the Pope,--the boundless power, ecclesiastical and
political, assumed and exercised by the pontiff, and conceded to him
in England,--and, at the same time, the spirit which shows itself on
the part of some of our judges to vindicate the supremacy of the law
of England over the alleged omnipotence of the court of Rome. The
great difference of opinion also as to the power of the Pope,
expressed by the members of the judicial bench, cannot fail to
interest every Englishman, whether lawyer or not; whilst the terms in
which some of the judges speak of the encroachments of the Apostolic
see, against which the legislature of England had deemed it necessary
to enact some stringent laws, are not a little remarkable. But to
Protestants of the present day, perhaps the most surprising feature of
all may appear to be the title ascribed to the Pope by the judges,
whilst publicly and solemnly dispensing the laws of the country. They
do not speak of him as the Pope, except once in the citation of a
Latin dictum; nor do they refer to him as a sovereign pontiff
exercising the delegated authority of the chief Apostle, and (p. 046)
representing him in the church militant on earth: they do not give him
the title of "successor to St. Peter," or "our father filling the
Apostolic chair:"--they speak of him throughout in direct terms as
"the Apostle;" and in some passages they even call him "Saint Peter,"
and "our Saint Peter" the Apostle.[41] It is however very curious, in
tracing the argument in this cause, to lay the strong terms employed
by the advocates of the Pope's paramount authority side by side with
the striking expressions used by others of those high functionaries on
the supremacy of the English law, and the inability of the Apostolic
see in the plenitude of its power to change or dispense with the
common or statute law of the realm.

[Footnote 41: "L'appost'." "Nostre Saint Pier
l'appost'." "Bulls fait par Saint Pier."]

Abuses such as we have referred to in the previous sections of this
chapter prevailed everywhere, and called loudly for vigorous measures
to rectify them. At the same period the church through Christendom was
distracted and torn by contending factions, each supporting a pontiff
of its own.

To put an end to these disgraceful and unhappy feuds, as destructive
of the peace of Europe as they were hurtful to the cause of true
religion, and to effect a full reformation in