Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom Part 5

The a.n.a.logy between the Two Powers is full of instruction; but it is to be remembered that as, since the coming of Christ, the Spiritual Power is one in all countries and in all times, whereas the Temporal Power is one only in each country and at each time, the comparison of the two can only take those points which belong to the Temporal Power alike in all countries and times; and this will be found sufficient for our purpose.

We have just seen the conception of spiritual jurisdiction as wielding the priesthood and the teaching: it corresponds in this respect to secular sovereignty, under which is ranged on the one hand authority in every degree, as held by all officials in administration, by all councillors in legislating, by all judges in their several tribunals, by all officers in the public force. Whoever in the public service holds a portion of the public authority may be ranged under the general head of magistrate, and stands herein to the sovereign power in the same relation as the priest to the bearer of supreme spiritual jurisdiction. On the other hand, whoever is engaged in the whole circle of human arts and sciences, which comprehends the vast domain of human knowledge as acquired by learning, answers to the spiritual teacher. This triple division runs through every state, at every time, whatever may be its relative advancement in the scale of government. And the comparison as to both Powers is exhaustive with regard to their range, since in both, man, individual or collective, is a being who acts because he first knows and then wills. Sovereignty, presiding in the various kinds of magistracy over all who command, and over all in the various arts and sciences who teach, because they have first learned, covers that triple domain in the one case, and in the other spiritual royalty, which acts through the priest and the teacher. But the society is knit together in a much stricter bond, by a far more perfect interaction of forces, in the spiritual than in the temporal order; and this arises from the fact that all spiritual power in its triple range actually descends from the spiritual head through every degree, which is far from being the fact in temporal sovereignty. That is the pre-eminence of Christ in His spiritual kingdom; and it is the perfection of the Divine Legislator that He exercises His royalty by the indivisible action of His Jurisdiction, Priesthood, and Teaching, communicated to the whole structure at the head of which He stands.

The completeness of the spiritual society in its regimen is likewise shown by the philosophical basis on which it rests. Our knowledge of our dependence upon the Being, the Truth, and the Goodness of G.o.d is the foundation of religion in us, and produces in us the idea of three chief duties binding us to G.o.d-Faith, Adoration, and Charity.[23] These answer to man's triple nature, which acts upon the basis of knowing and willing; and they correspond likewise to the office of the Teacher, the Priest, and the Spiritual Ruler. Faith is evidently the virtue in man elicited by the Teacher, and its office is to accept the truth which he communicates.

It leads on to Adoration, which ensues when the mind and heart dwell upon the divine attributes and their relation to man, and which includes Hope as a part of itself; and this answers to the special work of the Priest, which is to communicate the whole treasure of grace to the human redeemed family. And, lastly, Charity, which is the ruling principle of all action to the Christian, so far as he acts christianly, is the special virtue of the Ruler, according to the condition imposed by our Lord when He inst.i.tuted the pastoral rule in its highest degree, saying to Peter, "Lovest thou me more than these?" that is, his brother Apostles and the Apostle of Love himself, and then adding, "Feed my sheep." And these virtues, Faith, Adoration, and Charity, it may be added, have as intimate a connection with each other as the several bearers of power in the regimen to which they belong are linked together. To exercise Faith, Adoration, and Charity make the Christian man, as the Teaching, the Priesthood, and the Rule make the Christian order.

Wors.h.i.+p, belief, and conduct embrace the whole man in his relations G.o.dward; but much more than this is true in the order of the Christian kingdom, for there these three things are inseparably joined with the Person of Christ. As we have said above, the whole power grows upon the root of His Priesthood, the particular act of which is the offering of His Body, the Body of the Incarnate Son, for the sin of the world. His communicated Priesthood consists in the perpetual presentation of that Sacrifice to G.o.d by His ministers in the name and in the presence of the Christian people; and the Sacrifice thus offered becomes further to them the food of eternal life. In this great sacrament, carrying with it the perpetual presence of Christ in and with His Church, all the other sacraments are potentially contained. It is the well-spring of the whole sacramental life, which He caused to open when His own Pa.s.sion was beginning. Of indescribable grandeur is that order, beginning with the eve of His Pa.s.sion, and stretching unbroken through all times and climes to the consummation of the world. In that great act, carried on by the High Priest through the voice and hands of countless successors, which daily in every generation gathers into one the prayers of His people, the manifold life is concentered which provides for every need.

But this Priesthood it is which carries on the Faith. That Faith is not a belief in G.o.d "as the Architect of the universe," but in the love of G.o.d the Father, the Creator of man, who sends His Son to be their Redeemer, and in the love of G.o.d the Son, who is so sent; so that the Faith grows on the root of the Priesthood. And out of this Faith is developed that vast fabric of doctrine which in the course of eighteen centuries and a half has made Christian theology, and reared for itself a harmonious system of Christian law. The Eternal Priest carries in His hands eternal truth, which He alone can preserve amid the never-ending conflicts of human opinion, the surging strife of the bottomless sea of human imaginations. The gift of maintaining all the truth which concerns human redemption in every one of its remotest issues cannot be parted from the Priesthood by which that redemption was wrought. Thus it coheres with the sacramental life, and is not a fruit of man's intellect by itself, but is bestowed on that intellect in union with grace. It is as it were an atmosphere of thought which the Christian people breathe.

And, once more, Christian conduct is the action of those who have this wors.h.i.+p and this faith. It springs from an intention united at least implicitly to the Author and Finisher of the Faith. It is this intention which gives to the action the quality of merit. For an action done with it differs incalculably from an action done without it, though the external appearance and effect of the two actions may be the same. It is to Christ as King that we are answerable for our actions, and wors.h.i.+p and belief culminate in action. The inward life of His subjects therefore answers to the triple outward order established by the Priest, the Prophet, and the King. It is in virtue of this answering in His people that He has fulfilled the prophecies concerning Him as to His triple character. Had He left no government for His kingdom, how would He be a King? Had He left no priesthood to be perpetuated in His Church, how would He be Priest after the order of Melchisedek? Had He left no truth inaccessible to error, how would He be the Prophet that was to come into the world?

It is then in their wors.h.i.+p, their belief, and their conduct that the Christian people one and all are derived from Christ, as much as the triple regimen of His kingdom. Every individual man, so far as he is a Christian, is a copy of Christ, while the whole people "is Jesus Christ diffused and communicated, Jesus Christ complete, Jesus Christ perfect man, Jesus Christ in His fulness."[24]

Nothing can show the universality of this Christian society more than this derivation alike of the individual and of the ma.s.s from Christ. When the children of Noah wore scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth at the dispersion, the great family was broken up and nations arose; but in the baptism of Christ nations disappear and the great family is restored. There it is the member of the human race, the child of Adam alone, who is a.s.sumed to be the brother of Christ. All the conditions of human life which have arisen in the society of the nation, which St. Paul has summed up in the words Greek and Jew, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, disappear also; there arises from that fontal birth only the man "created anew to knowledge after the image of the Creator" (Col. iii. 10, 11). Yet there is no interference with the natural society, with its rights on the one side and its obligations on the other. It is the human being, with body and soul, making one manhood, of which the soul is the form, which is thus taken; but he is taken in his relations to that last end with the mention of which we begin. As to the other relations of his natural stale, they continue as they were, subject only to a superior end, which is superior because it is the last.

Our Lord, when traduced before the Roman tribunal as infringing on the sovereignty of the emperor, was solemnly asked if He was the King of the Jews. He replied with a threefold a.s.sertion: that He was a King; that His kingdom was not of this world, and yet that it was in this world. How far does the kingdom which we have so far attempted to delineate correspond to these three truths?

1. It is a kingdom because, according to the delineation of it which we have just made, it is a royal priesthood, ruling inasmuch as it deals with the belief, the wors.h.i.+p, and the conduct of its people-all the relations of man with G.o.d. In all this it does for the divine life in man everything which the temporal kingdom does for his secular life. The a.n.a.logy between the two is precise and complete.

2. It is not a kingdom of this world, inasmuch as it governs with a view to an end which is outside and beyond this life. This end determines everything within it, as also we have seen above.

3. Again, it is not of this world because the source of its regimen lies in the Incarnation and Pa.s.sion of the Son of G.o.d, acts the virtue of which consists in G.o.d's supreme government of the world, in His absolute lords.h.i.+p over it as Creator and Redeemer. All authority in it descends from Christ, "as the Apostle and High Priest" by this divine appointment, from whose Person the apostolate and priesthood are transmitted to those whom He sends, in like manner as He Himself was sent by His Father.

4. Again, it is not of this world because its subjects are produced as so many copies of this divine original; it is the only kingdom in which the people proceeds out of the King as much as the regimen by which it is ruled. He is strictly the Father whom His children imitate so far as they are His children; in Him Fathers.h.i.+p and Kings.h.i.+p are identical.

5. Again, it is not of this world because its sacraments bestow grace, a gift of G.o.d coming down upon the world, in it, but not of it; the fountain-head of the gift being that G.o.d has taken the flesh of Adam and borne the sin of Adam, and therefore, through seven sacramental streams, dispenses the grace which heals the sin, as it affects the whole life of man as the offspring of Adam.

6. Again, it is not of this world in the perpetual witness which it bears to the truth, in which witness specially our Lord declares that His sovereignty lies. If this witness had closed with His death, that would have been the triumph of falsehood. And those who allege that truth has been corrupted in His kingdom do, in fact, declare with the same breath, though they often do not perceive the consequence, that His witness has ceased and failed. But truth, as the token and inheritance of His kingdom, depends, like grace, upon a divine gift attached to His Person, and transmitted through the order of His kingdom's regimen.[25]

7. Furthermore, it is a kingdom because of the complete a.n.a.logy with that civil government which makes a temporal kingdom. It has jurisdiction for jurisdiction, and a graduated hierarchy of officers descending more directly from the head than exists in any temporal monarchy. And what the multifold arts and sciences which embellish natural life are to any of these kingdoms, that the divine inheritance of teaching Christian truth, in its bearings upon the acts and thoughts and philosophy of mankind, is with a much higher degree of perfection in the Christian kingdom.

8. And if man has naturally need to live in society, if to do so is a fulfilment of G.o.d's purpose in creating him a race, much more has he this need of the supernatural society; and in so living he fulfils the purpose of G.o.d in so much higher a degree as Christ exceeds Adam. All the sacraments fulfil this purpose according to the needs of human life, by incorporating him with a divine order; most of all the divinest of them, in which the King appears for ever in the act of His Priesthood, dispensing bread to His people. And here again this spiritual nourishment, whereby His people live in society, testifies that the kingdom is not of this world.

9. Nor is it to be forgotten that the kingdom thus far described generated for itself a law, not confined, like the law of any earthly kingdom, to a particular time or place, but universal as itself, defining and arranging the various relations by which it subsists, that is, the whole order of the internal Christian life and the external Christian society. The power of the Legislator who is seated in this empire nowhere is shown more manifestly than in the great and uniform fabric of Christian law which He has caused to proceed out of it, and which, made for the rule of a Christian people gathered out of all the tribes of the earth, contains in it, drawn out and applied, all the principles needed to provide a mirror of justice and equity for the nations of the earth in their intercourse with each other.

10. Most striking is this witness to the truth that it is not of this world in the essential and inherent independence of the civil government which the kingdom possesses as to its end, as to its regimen, as to the production of its people, as to its sacraments, as to its maintenance of the truth committed to it, and as to its Canon Law. With regard to all these it is in the midst of these governments, but it is not of them. No one of these things can their mechanism produce, while the divine kingdom consists in the exercise of them all within the limits of these various kingdoms, with or without their concurrence, but never with any originating power in temporal rule as to any of them.

11. And this leads to two of the most striking differences between the Temporal and the Spiritual Power. Every temporal kingdom is limited in s.p.a.ce. The proudest and most imperial which has yet existed, that great Roman empire of which Christ was a subject, and in the bosom of which His greater kingdom arose, how small a portion of the earth's surface did it cover! Not so the Kingdom of Truth. It is in place, but not local; it runs through all the kingdoms of the world, grasping them, not grasped by them. By the token of ubiquity it is in them, but not of them; and if it be retorted that this attribute has but imperfectly been fulfilled in fact, I reply that it has been sufficiently fulfilled to mark to all eyes that it is a token of the one kingdom, fulfilled more and more, and advancing to greater fulfilment; besides that I am here considering the divine kingdom in its conception, in its idea.

12. And still more than in place is the Temporal Power limited in time.

Immortal in the inst.i.tution itself, so far as the human race is immortal, it is subject to decline and death in numberless individual applications.

If man is likened to a flower in duration, many a kingdom lasts not so long as a tree. All change in the character of their government, pa.s.sing from the one to the few, from the few to the many, or again reabsorbed from the many to one. The succession of human governments is likened to the sea in its changes, whose turbulent waves image forth the fluctuations of empires. Where is the government that has remained one and the same but that concerning which Christ said, "Feed my sheep;" "I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven;" "Confirm thy brethren;" "Thou art the Rock on which I will build my Church"? By its domination over time and s.p.a.ce the kingdom of the truth shows that it is in but not of the world.

13. There is yet one more quality, as distinctive and as peculiar as any which we have yet pa.s.sed in review. It is the kingdom not only of the truth, but of Charity. Not that within it there have not been innumerable scandals; not that within it sin has not ever been fighting with grace; but that the whole kingdom is compacted and held together by a divine charity, and has in it as a common possession the treasure of the merits of Jesus Christ. "The king is one with the kingdom, because He bears its sins; the kingdom is one with the King, because it bears His cross."[26]

This is an interchange of charity which goes on for ever. It is an effect of this bond that no virtue and no suffering in it is lost. The whole kingdom, from the beginning to the end, makes up "that which is wanting of the sufferings of Christ." There is no such bond of unity, no such fruit of communion, in any temporal kingdom comparable to this. I suppose that patriotism in the natural society corresponds to the charity engendered in the supernatural kingdom; and patriotism is limited to the temporal objects of the particular society; charity extends to the eternal interests of the kingdom without end.

3.-_Relation of the Two Powers to each other._

In the treatment hitherto pursued we have divided the consideration of the two Powers into the period before Christ and the period which ensues upon His coming.

In the period before Christ we have found that both Powers were originally of divine inst.i.tution in the beginning of man, and that both belonged to him as a race. Civil government began with the family; wors.h.i.+p, and with it priesthood, began also with the family; both were united in the head of the race; both were inst.i.tuted for the good of man as he lived in society. Their subject was the same-man-the secular Power treating him in his relation to his natural end, its object being to provide all things which concerned the temporal prosperity of his life; the Spiritual Power treating him in relation to his supernatural or last end, its object being to provide whatever concerned his eternal state after this life. And their relative importance was determined by their end, with regard to which the temporal life was subject to the future life. No fact was more strikingly ill.u.s.trated by the whole history than this; for three times the condition of the whole race upon the earth was affected by its conduct in regard to the last end, which belongs to the Spiritual Power. Once, and at a stroke, the whole race fell in its first sire from its state of original justice, and from the happiness which depended on the preservation of that state, by disregard of the end for which it was created. A second time the whole race, with the exception of one family, because disobedience to G.o.d became universal, fell in like manner, and was destroyed. A third time the lapse proceeded to the corruption of the idea of G.o.d Himself; the unity and brotherhood of the race was broken up in consequence; it divided into nations at enmity with each other, and man, from being a family of brethren, became the bitterest foe of his fellow-man, inventing war, and slavery as its result, and inflicting on himself worse evils than those which came to him from any external cause. By the same lapse the Spiritual Power was specially affected. The unity of the priesthood was destroyed with belief in the unity of the G.o.dhead; the truth which it was intended to attest and carry on, that is, the sense of man's guilt and the promise of his restoration, was overclouded; the sacrifice which it was intended to offer to the one G.o.d was offered to a mult.i.tude of false G.o.ds; the rites which accompanied the sacrifice and the prayers which explained its meaning lost their force. The corruption of religion entailed with it a terrible descent in the moral character of its ministers. In this state it may be said that the Spiritual Power was so far fallen from its original purpose, that it had almost ceased to have relation to the supernatural end of man. In every country it continued to be, it is true, in amity with the civil government, but at the price of absolute subjection at last. The truth which should have guarded it was all but lost, and the honour which belonged to it was seized by the civil ruler as a decoration of his crown.

In the period which ensued upon the coming of Christ we have found a new basis given to the Spiritual Power. As it lay through all Gentilism with its truth corrupted, its power appended to the State, its offices stripped of all moral meaning, it needed to be renewed from its very source. A foul pantheon of male and female deities, differing as to names and functions with every country, could generate no priesthood. Such generation was the work of the Most High G.o.d, and for it He sent His Son.

The nation which He had built up to form the Altar, the Chair, the Throne of His Son refused, through the worldliness of its rulers, to discharge its office. Yet in its despite He sent forth the law from Sion, where the act of His Son's high priesthood was effected by the very sin of His people; and henceforth we find the Spiritual Power a derivation from the Person of Christ as the Incarnate G.o.d in His work of redemption. We have seen it one and indivisible in its essence, triple in its direction or modality; in its Priesthood representing the Son; in its Teaching of the truth, the Holy Spirit; in the Spiritual Royalty, from which Priesthood and Teaching both proceed, and which both exercise, the Father, the source of the G.o.dhead; thus rendering an image, perfect so far as the weakness of created things allows, of the Divine Trinity in Unity, according to the prayer offered for it by our Lord in His Pa.s.sion: "They are not of the world, as I am not of the world: as Thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world; that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in them, that they also may be one in us."

It is, then, out of the union of the divine and human natures in Christ, in virtue of His Pa.s.sion, and from His Person when He rose from the dead, that the Spiritual Power is drawn. The Spiritual Power itself makes its subjects; and thus the Father of the future age creates His people from Himself, as of old time and in figure of Himself He made the race out of Adam. Thus, as regards Gentilism, He formed anew the priesthood to replace that original priesthood which had so fallen from its duties, so corrupted its witness, so lost its honour. The act in view to which that original priesthood was set up being accomplished, He resumed its power, for the symbolical sacrifice became useless so soon as the real sacrifice was offered. As regards Judaism, he fulfilled the purpose for which it had been created, offering Himself as the Paschal Lamb in the midst of it; and by His resurrection He caused the prophet-nation to subserve for the generation of an universal kingdom of truth, whose power lay henceforth in Himself.

This is the condition of things established by Christ, and all that we have further to say as to the relation between the Two Powers is a deduction from it.

1. And, first, it is clear that all Christians are subject to the Spiritual Power. This subjection rests upon the same ground as subjection to Christ Himself, for the power represents Him. As regards any individual Christian this will hardly be contested. But it is equally true of all corporate bodies, whether small or great. This obligation touches us strictly the mightiest kingdom, if it be Christian, as the humblest private person. There is nothing in the quality of numbers or of temporal sovereignty which exempts from obedience to the law of Christ those who acknowledge Him for their King; and the King's government is as the King Himself. Of course it is only so far as the spiritual domain extends-that is, over the things which belong to the Priesthood, the Teaching, and that Spiritual Jurisdiction which makes their Royalty-that the obligation of obedience extends.

2. Secondly, all Christians are subject likewise, as all men in general, to the Temporal Power, in the respective country in which they live, so far as the domain of that Temporal Power extends, which even more than the Spiritual has its limits. The Spiritual Power has itself laid down in absolute terms the obligation of this obedience and the ground on which it rests. "Let every soul be subject to higher powers, for there is no power but from G.o.d, and the powers which are have been ordained by G.o.d. So that he who resists the power, resists the ordinance of G.o.d, and they that resist purchase to themselves condemnation, for the power is G.o.d's minister to thee for good." And again, "Be subject to every human creature for G.o.d's sake, whether it be to the king as excelling, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of the good; for so is the will of G.o.d." This may be termed the comment of the two chief apostles, Peter and Paul, upon the words of their Lord, "Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar's," which is followed by the limitation, "and to G.o.d the things which are G.o.d's."

Temporal government is herein declared to be the vicegerent of G.o.d; to have been such from the beginning of the world; to continue to be such to the end of it. The statement that authority, as such, is the minister of G.o.d to man for good applies, of course, not to any particular form of temporal government, as emperor, king, or republic, in which the government is administered in the persons of many or few, and in various degrees of delegation, but to temporal government in itself, in the principle of its authority. And being spoken by the highest Christian authority in regard of what was actually a heathen government, it manifestly belongs not only to Christians under Christian governments but to the subjects of civil power in all times and conditions of things.

And, further, it is remarkable that our Lord and His apostles, who so strongly recognise civil government as the ordinance of G.o.d, "as the minister of G.o.d for good," themselves suffered the loss of their lives in obedience to it, by an unrighteous judgment.

We have, then, the two Powers set forth as two Vicegerences of G.o.d, in the government of His human world: the temporal Vicegerency belonging to each sovereignty for the country which it rules, so far as the sphere of that sovereignty extends; the Spiritual Vicegerency belonging to His one spiritual kingdom in all times and places in the sphere of its sovereignty.

3. Here we are in presence of two societies, the authority in each of which is a divine Vicegerency, whose subject is the same man, whether individual or collective. The one is the minister of G.o.d for good to man in all his natural relations in every country; the other is the very authority of the Incarnate G.o.d Himself, unlimited as to time and place, over the same man in all his supernatural relations. Not only do both represent G.o.d, but both govern the same man. These two conditions fix what is the divinely intended relation between them. It cannot but be one of amity. As these powers existed in the beginning they were united even as to the person bearing them. The great sin of unfaithfulness to G.o.d in the race caused them to be placed in different bearers. Amid all the corruption which ensued, as to wors.h.i.+p on the one hand, as to civil government on the other, the two Powers never ceased to be in amity with each other. For the basis of this amity is, in truth, a condition of human nature which never varies, being, in fact, the subjection of man's natural life to his supernatural end. As long as man is sent into this world for the purpose of trial, to live in another world an endless life, the quality of which shall be determined by his conduct as a free moral agent in this life, so long the power which rules him in reference to the concerns of this life is bound to live in amity with the power which rules him as to the concerns of that future life. This, on the one hand, being the reason for amity in man himself; on the other hand, both Powers proceeding from the same G.o.d. must be intended by Him to work in harmony.

He has no more made them rivals in the government of His moral world, than He has made the sun and moon rivals in the physical enlightenment of the earth, and the government of its motions.

To ill.u.s.trate further the necessity of amity between the two Powers for the good of man's life, let us consider three other relations which have been conceived as possible to exist.

4. A separate action of the two Powers in their respective spheres, that is, a complete division between Church and State, has been imagined by some as feasible and desirable. But with regard to this it must be observed that the two Powers rule over one human commonwealth, whether that be viewed as existing within the limit of any particular state, or as spread over the whole world. Again, that they rule conjointly over both soul and body. For, if we use accurate language, it is not as if the Church ruled over the soul, and the State over the body. It is, indeed, true that, in order to bring home the relative importance of the two ends pursued by the two Powers, this ill.u.s.tration has been constantly used, by the Fathers first, and by other writers afterwards; but it is only an ill.u.s.tration, not an accurate statement of a real relation. They rule, in fact, over both soul and body, but in different relations; the State over soul and body as to their natural end, the Church over soul and body as to their supernatural end. The State's rule is over all those things which are ordered for the tranquillity and stability of human society; the Church's rule is over all those things which concern the salvation of souls, all those things which fall under the domain of her priesthood, her teaching, and her jurisdiction. It is obvious that both these cla.s.ses of things belong both to soul and body. How, for instance, can rule over the soul be denied to the State if it can demand of its subjects, for the defence of country, the sacrifice of life, in which the condition of the soul as well as that of the body is involved? How can rule over the body be denied to the Church, when the body enters into every act of wors.h.i.+p and receives the sacraments?-when the inward belief requires to be testified by word and deed, in order to confess Christ before men?

The Temporal Power, therefore, rules over all temporal matters, that is, those which concern natural right and man's natural end; the Spiritual Power rules over spiritual things, those which concern man's supernatural end. Can the former perform rightly the duties which belong to it without considering the rights appertaining to the latter?

To answer this question, let us take the case of the individual man. Is it possible for a man rightly to perform his duties to the State without consideration of his duties to G.o.d? As we have before seen, all the duties of man in life are subject to his supernatural end. Every particle of natural right rests upon the authority of G.o.d the Creator; and if G.o.d has created man for a supernatural end, to discharge the civil duties of life without regard to that end is simple impiety. It is plain that, according to the intention of G.o.d, every part of man's natural life has been ordered with a view to the end of his supernatural life.

But in this the case of the individual in no respect differs from the case of the collective ma.s.s. The State has been created with a view to the ultimate end of man as much as the individual. In fact, the cause of its creation was to establish an order in human things which should help man continually to attain that end. It was not created for itself. The society of man in this life is not the ultimate fact. Once more; the Fall, the Deluge, and the Dispersion have uttered three voices upon that truth which can never be silenced, which have echoed through the whole world and touch all human nature. The State, then, as much as the individual, must perform all which it is intended to perform in the government of man, in obedience to the principle that man's present life is ordered with a view to his future life.

To apply this more particularly, it means that the State, in its administration of all temporal things, is bound incessantly to have regard to the free exercise by the Spiritual Power of its authority over spiritual things. It must allow that power to administer the whole work of the priesthood, and the whole work of the teaching, with that liberty of internal government which const.i.tutes its jurisdiction, the seat of its royalty. It is not the place here to enumerate in detail how much that involves. It is enough to say that the ordinary action of the State and the ordinary action of the Church run daily into each other, as being concerned with the same man and the same society of men; and accordingly, that the allowing such a liberty to the Church by the State carries with it great consideration and regard for the Church by the State. But such a consideration and regard are quite incompatible with separate action of the two Powers in their respective spheres. An instance in point would be the State compelling a subject, who is a minister of the Church, to become a soldier. It is a purely natural right of the State to require the service of the subject for such a purpose. It is a purely spiritual right of the Church to have the use of her ministers for her own work.

The use of the former right without consideration of the latter would const.i.tute a separate action of the State in its sphere. But it would be at the same time an act of the utmost hostility on the part of the State to the Church. And other instances of the same kind present themselves through the whole domain of things which, in themselves, are purely temporal or purely spiritual. Besides these there is the cla.s.s of mixed things, and, as one of them, let us take education.

Education, so far as it embraces instruction in the several arts and sciences which subserve man's natural life, belongs to the domain of the State; so far as it embraces the formation of the spiritual character in man, which includes instruction in religion, and that not only as it concerns dogma, but also philosophy and science, belongs to the domain of the Church. If the State exercises its natural right over education with regard to the former, without allowing the supernatural right of the Church over the latter, which in itself would be no more than a separate action in its own sphere, it would const.i.tute, at the same time, a complete infringement of the Church's rights in her spiritual power of teaching and jurisdiction.

This is enough to show that the separate action of the two Powers in their respective spheres leads to the disjunction of man's natural life from his supernatural end. This was not the intention of G.o.d in creating the two Powers, and placing man's life under their joint government.

5. Another relation between the two Powers which may be conceived, is that of hostility upon the part of the State to the Church. This cannot be reciprocal. The Church can indeed and must resist, with her own weapons, unlawful aggression against the exercise of her rights in administering the "things of G.o.d," but she cannot war against the State as such, because it is in her sight "the minister of G.o.d." The hostility of the State which invades the Church's exercise of her Priesthood, Teaching, and Jurisdiction const.i.tutes persecution. There are many degrees of this. A heathen State may aim at the complete destruction of the Christian Church within its borders, as at times the Roman emperors did. A Christian State may also vex and hamper with every form of impediment the exercise of the Church's powers. A State which has been Christian, becoming heretical or apostate, may a.s.sault the Church with a hatred, combined with deceit, which shall surpa.s.s the malignity of the Roman State of old or the heathen State at any time. In the course of centuries every degree of persecution has been exercised by the State, heathen, Christian, heretical, or apostate, against the Church, by the permission of the divine Providence; but no one will pretend to say that such a relation as hostility on the part of the State, and of suffering on the part of the Church, is the normal relation intended by G.o.d in the establishment of the two Powers. On the contrary, the States which persecute the Church, while they fulfil the divine purpose for its trial and purification, incur punishment in many ways for their crime against G.o.d in a.s.saulting His kingdom, and, if they persevere, have been and are to be rooted up and destroyed.

6. In contrast to such relation between the two Powers, let us look for a moment at the divine Idea as it is thrown out in strong projection upon the background of ages. We have human government founded indeed by G.o.d at and with the commencement of the race, and continued by the strong sanction of His power ever since, through the dispersion, through the various races of men, one rising and another falling; human government possessed in common by a vast number of sovereignties, great and small, particular in place, with changing const.i.tutions, everything about them, the people who bear them, the boundaries within which they flourish, the laws by which they are administered, s.h.i.+fting and transitory: no one of these sovereignties having a claim to say that it was founded by G.o.d, inasmuch as they all spring out of a long series of conquests and changes which succeed after the original patriarchal rule. These are distinctively the kingdoms of men, and in them is fulfilled, with a little longer range, what the poet says of each human generation-

"Like leaves on trees the race of man is found;"

the only thing about them which is not s.h.i.+fting and not transitory is the one thing which is of divine appointment, government itself. And in the midst of these nations, borne upon them, and shaken indeed, but imperturbable amid their fluctuations, behold the one government founded immediately by Christ in St. Peter, as no other sovereignty has been founded; in St. Peter, made by express language His Viceregent. Here is one sovereignty, universal in time and place, with no changing const.i.tution, after the fas.h.i.+on of its human shadows, which are a royalty one day, a democracy another day, an empire a third, but one and the same for ever. Here is the kingdom of Christ.

But that which rules the relation of the one kingdom and the many kingdoms to each other, is the _end_ for which they are constructed: human government, the one abiding because divine element in the many kingdoms, exists for the peace, the order, and the prosperity of man's life on earth. But this, its highest end, is subject, like all the natural goods of man, to a higher end, the eternal beat.i.tude of man. In the last resort temporal government itself was originally founded and actually exists only for this purpose. But the one kingdom of Christ is directed immediately to this very purpose. Because there is an inseparable relation of all earthly things to that highest end, therefore each of these temporal kingdoms and the one spiritual kingdom have a bond between them which cannot be broken. If it were not for this, their range is so apart from each other, their powers so independent of each other, that they would speedily part company. The strong hand of G.o.d has joined them to draw together the chariot of human government by the yoke of the last end.