Page:The Life of Sir Thomas More (William Roper, ed by Samuel Singer).djvu/40

 'This, (says the Bp.) was the sense which Calvin affirmed to be sacrilegious and blasphemous for princes to professe themselves supreme judges of doctrine and discipline, and indeed it is the blasphemie which all godlie hearts reject and abomine in the Bishop of Rome. Neither did King Henry take any such thing on him for ought that we can learn; but this was Gardiner's stratagem to convey the reproach and shame of the sixe articles from himselfe and his felowes that were the authors of them, and to cast it on the King's supreme power. Had Calvin been told that supreme was first received to declare the prince to be superior to the prelates, who exempted themselves from the King's authoritie by their church liberties and immunities, as well as to the lay-men of this realme, and not to be subject to the Pope, who claimed a jurisdiction over all princes and countries, the word would never have offended him: but as this wily foxe framed his answere when the Germans communed with him about the matter, we blame not Calvin for mistaking, but the Bishop of Winchester, for perverting the King's stile, and wresting it to that sense which all good men abhor.'

The Bp. further observes, that 'Our princes by their stile of supreme heads of the church, do not challenge power to debate, decide, or determine any point of faith or matter of religion, much lesse to be