temporal head, but only Christ that did institute them, by Whose ordinance they be ministered here by mortal men elect, chosen and ordered as God hath willed for that purpose, who be the clergy." And again: