It was with pain, and not without having sought to escape therefrom, that he found himself obliged, at the assembly of the clergy in 1682, to draw up the solemn declarations of the Gallican church.

The meeting of the clergy had been called forth by the eternal discussions of the civil power with the court of Rome on the question of the rights of regale, that is to say, the rights of the sovereign to receive the revenues of vacant bishoprics, and to appoint to benefices belonging to them.

The French bishops were of independent spirit; the Archbishop of Paris, Francis de Harlay, was on bad terms with Pope Innocent XI.; Bossuet managed to moderate the discussions, and kept within suitable bounds the declaration which he could not avoid.

He had always taught and maintained what was proclaimed by the assembly of the clergy of France, "that St.

Peter and his successors, vicars of Jesus Christ, and the whole church itself, received from God authority over only spiritual matters and such as appertain to salvation, and not over temporal and civil matters, in such sort that kings and sovereigns are not subject to tiny ecclesiastical power, by order of God, in temporal matters, and cannot be deposed directly or indirectly by authority of the keys of the church; finally, that, though the pope has the principal part in questions of faith, and though his decrees concern all the churches and each church severally, his judgment is, nevertheless, not irrefragable, unless the consent of the church intervene." Old doctrines in the church of France, but never before so solemnly declared and made incumbent upon the teaching of all the faculties of theology in the kingdom.
Constantly occupied in the dogmatic struggle against Protestantism, Bossuet had imported into it a moderation in form which, however, did not keep out injustice.