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THE
,
FOURFOLD SOVEREIGNTY
OF GOD.
TIY
HENRY EDvVARD,
AUCIIUlSJlOP OF Wr:ST;\Il:"STER.
/
r p7
.
BOSTO
:
PATRICK DONAHOE.
1872.
1-
, MAR 2"7 - 1954
.
-:.
... \
.,
.I-
'-" '
"
.
THESE four Lectures are intended to
con1plete the outline of the subject
of those on the Four Great Evils of
the Day. In speaking of the latter,
I was constantly aware that the posi-
tive truths ought to have been first
stated, and that the Sovereignty of
God nlust be understood before the
Revolt of Man can be measured.
These Lectures, like the last, are
printed as they \vere taken down at
the time. I let then1 go \vith all their
faults, believing the truths and prin-
ciples contained in them to be of vital
rnonlent in these days; and hoping
that some one \vith more ability and
greater leisure will fill up the outline
I have tried to dra\v.
3
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAGK
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD OYER THE INTELLECT
OF
IAN. . . . . . . . .. . . . .. 1
LECTURE II.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD OVER TIlE WILL OF
1\-IA
.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
LECTURE III.
TIlE SOYEREIGNTY OF GOD OVER SOCIETY.. . . 95
LECTURE IV.
TUE SOYEREIGXTY OF TIlE DIVIXE HEAD OF TIIE
CHURCII. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13!>
LECTURE V.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF TIlE CUURCII DEIUVED FRO)!
ITS DIVINE HEAD.. . . . . . . . . . . . 17!
LECTunE VI.
TIIE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD OVER TIlE COURSE OF
TilE 'V ORLD. . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
(5)
LECTURE I.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD OVER THE IN-
TELLECT OF
IAN.
".And God indeed, having winked at tIle times
of this ignorance, now declareth unto 'Jnen,
that all should everywhere do penance. Be-
cause He llath appointed a day wherein I-Ie
will judge the world in equ,ity, by the Man
Wh017
He hatl" appointed, giving faith to all,
by raising Him fron
the dead.'" Acts xvii.
30, 31.
THESE \vere the words of St. Paul to
the Athenians, when their philosophers
caned hin1 a "word-so\ver" and a " pub-
lisher ofne\v gods," because he preached
to them Jesus and the resurrection from
the dead. This was his meaning: God,
7
8 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
in times past, shut His eyes to the idol-
atries and polytheism of men. Those
times are past no\v, for God has mani-
fested Hin1self to the \vorld. He has
nlade Hilnself kno\vn, and has therefore
comn1anded all men everywhere to do
pènance, - that is, to believe in I-IÎIn
and to repent of their sins, - under
pain of eternal judgment; for He has
appointed a day in ,vhich He \vill judge
the \vorld by that l\lan, \vhom lIe hath
appointed to be the Judge of the living
and the dead; and for this end He has
given faith - that is, the illumination
to believe IIis ,vord by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. In this
,yay, the Apostle distinctly declares the
sovereignty of God as the Creator, and
as the Judge of aU things; I-lis sover-
eignty over man both in body and
ouI,
over the intellect in all its faculties,
OVER THE I
TELLECT OF :MAN. 9
over the ,vill in all its po,yers. As 1\Ia-
ker and Lord, God has don1inion and
sovereignty over man, "\vhom He rnade
to His o\vn image and likeness; and
n1an being of a rational, a moral nature,
is therefore a responsible being.
Last year, the Council of the Vatican
made a decree in these ,yords: "Foras-
n1uch as God is the Creator, and the
Lord of all thingR, therefore man alto-
gether depends upon IIim; and every
created intellect is subject to the Un-
created Truth, and o\ves to it a perfect
obedience both of reason and of \vill.":i:
Attached to that Decree are these two
canons: "If any man shall say, that
the reason of man is so independent of
God that God cannot command faith,
let him be anathema." And again: "If
any man shaH say, that the act of faith
· First Constitution on Catho1ic Faith, chap. iii.
10 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
in man is not free, let hÎ1n be anathe-
nla ;" and this enunciates the subject
of ,vhich I purpose to speak. The sov-
ereignty of God over the intellect is the
right of God over the rational crea-
tures He has made. He requires of
them a perfect obedience of their ra-
tional and III oral nature, and holds
them responsible to render that obedi-
ence. The ,vay in which God requires
the obedience of the rational nature of
man is by faÌ tho
Faith is belief in truth: but not of
all kinds of truth, for of tru th there are
t,vo kinds. There is one kind ,vhich is
necessary, and therefore compels the
assent of the intellect. For instance,
that things \vhich are equal to the
same, are equal to one another; that
two parallel lines can never intersect;
that the whole is greater than the part;
OVER THE INTELLECT OF l\iAN. 11
that the three angles of a triangle are
eq ual to t\VO rig}1t angles, and the like:
- these are necessary truths, \vhich
the intellect of lnan is constrained by
an intrinsic law of its nature to assent
to. In these truths, therefore, there
is kno,,,ledge, but not faith. There
is about them no obscurity, and no
intervention of the Divine authority.
But all lTIoral truths, that is, all those
truths ,vhich relate to the \vorld un-
.
seen, to the nature of God, to the mor-
al duty of ll1an: to .his future destiny-
all these are truths which are not in-
trinsically necessary. They depend up-
on the ,viII of God, and upon the con-
stitution and order of I-lis revelation.
They are therefore believed upon the
authority of God, ,vho has revealed
them. The authority of God inter-
venes to require of us the subrnission
12 THE SOVEREIGYTY OF GOD
of 011r intellect and of our ,viII to the
revelation lIe has made.
It is thus, then, that God exereises
His sovereignty in requiring fiÚth. He
cOlTImands faith under the penalty of
eternal death. The words of our Di-
vine Lord expressly declare this la,v:-
"fIe that believeth, and is baptized,
shall be saved: but he that believeth
not, shall be condemned." * That is,
the voluntary act of faith is taken as
the test of obedience; and according to
the obedience or disobedience of the
rational nature "vill the judgment be
hereafter.
'Ve are confidently told in these
days that faith is a ,veakness and a
blindness; that it is unworthy of Inan;
that it is servility and degradation, and
I kno,v not 'v hat besides. I \viII affirnl,
· St.
Iark xvi. 16.
OVER TBE INTELLECT OF MAN. 13
then, that faith is the most perfect act
of the human reason; that the most
reasonable act of man is to believe in
the Uncreated Reason of God; that
the highest act of an intellectual na-
ture, next only to the eternal contem-
plation of the Uncreated Truth here-
after, is to believe that U ncreated Truth
no,v; and this is what I shall endeavor
to dra'v out.
1. First, God exercises His sover-
eignty over the human intellect, even
by the lights of nature. There is in
the natural \vorld a Inanifestation of
God ,vhich lays all men under the obli-
gation of kno"\ving Him. They \vho,
\vith the lights of nature before them,
remain in ignorance of God, are not
only intellectual1y in error, they are
also morally in error, and t,bey are re-
sponsible for that moral error. Not to
14 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
kno,v God is sin. The Apostle says to
the Romans, "The invisible things of
Him" - that is, of God -" from the
creation of the \vorld, are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that
are made, His eternal power also and
divinity; so that they are inexcusable.
Because that, \vhen they had kno,vn
God, they have not glorified Him as
God, nor gave thanks; but becanle
vain in their thoughts, and their foolish
heart was darkened. For professing
themselves to be ,vise, they became
fools. And they changed the glory of
the incorruptible God into the likeness
of the image of a corruptible man.":;:
Here, then, is an express declaration,
that the lights of nature are sufficient
to prove to us the existence of God,
His po,ver,'I-lis Divinity, and, therefore,
· Rom.. i. 20-23.
OVER THE INTELLECT OF MAN. 15
his perfections; so that they are inex-
cusable \vho do not kno,v God, and,
therefore, do not believe and n1ake an
act of faith in Him, and of sublllission
to His sovereignty, as their 1vlaker and
Lord.
Again, the Apostle says: "When the
Gentiles, \vho have not the la\v, do by
nature those things that are of the la,v,
these, having not the la,v, are a la,v to
themselves: who show the \vork of the
law \vritten in their hearts, their con-
science þearing \vitness to them, and
their thoughts ,vithin themselves accus-
ing them, or else defending theIn." *
That is, there is in every man a moral
sense, or instinct, or judgment, or testi-
mony to fight and \vrong, which re-
bukes hin1 when he does wrong, which
sustains him when he does right. There
· Rom. ii. 14, 15.
16 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
is therefore an in,vard light, ,vhereby
the human reason n1ay perceive the
moral law of God; and if so, then
every In an has within him a testirnony
to kno,v that be has an intellectual
and moral nature; and if he bas an
intellectual and moral nature, he has a
soul- that is, the image of God-
\vithin him, and that inlage is an im-
mortality. They, then, who, alnidst
the ligbts of nature, do not kno,v God,
ôr the distinctions of right and
rong,
or that they have a soul \vhi
h is im-
mortal and responsible, are guilty for
that ignorance. To be ignorant of
these things is sin, because such igno-
rance is vincible. The lights of nature
are sufficient to prove these things, and
they ,,,ho are ignorant of theln are
willingly ignorant of them; that is,
ignorant through their own ,viII, and
OVER THE INTELLECT OF
IA...
. 17
therefore culpable before God; and for
that culpable ignorance \vill have to
give account at the last day.
2. But, secondly, there is another
\vorld by \v hich God has revealed I-lim-
self: The lights of the natural creation
on all sides testify to the truths of
\vhich I have already spoken; but
there is a supernatural \vorld at this
monlent round about us, against which
the disputers of this \vorId rail, as the-
philosophers at Athens. They \vho
preach of this supernatural \vorld are
"\vord-so,vers," babblers, "publishers of
ne,v gods." Nevertheless, there exists
in the midst of mankind a kingdom,
present, visible, and audible, manifest-
ing itself ,vith sufficient evidence,
through \vhich God demands the sub-
mission of faith, through ,vhich He
Inanifests His sovereignty over the in-
2
18 THE SOYEREIG
TY OF GOD
tcllect of Inan. That Kingdon1 has
about it certain marks, properties, and
prerogatives, ,vhich no hnn1an institu-
tion, kingdom, or empire ever pos-
sessed.
For iIJstance, its indefectible exist-
ence. The history of 111ankind is the
history of successive dynasties. Like
shado\vs, they have COlne and passed
a,vay; they have each one contained
the principle of its o\vn dissolution.
Not one of them ,vas intrinsically
changeless and incorruptible. rrhe
Church of Jesus Christ, from its foun-
dation to this hour, continues incorrup-
tible in itself: The ,vorldly accidents
around it are hunlan, and cleave to it
like the dust to our feet. As the light
of heaven is changeless, incorruptible,
unsoiled in its purity, though it looks
upon all the corruption of the ,vorId,
OVER THE L
TELLECT OF J\IAN. 19
so is the Church of God in the ,vorld;
and as the Presence of our Divine Lord
in the Blessed Sacran1ent abides in its
imn1utable sanctity in the Inidst of the
sins of TIlen, so the Church of Jesus
Christ abides incorruptibly the saIne,
the sins and corruptions of those \vho
visibly belong to it not,vithstanding.
It also has an indissoluble unity, and
an immutability in the la,vof 1110rals
and in the doctrines of the faith, which
it has taught from the .beginning, and
now at this time teaches in every
place.
If I affirm that the faith has never
changed, lTIen Inay say: "If you speak
of past tÎ1ne, how can you prove it?"
I affirnl therefore that the faith is the
same no\y in all the ,vorld. This is a
fact of the present, and l11ay be easily
tested. N O\V this changeless identity
20 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF GOD
of one truth in all places at this time
is the cQuntersign of the immutable
perpetuity of the same truth in all
times. Things ,vhich spring froln one
la,v have one type. Corruption is
change, and breeds diversity. Identity
points to a changeless principle which
is above the order of nature.
N o,v these are phenolnena manifest-
ing a supernatural kingdorn in this
natural world. The reason of luan, if
it be consistent, can ascribe the exist-
ence of that fhct to none but the Di-
vine Creator. If Juan had made it,
Inan migh t rid himself of it. If n1an
had founded it, he lnight destroy it. If
man had set it up, he might sweep it
off the face of the earth; but Ulan has
striven to s,veep it a\vay, and cannot,
any more than he can s,veep away the
rnountains \vhich God has rooted in the
OVER THE INTELLECT OF MAN. 21
earth. God perpetually defies luan by
the existence of IIis Church. He rnan-
ifests His sovereignty over the reason
of Inan by this ,vitness, 'v hich man can
neither deny .,nor explain a,vay. lIe
can in no way account for its existence
and changeless identity. If he win not
account for it by the only solution
which is true, God sho\vs IIis sover-
eignty by baffling the reason and ,viII
of DIen, \vhich cannot rid the ,vorld of
the presence of God, manifested in the
supernatural order of His po,ver.
The lnere lights of nature then, - for
I alll thus fhr treating the question as a
matter of human reason, of human his-
tory, - these testify, both in the natu-
ral and in what I ,viII can the Christian
"
orld, to the existence of God's sov-
reignty. But this is not all. The
Christian world ,vhich testifies to the
22 THE SOYEREIG
TY OF GOD
sovereignty of God, testifies to the
coming of the Son of God in the flesh
- that is, to the Incarnation. It testi-
fies to the perpetual presence of God
the Holy Ghost. As a L1-Ct of history,
it is certain that it has spoken and still
speaks to nlankind ,vith a voice ,yhich
never ceases, and the world tells us
that its pretensions never change; that
is to say, it teaches al\vays the saIne
things, and clain1s for that 'v hich it
teaches a Divine authority. It calls on
men to submit their intellect to its
Divine voice. It claÏ1ns, in virtue of
God's authority over His creatures, that
,ve should render to Hinl that worship
of the reason, that" reasonable service,"
'v hich the A postle declares to be the
true sacrifice of lnan to God.* \Vhen
St. Paul preached to the Athenians, so
* Rom. xii. 1.
OVER THE INTELLECT OF
IAN. 23
long as they believed him only to be a
disputer like thelnselves, and that his
teaching ,vas based only on human phi-
losophy, they called hin1 a" ,vord-sow-
er ;" but in the day 'v hen they kne,v
that he ,vas a teacher sent frOl1l God,
that he had Divine assistance in what
he taught, that the message he uttered
\vas a Divine Inessage, that the authority
by ,vhich he spoke ,vas the authority of
God, frOin that moment they receivëd
aU he said as cODling frolll a fountain
of Divine certainty. They believed;
that is, they offered the obedience of
faith to ,vhat he said. rrhey kne,v that,
in hearing him, they heard the ,vord of
God
that what he delivered, he de-
livered liot from himself, but frorIl the
J\Iaster that sent him.
So it is no,v ,vith the Church in the
world. The sovereignty ,vhich God
24 THE SOVEREIG
TY OF GOD
claÏIns over our intellect is the obedi-
ence of fititb rendered to the Divine
voice of His Church.
\Ve can stand in relation to God and
IIis truth only in one of t,vo ways.
'V c are either the critics ,vho exanline,
test, and choose, who accept or reject
for ourselves by our o\vn lights and our
o\yn judgment; or ,ve are the disciples
,vho sit at the feet of a Divine teacher,
receiving by f:'lith, ,vith the siln p
e ad-
hesion of our \vhole nature, intellectual
and nloral, that ,vhich He teaches. \Ve
owe Him the submission of our intel-
lect, because \ve kno,v that all revealed
truth conles froln the un created intelli-
gence of God. The highest act of the
reason of man is to subnlit itself and
to be conforlned to the intelligence of
God. vVe o\ve to hirn the subnlission
of our reason, because the lTncreated
OVER THE INTELLECT OF :MAN. 25
Truth is the original of our intelligence,
and ,viII be the la,v of our judgment
hereafter. "\Ve o"\\Te Hirn also the love
of our hearts, because that manifesta-
tion of the truth of God is the manifes-
ta iion also of His grace and His Jove.
'Vhat has been said may, I think,
suffice to sho,v that the obedience of
faith is not servile, nor degrading, nor
irrational, nor un,vorthy of an intellec..
tual being. Nay, I shall sho\v hereafter
that the argument turns the other ,vay;
as may readily be seen by a Inon1en t's
consideration of the effects of this sub..
mission of faith to a Divine teacher.
3. The first and imn1ediate effect is
the illumination of the reason. The
reason is pervaded by a light 'v hich,
\tvithout faith, it could not possess. And
the intellect is dignified by that iIlun1Ï..
nation. How, then, can it be degraded?
26 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
vVhat is the illumination ,vhich ,ve re-
ceive by faith? The Apostle says:
"Every best gift, and every perfect gift,
is from above, coming down fron1 tbe
Father of lights, ,vith \VhOll1 there is no
change, nor shado,v of vicissitude," *
forasll1uch as he is the immutable truth.
It i8, therefore, a participation of the
light of God. Again:" That ,vas the
true Light, ""vhich enlighteneth every
Ulan that con1eth into the ,vorlù." t
The. light of God is the dignity of the
intellect of TIlan. In \vhat, then, does
it consist? It Ulay be said to consist
it) three things.
First, in the most pure and perfcct
kno,vledge mankind has ever had of
God: of His nature, personality and per-
fections; of I-lis ,visdom, sanctity, purity,
love, mercy, po\ver; and also of Ilis
· St. James i. 17.
t St John i. 9.
OYER THE INTELLECT OF l\IAN. 27
relations to us, as our Father, our Re-
deelner, our Sanctifier. Secondly, in
the Inost perfect kno\v ledge of the na-
ture of luan; because God ,vas mani-
fested in our manhood. The original
and the irnage.,vere united in One Per-
son; and in the Person of Jesus Christ
the most perfect manifestation of the
ilnage of God in our 111anhood, glorified
by the presence of the Divine Original,
and enveloped in the splendor of the
Eternal Son of God, \vas revealed to
the ,vorld. In the vision of the 'TV ord
made flesh, ""ve see not only the human-
ityof the first Adam, but the eleva
ion,
perfection, and glory of our manhood
in the second Adam, from \v hOl11 ,ve
derive life and in1IDortality. Thirdly,
in the lnost perfect morality, the most
pure and lllost elevated; as, for exalll-
pIe, the Sermon on the l\fount. Does
28 TIlE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
there exist in the ,vhole history of ll1an-
kind, in all the philosophies of Inan,
anything to cornpare for Inoral perfec-
tion ,vith the Sernlon on the 1\Iount?
'Vhere ,viII you find in all the teaching
of Ulan this one sirnple precept: "All
things, \vbatsoever ye ,vould that 111en
should do to you, do you also to them." *
'Vhere did you ever find the precept:
"Love Jour enemies: bless thelll that
curse you," - ,vhere, except only in
the mouth of Jesus Christ ? 'Vas it
ever heard: "Be ye therefore perfect,
as also your Father, ,vhich is in heaven,
is perfect," ",vho maketh His snn to
rise upon the good and bad, and raineth
upon the just and unjust"? t lJere is
a perfect morality, to \vhich nothing
that ever caIne from the unaided intel.
lect or ,vill of man bears any compari-
II< 81. :Matt. vii. 12.
t Ibiù. v. 45, 48.
OYER THE INTELLECT OF l\lAN. 29
SOll. \Vhere in the lTIorals of mankind
can be found anything to compare \vith
the t\VO precepts of loving God \vith all
our heart and our neighbor as our-
selves? Where can be found anything
to com pare in generosity, in tenderness
of love, in Racri:fice of self; ,vith the
Oblation of our I.Jord upon the Cross?
There is, then, an illumination given to
us by the light of faith, \vhich no cre-
ated in tellect can possess frorn any other
source. But once n10re :
4. This ill urnination elevates the rea-
son of man. It raises it to a state and
order of dignity other,vise unattainable;
and in so doing, it confirms even its
natural perfection.
First, The truths of the natural order
are confirmed and made clear, and a
Divine certainty is added to them by
the light of revelatioll. The existence
30 THE SOVEREIG
TY OF GOD
of God, the la\v of right and wrong,
the soul and its immortality - these
truths of the natural order are con-
firnled both in clearness and certainty
by the light of faith.
Secondly, there are superadded to the
truths of the natural order the truths
of the supernatural order: for instance,
the kno\vledge of God through the In-
carnation; the kno\vledge of onr rela-
tions to Him through the adoption of
grace; of our brotherhood and consan-
guinity \vith Jesus Christ, the Incarnate
Son of God; of the ind\vclling of God
the Holy Ghost in the intellect and \vill
of lnan, making 111an His ternple; be-
sides this, the presence of God, not
only in nature, but in grace, and that
pervading the \v hole \vorld and present
in ourselves. St. Augustine, describing
his condition before he believed, said,
OVER THE INTELLECT OF MAN. 31
"I sought Thee every,vhere and found
Thee not; for Thou ,vast ,vithin me,
and I was out of n1yself: I sought
Thee everywhere but in that place
\vhere Thou ,vast to be found - in n1Y
o,vn soul." 'Ve kno,v by L.'lith that the
presence of God inhabits each one of
ns; that ,ve are united to the unseen
\vorId and to the cOffilllunion of the
spirits of just men made perfect; and
that the vision of God hereafter is our
inheritance.
These are supernat.ural truths added
to the lights of the natural order.
Surely the reason possessing them is
eleva ted above both nature and itself.
St. John says, "Behold what manner
of charity the Father h
th besto\ved
upon ns, that ,ve should be named, and
should be the sons of God. Therefore,
the ,varld hath not kno\vn us, because
32 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
it hath not kno\vn HÌ111. 'Ve are now
the sons of God: and it hath not yet
appeared \vhat \ve shall be. 'Ve kno,v,
that 'v hen He shall appear, \ve shall be
1ike to IIi In: because lve shall see I-lin1
as He is.":';: Is it possible to conceive
of any elevation greater than the con-
sciousness that \ve are sons of God?
But it is this that faith gives to the
reason of Inan.
5. Lastly, faith makes the reason
perfect. The reason itsel
as a faculty
or an intellectual po,ver, is perfected by
the action of faith upon it. J lIst as the
hand b
y experience is strengthened
and acquires skill, and is able to exe-
cute the most powerful or the finest
operations; and as the ear may be at-
tuned and cultivated to harnlony, and
the eye to an exquisite perfection of
sio'ht; so is it with the action of faith
c ,
* 1 St. John iii. 1, 2.
OYER THE INTELLECT OF
IAN. 33
upon the intellectual faculties of the
soul. Take, for example, the whole
history of the Old Testament, and com-
pare the intellectual condition of Israel
,;vith the intellectual condition of the
Gentile ,vorld. No man has ever yet
ventured to say that, as compared ,vith
the intellectual state of the chief phi-
losophers of the Gentile \vorld, the He-
bre,v patriarchs, prophets, and saints
\vere not, in intellectual stature, a head
and shoulders above them. No man
can fhil to see that the very intellect
of the Jewish race ,vas elevated by the
illumination of faith, and that personal
character, domestic life, and the public
commonwealth of Israel, all bore the
Inarks of an elevation derived from
faith. Submission to the sovereignty
of God ,vas the cause of this elevation,
and therefore of the dignity of Israel.
3
34 THE SOVEREIGXTY OF GOD
An10ng the Gentile ,vorld, it is true
that intellects such as those of Plato
and Aristotle, to mention no others-
the one the great exan1ple of natural
theology or knowledge of Divine things,
the other the most perfect exalnple of
ethical or n10ral philosophy - exhibit
a logical cultivation not to be found
in the splendor and dignity of Isaias
or Ezechiel; but if "\ve cOlnpare with
them the n1ajesty and sublÜnity of the
prophets, ,vho ,viU hesitate in saying
that the moral dignity and grandeur
of Isaias and Ezechiel .far transcend
them in moral elevation? But this I
,vill further affirm, that ,vheresoever
the belief in God ,vas. low, intellect \vas
lo,v; and that just in proportion as
elevation and cultivation of intellect
,vas attained by those Greeks, in that
proportion they approached a purer
OVER THE INTELLECT OF :MAN. 35
kno,v ledge of God and of morals. Plato
stands at the head of all the intel1ects
of the ancient ,vorld for culture and
lofty speculation. In him, I may say,
the speculative intellect of the order of
nature culminated; and in hiln, above
all, we see a Theism \vhich for purity
and truth approaches nearest to the
theology of Israel. In like manner
Aristotle, for subtlety and dialectical
precision, stands alone among the intel-
lects of antiquity; and in hÎIn \ve find
the purest and truest morality the \vorld
without revelation has ever known.
The ethics of Aristotle remain to this
day as the basis on which the D10ral
theology of Christendom reposes. It is
a pure and accurate delineation of the
morals of mankind kno,vn by the light
of nature; and St. Thomas builds upon
it as a sure foundation. The ,vorId
36 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
therefore bears testirnony to this, that
in proportion as the intellect of man
approaches the knowledge of God and
of selt; it is dignified, and its mental
and 1110ral faculties are strengthened
and expanded to,va.rds their perfection.
The same truth is still more Jnanifest
in the Christian world. The in tellec-
tual history of the modern \vorld is to
be found \vritten in the history of Chris-
tianity. The intellectual powers of
nlankind are to be found in their high-
est perfection in Christendom. It is
no objection whatsoever for men of
the present day, \vho believe nothing,
and \vho profess to have rejected even
the existence of God, to say, "Look at
our nlen of science - are they in in-
tellectual dignity or l)o,ver inferior" to
those \v hOln you call your doctors?"
The answer is this: Their intellectual
OVER THE INTELLECT OF
IAN. 37
dignity is derived from the culture of
the Christian ,vorld. They ,vonId never
be ,vhat they are, if they had not been
nurtured and ripened upon that same
n1ystical vine from ,vhich they have
fallen. They retain after their fall the
savor and the quality of the tree from
,vhich they fell. But can they repro-
duce it? let them, and ho,v lùng ,viII
they transmit it? Those who have
fallen from the kno\vledge of God and
of His revelation have fallen froln the
tradition of intellectual culture. "If
anyone abide not in l\Ie, he shan be
cast forth as a branch, and shall \vith-
er." * This is true, both spiritually and
intellectually. The intellectual stan-
dard of sceptics and infidels has no
perpetuity. They die out as individu-
als, and their fe,v
isciples are scat-
tered.
* St. John xv. 6.
38 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
On the other hand I ,vould ask, is
there in the history of mankind any-
thing, for intellectual po,ver, precision,
amplitude, fertility, to be con1pared \vith
Saint Thomas Aquinas or Suarez, to
ll1ention two only out of a multitude?
The profound and pretentious ignorance
of this da v \vill no doubt think that
..,
these t,vo examples belong to the mid-
dle ages, or that the latter \vas only
elnerging from those times of obscurity;
but the man \vho so speaks cannot kno,v
the books on which he passes judgment.
The intellectual system of the ,vorld,
in its refinement and culture, will be
found passing through the unbroken
tradi tion of such minds; and the philo-
sophers and men of science of this day,
'v ho tell us that ,ve can kno,v nothing
with certainty but that which is within
the reach of sense, have not dignified
.
OVER THE IXTELLECT OF
IAN. 39
the human intellect, but have degraded
it. They reject the intellectual system
of the whole world, and all the truths
which it proclaÏIns.
The obedience of faith, therefore,
which is due to the sovereignty of God,
is the most reasonable act of an intel-
lectual being, the most perfect act of
which the hlunan intellect in this state
of mortality is capable; there remains
after it nothing but the vision of the
Uncreated Truth without a veil. " At:
ter the Sll
1una of St. Thomas there re-
Inains nothing but the light of glory,"
is not an academical exaggeration, but
a very truth.
Faith, then, is the illumination, th-e
elevation, and the perfection, even, of
the faculty of reason itself: Faith gives
po,ver to the human reason, by giving
to it principles of certainty from \vhich
40 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
to start. As in science the axiorns and
delnonstrations of science give fir In-
ness, strength, solidity, and oll,vard
progress to the scientific intellect, so in
the kno,vledge of Goel, and of man,
and of morals, the revelation of God
gives the first axion1s and prÏ1nary prin-
ciples of Divine certainty, ,vhich unfold,
elevate, and strengthen even the rea-
son itself:
I said before that this argument turns
the other ,yay. If fhith be the eleva-
tion, unbelief is the degradation of the
human intellect: and that for t\VO rea-
sons. First, because it deprives it of
the illlunination of truth; anù, sec-
ondly, because it paralyzes the intellec-
tual faculties.
It deprives it of the illumination of
truth; it robs it at once of all the truths
of revelation ,'All ih
" ights of the 8U-
.)
"t"
CD lJ "'''' .
. 1.1,. t I I
OVER THE INTELLECT OF MAN. 41
....
pernatural order are alike extinguished:
God and His kingdom, the comrDunion
of saints, and our relations to it; faith,
hope, and charity; the Church of God
n the ,vorld; the mysteries of grace, -
everything resting on the supernatural
order is darkened. Just as, if light ,vere
withdra,vn from the world, sight ,vonld
cease to be, for the eye in midnight can
see nothing; so the deprivation of the
human reason by unbelief leaves it in
ll1idnight. But it is not only the lights
of the supernatural order that at once
are clouded - the lights even of the
natural order become dim. The intel-
lect loses certainty and firmness of be-
lief; even in those principles of the nat-
ural order to which the lights of nature
testify. It is certain that Deists lose
much of the light of the kno\vleclge of
God \vhen they reject revelation, be-
42 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
cause even nature ceases to testify as
lurninously, and to speak as articulately,
of the existence of God, II is eternal
po,ver and Divinity, to those in whom
the sceptical spirit is at ,york. Again,
if they do not lose the knowledge of
theÍ1'1 o\vn soul, and of its immortality,
they begin to doubt about it.
Day after day, we hear the confident
talk of men who tell us that \ve have
no evidence to believe in anything but
the material mechanisIll, 'v hich we can
trace by physiology, chemistry, or com-
parative anatomy; that beyond this we
have no po,ver to ascertain anything
about the existence of the soul, or ,viII,
or life. There are Inen at this day, who
consider then1selves intellectual, openly
denying the existence of the soul; and
,vho, having denied the existence of the
soul, deny the existence of right and
OYER THE INTELLECT OF :MAN. 43
wrong. They tell us that right and
\vrong, and the instincts, dictates, and
rebukes of our conscience, are arbitrary
associations of pleasure and pain con-
nected with certain actions, by the con-
ventional traditions in ,vhich we are
brought up. If so, then there is no
such thing as la\v, either human or Di-
vine: and if no such thing as law, then
no such thing as sin or crime, and there-
fore no such thing as justice; and if
there be no such thing as justice, there
is no such thing as injustice; and if
there be no such thing as intrinsic right,
there is no such thing as in trinsic \vrong;
and if not, then we are in a world which
has no more right, order, s\veetness, or
beauty, but \ve are turned ba
k again
into the inorganic state of creation,
"void and en1pty," and darkness rests
upon the face of the deep.
44 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF GOD
But there is something more degrad-
ing than this. If I have not a soul,
then am I like the cattle. Nay, more;
if I have not a soul, I have" no immor-
tality: then, so far, I am as the beasts
that perish.
This gospel is preached to us by ,yay
of manifesting the dignity of the hu-
man reason. Choose for yourselves,
,vhether this be dignity or debasement.
But unbelief is not only a privation
. of tbe lights of truth, it is a paralysis
of the reason itself:
For I \vould ask: What is scepticislll
or doubt? It is a partial denial of the
truth or existence of things. A denial
is a bold assertion that the thing is not
true, or Çloes not exist. A doubt is half
way to a denial. And on \vhat is it
founded? It is founded on the sup-
posed uncertainty of evidence; but this
OVER THE INTELLECT OF
IAN. 45
again is founded on the assertion that
the senses are faIlible, so that we cannot
depend on them; and thåt the faculties
of the reason may also go astray, and
that their interpretation of the senses
cannot be trusted. i\.nd this philoso-
phy is preached to us as the dignity of
the human reason. To me it appears
to be intellectual paralysis, tending to
inteIIectual idiocy. To teIl me my
senses do not report to me truly the
existence and facts of the external
,vorld in a way that I can depend on,
and to tell me that my reason cannot
interpret them; and that I cannot know
,vith a perfect certainty the internal
facts of my o,vn consciousness, is to
shake my 'v hole being, and to reduce
me first to a state of paralysis, and a:f..
terwards to a state of idiocy. And yet
this is the result of sceptical unbelief:
46 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
In the face of this "\ve are told that faith
is degradation to the human intellect,
and that unbelief is its dignity.
I Iuust now go no farther; and ,viII
add but one only word more.
Last year, the Council of the Vatican
made the Decree ,vhich I have already
recited. The Council of the Vatican
has been a sign, against "\v hich the con..
tradiction of the 'v hole world has been
directed. Th e reason is evident. In
past tÍllles, every Council of the Church
had to deal with some one particular
heresy, by which some one specific doc..
trine of the faith has been denied. The
Council of the Vatican has had to deal
,vith the \vhole principle of unbelief:
It is not one doctrine only of Christian..
ity that is at stake now, but the whole
of Christianity - the \vhole revelation
of God, the whole principle of faith.
OVER TIlE INTELLECT OF l\IAN. 47
The axe is laid to the root of the tree.
The Council of the Vatican, kno,ving
this full ,veIl, made and promulgated,
before the tumults of the ,vorld ren-
dered necessary the suspension of its
labors, t,vo Constitutions, ,vhich, if it
never add another \vord, will be in-
scribed in the history of the Church-
ay, and upon the intellect of the ,vorld
too - as a luminous record of Divine
truth that can never be effilced.
The First Constitution of Catholic
faith may be called the philosophy of
faith in the lights of nature and the
order of nature, the grounds and the
prealnbles upon \vhich Divine faith
rests, as the most perfect and most rea..
sonable act of man.
The Second Constitution is the dec-
laration of the Rule of faith, or the
Authority llpon ,vhich faith reposes.
48 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
This doctrinal authority ,vas defined to
be the infhllibility of the ROlnan Pon-
tiff The infalIibility of the Church has
been at all tin1es, and by all Catholics,
believed as a doctrine of Divine rev-
elation. Till controversy had clouded
truth, no one doubted that the infillli-
bility of the Church contains also the
infallibility of the Head, as the reason-
ableness of man resides eminently in
the head ,vhich governs the body. It
had become evident, that they who at-
teIl1pted to deny the infallibility of the
Head of the Church were covertly-
and I believe many unconsciously-
denying the Divine guidance of the
'v hole Church. The Council of the Vat-
ican, then, with the fearless liberty of
truth ,vbich belongs to the kingdom of
God, and conles from God alone, pro-
mulgated these most opportune and
OVER THE INTELLECT OF l\IAN. 49
necessary Constitutions of Faith. It
has declared, in the ll1idst of an unbe-
lieving age, that faith is due to God
because he is Sovereign, and because
as Sovereign He commands it; and that
to kno,v \vhat we are to believe, He has
instituted upon earth a \vitness, which
is itself a sufficient evidence of its O\VU
Divine commission, that is, IIis visible
Church; a ,vitness that may be seen as
the representative of His Incarnation;
a \vitness that may be heard, because
the voice of that Church speaks to the
\vorId, and is His voice. The Council
of the Vatican, therefore, calls to us all,
as St. Paul called to the Corinthians:
"And I, brethren, \v hen I carne to you,
came not in loftiness of speech or of
\visdom, declaring unto you the testi-
mony of J eSl1S Christ. For I judged
not nlJself to kno\v anything among
4
50 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
you, but Jesus Christ, and Him cruci-
fied. And Iny teaching \vas not in the
persuasive ,vords of 1nan's ,visdom, but
in delnonstration of the spirit and of
the po,ver of God. That your faith
nlight not stand on the \visdom of man,
but on the po,ver of God." And to
obtain that Divine certainty, there is
one simple condition: to believe in the
Divine Teacher ,vhom He has sent.
OVER THE WILL OF :MAN. 51
..
LECTURE II.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD OV,ER THE
",VILL OF MA"N.
" Behold, I come: in the head of the book it is
written of JJIe, that I s/tould dQ Thy will, 0
God." Hebrews x. 7.
THESE words, taken by the Apostle
from the Book of Psalms, are the \vords
of the Son of God, speaking in proph-
ecy, of His advent and His mission
in the ,vorld: "Behold, I come: in the
head of the book"
that is, in the
outset of prophecy -" it is ,vritten of
Me." It ,vas of this that God spoke in
the beginning, when He foretold that
52 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
the seed of the \VOlnan should crush
the serpent's -head. The coming of
Jesus Christ into the \vorId \vas for the
fulfilment of the ,viti of God. Throngh-
out the Gospels \ve read frOIH His O\Vl1
lips that His ,york on earth was to do
His Father's will. "I can1e down from
heaven not to do IVfy o\vn \vill, but the
,vill of Him that sent 1\Ie."
" My food
is to do the \vill of Him that sent :!\tIe." t
The obedience of Jesus Christ to the
,vill of God \vas the recognition of the
sovereignty of God over the \vill of man.
Obedience to the Divine \vill is the first
law of the soul of nIan, and in this is
his perfection"; which is our next sub-
j ect.
Our last subject \vas the sovereignty
of God over the intellect; and the sov-
ereignty of God over the intellect IS
* St. John vi.. 38.
t Ibiù. iv. 34.
OVER THE WILL OF MAN. 53
the means and condition to the sover-
eignty of God over the \vil1; for Gûd,
being Perfect Intelligence, requires of
no man an irrational obedience. He
requires of all n1en an obedience ac-
cording to the la,ys and perfections of
the human reason, and to the la,vs and
perfections of truth. It is a hnv of our
nature, that ,ve can ,,,ill nothing that
we have not first kno,vn. Our intellect
111Ust first kno,v the object npon ,vhich
,ve ,vonId set our ,viI1, or the \viII can
make no act either of desire or aver-
sion. The intellect, therefore, is the
channel through ,vhich the sovereignty
of God reaches the ,viII of man. In
proportion as ,ve kno,v God Inor
per-
fectly, our ,viII ought to he n10re per-
fectly conformed to the ,viII of Goel.
The ,viII in man is defined to be a
rational desire, and it is made up of
54 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
t\VO things. There is in it the desire
after good, and there is the reason
guiding that desire: sO that it is - as
philosophers call it - a rational appe-
tite; but \vith this peculiar office and
po\ver - it can control the appetite; it
has the po\ver of originating our ac-
tions, and of controlling itself: Now
the inteIlect of nUU1 has analogy to the
eye. The eye, 'v hich is the organ of
sight, is under the control of the ,viII.
"\tVe may fix the eye on anp given ob-
ject, or \ve may turn the eye away from
it, or \ve may either look intently or
languidly at it. All the day long we
see a 11lultitude of things \vithout look-
ing at them. The eye is filled \vith the
light of day, and \vith the objects round
aböut it; but the eye can be fixed for
the time only upon one, al
d that one
is the ouly object upon ,vbich we can
OYER THE 'VILL OF
IAN. 55
be said to look. We see a nlultitude
of objects, which perhaps ,ve do not
recognize at the tinle, nor remember a
lllornent after. So it is ,vith the intel-
lect. It is controlled by the ,vill, ,vhich
can determine on \vhat object it shall
be fixed; and \vhether it shall look fix-
.
edly and steac1Htstly at truth, or \vheth-
er it shall turn the intellect away froln
truth, or nlake it look at truth so cur-
sorily and languidly as not to recognize
it. . No,v this constitutes our responsi-
bility in regard to the truth. As I
have said before, the \vords of our Di-
vine Lord, "He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved, and he that be-
lieveth not shall be condemned," ex-
press the voluntariness of the act of
fitith. Faith is a virtue and a grace of
the Holy Spirit; but it is also an act of
obcdience on the part of man; and \ve
56 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
are responsible for our unbelief; and
shall be judged for it, because God has
given a sufficient light and evidence,
both for the truths of the natural and
supernatural order. He \vill not re-
quire of any luan to kno\v any truth
'v hich is physically beyong. his po,ver
to kno,v; He ,viII only require of man
to ans,ver for the truth \vhich he knew,
and that ,vhich he might have kno\vn.
He ,viII not require that ,vhich is
m-
possible; for God never cOlllmands in1-
possible things. fIe is a -God of justice,
and I-lis justice is perfect equity. " lIe
\veigheth the spirits," and lIe kno\vs
\vith Divine precision \vhat is possible
and 'v hat is not possible to each one of
us. fIe may require, indeed, that \vhich
is Inorally difficult, because that ,vhich
is only difficult is not impossible. 'Ve
are responsible to kno,v all truth ,vhich
OVER THE WILL OF MAN. 57
is sufficiently proposed to us, and aU
,vhich by diligent search ,ve may find;
and therefore ,ve shall be inexcusable
at the last day if -,ve do not see the
lights of nature, ,vhich are so abundant,
inundating the world, and if \ve have
not knovvn the truths to 'v hich they
testify - that is to say, the existence
of God, His eternal po,ver and Divinity,
His perfections, the distinction of right
and \vrong, the la,v of conscience, our
o,vn free \vill, the soul and its inlD10r-
tality - and therefore our responsibility
to our Creator. These are truths of
the natural order, apart from and an-
terior to revelation. They are ,vithin
our reach to kno,v. All men, even
those ,vho are not only out of the
Catholic Church, but U10St relTIote frOln
it, are bound to kno,v these truths. To
those who are ,vithin the unity of the
.
Û /"" 8
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
Catholic Church, there is not a doctrine
of revelation \vhich is not ,yithin their
reach. God has given sufficient light
and evidence for aU ,vho are \vithin the
unity of the Catholic Church to kno,v
aU the truths of revelation. To those
,vho are out of the unity of the Church,
their probation depends on this -
\vhether their separation from that
unity and the light contained therein
be a conscious and voluntary act of
their O'Vl1. If so, then they are respon-
sible. But if it be an inherited state
of privation, as I have said before, like
the condition of people robbed, by the
sin of forefathers, of their inheritance
of perfect light, such as our O'Vl1 coun-
try, then n1Ïl1iol1s are not responsible.
They \vill not be called to ans,ver for
light they have never kno\vn, and
never could have kno,vn. By them
OVER THE WILL OF :l\lAN. 59
.
the visible Church has never been seen,
the voice of the Church has never been
heard: and things that do not appeal'
are as things that do not exist. They
have never stood face to face \vith it as
we do; the light of Catholic faith has
never fallen upon them. They have
been brought up repeating the baptis-
n1al creed, " I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy Catholic Church;" but bet\veen
that article of creed anù their conscience
has intervened a colored nledium. and
/
a false òbject. They have believed
thenlselves to be in the Catholic Church,
because they have n1istaken in reality
a systelTI of b un1an creation for the
Ch urch of Jesus Christ.
The la,v of God, then, is this; that
in proportion as "'"e possess sufficient
evidence to kno\v the truth, He ,vill
req uire of us to give an account of that
60 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF GOD
truth at the last day. 'Ve must give
an account of what ,ve have kl1o\vn, and
,vhat ,ve have not kno\vn, and the rea-
sons \vhy \ve have not kno\vn that which
\ve 111ight have kno\vn. In this, there-
fore, consists the sovereignty of God
over the ,vill; and I wish you to bear
in Inind, that when I speak of faith as
of the highest act of the human reason,
and the most rational exercise of the
human inteIlect, such :fi1Îth is not a
blind and obscure act of the supersti-
tious and the credulous, 'v ho hide their
heads in t\vilight. Faith is an act of
the human reason, expanding itself to-
\vards God its l\Iaker, and receiving the
noontide light of revelation \vith the
fullest developlnent of its intellectual
po\vcrs. And in proportion as it re-
ceives the truth, and snbrnits its created
intelligence to the uncreated wisclo111
OVER THE WILL OF MAN. 61
of God, it is elevated and made per-
fect.
We ,vill no\v go on to our next sub-
ject, nalnely, the sovereignty of God
over the ,viII. 'fo make it as clear as I
can, let us consider the relations in which
the human will has hitherto stood, and
,vill stand, to the sovereignty of God.
1. The first relation ,vas ,vhen God
made n1an "to His o,vn ilnage and like-
ness ;" that is, lIe inJ.parted to him a
spiritual nature. lIe gave him an intelli-
gence and a 'v ill like His own. Man ,vas
the image or reflection of his J\Iaker.
The win, as I have said, consists in this:
it has the po\ver of originating our o\vn
actions. The lo\ver anin1als have a
po\ver of spontaneity in follo\ving their
natural desires, such as for food and
rest; but they have no \vill. Every-
thing voluntary is spontaneous, but
62 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
everything ,vhich is spontaneous is not
yolul1tary. The lo\ver anilnals, though
they have this spontaneous po,ver, have
no \vill, because the 'v ill, as I said in
the beginning, _is a rational desire or
appetite guided and elevated by the rea-
son; and as the lower anirnals, though
they have instincts, are irrational-
that is, have no reason - they have no
,viII. The will, then, is the po,ver of
originating rational actions, and those
rational actions are the actions of a \vill
in conformity \vith the reason, and of
the reason in conformity ,vith the in-
telligence of God. But ,ve are wont
also to speak of the freedom of the ,vill.
N o ,v, everything that is free is volun-
tary, but not everything ,vhich is vol-
untary is free, because the blessed in
heaven voluntarily love God, and vol-
untarily worship Him; but - they are
OVER THE 'VILL' OF
IAN. 63
not free not to love Hiln or not to
\vorship Hiln. '"rhe very perfection of
their nature necessitates their love and
,vorshi p; and yet the ,vill in its vol-
untary action is perfect. It is the n10st
perfect and entire spontaneousness, ele-
vated and guided by reason, by the
illumination of the ,vhole soul of the
blessed. There is, therefore, a kind of
freedom or liberty \v hich does not be-
long to the perfection of the will. But
,vben God made man in the beginning,
He gave him a perfect liberty. He \vas
not constrained by any external au-
thority which deprived him of his free-
dom; he ,vas not necessitated, as the
blessed are, by a final perfection. lIe
had therefore these three kinds of lib-
erty; first, he had the po\ver either to
do or not to do, to act or to refrain fronl
acting; secondly, he had a po,ver, ,vith-
64 TIlE SOYEllEIGNTY OF GOD
in the limits of good and justice, to do
this or that act - he ,vas not cornpellec1
to any specific acts of goôdness or of
justice; lastly, he had a po,ver ,vhich
the blessed in heaven have 110t- of
doing good and evil. But this po,ver
of doing good and evil is indeed a part
of our liberty in our present state of
probation and of in1perfection; but it
is not a part of the perfect liberty of
the ,"v ill. The use of the ,viII is to do
good; but the abuse of the ,viII is to
do evi1. It is an abuse of the po,ver
of originating our actions if ,ve act
contrary to reason, contrary to justice,
contrary to the ,vil1 of God. In the
beginning, God created nlan \vith this
threefold liberty, to put him upon trial
or probation; and yet there ,vas no
cause or need or excuse ,vhy he should
offend and fall, for God constitnted hiln
OYER THE WILL OF l\IAN. 65
in original justice. There never was a
n10Inent \vhen the created ,viII of the
first man ,vas not sanctified and sus-
tained by the Holy Ghost, ,vhen he had
not the presence of abundant grace
wi thin him to sustain him in the full
equilibriuln of his liberty. There \vas,
then, no necessity - nay, no reason
\V hatsoever e
cept the abuse of his free-
dOlll - ,vhy he should do evil. His
,vbole soul \vas under the dOIllinion of
the Divine kno,vledge and love, and his
heart ,vas the- throne of God reigning
supreme within it. This, then, \vas the
first relation of the ,vill to t'he sover-
eignty of God.
2. The second relation was intro-
duced by the Fall of lnan; and see
ho,v it caIne about. The entrance of
sin into the ,vorld ,vas by the abuse of
the ,vine Sin canle through the intel-
5
66 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
lect. The telnptation ,vas addressed
to the in tellect, ,y hich, being perverted,
perverted the ,vill; but the ,vill "Tas
free to listen or not. The temptation
\vas addressed "Tith an exquisite sub-
tlety of lnalice. It began by a question,
and that question began by the ,vord
" 'Vhy," -,vhich \vas then spoken for the
first time. The telnpter came and said,
"Why hath God commanded?" This
was a temptation to criticise the ,vays
and to question the justice of God.
"Why hath God cOlnmanded you, that
you shall not eat of every tree of Para-
dise ? " This a ,vakcned it questioning,
perhaps a murmuring, spirit. The next
step of the temptation ,vas a contra-
dictioñ. " Ye shall not die the death."
In this ,vas insinuated a contradiction
of the kno\vn truth. Thirdly, there
,vas an insinuation of injustice against
OVER THE WILL OF :MAN. 67
\.
Goù. "For God doth kno\v that in
,vhat day soever you shaH eat thereof;
your eyes shall be opened, and you
shall be as gods;" as if to say, God is
jealous lest a creature of His hands
should be equal to HÎ1nself: No\v, the
first temptation came through the in-
telJect, and as it passed through the
thoughts it wrought upon the soul, it
underlninded the steadfastness of the
,viII, it infialned the passions, it made
them impatient of restraint, and thereby
it inclined the \vill to abuse its liberty
and power. The abuse of its liberty
and po,ver was this: to do evil, to break
the kno\vn la,v, to violate the command-
ment of God. In doing so, it acted
irrationally; the ,viII, in doing evil, then
lost its rational character. It was an
abuse and debasernent of its nature;
and the \vill being debased by this ir-
68 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF GOD
rational action, deprived of its super-
natural perfection, forfeited the grace
of the Spirit of God. It biassed its own
,vorking, it ,varped its o,vn nature. As
a perfect machine, if it be rudely jarred,
loses its perfect action, and all its ope-
rations are cast out of gear, so \vith the
soul of man, ,vhen by a wilful abuse of
his rational power he acted irrationally.
In the mOD1ent when he rebelled against
the sovereign \vill of God, his passions
and affections - ,vhich before were in
subjection, and in perfect harmony and
conforn1ity to his ,viII, obeying its do-
n1inion and governrrlent - rose up and
rebelled against him. The passions were
both disordered and inflamed ; they
,vere no longer \vithin the range and
control of reason. The affections, losing
their reasonable character, became in-
ternal ternptations, so that the \vords
OVER THE 'VILL OF MAN. 69
of the prophet ,vere verified in the first
man: "The wicked are like the raging
sea, ,vhich cannot rest, and the ,vaves
thereof cast up dirt and mire." * The
tumultuous passions and affections of
the heart cast up desires and cravings
,vhich are irrational, and destructive of
the soul of man. Just as one poisonous
root \vill propagate and spread over a
fertile garden, and one spark of fire TtVill
kindle a boundless conflagration, so one
perverse will, beginning in irrational dig..
obedience, has nlultiplied itself through-
out mankind, and the \vhole \vorld is set
on fire by its perversity. The human
,vil1, becoming carnal and irrational in
I the Fall of our first parents, has been
I reproduced in all their children. " That
\v hich is born of the flesh is flesh." t 'Ve
inherit that nature as children of wrath.
* Isaias lvii. 20.
. t St. John iii. 6.
70 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
This, then, is the second relation of the
,vill to the sovereignty of God by the
irrational abuse of its o\vn freedoln.
3. Then, thirdly, as man fell by ir-
rational disobedience, he is redeemed
by an obedience \vhich is in perfect
conforn1ity to the intelIigence and \vill
of Gael. St. Irenæus says, " The obedi-
ence of l\lary broke the chains forged
by the disobedience of Eve. "'\Vhat Eve
had bound by unbelief; Mary has un-
bound by faith." :;: That is to say: the
,,,ill feU by the unbelief of Eve, the first
virgin, and was restored through the
faith of 1\lary, the second virgin. The
first Eve listened to the tempter, and
fell; the second Eve listened to the
angel, and believed. 'Vhen the angel
saluted- her ,vith, "Hail, full of grace,
the Lord is \vi th thee!" and revealed
* St. Iren. Adv. Hær. iii. 34.
OVER THE WILL OF :MAN. 71
to her the mystery of the Incarnation,
her intelligence, overcome for a moment
by the splendor of supernatural light,
asked, "How shall this be done? ":
But
at once she made an act of perfect sub-
n1ission and of perfect fhj th: "Behold
the handmaid of the Lord, be it done
to Ine according to thy ,vord." He.re
was a perfectly obedient ,vill restored to
mankind, a will reconstituted in that
state of perfect subtnission to the sover-
eigntyof God in \vhich man ,vas in the
beginning. Of her ,vas born One more
perfect because He is the Incarnate Son
of God, in Wholn the \vords of proph-
ecy were fulfilled: "Behold, I come, to
do Thy ,viII, 0 God."
The fulfilment of the ,vill of God 'vas
the \vhole ,vork of redemption. Obe-
dience unto death \vas the restoration
* St. Luke i. 34.
72 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
of nlankind. 'Vhen the Son of God
took onr humanity, He took a hlunan
sonl, and in that soul a hUlIUH1 intelli-
gence and a hlunan ,vil1, in all things
like our o\vn. B 11 t bet\veen the Sacred
Humanity and ours was this difference:
the human ,viII of Jesus had in it no
rebellions. It had \vhat ,ve distinguish
as a superior and an inferior ,vill; that
is, He had a reason and conscience
like our o\vn, but both ,vere perfect.
He had also affections and infirlnities,
and, as the theology of the Catholic
Church says, not passions - for the
word by tradition has an evil meaning
- hut "pro-passions;" that is, those
affections of our humanity which are
passions in us, in him are perfections.
Nevertheless, the superior and the infe-
rior win of the Son of God in the Gar-
den of Gethsemani, ,vere seen, not in
OVER THE WILL OF
IAN. 73
conflict, but each exerting its proper
and natural perfections. The sensitive
or inferior ,viII shrank from the vision
of sin, from the foresight of the death
of the ,vorld, from the anticipation of
the Passion, fronI the agony which lIe
then already suffered, from the Divine
foreknowledge of anguish of that night,
anù of the desolation on Calvary. Hu-
man nature in Him shrank frolll pain
and death, just as ,ve do; but the su-
perior ,vill stood steadfitst. Kno\ving
that it ,vas for the glory of God, and
the redemption of the world, that He
should accept and drink the chalice of
His Pa.ssion, lIe said: "0 My Father,
if it is possible, let this chalice pass from
Me; nevertheless, not as I win, but as
Thou wilt." * There ,vas no wavering
of in1perfection in that agony çf our
* St. Matt. xxvi. 39.
74 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
Divine Lord. He being God, the ,vill
that \vas in Him ,vas deified. It \vas
united to the perfections of the Son of
God; it was sanctified by the presence
of the Holy Ghost; it \vas constituted
in the Divine IJerfections of freedom
and obedience; it could be used ,vith
the utmost liberty of human perfection;
it could never be abused, because of His
perfection both as God and as man.
That ,vhich constituted the lllerit of our
Lord's Passion ,vas this: though it was
necessary, from His t\vofold perfection,
human and Divine, that He should love
God, and obey Hilll, and fulfil IIis ,viII
,vith perfection, it \vas not necessary
that He should suffer the agony in
the Ga.rden, nor the Crucifixion upon
Calvary. These things \vere freely
chosen by Him, out of love to n1ankind.
"Greater love than this no man hath,
OVER THE .WILL OF MAN. 75
that a man lay do\vn his life for his
friends." * I t was an act of the love of
the Son of God to give Himself for
three-and-thirty years to mental sorro,v,
and to His agony on the Cross for our
redemption. He freely chose that ,yay
of redelnption - the way of blood-
shedding, passion, humiliation - be-
cause it ,vas a Inore profuse revelation
of perfect loye. This way of redemption
was not required by any necessity, but
freely ordained in the \visdom of God.
4. Fourthly, there is still another re-
lation of the ,viII to the sovereignty of
God, and it is that in \vhich \ve all stand
no\v to IIim. 'Ve are not like the first
Adam, in a state of original justice.
'Ve are not like Adam after the FaIl,
in a state deprived of grace. Weare
not like the second Adam in His Divine
* St. John xv. 1.3.
76 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
perfections; but we are regenerate
members of the second Adaln, and there
is a perfection ,vhich comes by the Holy
Ghost to all those who are united as
Inelnbers of the Body of Christ. The
\vill of their Divine Head pervades the
. will of those that are born again. Y 011,
in your baptism, passed from the state
of nature to the state of grace. "That
\vhich is born of the flesh is flesh, but
that ,vhich is born of the Spirit is spir-
it." * You have been born of ,vater and
of the Holy. Ghost, and" Christ Jesus
is in you, unless perhaps you be repro-
bates." -r Your ,vill is a regenerate ,vine
I t is the \vill of the Son of God. 'Vhat
Jesus had by nature, because he is the
Son of God, consubstantial ,vith the
Father, yon have by grace, because by
adoption you are lnaùe the sons of God.
* St. John iii. G.
t 2 Cor. xiii. 5.
OYER THE 'VILL OF
IAN. 77
St. John ,vrites: "As lnany as received
Him, to thenl lIe gave po,ver to be
Inade the 'sons of God." * The power
has been given to you all; not to be-
COine equal and co-eternal ,vith the In-
carnate Son of Goù, but to be sons of
God by adoption. Again, St. Paul says:
"You have not received the spirit of
bondage again in fear; but you have
received the spirit of adoption of sons,
,vhereby ,ve cry: Abba (Father)."
"For ,vhosoever are led by the Spirit
. of God, they are the sons of God." t
And as nlauy as are led by the Spirit
of God, they have a regenerate ,viII,
elevated by L'1ith, hope, and charity,
raised by the sanctifying grace of God,
to a union ,vith God Himself: The
Apostle says: " lIe \vho adheres to the
Lord is one spirit; " t and they who are
* St. John i. 12. t Rom. viii. 14, 15.
t 1 Cor. vi. 17.
78 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
united, by the Spirit of God dwel1ing
in thenl to our Divine Lord and Saviour,
the Head of the mystical Body, partake
of the sanctity and strength of His ,vilt
His will is transcribed into them; they
beconle partakers of the loves and the
hatreds of Jesus Christ. Together with
Him they love God and their neighbor,
they hate sin and falsehood in all its
forms. The ,vin, according to the prom-
ise of God, þeconles a la,v to itself:
"This is the testament \vhich I ,viII
make unto theln after those days, saith.
the Lord; giving IVly la,vs in their
hearts, and in their minds I \vill write
theIn." * And the Apostle says," The
la,v is not 11lade for the just Inan, but
for the unjust and disobedient." t As
the seven notes of the octave are not
to be perpetually learned by the skilful
* Heb x. 16.
t 1 Tim. i. 9.
OYER THE WILL OF MAN. 79
musician, and the twenty-four letters of
the alphabet are left behind by the cul-
tivated intellect, so the la\v of COffi-
Inandments is no longer necessary to
those who have the la\v of God \vritten
by the Holy Ghost upon their hearts.
They fulfil, indeed, the letter of the
comnUtndlnents, because that is the
least thing they can do; but that
'v hich is required of them is more than
this. St. John says: "Everyone that
is born of God, doth not C0111nlÎt sin,
for His seed remaineth in him, and he
cannot sin, because he is born of
God;" :i: that is, there grows up a
moral impossibility to commit wilful
SIn. The love of God and our neigh-
bor makes it morally impossible that
,ve should abuse our freedolll of \vill by
disobedience to God, and inj ustice to
* 1 St. John iii. 9
80 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF GOD
our neighbor. The hatred of sin, false-
hood, impurity, jealousy, malice, and
the like, Inakes it moraI1y impossible
for the soul, rene\ved by the ind\velling
of the Spirit of God, to violate its o""u
renewed nature by ,villingly - doing
these things. Therefore, the will be-
comes a Ia\v to itself, and it is so
strengthened in the state of regenera-
tion that the ....
postle could say: "I
can do all things in I-lim who strength-
eneth me." * ''''''hen buffeted by the
messenger of Sata.n, he thrice prayed
to be delivered frorn temptation; but
the ans\ver of God to him was, "J.\;ly
grace is sufficient for thee: for po\ver
is Inade perfect in infirn1ity;" and he
adds: "Gladly, therefore, ,viU I glory
in my infirn1ities, that the power of
Christ l11ay dwell in me." t And again,
* Phil. iv. 13.
t 2 Cor. xii. 9.
OVER THE WILL OF lVIA
. 81
" Work your salvation with fear and
trernbling; " and for ,vhat reason?
"For it is God 'v ho ,vorketh in you
both to \vill and to accomplish, accord-
ing to His good will."
ï: The sllprenlacy
of the good ,viII of God, holy, pure,
just and n1ighty, fio,vs into the soul,
and pervades the ,vill of t
ose, ,vho,
being born again, are subject to the
sovel"eignty of God by the free action
and use of their o\vn deliberate ,viII.
5. Lastly, there is, as I have said be-
fore, a final relation of the ,viII to God;
and that is the state of the blessed,
'v hen there ,vin be no nlore tenlptation
\vithout, no more conflict \vithin. "\tVe
shall then have passed frol11 a state of
,varfare, and frOlll the condition of ,vay-
farers, into the eternal rest and peace,
in tbe vision of God. The intellect, il-
* Phil. ii. 12, 13.
6
82 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
luminateù by the Light of God, which
is the IIoly Ghost Himself; shall see
Him. The will, united with the eternal
love of God by the Holy Ghost, \vho is
the Charity of God, wiU be eternally
and indissolubly united to Him in obe-
dience and adoration of His perfect
sovereign.ty, when God shall be all in
all. This is the last and eternal perfen-
tion of the will.
To draw from this one practical con-
clusion, let us remember what is our
probation now. It is to subject our
will to the will of God. And how does
God illuminate us to kno\v what that
sovereignty is? I have already said,
by faith. I have said that our submis-
sion to Hiln is the most rational and
perfect act of our reason. Take, for
example, the lights of nature, the exist-
ence of God, the distinctions of moral-
OVER THE 'VILL OF l\IAN. 83
ity, the immortaJity of the soul. You
,,"ould all hold, that any man who
should refuse to submit his will to the
sovereignty of God, revealing these
things to us by the light of nature,
\vould be guilty before Him of pride
and infidelity. And why, but because
the evidence for them is sufficient?
Let us go one. step farther. Is there
not sufficient evidence in the world, by
the lights of Uhristendolll and by the
effulgence of the Universal Church,
which is "like the lightning \vhich
cometh out of the east, and shineth al-
so to the west
" Is not the testimony
of the Universal Church throughout
the ,vorld a sufficient light, or nlotive
of credibility, to convince the intellect
of Iuan that that Church is the Church
of God, and, therefore, that" He found-
ed it? Is not t.he testimony of the'
84 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
Church itself sufficieJ].t. to 'convince
any reasonable intellect, that He ,vho
founded 'it ,vas the Son of "God Incar-
nate; and that, according to the proln-
ise of the Son of God, the IIoIy Ghost
descended upon that C
urch, "and Inade
it His d\vellil1g-place and the organ of
His voice, in \v hich to preseive the
original revelation of God; and -through
\vhich, as the organ òf His 'voice, He
makes that revelation kno\vn to the
world? And if there be a sufficient
light to kno,v these things, is not the
intellect bound to submit itself to the
uncreated reason of God, by \vholl1
these things are revealed? And if so,
is -not the will, through the intellect,
bound to submit itself to that light and
sovereignty, which is thus made kno\vn ?
And if so, the voice of the Ch urch is
the voice of God IIimself: "lie that
OVER THE WILL OF
IAN. 85
heareth you, heareth l\fe;" and the
authority of that voice is Divine, and
the unity of truth is Divine, and the
duty of submitting to it is Divine. This
light of fiÚth comes to us through the
most rational action of the hnrrlan in-
tellect, and that act of fi-tith is an act
reasonable and free in all its parts.
Faith is not a credulity, nor a supersti-
tion; but they ,vho ,vill not believe are
truly irrational and superstitious. They
Dill from perfect light into the t,vilight,
,y here half-truths are seen, as "n1en
like trees ,valking ; "* and believing in
them, the intellect is warped and nar-
ro,ved. They \vho reject Divine faith
believe in hurnan opinions, ,vhich are
both credulous and superstitious. What,
then, is the ,vhole of our life on earth
but an education? Is not the sover-
'" St. Mark viii. 24.
86 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
eignty of God round about us? Are
,ve not under its guidance, training, and
discipline? Is it not training us up to
d,vell in our Father's house? Are not
aU the visitations and chastisenlents of
our lot so many teachings of His Divine
hand? In joy and sorrow, prosperity
and poverty, sickness or strength,-
are not all these distinctly Divine agen-
cies around us and upon us ? Are they
not the n1anifestations of the Divine
sovereign ty over the course of our life?
And they ,vho recognize, by the light
of fhith, the sovereignty of God in all
things, \viH recognize the sovereignty
of God in the daily and hourly details
of their o,vn personal life, and in the
changes of their lot. They will not
chafe against Ilis \vill when He chas-
tises them, nor \vear themselves out,
nor break their hearts by contending
OVER THE 'VILL OF MAN. 87
with impossibilities; but, conforming
their ,vill to the sovereign \vill of God,
and submitting gladly to it, they ,viII
be sustained and sanctified in their
fai tho
And, further, there are t\VO other
ways in which the sovereignty of God
"
orks in us. The one is by the silent,
secret, and s,veet inspirations of His
.grace, by the lights that fall upon our
intellect \vithout our asking for them,
and the love that is poured out in the
Divine superabundance' of ] ris gener-
osity and tenderness. As he makes the
sun to rise upon the evil and the good,
so He sends do,vn the lights of truth
on the intellects of those who have not
sought for Him; and He pours out over
their hearts the drops of s,veetness, of
which the Psalrnist speaks when he
says, "Thou hast prevented him ,vith
88 THE SOVERillGNTY OF GOD
blessings of s,veetness." * This is sorne-
thing which, in experience, you all will
know., You:,vill understand me, though
I cannot" put it in \vords. There have
been in your life times and seasons-
sOInetimes in joy; sometimes in SOITO\V,
sOlnetimes in prayer, sometÏInes in soli-
tude, sometimes in the midst of the
""orld' - '\vhen ther"e has corne do\vn
almost a s'ensible s,veetness to your
taste, alm-ost à IJeréeptible fragrance in
your thoughts. "And ,vhat is th
s s\veet-
ness and' fragrance? . It is the Divine
. I "
Presence. scattering abroad" the r bène-
dictions of 8weetnêss.": -That 'fragrance
COlnes froln the gólden censer 'v hicl
is
in the hand of the angel before the)
throne. And why are these things- sen
to us? To ,vin and to persnade "our:
\vills freely to submit ourselves to IIis
... Ps. xx. 4.
OVER THE 'VILL OF J\IAN. 89
sovereignty. And the ,vay of I-lis sov-
ereignty is the Blessed Sacran1ent upon
the altar. The Sacred Heart of Jesus
Christ our Lord and King is there al-
,vays reigning, by the po,ver of IIis
love, attracting the hun1an ,vill in all
its freedo111 to Himself. Out of the nn-
\villing, He creates the willing; not by
constraint, but by the s,veetness of His
Presence, which n1akes then1 volunta- -
rily cast off their unbelief and disobedi-
ence, and of their o,vn free \vill subn1it
themselves to Him.
Lastly, when hereafter lve sho.11 stand
befof(t Him as our King and Judge, the
j\.postle St. James declares that ,ve shåll
be "judged by the law of liberty." *
He Lids us, therefore, to use it 'ViSB]y :
" So speak ye and so do, as being to be I
judged by the law of liberty." In that
.
St. James Ïi. 12.
90 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF GOD
day \ve shall not be judged for any..
thing ,ve could not do or leave un-
done, nor for anything ,ve could not
kno,v. "\Ve shall be judged for that
,vhich \ve nlight have known, and
might have done or refrained fronl
doing. 'Ve shall be tried by tha t
which \ve have known and done;
and we shall be compelled to lay
our hand upon our mouth, and to con..
fess that, in all our life, \ve never did
evil in thought, word, or deed, but we
might have refrained from doing it,
and might have done good if ,ve had
had the ,viII; that every act of evil ,vas
a free act, and an irrational and imn1or- .
al abuse of our ,viII.
Tiule forbids me now to draw out
examples of this evident truth. Take
any habit in which at this lllonlent you
may be entangleò, - such as ambition,
OVER THE 'V ILL OF ?\IAN. 91
pride, sloth, self..indulgence, jealousy,
insincerity, be it ,vhat it may,
tell
me "\v hether the first acts of it \vere
not perfectly voluntary, and the second
and the third - ay, and the first, sec-
ond, and third years of its continuance?
If no\v it has become ingrained in your
character, - if no\v you have become,
and are at this till1e, proud, ambitious,
slothful, jealous, insincere, so that you
cry in secret: "I am so fast bound in
these chains of iron, that I can never
break .these bonds," - kno\v that you
have forged them for yourselves, and
at the last day will have to give
an account of every several and vol-
untary act, whereby you have "\yill-
ingly forged those links. Yon laid
them upon the anvil, and have de-
liberately welded them with your
o,vn hand, until with your own hand
92 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
rou have bound yourselves in those
chains.
Lastly, we shall have to give an ac-
coun t of all the good \ve have left un-
done; and it is certain that ,ve neglect
all day long opportunities of doing
good, of IDaking acts of love of God
and our neighbor. In that day our
Lord ,vill say to each one of us: "I ,vas
hungry, and JOu gave l\Ie not to eat;
I lras thirsty, and you gave l\Ie no"t to
drink; I ,vas a stranger, and 'you took
l\Ie not in; naked, and you clothed
Ie
not; sick, and in prison, and you did
not visit Me." ::: All the day long, our
life and lot are full of these opportuni-
ties, and \ve allo\v then1 to pass a\vay.
They are golden opportunities, like the
seed-tilne and the harvest, \vhich, ,vÎth
all their treasures, pass ,vith the year
· St. Matt. xxx. 42, 43.
OVER TIlE WILL OF MAN. 93
and return no more. We shall have to
give an account in that day of the (ree
use \ve have nlade of all our lnanifold
ste\vardship; of the gifts of nature; of
the faculties of the soul; of the graces
of the Holy Ghost; of the providences
of God over our life; of the opportuni-
ties which have been so countless and
so fertile, surpassing even our recogni-
tion; and of all the loving visitations
of God, "Thereby He \vould have
brought us to IIimself:
Remelnber the words you have said
this nlorning, and before you lie down
'viII say to-night. Remelnber \vhat I
have said, \vhen on your knees you
say the prayer \vhich our Lord has
taught us: "Thy kingdolll COlne"-
let thy sovereignty reign over nlY
will. "Thy will be done on earth, fiS
it is in heaven," -let thy 1I10st holy,
1>4 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
most sweet, most perfect ,viII b
done
in me, and by me, and about me, in
all things, and al \vays, now and for
ever.
OVER SOCIETY.
95
"-
LECTURE III.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD OVER SOCIETY.
"Bell-old, a .King shall reign in justice, and
princes shall reign in judgment." Isaias
xxxii. 1.
-
'VHATSOEVER may be the first and
typical fulfilment of this prophecy, no
one can fail to see its true and ultimate
fulfilment in the kingdom of Jesus
Christ. It is a vision of that which is
singular upon earth - a just king; that
is, a king who, holding supreme po,ver,
reflects not only the authority of the
King of kings, but also His character.
Such a one is a king after God's o\vn
VB THE SOYEREIGXTY OF GOD
heart. Justice is the sum of the per-
f
ctions of God, the bond of all the
Divine attributes of \visdom, po\ver,
ll1ercy, and sanctity. A just king,
therefore, is one ,vho, having suprelne
authority, uses it in \visdon1, mercy,
and equity. David's highest title of
glory ,vas, that he ,vas a lnan after
God's o\vn heart. His heart \vas con-
fOl'lned. to the King of kings, and in
the exercise of his power, in lnaking
and in executing his Ia \VB, he IIlallifest-
cd that heart of justice to his people.
Such a kingdom is a kingdom of order,
peace, liberty, and equality; because,
,vhatcver be their social and acciùental
inequalities, all subjects are, by the su-
preme authority, treated equally before
the la\v.
Such, then, is the vision of the proph-
ecy; and it is more than a prophecy
OYER SOCIETY.
97
- it is a promise. It not only foretells
that such a kingdom of justice shall be,
but it promises that that kingdom shall
exist on earth.
Now, I have already spoken to you
of the sovereignty of God over the in-
tellect and over the \vill of individual
men. Our submission to this sover-
eignty is, I explained, by the act of
faith, in response to the command of
God that \ve should believe; and an
act of obedience to His Divine will, as
it is revealed to us, in response to the
con1mandment that we should obey.
"\Vhat I have no,v to do is to extend
this subject; and these two prin1ary
truths lie at the base of what I am
about to add - I mean the sovereignty
of God over society.
Society is a collection of individuals,
not told by number, but united, ordered
7
98 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
and organized by an intrinsic Ia\v of
their nature. For when God made lnan,
He lnade society. Society was a part
of the first creation; society springs
out of the creation of man, because
fro111 man comes the family, and from
the family comes the people, and from
the people comes the State. The whole
civil order of the ,vorld is nothing but
the growth of that society which lay
in the first man, as the tree lies in the
seed. Therefore in our very nature
there is the society of mankind; and,
as I said before, sòciety does not mean
merely men told by the head. Num-
bers do not constitute a people. That
\vhich constitutes a people is the princi-
ple of order, authority, and la\v, social
relations, social rights, social duty.
Where those things are not, or are
trampled do,vn, there ma.y be a multi-
OVER SOCIETY.
99
tude, but there cannot be a people.
The gospel of the present day is not
the gospel of the society 'v hich God
created, but the gospel of anarchy. It
declares that the multitude of men, told
by nuruber and voting by plebiscites,
constitutes society. Therefore when I
say that God has a sovereignty over-
society, I mean that he has a sover-
eignty over those ordered relations of
man to man, constituted by HÎInself in
the creation of mankind. The first
principle, then, of society is authority;
the second is obedience; and the third
is mutual justice, whatsoever be the
varied, accidental, and providential ine-
qualities between man and man.
I affirm, then, that there is in this
world, in the order of nature, such a
society as I have described. And as the
Son of God Incarnate redeemed man-
100 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
kind by His precious Blood, so he has
purchased for I-limself; not only man
,vith his individual intellect and ,viII,
but also the collective society of man
as God created it. What \ve call Chris-
tianity is, in fact, the sovereignty of J e-
sus Christ over mankind. In so L1,r as
Inen are Christian, they are subj ects
of Jesus Christ; and in so far as they
revolt from Him, they are but rebels,
because lIe is the I(ing of that society
de jure, that is, by right, and de facto,
that is, in fact. lIe is de jure" by right,
King over every baptized soul; and fIe
is not only de .lure, but de facto, King
over all those that are faithful to IIis
Jaws. Those who, being baptized, rebel
against His laws, are no longer subject
to Hiu1 de facto; but they are subject de
J.ure, that is, by right, because they have
been redeemed by Hiln, and regener-
OVER SOCIETY.
101
ated in baptism. What, then, I pur-
pose to show is, that there exists in the
\vorld a kingdom of ,vhich Jesus Christ
is the King, and that He has a sover-
eignty, and exercises that sovereignty
over it. The confusions \ve see in the
,vorld are 110 contradiction to \vbat I
have said - that He is, both by right
and by fact, King and Sovereign over
those ,vho are faithful to His la\vs. He
is sovereign still by right - though,
through their rebellion, not sovereign
by n1ct - over those 'v 110 break those
Ia ,vs.
Bear in mind, I am speaking of this
kingdom as God has made it, and not
as man has marred it. That kingdom,
as God made it, I ,viII now go on to
describe; that kingdoln, as man has
marred it, \vill bc our subject hereafter.
1. First, then, ,vhen the Son of God
102 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
becalne incarnate, He carne into the
world, and gathered His disciples about
Him. In that act He founded His king-
dom. The preaching of John ,vas:
"The kingdom of heaven is at hand." *
The kingdom of heaven came \vhen
God was manifested in the flesh, by His
death redeemed the \vorld, by His res-
urrection vindicated His sovereignty,
and by his ascension took possession
of His throne. By His Incarnation lIe
had deified the nature of man, and not
only restored, but elevated, man above
his previous state in creation. He ele-
vated not only man, but the society of
man, which, as I said, lies in man's very
nature. The first Aqam ,vas mere man,
united \vith God, indeed; but through
his disobedience he ,vrecked himself;
and in himself all the society of nlan..
· St. Matt. iii. 2.
OVER SOCIETY. 103
kind. The second Adam is the Son of
God Incarnate, in ,,
hon1 man is not only
redeemed and elevated, but the ,vhole
society of mankind also; and neither
man nor the society of man can again
be wrecked, in so far as it is obedient
and faithful to the Incarnate Son of
God.
I will say, then, for clearness' sake,
that the society H
founded is His mys-
tical Body, or the Church, as we shall
hereafter see. Our Divine Lord restored
n1an and society in His person \vhen He
deified our manhood, our intelligence,
heart, will, our whole nature, soul and
body. 'Vhen lIe gathered His disciples
about Hinl, He elevated them also. He
illluninated them ,vith the knowledge
of God and His kingdom; He infused
into them the grace of His Holy Spirit;
He shed abroad in their heart the law
104 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
of Jove to God and man; He inspired
their ,viII ,vith the la\v of obedience:
He elevated them above the natural
state in which they were born. " Tha,t
which is born of the flesh is flesh," and
such they \vere at their first birth.
"That which is born of the Spirit is
spirit," and such they were by contact
with the Son of God in the regenera-
tion. And being el
vated to a higher
state of faith, light, love, and obedience,
He assimilated thelD to Hin1self; He
changed them into His own likeness.
The first Adam ,vas defaced and disfig-
ured, the image and likeness of God
in him were shattered; but the likeness
and ilnage of God 'vere manifested
again, in their perfection, in the face
of Jesus Christ. As St. Paul says: "God,
\vho con1manded the 1ight to shine out
of darkness, hath shined in our hearts
OVER SOCIETY.
105
to give the light of the kno,v ledge
of the glory of God, in the filce of J e-
sus Christ." * Again he says: "'V e alI,
beholding the glory of the Lord ,vith
face uncovered, are transformed into the
satne image fro
glory to glory, as by
the Spirit of the Lord." t And St. John
writes: " We saw His glory, the glory
as of the Only-begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth. . . . And of His
fulness \ve all have received, and grace
for grace;"
that is to say, the fello,v-
ship of the disciples \vith their Lord,
His daily conversation \vith them, the
assimilating power of His life and of
His example, changed them. Their
heart, mind, and will \vere gradn-
alIy transfigured into IIis o,vn like-
ness; and as he changed them into IIis
... 2 Cor. iv. G. t 2 Cor. Hi. 18.
St. John i. 14, 16.
106 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
own likeness, so He united them to-
gether. They became of one mind,
one heart, one will; they had one faith,
one vision of God, one Guide, one
Teacher, one law. There \vas ,vrought
in them an intrinsic change, which per-
fectly united them one \vith another;
so that their thoughts, affections, voli-
tions, being subject by fhith to the sov-
ereignty of their Divine
Iaster, were
assin1Ïlated to each other. There grew
up an intrinsic unity in the hearts of
the disciples; and therefore the exter-
nal unity with \vhich they adhered to
Him and to one another, ,vas the result
anù consequence of this internal unity
of mind and ,viII. He thus organized
them together. He made one of theln
to be the first, and all the rest to be
equal. lIe gave to that one an' author-
ity, and He gave to theln all a partici-
OVER SOCIETY. 107
pation, not of that sole primacy, but of
all other po\vers which He gave to
Peter, and so knit them into one per-
fect society, of which He Himself was
the visible Head whilst on earth, and
His Vicar when He ascended into
heaven. This is what we call His
Ch urch, or
I ystical Bod y.
When He ascended into heaven and
sent the Holy Ghost, His disciples and
all who believed in Him \vere united
to Him by the indwelling of the Spirit
of God. He thereby became their Head.
They became His members, and were
members one with another in one or-
ganized body, so compacted and fitted
together, that as the body of a man,
quickened and animated by one life,
gro\vs to its perfection, so with the Mys-
tical Body of Christ. He bestowed on
it a participation of His O"\vn preroga-
.
108 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
tives: it became imperishable, because
He has imIllortal life; it becan1e indis-
solubly one, because He is the only Son
of God; it became infallible, because
He is the Divine Truth, and He cannot
err, and the Spirit of Truth inhabits it;
it became sovereign in the ,vorId, be-
cause it is the representative of Himsel
and exercises His sovereignty among
the nations of the earth.
Such, then, \vas the first founding of
His kingdom. In its expansion after-
,vards, \vhen he said to His discil)les,
"All po\ver in heaven and
arth is given
unto l\le; go ye, therefore, and teach
all nations," lIe clain1ed sovereignty in
the most ample and explicit terms. lIe
who has all authority, lacks nothing.
There is no power supreille over Him
\vho has all authority. And having all
power, He therefore said to them: "I
OYER SOCIETY.
109
dispose unto you a kingdom, as l\Iy
Father hath disposed unto Me." More
explicit language could not be found to
declare that the po\ver which He gave
to IIis Apostles \vas a royal power; that
it ,vas a participation of His own sov-
ereignty, and given in virtue of the
right of delegation '\vhich lIe received
from His Father. When He said: " My
kingdon1 is not of this \vorld," lIe did
not intend-as some blindly and almost
incomprehensibly lnisunderstand Him
\ - that lIe denied His kingdom to be
in this world. He affirmed it to be in
this \vorld, but not of it; that is, that
the source. of its authority, the fountain
of its jurisdiction, the sanctions of its
laws, the po\vers of its executive, are
from IIis Eternal Father. It therefore
does not derive its authority, sover-
eignty, jurisdiction, po,vers, rights, from
110 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
this world. AU these are not of men,
but of God. They are not the grants
or concessions of kings, princes, legis-
latures; nor do they come fr01TI the
nlultitude by universal suffrage. They
are of God, delegations of the Eternal
King to His Incarnate Son. They are
supernatural, Divine, intangible by hu..
man control, imperishable, sovereign
over all.
2. When, therefore, He sent out His
Apostles, it was to execute the same
comlnission He had received Himself.
What He ,vas among the Apostles, they
were to be among the nations of the
world. They began by elevating men
and families wheresoever they went.
They communicated the same light,
faith, grace, and laws, which they had'
first received. The iUumination offaith,
the gift of regeneration, the grace of
OVER SOCIETY.
111
the Holy Sacraments, the la,,"s of the
kingdom of God, the Ten Command-
ments interpreted not in the letter only
but in the spirit, the T\vo Precepts of
Charity, the Eight Beatitudes; these
,vere the la,vs of the heavenly kingdom,
and these the Apostles gave to the na-
tions of the world The nations of the
world, so far as they received those
laws, ,vere elevated to a higher order,
and were assimilated to the Master from
\vhom those laws were derived. As
faith and the laws of Christianity, they
took possession of men, of households,
and of people; they \vere assimilated
to the same pattern and the same per-
fection. When ihe Apostle said: "Be
ye also follo,vers of me, as I also am of
Christ;' * he nleant to say, "In me you
II< 1 Cor. xi.!.
112 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
see the dimmed and imperfect reflection.
of that perfect image and pattern which
I am bid to represent; follow me, as I
follo,v Christ. I am indeed among you
fiS an example; so far as I truly repre-
sent IIim to whom all men, illuminated
by faith, are to be conformed - the
Second Adam, the Son of God, \vho
is no,v at the right hand of IIis Father."
As they were assilnilated tö that type,
they were united together by the in-
fused grace of charity, and by the super-
natural union, "rhich drew the world
to believe in the Unity of God. That
supernatural and miraculous union of
I the first Christians was the testimony
and proof of the Unity of God, from
\vhom they received their Ia,v. As our
Divine Lord prayed to His Father:
"rrhat they also may be one in Us, that
the ,vorld may believe that Thou hast
OVER SOCIETY.
113
sen t l\le." ::: And the world beheld in
wonder, if it did not yet believe. The
world ackno\vledged this supernatural
unity, saying: "See how tbese Chris-
tians love one another." It was a phe-
nomenon never seen before, a fruit that
never gre\v on any other tree, since sin
cursed the earth. As they \vere united,
so they were organized together; and
there grew up in the world the true
Vine and the branches,-the one world..
\vide organization, tbe one life-giving
society of men - united by baptism,
faith, and \vorship; by submission to one
authority; by" the recognition of one
visible Head - the sole fountain of su-
pernatural kno\vleðge and supernatural
po\ver. There ,vas one hand which
held the two keys of jurisdiction and
of science - that is, of supreme po\ver
· St. John xvii. 21.
8
114 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF GOD
and of the perfect kno\vledge of fitit.h:
and that one band ,vas the hand of him
,vho bears the representative character
of the Vicar of his Divine Master. In
this organization - "\vhich, being visible,
speaks to the eye, and having a living
voice speaks audibly to the ear - there
,vas a ,york of God's grace, even more
supernatural, 1110re perfect, and n10re
nlarvellous. The Church has a visible
body; so had the old ROlnan Empire;
so has now the En1pire of Britian: but
the Church has what they had not - it
has a soul, and that soul consists in a
spiritual unity, \vhich elnanates from
God the Holy Ghost, ,vho dwells in it,
and animates it by faith, hope, and
charity - by the seven gifts of the Holy
Ghost, by the Eight Beatitudes in their
ripeness and perfection, by the Ia\v of
charity to God and man - thereby pro-
OVER SOCIETY.
115
ihlcing a. perfect internal unity of mind,
intelIect, conscience and ,vilJ, \vhich
God alone can create. This unity of
the Church, both external and internal,
,vhich the world is always endeavoring
to destroy, yet can neither destroy nor
deny, stands perpetuaIly in the world
as the Visible Witness of the sover-
eignty of Jesus Christ. But ,ve have
not yet reached to the full meaning of
these words.
3. I have, thus fitr, described the
Ch urch in its root, as our Lord plan ted
it; and in its extension, as the Apostles
spread it abroad. Thenceforward it
has gro,vn as a tree, rising in stature
and strength, overshado,ving the ,vhole
,vorld. But the action of the Church
filllong the nations has been to create
the Christian \vorld. By the Christian
,yorld, I mean that the Church has per-
116 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
vaded, penetrated, and out\vardly gov-
erned raees and nations of men, who
are not all internally obedient by L'1ith
and charity to the Ia\vs of grace. l\Iore
than this, it has controlled the material
power, the physical or brute force of
mankind. There are but two kinds of
force in the \vorld - material and mor-
al; and the force of the sovereignty of
Jesus Christ is the n10ral force of la \V
and right. The force of Ulan is the
force of his arm, of his wil1, of com bi-
nation, coercion, crilninal codes, capital
punishment, \varfare, conflicts between
nation and nation until one beats the
other down and tram pIes in its Llood.
This is the sovereign power of nlan-
kind, unrestrained by the sovereignty
of Jesus Christ. Such it \vas before
that sovereignty ,vas revealed from
heaven; such it would be again, if that
OYER SOCIETY.
117
sovereignty could ever cease; such it
is al,vays and every,vhere, in propor-
tion as that sovereignty grows weak in
its control over the hearts of men.
This moral power of la,v and right,
first acting upon individuals, then upon
households, then upon cities, then upon
races, began to create the new Chris-
tian civilization. The Church pos-
sessed, in the tilne of St. Gregory the
Great, three-and-t\venty provinces. The
possessions over lV hich th e Vicar of
Jesus Christ ruled, until sacrilege
robbed him the other day, ,vere caned
the Patrinlony of the Church; and
some twenty-three like to it ,vere pos-
sessed by St Gregory the Great. They
extended over the greater part of Italy,
the south of France, along the shores
of the Adriatic, the north of Africa.,
Sicily, the islands of the l\Iediterra-
118 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
nean. Divine providence so ordered
that these patrÜnonies, being commit-
ted to the patriarchal care and govern-
Inent of the Vicar of Jesus Christ
should become the first portions of hu-
man society 'v hich \vere reduced to
obedience to the Christian la\v. In
these patrimonies the germs of Chris-
tian civilization \vere planted. They
first received the Christian law of mar-
riage, the abolition of slavery, Christian
education of children, just arbitration
of Christian judges, mutual respect, fair
dealing bet\veen man and man. They
became the first provinces of that Chris-
tian world \v h
ch has no\v gro\vn up in-
to the ll1aturity of Christendoln. There
is not to be found in history anything
nlore beautiful, more patriarchal, or re-
flecting n10re brightly the peaceful and
Inajestic justice of our Divine Lord in
OVER SOCIETY.
119
the l\ionn tain, legislating in the Eigh t
Beatitudes, than the paternal s\vay of
St. Gregory the Great, the Apostle of
]:ngland. Those twenty-three patri-
monies of the Church, as I have said
else\vhere,* \vrougbt as the leaven in
the rneaI; and the Christian civilization
ripened in then1, becarne the germ of
the Christian civilization which after-
\vards formed th.e nations of Christian
Europe. 'Vhere, then, \\
ere Spain,
France, Gerlnany, and England? They
\vere races, divided in conflict. SOlne
"\vere wild in their ferocity; others had
sunk again into paganislll; some had
not yet elnerged from it. There ,vas
then no Christian Enfope, such as \ve
now kno\v it. St. Gregory the Great
ruled over those pa tritnonies, and
ripened the first spring of the Chris-
· Four Evils of the Day, pp. 85, 86.
120 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
tian world. He sowed broadcast III
the furrows of Europe those seeùs of
Christian progress and order of 'v hich
men at this day are so proud, though
they are trampling them do,vn. Then
the nations began to spring - Lom-
bardy, Spain, France, Gernlany, and
England. It ,vas the action of the
Vicar of Jesus Christ \v hich l11ade them
'v hat they are. Spain ,vas torn by
heresy, invaded by Saracens, infected
by Judaism, divided into conflicting
kingdon1s, 'v hen the Councils of Toledo,
legislating by the precepts of the Chris-
tian law, knit together the many races
of the peninsula in to one great l)eople.
So it ,vas in England. The IIeptarchy
was in perpetual conflict, seven king-
doms \varring against each other, until
Christianity, entering and subduing
them to one faith, one la\v, one su-
OVER SOCIETY.
121
preme Pastor, blended them into one;
and the Christian monarchy of England
arose, and endures to this day. So ,vas
it with other nations of our Christian
,vorld. And after this \vas done, an-
other \vork began: they ,vere then
united together, and Christendolll arose.
What the Church had done in Spain
and England, it did throughout the
whole of Europe. It knit the nations
together jnto a federation of Christian
kingdoms and people, and created the
unity and order of Christendom, \vhich
is the manifestation of the sovereign ty
of Jesus Christ over the civil po\vers
of the ,vorld. But this subject is too
large: I can but sum it up in these
few ,vords.
'Vhat has the ,vorld, then, gained by
the soverèignty of Jesus Christ? The
extinction of slavery, - and let any
122 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
man ,veigh ,,,hat those \vords lnean, re-
melnbering ,vhat slavery \vas in the
anéient ,vorld. Secondly, the sanctifi-
cation of Christian households, by the
la,vs of domestic purity and the la\vs
of marriage. Thirdly, the Christian
education of children. Fourthly, the
redenlption of woman; the raising her
from the degradation in which she \vas
before her regeneration in Christ, to be
the handmaid of the Immaculate l\loth-
er of God, and to be respected by men,
as being the image of the Mother of
their Redeemer. Once n1ore, the re-
straining of warfare, ,vhich before was
the lawless and brute violence of men
and nations, lvithout recognition of
lTIercy and j ustice. 'Val" itself \vas
telnpered \vith nlercy under the legis-
lation of the Church and the suprelne
arbitrament of the Vicar of Jesus
OYER SOCIETY.
123
Christ. Again, the civil code of every
country, ,vhich still retained, even in
its Christianity, the severity and san-
guinary rigor of its past, was gradual1y
Initigated from age to age, until tbe
severities of the old world ,vere in
great measure eft'tced. In passing, let
me protest against a cornmon and mon-
strous inversion of the truth. The
Church is accused of sanctioning and
encouraging severities in the criminal
code, \vhich the milder legislation of
princes has mitigated. The Church al-
,vays retained the severities of la\v to
the utmost of its power, from age to
age; but the hands of men in iron
llutil were too strong to be stayed by
the light pastoral staff of the Church.
The Church \vould have extinguished
long ago the cruelties of - the penal
code, if it had obtained the pOlrer.
124 THE SOY:ER:EIG
TY OF GOD
There ,vas also introduced among the
society of n1en a quality never kno,vn
before - the charity of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus. The lllanifold charity
of the Good Shepherd and of the Good
Physician, - tenderness to the sick, to
the sorro,ving, to the orphan, to the
\vido,v, to the prisoner, to the outcast,
to the poor, - these are the ripe fruits
of the Sermon on the l\Iount, and can1e
fronl no other tree. Again, lllutual re-
spect a1110ng all classes and ranks of
Inen. 'Vhen I say 'ì'csjJect, I do not
luean only or chiefly the respect of
the lo,ver for those above then1, but I
l11ean etnphatically the respect of those
in authority for those ,vho are beneath
theI11, because they see in thel11 the
Í1uage of God, anù the purchase of the
Precious Blood of Jesus Christ.
These, then, are SOlne of the fruits
OVER SOCIETY.
125
of the Christian civilization, ,vhich the
\yorld had never kno,vn before. The
sovereignty of Jesus Christ consists
therefore in this: that \vhereas, in the
order of nature, there ,vas a human
society such as I first described, and
,vhereas in the order \vhich is super-
natural there is a society created by
our Divine Lord Himself; - \vhich is
His Church, - the sovereignty of Jesus
Christ consists in the Union of those
t,vo creations of God; in their perféct
amity, intimate concorù, mutual co-ope-
ration, united recognition of One l\Ias-
tel", One Lord, One Soverèign; or, in
other \yords, that what is called the
Church and State forTI1 one sovereig
ty,
under one Supreme Heaù. 'V oe to the
Juan, \voe to the people, that preach
their separation! \V oe to the ,vorId,
,vhen they shall be separated! The
126 THE SOVEREIGKTY OF GOD
prophet Isaias, foretelling the sover-
eignty of this J nst King, describes it
thus: "The land that \vas desolate and
irnpassable shall be glad; and the \vil-
derness shall rejoice, and shall flourish
like the lily. It shall bud forth and
blosson1, and shall rejoice with joy and
praise. The glory of Libanus is given
to it; the beauty of Carmel and Saron ;
they shall see the glory of the Lord,
and the beauty of our God." * And
again he says, speaking of the man of
faith: "I-lis eyes shaIl see the king in
his beauty." t Who is the king but
Jesus Christ? what is the beauty but
the mani
estation of his kingdoln? Per-
haps some ,vill say: " Yes, in heaven."
I ans\ver: " Yes; but also upon earth;
or \vhat do you mean day by day in
praying, 'Thy kingdom come; Thy will
· Isaias xxxv. 1, 2.
t Ibid. xxxiii. 11.
OVER SOCIETY.
127
be done on earth as it is in heaven'?"
To be blind to God's kingdon1 in the
nlÏdst of us is Judaism. vVl1en th e
Messias came, the men of Jerusalem
,vere looking Îor a king of glory. When
He came in humiliation, they did not
kno\v Him. As the Apostle says: " For
if they had kno,vn it, they \vould never
have crucified the Lord of glory." *
Men are now going the same \vay;
they are postponing the lnanifestation
of IIis kingdon1 to the future, - shut...
ting it up in the nnseen ,vorld, that it
may not trouble our peace ,vith its jus-
tice or disturb our politics \vith its au-
thority.
There are t\VO consequences to be
dra\vn from \vhat I have said. The one
is this: that though His kingdom - as
our Lord Hin1self said - is not of this
· 1 Cor. ii. 8.
128 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
\vorld, it is nevertheless here as the
sphere of its manifestation. The king-
dom of Jesus Christ, then, the Church
and the Christian ,vorld, are here and
visible; and they are not only here and
visible, but they are local. Under the
Old La,v, Jerusalem was the head of
Israel, the centre from ,vhich the Lrt\v
\vent forth; there was the sanctuary
and the priesthood; there too ,vas the
Telnple, in \vhich the high-priest minis-
tered; and all this was typical. " For
the la\v having a shado\v of good
things to come, not the very Í1llage of
the things," ::: the substance can1e under
the
ew Law
What, then, corresponds
no\v to Jerusalem under the Old La\v?
It is the cant of controversy, it is the
affectation of scepticisln, for any lnan to
shut bis eyes and pretend that Chris-
* Heb. x. 1.
OVER SOCIETY. 129
tendom, which he admits to have a cir-
cumference, has no centre. It is the
audacity of unbelief to say, that the
centre has been any other than Rome.
No man, with the page of history be-
fore him, can find any other solution
of the things I have been saying, ex-
cept in the history of the Pontiffs, the
Vicars of Jesus Christ. Rome is visibly
and self-.evidently the" head and centre
of the Christian order. Rome is as
surely the seat of the sovereignty of
God in the Church of the Gentiles as
Jerusalem \vas in tbat of the J e\vs.
The Vicar of the Incarnate VV ord d\vells
tQere by the dispensa.tion of Divine
Providence. The world has striven to
cast him out for eighteen centuries, and
has never been able to displace him.
Five-and-forty times it has striven to
drive bim out, or to keep him out, or to
9
130 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
overturn the throne of the Vicar of
Jesus Christ; but in vain. If he disap-
pear for a 111oment, in a little ,vhile he
is to be found once Inore reigning at the
Tomb of the Apostles. If he be absent
for balf a century, his return is only
the more supernatural. Such is the
mere lllatter of fact. But I \vill go on
to sOInething that lllen \vill not deny.
Rome has been the .l\Iother of Church-
es. It tuay not, indeed, have been the
l\'Iother of all the Churches, because the
Apostles \vent out from J erusalenl, and
the disciples 'v ere first called Christians
at Antioch. But if Rome has not been
the l\'lother of all the Churches of ale
East, assuredly it is the Mother of the
Churches of the West. It is the l\Iother
of the Christianity of Ireland, of Eng-
land, of Gerlnany; and so I Inight go
on. It has been the l\lother of the
OVER SOCIETY. 131
Churches of the West, and the Foster-
n10ther of the Churches of the \vorld.
It has ever been and ever Inust be the
Teacher and Guide of Churches, the
. Chief Witness of the Incarnation, the
Chief Apostle of \vhat our Lord taught,
of what our Lord conlmanded; the
Chief Judge of all controversies, the
Chief Interpreter of the faith, the Chief
Doctor and Pastor of the Universal
Church. So tbe Council of Florence
declares, and so the Council of the Vat-
ican the other day expounded, \vith a
voice which is infallible, in virtue of
that same special promise of Divine
assistance made by the Son of God to
Peter, and in him to all \vho sit in his
seat forever.
Not only so, but, as I have already
very briefly traced, ROlne is the D10ther
of nations. If it be Christianity which
132 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
has civilized the \vorId, it is ROlne lvhich
has sustained Christianity. The patrimo-
nies of the Church were the seed-plot
of Europe. And for all these causes
and reasons, ROlne is the capital of
Christendom. It was never the capital
, of Italy. vVhen Italy and ROine \vere
one, Italy \yas united to Rome, and not
Rome to Italy. Rome had a world-wide
elnpire, of which Italy was a part. The
clairn of that part to appropriate the
whole is a stupendous usurpation. It
is a usurpation upon your rights, and
upon mine, and upon the rights of
every Christian nation and every Chris-
tian man under heaven.
From east to west the whole of Chris-
tendom claims Rome as its head and as
its home; and every nation throughout
the ,vorld goes up to Rome, as the tribes
of Israel went up to Jerusalern. God
OVER SOCIETY.
133
has so ordered it. There are t\VO spe-
cial reasons \v h y ,ve hold it so to be,
both a nlatter of faith and a matter of
principle.
First, God has so ordered the organi-
,
zation, constitution, and authority of
His visible Church on earth. He has
made Rome the seat of the Vicar of
His Incarnate Son; and from that seat
or throne goes forth the supreme au-
thority, both of jurisdiction and of doc-
trine, \vhereby the purity and the lib-
erty of the Church throughout the world
are perpetually preserved. Satan is
wise enough to kno\v that, if he can
strike a blo\v on the head, he is inflict-
ing a deadly wound upon the whole
body; and for that reason the warfare
from the beginning has been against
Ronle. This is one reason.
The other is: that Rome is the bond
134 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
or link bet\veen the t\VO societies, natu-
ral and supernatural, of \vhich I hav
been speaking. In the one person \vho
is both Pontiff and King, the two soci-
eties and the t\VO authorities in the
\vorld, -spiritual aud temporal, are uni-
ted. As we have seen that the union
of these is the \vill and purpose of our
Divine Redeenler, \ve therefore insist
upon it as a matter of principle. Every
po\ver, \vhatsoeyer it be, that attenlpts
to dissolve the union \vhich God has
created, is fighting against God. "\Ve
contend for this, not so much for the
sake of the Church, which is imperish-
able, and \vill live to the end of the
\vorld in all the plenitude of its majes-
ty, but for the sake of the civil society
of mankind, 'v hich, as we shall see
,. hereafter, when separated from Chris-
tianity, ,viII go to dissolution.
OVER SOCIETY.
135
What, then, is it that men caIl the
temporal power of the Pope? I am
\vearyof the words. It simply means
this, - the union, in one person, of the
supren1e authority ,vhich links together
the t\VO societies God has created for
the sanctification of n1ankind. You
kno\v full well there never was any
period of Christianity in \vhich the
spiritual authority of ROlne first, and
next its telnporal power, has not been
the special object of assault. Yon know
the" events at this mOlnent. Do not be
afraid. Fear nothing. As long as the
Christian world exists, the Christian
world \vill recognize Jesus Christ to be
the Son of God, and the Pontiff to be
His Vicar. It \vill obey the lu.\v of jus-
tice which consecrates the providential
order \vhereby he is a sovereign among
kings. Though this may be overcloud-
136 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
ed for a moment, as it has been forty
times before, and may be a forty-first,
it \vill not be destroyed. If it ,vere, the
Christian \vorld ,yould have comn1itted
suicide; but I have better hopes. -Do
not fear, then. The Scottish nation,
when, by an unhappy vehemence, they
cast off their obedience to the Vicar of
Jesus Christ, and also the authority of
the bishops \vho \vere set over them,
had the faith and the wisdom to retain
t\VO things, ,vhich they hold fhst to this
day - the absolute independence of
Inan and of conscience, in all things
spiritual, of all civil po\vers; and also
\vhat they call, in true and expressive
Janguage, "the crown-rights of Jesus
Christ;" that is to say, the sovereignty
pf our Divine Lord, and of His king-
dOln, over all rulers and civil la,vs.
Seeing a great nation retain these t\VO
principles, I have hopes for it.
OVER SOCIETY.
137
You, as children of the Catholic
Church, have not only retained those
things, but you bave :etained them
with the pastoral care of the Apostles,
and ,vith the supreme authority of the
Vicar of Jesus Christ. You owe him,
therefore, fidelity, obedience of heart,
of mind, and \viII, submission of intel-
lect and of all your po,vers to the re-
vel led law of God. You owe him a
generous obedience. That which vve"
call the spirit of a good Catholic means
a generous love and generons fidelity,
as to the Delegate of a Divine l\Iaster
and a Divine King, ,vho is our King by
right and by fact. IIonor him, then;
love him, and obey him. The
esolate
and impassable land, which once blos-
somed as the lily, is gro,ving desolate
and in1passable once more. 'Vars choke
up its high,vays, aI'lned men are upon
138 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD.
aU its paths, desolation and barrenness
are where the smiling fields and ,vaving
harvests \vere a year ago; and this is a
type of the Christian world as it is be..
fore God. The glory of Libanus, and
the beauty of Saron and of CarIne], are
tranlpled do,vn; but be not afraid.
The \vords of the prophet are the
,vords of God: "I beheld in the visions
of the night, and 10, one like the '1on
of Man came in the clouds of heaven,
and lIe caIne even to the Ancient of
Days; and they presented Him before
Him. And lIe gave Hirn power, and
glory, and a kingdom; and all peo..
pIes, tribes, and tongues shall serve
IIim: IIis power is an everlasting
po\ver, that shall not be taken a\vay;
and I-lis kingdom that shaH not be
destroyed." :;:
* Daniel vii. 13, 14.
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 139
LECTURE IV.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE DIVINE HEAD
OF THE CHURCH.
" I an
the ReSUrl"ection and the Life: he that
b
lieveth in 1Jfe, although He be dead, shall
live: and everyone that liveth, and believ-
eth in "1JIe, shall not die for ever." John xi.
25, 26.
IN the end of the Sabbath, and in
the dawn of the n1orning, l\Iary Mag-
dalene and the other l\Iary came to the
sepulchre. And there ,vas a great
earthquake. The angel of the Lord
descended fronl heaven, and rolled
a,vay the stone from the door of the
sepulchre, and sat upon it. His face
140 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF THE
was as the lightning, and his raiment
white as sno\v; and for fear of him, the
soldiers who kept the sepulchre trem-
bled, and were as dead Inen. And he
said to the women: Fear not you, for
ye seek Jesus who was crucified. lIe
is not here. He is risen. Come, see
the place \vhere the Lord was laid.
In this ,vas fulfilled the declaration
of Jesus by the tomb of Lazarus: "I
am the Resurrection and the Life." lie
did not say: "I will give life, I \vill
raise from the dead." He said: "I am
the Life, I am the Resurrection; the
Life and the Resurrection are
Iyself:"
That is: "I anl 'Vho am, the Self:exist-
ent, the Life and the Life-giver." The
Life is God, and God is the Life of all
things. He is the Fountain of life;
and He ,vho is the Fountain of life is
alone the Resurrection. He \v ho can
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 141
give life is alone lIe who can restore
life. To do this is a Divine and sover-
eign act, and is the prerogative of God
only. Therefore, by the Resurrection,
our Divine Lord is manifested in His
Godhead, in the sovereignty of His
po\ver, in His victory over sin and
death, and in His royalty over the cre-
ation of God. This is also the mean-
ing of His ,vords \v hen fIe said: "I am
the Good Shepherd. The Good Shep-
herd giveth His life for His sheep. . . .
Therefore doth l\Iy Father love Me, be-
cause I lay do\vn l\Iy life, that I may
take it again. No Inan taketh it away
frdm Me; I lay it down of mysel
and
I have power to lay it down, and I have
power to take it up again." * His Incar-
nation, Ilis Death, IIis Resurrection,
were all alike sovereign acts of Divine
will and of Divine po\ver.
* St. John x. 11-18.
142 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
1. In His Incarnation, by an act of
His o\vn Divine will, lIe took our hu-
lnanity, assuming the intelligence of a
human soul, and uniting it with the
Uncreated Intelligence, which is the Son
of God; and in assul11Îng a human soul
like ours - a soul perfect in reason,
heart, and will- He_beatified it; that
is, it was admitted to the Beatific Vision
and to the Beatific Union. IIis man-
hood was elevated above the order of
nature. It \vas deified, but it was hu-
man still. In assulning a human soul,
lie like\vise. assumed a human body,
and in all things a body like our o\vn-
\vith the saIne flesh, and bones, ånd
nerves, and blood; with the sanle sus-
ceptibility of suffering, the same capaci-
ty of pain, of hunger, thirst, sorro\v,
weariness, passion, and death. And be-
cause lIe took to IIimself a hun1an
DIYINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 143
nature ,vhole and perfect, there were
t,vo natures alike \vhole and perfect-
Godhead and rnanhood united in One
Person. No human person ,vas there,
but One only Person, and that Divine-
God Ilimself Incarnate. Over the Di-
vine countenance He drew the veil of
His h lunanity, so that the splendor
and glory of I-lis Person ,vere hidden
froln the eyes of men. On Mount Ta-
bor, for a rnoment, the light of His
rnajesty was seen; but in the Jears of
IIis humiliation, His hU111anity alone
\vas manifest to sense. The veil \vas
upon the face of His Godhead.
2. As, then, the assumption of our
hUlllanity ,vas an act of His free and
sovereign ,viII, so also lras the laying
c1o,vn of His life. lIe gave IIimself to
suffer. lIe gave His Body to the
scourge, and to the thorns, and to the
144 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
nails. He was furrowed, pierced, and
\vounded by the instruments of passion.
His Precious Blood streamed from Hirn,
His vital spirit was drained away. He
gave IIis Soul to three and thirty years
of mental sorrows, and to IIis derelic-
tion in the Garden, and to the darkness
of His agony. "\Vhen the hour \vas
come, by His own free sovereign \vill
lIe untied the knot of Almighty pow-
er, \vhercby body and soul, in Inan, are
joined together. The" sil ver cord"
\vas broken, and He bo\ved I-lis head,
and by a sovereign act gave up the
ghost. The Passion ,vas indeed a suf:-
ficient cause of death to any human
nature: nevertheless, His dying \vas
voluntary; for He had po\ver to sustain
His human life; but, by His o\vn free,
sovereign, and Divine \vil1, He \vithheld
that sustaining po\ver, and by a volun-
tary act gave up the ghost.
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 145
3. And as He laid do\vn IIis life by a
free act of IIis o\vn ,viII, so lIe resumed
it again. In the moment \vhen the
Divine Soul of Jesus parted froln the
Body, it passed forever from the desola-
tioJ1 of His agony into the light of the
Vision of God. Throughout His earthly
life of sorro\v He \vas at all tilnes in
the Vision of God. In the hour of His
desolation, He \villingly hid it from
Him; but ,vhen that passing cloud upon
the light of IIis soul was over, lIe en-
tered again and forever into the light
of bliss. The deified human soul of
J eSBS in that IllOlnent entered, in our
behal
in to the final possession and the
eternal fruition of the glory of God.
The light of the Sun of Justice then
arose upon the ,vorld unseen. The
realms beyond the grave - ,vhere the
patriarchs, prophets, saints, martyrs,
10
146 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
penitents of the Old La,v, ,\\yaited for
the Redeemer - \vere illuminated by
His coming; the invisible ,vorld, \vhich
in our Creed we call IIell; the realm
of the departed, in ,vhich \vere ,vaiting
together - though parted and distinct
in companies - the saints of the king-
dom of God, though the kingdoln of
God \vas not yet opened; those also
who ,vere purifying and expiating for
the Vision of God, to be revealed here-
after; and tho
e who ,vere lost eter-
naIl y.
To an lIe \vas Inade kno,vn: to the
saints as their Redeemer, fulfilling the
promise made to the faithful who had
looked for IIim from the beginning of
the \vorld; to the penitent ,vho had
turned in hope to the promise of a
Redeemer; and to the lost, who ,vould
not believe the 'V ord of God. To them
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 147
was revealed the light of the truth and
of the majesty of God against \vhorn
they had sinned. They had in their
day received light enough to kno\v IIim,
and grace enough in all hours, and in
all telnptations, to have turned from sin
to God, and to have attained salvation,
had they only \villed to be saved.
'Vhilc this Divine ,york ,vas accom-
plishing, the Body \vas taken frOln the
Cross; but never for one moment ,vas
either the body or the soul of His hu-
manity separated from the Godhead of
the Eternal Son. The body and soul
\vere parted indeed from each other in
natural death, but the body and soul
\vere alike united indissolubly by the
IIypostatic Union- that is, by the per-
sonal assumption of our manhood into
God - to the Person of the Eternal
Son. From the moment of the Incar-
148 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
nation to a11 eternity, Jesus remains the
saIne indissolubly, t\VO natures in one
Person. As the soul of Jesus in the
\vorld unseen ,vas a manifestation of
God, so the Body \vhich hung lifeless
on the Cross - the lifeless form \v hich,
when the nails ,vere drawn from the
hands and feet, was lo\vered into the
bosom of His Immaculate l\fother-
\vas the Body of the Incarnate Son of
God. 'Vith loving care it was s\vathed
in the grave clothes, it ,vas anointed
with the ointments, it ,vas enlbah11ed
,vith the spices, it was borne lovingly
to tbe tomb, and laid in the sepulchre
upon the mouth of \vhich the stone ,vas
rolled. But it \vas not oinbnents or
spices that elubalmed that Sacrcd Boùy:
there \vas no need of them to stay cor-
ruption; over that Body corruption had
no po\ver, because union \vith the God..
DIVINE HEAD OF TIlE CHURCH. 149
head sustained its incorruption. The
true elnbalrning of that Sacred Flesh
,vas its union ,,"ith the Godhead; and
that Sacred Flesh ,vas incorruptible be-
cause the Son of God, by His sovereign
,v ill, stayed the progress of the dis-
honors of the grave.
Then came the re-assumption, by the
same free act of His sovereign po,ver.
All through that night, \vhile the
,vatches \vere set, and the guards kept
the sepulchre, and the seals remained
unbroken upon the stone, there ,vas
light, and ,vorship, and \vatching, and
energy,vithin the tomb. 'Vithin that
closed sepulchre there was a Divine
po,ver, the presence of the Son of God,
\",ho, having laid do,yn IIis life, was
preparing to take it up again. The
Divine creating power ,vhich had fash-
ioned IIis o,vn humanit.y, restored it
150 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
again from the lvounds and dishonors of
His Passion. The Divine ,vill smoothed
out the furrows of the scourge, healed
the piercing of the thorns, closed the
wounds of the nails, and effil.ced from
His Sacred Flesh all tokens of h u-
miliation, save only the five Sacred
Wounds in hands, and feet, and side,
'v hich still remain, and in eternity ,viII
renlain for ever, as the tokens of our
redemption and the pledges of His ev-
erlasting love. 'Vhen that Sacred Flesh
was once more restored to its perfection
and glory, the Divine soul of Jesus
clothed itself therewith as \vith a gar..
mente
As in the moment of the Incarnation
He arrayed Himself in our hurnanity,
so once more, in the tomb, fIe took up
again that Sacred Body, reanimated it,
quickened it again in evcry pulse, and
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 151
in every vibration of h urnan life. He
raised it to a state of immortality; He
elevated it above the conditions of na-
ture. He passed out of that tomb be-
fore the stone ,vas rolled fron1 its mouth,
hefore the seals were broken. By His
Divine Omnipotence He passed forth,
because that ,vhich was mortal had be-
come Ïlnmortal; that ,vhich had been
passible ,vas no,v impassible; that ,vhich
,vas before as our nature in the state of
death, had become glorious, subtle, and
Divine. He endowed His Body ,vith
the four gifts of glory ,vhich He has
promised to us all.. That which shall
be the inheritance of all His members,
He first assumed to Himself:
Such, then, was the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. He had laid down His
life, and lIe took it up again, fulfilling
IIis promise, " I am the Resurrection, I
152 THE SOVEREIGNTY 'OF THE
am the Life." In Hilll all men shall rise.
"As in Adam all die, even so in Christ
shaH all be made alive. The first nlan
is of the earth, earthly; the second
man from heaven, heavenly. As is the
earthly, so are the earthly; as is the
heavenly, so are the heavenly."
In His Resurrection \ve aU partake.
" Christ is risen from the dead, the first
fruits of them that sleep.":
All ,yho live
by Him, and by vital union are united
with Hinl, rise together \vith Hilll; and
therefore the Apostle says: "If you be
risen with Christ, seek the things that
are above; \vhere Christ is sitting at the
right hand of God. Mind the things
that are above, not the things that are
on the earth; for you are dead, and
your life is hidden \vith Christ in God."-r
And again he says, that God has raised
I-IÏ1n up, " and hath raised us up togeth-
* 1 Cor. xv. 20.
t Co!. iii. 1-
.
DIYI
E IIEAD OF THE CHURCH. 153
er, and hath made us sit together in
the heavenly places." *
The po,ver of the resurrection of
Jesus is upon every member of His
Body: it is upon everyone of yon. In
your baptism you ,vere grafted into
Christ; and if you be living 111en1bers
of His Body, the life of the Resurrec-
tion flo\ved into you: "!(no\v you not
that" you are the telnple of God, and
that the Spirit of God d\velleth in
you? " t If any man have not the
Spirit of Christ in him, he is none of
IIis; but if He be in you, then being
buried by baptism to death, you ,viII
also rise up ,vith Him, by the po,ver of
IIÏIn 'v ho raised Jesus frolll the dead.
The plain consequence of this teach-
ing is full of joy and of consolation.
First, it pledges to everyone of us a
11& Ephes. iÏ. 6.
t 1 Cor. iii. 16.
154 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF THE
resurrection hereafter to perfection and
glory, the same as that of Jesus IIimsel:4
identical in all its circurnstances. 'Ve
are conquerors in Hhn, by Him, \vith
Him, and through Him, over sin and
death. If sin have no power over our
\vill, death will have no po,ver over our
body or our soul, for \ve are made par-
takers of the first resurrection; and
"Blessed and holy is be that hath part
in the first resurrection; in these the
.second death hath no po,ver." * That
is, if the resurrection of your baptism,
and the indwelling of the Iloly Ghost,
an d the risen life of Jesus Christ in
your mortal body, be the la,v, and the
rule, and the po,ver which sustains yon,
then the death of the body is but a
resting, a momentary passing sleep.
Jesus has plucked out the sting of
lie Apoc. xx. 6.
.
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 155
death; for the sting of death is sin, and
He has thereby turned death into sluln-
ber. Therefore Christians call their
burial-places "cemeteries," - sleeping-
places, places of rest, of s\veet, kindly,
refreshing repose, after the toil of life
is done. Therefore the living memo-
ries of those whom the world calls dead,
and the Church kno\vs to be alive, are
ever fresh and vivid in the hearts of
Christians. Therefore also the Com-
munion of Saints - which the dull-
hearted, cold-hearted \vorld, \vith its
clogged understanding, cannot compre-
hend - is to those \vho live by faith a
falniJy, a household, an eternal hOllie,
on the very threshold of \vhich our feet
no\v stand. There is a resurrection
pledged to us all, and \vith that resur-
rection the
erfect personal identity
"\v hich \ve bear in this life. We shall
.
156 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
be the S
lIne men, having the saIne
minds, hearts, \vills, - only with this
change, that ,vhereas here \ve are im-
perfect, there \ve shall be in perfection;
\v hereas here, if the Ï1nage of God be
impressed upon us - as indeed it is-
it is dim and faint, there \ve shaH be as
he has promised: "The just shall shine
as the sun, in the. kingdoll1 of their
Father." * But ,ve shall be the same
men stin. The very srune that have
suffered, sorro\ved, struggled, labored,
11 ungered, and thirsted in this life, the
saIne \ve shall be in the kingdom of the
resurrection. And therefore there shall
be a perfect and universal recognition
one of another, and of all those bonds
,vhereby we are united here. Jesus
and
fary, the l\iother and the Son, \vill
be l\lother and son to all eternity:
iii St.
latt. xiii. 43.
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 157
n1aternal and filial love \vill be glorified
in the kingdon1 of heaven. l\lary and
Lazarus \vill be like\vise brother and
sister; Andrew and Peter, and James
and John, in like lllanner will be bound
together in eternal kindred: fraternal
love and friendship shall then be glori-
fied. So shall it be \vith all of you in
the kingdom of God, in perfect personal
identity, and perfect mutual recognition
in that eternal hOl11e, in the everlasting
bliss of Ollr Father's house.
Such, then, is the personal sover-
eign ty of Jesus Christ, manifested in
IIimselt; and in His victory over death
and the grave; and this sovereignty of
life and in1Hlortality pervades IIis \vhole
mystical Body no\v, and quicken
every
nlember of it. This is the meaning of
St. J oInl's \vords: "Grace be unto you
and peace frorn Him, who is, and \vho
158 TIIE SOVEREIGNTY OF TIlE
,vas, and \vho is to come; and froDI
the seven spirits which are before His
throne: and from Jesus Christ, who is
the Faithful Witness, the First Begot-
ten. of the dead and the Prince of the
kings of the earth; \vho hath loved us,
an d ,vashed us frOln 0 ur sins in His
own blood, and hath made us a king-
dom, and priests to God and His Fath-
er: and to Him be glory and empire
for ever and ever, Arnen."* The Church
on earth is the kingdom of the resur-
rection, and the sovereignty of its Di-
vine Head is exercised through it, as
the instrument of His power, and the
manifestation of His governnlent over
the nations. This po\ver He delegated
in chief to IIis Vicar upon earth: the
witness of the Divine Head of the
mystical Body.
* Apoc. i. 4-6.
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHl-rnCH. 159
We have already traced this sover-
eignty over the intellect and the \vill
of man. We have traced it also over
the civil society of the world, through
that which is both the type and bond
of all societies - His Church. For this
end, He has provided His Church \vith
a supreme authority residing in its visi-
ble head, and \vith supernatural endow-
ments, derived from Hilllself: On these
t\VO points it may be well a little longer
to delay; but at this time we can only
touch the former. The presence of a
supreme authority, delegated b
Jesus
Christ to His Vicar, has been ever ac-
kno\vledged by the world by a twofold
recognition. It recognizes it both by
submission and by antagonism.
And here I ,vould fain make an end,
but for other thoughts that are forced
upon me. Yesterday I read a notable
160 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
exarnple of this hOlnage of antagonisn1
- a scornful, petulant attack upon those
deyoted sons of the Catholic Church in
England, \vho during this I-Ioly Week
have knelt at the feet of the Vicar of
Jesus Christ, testifying, in the narne of
us all, our fidelity and love to hin1 and
to the 1\1aster \vholn he represents.
The ,vriter of the article stated he did
not ,yonder - and perhaps those ,vho
receive the teaching of such a \"Titer
may, like him, not ,yonder - if in the
heart of some devout Catholics there
may rise å doubt ,vhether the ternporal
po\ver of the Pope ,viII ever again be
restored, and if not restored, \vhether
the spiritual po,ver of the Pope ,viII
long survive. In the name of the Cath-
olics of England, in ,,,hose nan1e I have
a right to speak, and in the name of
Ireland, for WhOlll I have no right but
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 161
that Ireland gives it n1e, and \vill not
refuse my ,vords, I protest against the
folly and falsehood of this senseless in-
sinuation. There is no living Catholic
in Great Britain or Ireland who for
one moment doubts that the po\ver in
worldly things, ,vith ,vhich our Divine
Master has invested His v....icar on earth,
,viII continue undiminished until the
hour in ,vhich it shall have fulfilled its
luission; and then, in the \vreck of
kingdoms and the desolation of the
,yorId, it ,vill be rendered back to Him
who gave it.
In the name, then, of every Catholic
in these islands, I bear ,vitl1ess that he
who thinks any Catholic child to im-
agine that the temporal po,ver over
ternporal things is the basis of strength
of the spiritual prerogatives of the
Vicar of Jesus Christ, or that those
11
162 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
things are other than dust under his
feet, that man, if he be not senseless,
must be Inaliciolls. It is either the in-
capacity of the mind to understand, or
the insincerity of the will that refuses
to understand.
It may seem as if I have introduced
a note of discord, and struck upon this
day a sound out of harn10ny ,vith the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not so.
He \vho rose from the dead, and said:
"I am alive, and ,vas dead; and behold,
I am living for ever and ever, and have
the keys of death and of hell," * is the
same \vho said: "Thou art Peter, and
l1pon this rock I ,vill build lVly Church,
and the gates of. hell" - the keys of
which I hold - '
shall not prevail
against" it." It is the power of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ \v hich
II< Apoc. i. 18.
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 163
quickens the Church of God. As the
Head is Divine, and as the Head is the
"Resurrection and the Life," so is the
Body imperishable, and its authority
indefectible and infallible. The univer-
sality, sanctity, structure, and unity of
that one Body of Christ is indissoluble
and imperishable. It cannot die; and
that because its Head is the" Resurrec-
tion and the Life." N o.t only so, but it
can never be bound. Jesus ,vas bound
with grave-clothes and laid in the grave,
the stone upon the mouth of it ,vas
sealed, and guards set to \vatch it. The
,vorld ,vould have hindered Him from
rIsIng.
Turn no,v to the history of the Church.
vVhen has king, or prince, or people, or
revolution, ever prevailed to bind the
living Church of God? At this mo-
nlent, the Church of God is more wide-
164 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
spread, is more rooted in the hearts of
mankind, is nlore abundantly multiplied
beyond all example in its Apostolic
power. Its Episcopate reaches beyond
all bounds and limits of its forlner ex-
tent: its authority is so universally ac-
knowledged by the loving hearts of its
pastors and people, that greater unity
and power has never yet been seen in
the history of Christendom. Princes
and legislatures, penal Jaws, la\vs of
prohibition, Ï1nperial despotislTIs, royal
corruption, sanguinary revolutions, have
done their ,vorst to bind the liberty of
the Church of God; but the bonds
have been broken, as the threads and
the \vithes ,vere broken by the hands
of the" Deliverer of Israel." So it has
been, and so it shall be. Let no rna.n
believe, then, that if tho temporal cir-
cumstances of the Church be for a roo..
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 165
ment snatched from it, the Apostle ,vill
not go on\vard ,vithout ,vallet or sta
scrip or shoeR, if need be. His work
\viII be done: for it is God's work, and
none can hinder it.
But there is another lesson these
censors bring to mind, and for your
sakes I n1us
speak of it. In the same
senseless and clamorous artiele I read
these words: "The government of the
Pope must go, because it is opposed to
progress and nlodern civilization."
For the present, it is enough to say
that "progress" and "modern civiliza-
tion" mean this: the \vorId going its
o\vn ,yay \vithout God and without
Christ; excluding Christianity from
legislation; excluding reIigion from the
education of children; dissolving the
bonds of marriage; repealing the ta-
bles of sanctity and purity, whereby
166 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
the marriage la,v has been protected;
proclaiming that the pub1ic life of na-
tions has no religion. This is "prog-
ress," this is "nlodern civilization," I
acknowledge. Nations may grow culti-
vated and rich, scientific and prosper-
ous; they may devote all their ener-
gies to this world; but they cannot
serve God and rnammon; and for that
reason they serve lliaIIlmon mightily,
and they serve God never. Verily
they have their re,vard: they prosper
in this life, and that prosperity is aU
the recompense before the In. Such,
indeed, is "n1odern civilization" and
" progress." And then they invite the
Vicar of J esns Christ, the representa-
tive of the Good Shepherd, the ,vitness
of truth upon earth, the teacher of the
doctrines of Redemption, the expositor
of the law of God, the guardian of the
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH.
167
Seven Sacrarnents, the supreme judge
of the la \v of domestic life, the chief
father and pastor of the little ones of
the flock,- they invite him to conform
hinlself to "progress" and "modern
civilization," under the pain of losing
his t.emporal po\ver. Be it destroyed
seventy times seven, before a compro-
Inise of truth be made ! No Pontiff
,,,ho has ever reigned in the chair of
Peter, no head of the Catholic Church
who represents the Incarnate Son of
God, ever did, or can, or ever ,viII C0111-
promise, for all the world contains, jot
or tittle of the faith or la\v of Christ.
Here I ,vould fain conclude; but
I must press this "progress" and
"lnodern civilization" a little farther.
Let me trace it to its fountain; and
that I may not detain you too long, I
,viII only go a century back to show
168 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
what it has produced. In the last cen-
tury, a ne\v code of legislation \JnlS pro-
mulgated to the civilized and Christian
,vorld, called" The Principles of 1780."
Those principles \vere laid do\vn as the
basis of the civil order of France: and
not only so; they \vere intended to
nlake France the apostle of civilization
and progress throughout the Christian
world. The example of perfection, and
the c
ital of the lllodern ,vorld in its
civilization and progress, was to be
Paris. I need hardly say more. In
eighty-t\vO years there have been five
revolutions in that city, all of them
\vith bloodshed. No doubt you have
all.read of the blood \vhich flo\ved dur-
ing the First Revol11 tion, as the first
libation of those principles. I am old
enough to ren1ember the blood shed in
Paris in the years 1830, 1848, and
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 169
1852. And ho\v do you think Pahn
Sunday ,vas kept this year in the cen-
tre of "modern civilization"? By the
inauguration of a civil \var. Ho,v has
this Holy 'Veek been sanctified? By
daily battles of brother against brother.
And Good Friday? By a fiercer en-
counter, by the seizure- of the Arch-
bi
hop and pastors of the flock, by the
closing of the churches, by the spoiling
of sanctuaries, by the prohibition of
religion. The last tidings ,ve heard
'v ere, that it \vas expected a decisive
. as.sault would be Inade last night, that
is on Easter-eve. Verily, this is the
Easter of progress! To-day is Easter-
day; and ,vha kno\vs but that, the mo-
ment I speak, blood may not be run-
ning in the paths of that city? If this
be "progress," and if this be " modern
civilization," may God in His infinite
170 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
Inercy keep it for ever from the shores
of this country!
The first great French Revolution
\vas the inauguration of the reign of
Antichrist, of the denial of Christian
faith, of the ruin of the Christian order,
of the subversion of the authority of
the Church of God, both in public and
private life; and froill that day to this,
the principles of turbulence and apos-
tasy have scourged and torn1ented
kingdoms. At that time they all but
entered England; at this tinle they
may strive to enter again. Be firm,
and fear not the clamorous talk of those
who ,,?rite to pander to the public opin-
ion of the day. We kno\v that He in
'v horn we believe is the "Resurrection
and the Life," the Head of His Church
on earth, the sovereignty of which shan
never fail. Whether the Church be
DIVINE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 171
clothed ,vith temporal po,ver or not, so
long as the '\vorld is Christian, the \yorld
win believe in Jesus Christ and in IIis
Vicar. So long as it believes He has a
Vicar upon earth, no king, prince, or
sovereign ,vhatsoever win venture to
claim him as a subject. Even at this
moment, the unjust and sacrilegious
revolution of Italy has not dared to
call him subject, but has, '\vith pretences
and guarantees, which are mere illu-
sion, attempted to thro,v dust in the
eyes of the Christian world, and de-
ceive those '\vho cannot be deceived.
So long as the world is Christian, the
Chief Pastor of the Christian \vorld
,viII ren1ain as he is - subject to no hu-
Jnan authority. For '\vhat is temporal
po,ver? It is not the possession of a,
bit of land or of a city; it is the inde-
pendence of all po'\ver on earth; being
172 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
the delegation of Him ,vho said: "All
po\ver on earth is given to me; go ye,
therefore, and teach all nations."
There may, indeed, be another alter-
native; and I acknowledge, looking to
the stream of events, the time lnay
come when the nations, governlnents,
and legislatures may cease to believe
that Jesus Christ has a Church upon
earth; and in the day 'v hen they cease
so to believe (anù I aln bound to say,
their acts lead us to think they are not
far off from that state of unbelief), then
the ,vorld will not be Christian, and
then I ackno\v ledge that the Vicar of
Jesus Christ ""ill have no temporal
power over the ,vorld that has rejected
his Master. Though I am no prophet,
and no expositor of prophecy, and
kno\v nothing of \vhat is to COIne, save
only as the Catholic Church and faith
DIVI
E HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 173
guide me, of this I am sure, from the
]ips of Jesus Christ; that in those days
,vhich ,ve call the latter tin1es, " king-
dom shall rise against kingdom, and
nation against nation, and brother be-
tray brother to death;" and the world
shaH be in n1isery it n ever knew before.
'Vhen these things shall come to pass,
the tyranny of the ".orld ,viII be ,veIl
nigh over, and the despotisln of n1en
,vill no more s\vay the Church of God;
revolutions ,vill no more persecute, be-
cause there is One at the door ,vho
Inust reign until He puts all enemies
under IIis feet; and '\v hen that time
shall come, '\vill come also the "resur-
rection of the just."
174 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
LECTURE V.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH DE-
RIVED FROJ\! ITS DIVINE HEAD.
"Because thou l
ast seen lJIe, Th orn as, tll01t
hast believed: blessed are they that have not
seen, and have believed." St.John xx. 29.
ON the night of the first day of the
,veek, \vhen onr Lord rose from the
dead, He came, the doors being shut,
al1
appeared suddenly in the midst
of his disciples. Thomas ,vas not ,vith
them; either through fear or from
doubt, or from hUlnan infirmity, he had
parted from the Apostles. He lost,
therefore, the manifestation of our Di-
DERIVED FRO:\1 ITS DIVINE HEAD. 175
vine Master, when He can1e to assure
I-lis Apostles of His resurrection from
the dead. He lost, also, the communi-
cation of the royalties of the kingdom
of God, ,vhich Jesus conveyed to I-lis
disciples in the words, "As
Iy Father
hath sent Me, even so send I you."
He lost, also, his share in the po\ver of
the keys, and in the gift of the I-Ioly
Ghost, ,vhich was conferred ,,,hen our
Lord breathed upon His Apostles, and
said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost; and
,vhosesoever sins ye shall retain, they
are retained." Such ,vas the loss in-
curJ;ed by Thomas through his transient
unbelie:f.
He also exposed himself to t,vo great
dangers: to the blindness of incredulity,
and to the sin of obstinacy. For 'v hen
the disciples told him: " We have seen
the Lord," he ans,vered: " Unless I put
17G THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
TI1Y finger into the print of the nails,
and thrust rny hands into His side, I
,viII not believe." He had the preslunp-
tion to prescribe the kind and degree
of evidence upon ,vhich alone he ,,"onld
believe. Nevertheless, such is the ten-
derness and condescension of our Divine
Lord, that, on the first day of the fol-
lo\ving ,veek, and again at night, 'v hen
the Apostles ,vere gathered together,
and ThonHts ,vith them, lIe came once
III ore. The air seelned to give up His
bodily presence. At once, by Divine
intuition; and before a ,vord ,vas spoken,
fixing IIis eyes on Tholl1as, He said:
"Put forth thou thy finger: put it into
the print of the nails, and thrust thy
hand into My side; and be not incred-
ulous, but faithful." And Thomas an-
s\vered: "My Lord and My God." And
Jesus ansv
"ered hin1: "Because thou
DERIVED FROl\1 ITS DIVINE HEAD. 177
bast seen l\Ie, Thomas, thou hast be-
lieved: blessed are they that have not
seen, and have believed;" - a benedic-
tion shall be on thee; but a greater
benediction shall be un them ,vho, ,vith
docility and generosity of faith, shall
hereafter, ,vithout seeing; believe in
"Me.
This benediction has descended upon
us, and upon all who to the end shall
believe in the resurrection of our Lord
Jesus Christ. I have already spoken
of the mystery and of the effects of the
resurrection of our Divine Saviour, of
the reassull1ption of His deified human-
ity, which is the pledge and productive
principle - that is, the cause - of our
rising again to immortality of life. Thus
far I have spoken of the rising of His
natural body, ,vhich is no\v at the right
hand of God, in the proper stature and
12
178 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
dimensions of His person. I \vill no,v
take up again another part of the sub-
j ect, on 'v hich I then touched only in
passing - I .mean, the po,ver of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ now, in
this world, and in this mortal state, in
His mystical Body, ,vhich is the Church.
My' object will be to sho,v that the
power of the resurrection, " The po,vers
of the world to come," as St. Paul ,vrites
to the Hebre\vs,* are at this moment
present and in action in the mystical
Body of Christ; that is, in the visible
Ch urch on earth.
Saint Augustine, ans\vering the cavils
and pretensions of the Donatists in
Africa, \vho, separating thernselves from
the unity of the Universal Church,
clailned to be the Catholic Church,
argued as follo\vs: " The Body of Christ
* Hebrews vi. 5.
DERIVED FROßl ITS DIVINE HEAD. 179
is spread throughout all nations: you
are shut up and confined in Africa.
The true Body of Christ is universal;
\ve see the Body, and \ve believe in the
Head. The Body and the Head are
one, united in one mystical Person.
The Apostles saw the Head; but they
did not see the Body, which was after-
,vards to be revealed. Seeing the Head,
they believed in the future, that is,
in the universality of the Body, \vhich
should one day be spread throughout_
the ,vorld. They then sa,v the Divine
Head, they believed in the universality
of the Church ,vhich should be. We
no,v see the universality of the Church,
and believe in the Divine Head en-
throned in heaven."
As the IIead and the Body Inake up
one mystical Person, so the prerogatives
and properties of that Head are com-
180 THE SOVEREIG
TY OF THE CHURCH
municated to the Body. As in the one
person of Jesus Christ the prerogatives
and perfections of the Godhead were
communicated to the manhood, and as
the sufferings and the passion of the
manhood were attributed also to the
Godhead, by an interchange of their
properties bet,veen the t\VO natures, so
is it with the Head and \vith the Body
of the Church.
1. Our Divine Lord declared that lIe
is the Resurrection; and because He is
the Resurrection, His Body upon earth
has in it the principle of inlmortality.
Though temporal death, that is, the
separation of body and soul, must pass
upon all the menlbers of the Church,
theré is in the mystical Body of Christ
the principle of the resurrection and
of immortality. The sentence of death
includes not only the separation of the
DERIVED FR01\I ITS DIVINE HEAD. 181
soul frorn the body, but also the eternal
separation of the body and the soul from
God. But this can never take place in
the Body of Christ. All the individual
menlbers of the mystical Body of Christ
npon earth ,viII pay the penalty of
temporal death; they ,viII die, and be
buried in the earth. l\Iultitudes of these
members will die also spiritually, and
,viII never see eternal life, because they
,viII have been separated frorn God in
this ,,,"arId by apostasy or by mortal sin.
They ,vho have been in the unity of
the Church, but have apostatized from
it, are cut off from God; they ,vho,
\vhether they be in the Church or not,
commit mortal sin, are thereby sepa-
rated from God, and, if they so die, ,viII
bc separated eternally. Nevertheless,
there al\vays has been, and always will
be, in the one Church of God, which is
182 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
the Body of Christ, a line, a chai
, a
fello\vship of those 'v ho believe and are
united vitally and by the Holy Ghost
to their Divine Head in heaven. In
them, therefore, life and imlTIOrtality and
the pledge of the resurrection al\vays
abide. This is what is called the inde-
fectibility of the Church, or in the ,vords
of the promise of our Divine Lord, "The
gates of hell shall not prevail against
it;" it shall l1ever succulnb to the pow-
ers of sin and death. As the Apostle
Paul "\vrites: "There is 110\V 110 condem-
nation to them ,vho are in Christ Jesus,
'v ho ,valk not according to the flesh.
For the law of the Spirit of life, in
Christ Jesus, hath delivered me froIn the
la\vof sin and of death." * Therefore
the Church of God is indefectible. It
partakes of the property of its IIcad ;
· Rom. viii. 1, 2.
DERIVED FR01\1 ITS DIVINE HEAD. 183
it has an imperishable life, and the
pledge oÎ ilnmortality.
2. Secondly, because the Head of
the Church is Holy, the Body is holy.
No\v, the Head of the Church is the
Son of God, and therefore He has the
l1ncreated sanctity of God. In His In-
carnation He ,vas anointed with the
I-Ioly Ghost, that is, with the fulness of
sanctifying grace; and he is the IIead
or Fountain from ,vhom sanctity de-
scends upon all His n1enlbers. As the
unction on the head of the high-priest
descended to the heln of his garment,
so does the sanctity of the Son of God
descend through all the members of
His Body; that is to say, we are made
the Inembers of His Body by regener-
ation, through the Sacrament of Bap-
tism, by ,vater and the Holy Ghost;
we are sanctified in living union ,vith
184 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
I-lim by the holy Sacr
unents and the
indwelling of the Spirit of Grace.
There is, then, a ,sanctity pervading
the ,vhole Church; and yet ho\v much
of sin attaches to it; ho\v many sin-
ners are "\vithin its unity. Our Lord has
told us to expect both good fish and bad
in the one net, and both tares and ,vheat
in the one field. Such is the n1ixture
of good and evil in the visible Church.
Some are scandalized at it, not kno\ving
the Scriptures, nor believing the Word
of "Goù. They think to form to thelTI-
selves a Church ,vhich shall be pure
before the last day, and no\v in this
lTIortal state cleansed from every stain; a
thing contrary to the word of prophecy
and the parables of our Divine Lord.
The mixture of good and evil is per-
mitted in the turbulent sea of this world;
but they shall be separated on the
DERIVED FROl\I ITS DIVINE HEAD. 185
eternal shore. But though there be an
evil lnixture in the visible Church of
Christ - bad Christians, bad Catholics,
men ,vhose lives are a scandal and a
shame - nevertheless, the sanctity of
the Church is never tainted.
The Body of Christ is the dwel1ing
place of the Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier.
It is the Body of a Divine Head; and
in that Body are the Sacraments, or
channels of sanctity, immutable and un-
defiled. In that Body are the ,yorks of
the Holy Ghost, the fruits of sanctity;
and they are, first, innocent souls who
have preserved their baptismal grace,
and have grown up fro In' the ,vaters of
baptism as the willo\vs by the ,vater-
courses, straight and vigorous; or pen-
itent souls, once broken like the bruised
reed, raised np again by penance, and
restored to the life of God. These are
186 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
the t,vofold operations of the I-Ioly
Ghost
Torking through the Church. St.
John is the type of the one, St. 1\1ary
Magdalen of the other; and this super-
natural grace is verified throughout aU
ages in the unity of the Church; and
the sanctity of the Church nlanifests
itself perpetually in the innocent and
the penitent, ,vho are the fruits of sanc-
ti tv.
.;
3. And further: ,vhen Pilate asked
our Divine Lord, "'Vhat is truth?"
He answered not a ,vord; but \vhen
He taught His disciples, lIe said, "I am
the Truth;" that is, "The Truth - it
is 1" For God is Truth, and Jesus is
God. The truth is revealed in Jesus
Christ; and to know Hiln, His mind,
and His \vil1, is to know the truth of
God. The revelation of Christianity is
the kno,v ledge of God in Jesus Christ.
DERIVED FROM ITS DIVINE HEAD. 187
To know the mind of Jesus Christ is
to kno\v the doctrines of the faith To
kno\v the ,viII of Jesus Christ is to kno\v
His la\vs and His Church. Dogma is
the clear, definite, mental perception,
and the precise, logical, scientific ex-
pression in \vords, of those eternal, inl-
111utable, and Divine truths which are
revealed to us. For people to say, "I
believe in truth, but I do not believe in
dogma.," is like saying, "I believe in
substances, but only when they are with-
out shadows." Every substance casts
its shadow, and every truth leaves its
definite iinpression upon the reason of
man; and the enunciation of that defi-
nite impression is dogma.
If the men of the nineteenth century
would be a little In ore consecutive -
or, if that is asking too much, a little
lllore patient - they would not be
188 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
scared by the ,vord "dogma." The
Church of Jesus Christ possesses the
truth; it possesses His mind, it knows
it always, it enunciates it clearly, and
can never err in its enunciation. It is
in possession of IIis revelation; and it
applies that revelation, as the test of
truth, to the opinions, the teachings, and
the errors of men. As the leprosy dis-
appeared from the body of Naaman,
and as the scales fell from the eyes of
the blind, so, ,vhen the truth of the rev-
elation is brought in contact with error,
straight\vay error is detected, and is
healed.
In the Church no error has ever
established itself: In these eighteen
hundred years, during which the rest-
less activity of the human intellect has
been perpetuaI1y devising for itself ne\v
modes of conception and of expression
DERIVED FROl\1 ITS DIVINE HEAD. 189
- thereby perpetually either going
beyond the truth or falling short of it,
thus producing heresies - never yet in
the Catholic Church has a heresy been
able to establish itself or to effect a
lodgment. Al\vays and invariably has
it been expelled. As a morbid humor
of the body is expelled by the vigor
of life, so everything contrary to the
perfect life of the body and the perfect
purity of truth has been sooner or later
cast out - so completely eliminated,
that not a taint remains behind. The
Church is in all ages ,vhat it ,vas in the
beginning - the ,vitness, judge, and
teacher of the whole revelation of God.
It bears witness to the truth it has
received. It is the judge, applying that
revelation as a test to the teachings of
men, condemning the errors, and accep
iug ,y hat is true. It is the teacher, not
190 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
as scribes and Pharisees, by quotations
and criticislns and contradictions among
themselves; but by the voice of author-
ity - as one having power. As it is
,vritten of our Divine Master, " the peo-
ple heard Hirn gladly;" and for this
reason, that "He taught as one having
po\ver - that is, authority - and not
as the scribes." And ,vhat is this but
that ,vhich men rail at, the infallibility
of the Church? That is, the Church
does not err. Individuals n1ay err, as
individuals may die; but the Church
cannot err, as the Church cannot die.
'Vhy does not the Church err? Be-
cause it is the Body of a Divine Head;
and that Divine Head is Truth. It is
the d\velling-place of the Spirit of Truth,
,vho, inhabiting the Body, al\vays sus..
tains it in the kno\vledge and enuncia..
tion of truth.
DERIYED FROl\I ITS nIVL\fE HEAD. 101
4. Again - for I do not purpose to
enter into this argument in detail; I
. am rnerely touching on points of it for
a purpose that will hereafter appear-
there is another property of our Divine
Lord, \vhich is also cOlnlnunicated to
His Body. Christ is One. The God-
head and the lnanhood are united in
the Unity of the One Person of the
Eternal Son, and the Godhead and the
manhood are indissolubly united for all
eternity. Christ cannot be divided;
and as the Head is indivisible, so is the
Body; and the Unity of the Body ex-
cludes the possibility of division. Frag-
mentary portions may be broken off
from it, as fraglnents and boulders n1ay
roll from a mountain side, but the moun-
tain remains inlnlovable and indivisible
in its perfect identity. So is it ,vith the
Universal Church. Its unity both \vith-
in and without cannot be dissolved.
192 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
Of the external unity of the Church,
SOUle people speak as if they thought
it ,vere a constitution, or the result of .
legislation. The outward and visible
unity of the Church is the result of its
in,vard unity, ,vhich is invisible; and
no external unity could exist, - or, if
it, for a tilne, could be put together,
would endure, - unless it spring from
an internal unity, \vhich in itself is im-
perishable. For ,vhat is the cause of
the visible and outward unity of the
Catholic Church? The unity of faith,
the unity of doctrine, the unity of in-
tellect, the fusion, I may say, of the
lights of the supernatural illulnination,
as the sun's rays mingle altogether in
the splendor of the noonday light. So
nIl the intelligences of the Church,
throughout its whole expanse, and
throughout all its eighteen hundred
DERIVED FROl\I ITS DIVINE HEAD. 193
years of duration, are all united and
concentrated in the belief of one truth,
and of one faith, \v hich comes from a
Divine voice. And because the intel-
lects of Inen are thus indissolubly one,
therefore their hearts are one: having
one truth, they have one charity; and
their hearts being one, they have one
,viII; and therefore in the unity of the
Church of God, there is an internal
unity so vital and creative, that it im-
presses itself upon its external struc-
ture. Thus the visible unity is the
out\vfird expression of that internal
unity fronl \vhich it springs. But from
. \v hat source is this unity derived? It
comes from the Person of its IIead.
He is the one and only sourc
of
all truth; the one and only source of
all jurisdiction and of authority; and
that jurisdiction and authority spread
13
194 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
itself throughout the \vhole circle of
His Universal Church, from the sunrise
to the sunset. ]'ron1 this it folIo\ys as
a direct consequence, that as Christ is
not divided, so neither is His Church
divided. There can be divisions from
it, but divisions in the Church of Christ
or in any part of it are impossible. He
Himself has said: "Every kingdom di
vided against itself shall be made deso-
late: and every city or house divided
against itself shall not stand;" * and
this affirms that its unity is indivisible;
as St. Bede says, ,vith a terse simplici-
ty: "The kingdom of God is not di-
"Vided, because the kingdom of God caI1
never fall."
5. There is one more point, to ,vhich
all I have said direct} y leads. lIe has
delegated to IIis Church a share of His
* St. Matt. xü. 25.
DERIVED FROM ITS DIVINE HEAD. 195
sovereignty; and the supernatural prop-
erties ,vhich He has conununicated to
His Body constitute that sovereignty.
He said to IIis Apostles: "Y ou ,vho
have follo\ved Me, in the regeneration,
,vhen the Son of J\1Ian shall sit on the
seat of His majesty, you also shall sit
on t\velve seats, judging the t,velve
tribes of Israel." *
This does not mean only in the heav-
enly state hereafter. The regeneration
is no,v in the world. I t has been frorn
the tin1e our Lord said: "Go, and bap-
tize all nations." Then was begun the
regeneration of mankind. The Son of
God no,v sits on the throne of His
glory, and the Apostles sit upon their
thrones on earth. Peter still sits up-
on the chief throne of the Universal
Church. This prophecy and promIse
* St. Matt. xix. 28.
.
.
196 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
are fulfilled at this day upon earth, in
the midst of us. 'Ve are a part of its
fulfilment; for the t\vel ve tribes of Is.
rael are the IDystical tribes of the faith-
ful throughout the ,vholc ,vor1d, the
true seed promised to Abraham.
Again, our Lord said: "I appoint to
you, as l\fy Father hath appointed to
l\ie, a kingdoll1;"::: and in the Å poca..
lypse: "The kingdom of this ,vorld is
become our Lord's and His Christ's."-r
That is to say, there is a delegated sov-
ereignty upon earth, derived frOlll the
Son of God, representing His person,
and invested ,vith His prerogatives of
immortality, sanctity, infallibility, unity,
and, therefore, of Divine authority.
Sovereignty is the sUpren1t1cy of these
supernatural endo\vments over the
,vhole natural course and order of this
* St. Luke xxii. 29.
t Apoc. xi. 15.
DERIVED FRO
I ITS DIVI
E HEAD. 197
,vorld. And the sphere of this sover-
eignty is the Church, by ,vhich Christ
reIgns arnong men.
'l'he sovereignty, then, of our Lord
Jesus Christ, sitting at the right band
of God, to \vhom "all po\ver in heaven
and on earth" is given, consists not
only in His sovereignty over individual
souls. He has, indeed, a sovereignty
over the intellect by faith, and over
the heart by love, and over the ,vill by
obedience; but it is a sovereignty \vhich
extends itself to families and to house-
holds: it guides the authority of par-
ents, it directs the obedience of chil-
dren, it unites the charity of brethren.
Christian households have onr Divine
Lord as their head; and not only house-
holds, but peoples: for ,vhat are they
but the aggregate of families? they
lnake states, they therefore constitute
198 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
governments. Governments make laws,
and they execute laws. And lvho is
the Head and Fountain of their po,ver?
Froln whom is derived the authority
and direction for the civil governlnent
over mankind? Fronl HilTI who is the
Lord and Redeemer of men, ,vho is also
the Head even of the natural order, or,
as ,ve call it, of political society. He is
the supreme ruler and chief; and by
Him kings reign, and princes decree
judgment.
The Son of God is the Head of all
po,ver in heaven and in earth, both of
the spiritual and of the political or
civil order of the ,vorld; and when the
sovereignty or kingship of Jesus Christ
began to work throughout the nations
of the ,vorld, ,vhat were its effects?
First of all, as I have said before,* sla-
* See Leet. iii. p. 95.
DERIVED FROl\I ITS DIVINE HEAD. 199
very ,vas steadily extinguished. The
greatest tyranny of n1an over man, the
claim of man to hold man as a chattel,
and to have possession in the flesh and
blood of a fello,v-creature, this greatest
debaseluent of man by man, ,vas ex-
tinguished by" the freedom \v here\vith
Christ hath made us free." * Next: ,vo- .
Juan ,vas raised again to her true dig-
nity. W OlIlan, ,vho had been the toy,
the too], and the prey of man, ,vas ele-
vated and lllade to be, conjointly ,vith
n1an, the head over the families and
households of Christendom. Thirdly,
'val'S, ,,, hich before had been sanguinary
and brutal beyond all conception or
human imagination, ,vere restrained by
la,vs of mercy and by arbitrations of
justice. Once more, - the crilninal
code, ,vhereby the life of man ,vas
* Gal. iv. 31.
200 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
taken, for the protection of 80ciet};..,
,vas cruel and unrelenting, until, under
the action of the sovereignty of J esu
Christ, and the legislation of the Church,
,vas mitigated and tempered froln age
to age. Again, a" quality, unkno,vn be-
fore Christianity caIne on earth, save
only in Israel, and that only in part-
unkno,vn altogether in the heathen
,vorld - ,vas infused into the hearts of
men; that is charity - a tenderness,
and a hunlan syn1pathy of man for
man. It is a fact too well kno\vn to
dwell upon, that.in the "Thole ,vorld not
a hospital ,vas to be found. Even in
its most advanced civilization, before
Christianity the sick died ,vithout n1er-
cy. Another effect of Christianity in
the civil order of the world is mutual
respect, - the respect of inferiors for
the superior, of the subject for au-
DERIVED FROM ITS DIVINE HEAD. 201
thority, the respect of authority for the
subject, of the higher for the lo\ver, of
equal for equal, and of all TIlen for
those around and even belo,v thelll;
because an alike bear the image of
Jesus Christ; because an alike ,vere re-
deenled in the Blood of the same Sa-
viour; because all alike "rere the tem-
ples of the Holy Ghost; because they
all alike received the same Precious
Body and Blood of Jesus Christ at the
Altar. The poor servant that did the
bidding of a Christian n1aster, it lllay
be that nlorning had been to the Alt.ar,
and had been made a tabe}"nacle of the
Son of God. And this participation by
all alike of the saIne Precious Body
and Blood of Jesus Christ infused
throughout society a mutual respect,
which is the foundation of a11 justice
and equity, charity and mercy. And
202 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH.
from aU these sprang up the common-
,vealth of Christian Inen, not only of
individuals, of households, but of na-
tions, states, and empires, ,vhich ,ve can
Christendoln. From this Divine root
was produced the civilization and prog-
ress of mankind; ,vhich to be su.ch
ll1ust be Christian, and can be accon1-
plished only by the Son of God, by His
sovereignty alone. I can but touch,
and that briefly, on a subject of which
I spoke before, and broke off then as I
needs must no,v. I can do nothing no\v
but sketch the mere outline of certain
great truths
which nevertheless ,vill, I
hope, be of use in putting you on your
guard against the silver sounds 'v hich
are chin1ed and chanted in our ears
every morning about civilization, prog-
ress, advancement, dignity, and I kno,v
not what; as if the "Golden Age"
DERIVED FROl\I ITS DIVINE HEAD. 203
\vere before us, into \vhich \ve are all
advancing, because - as I will show
hereafter - the ,vorld is rejecting the
sovereign ty of Jesus Christ.
l\Iy purpose, then, in pointing out
that the Church on earth partakes of
the properties and prerogatives of its
Divine I-Iead, and, therefore, of His
sovereignty, IS to draw two plain con-
clusions.
The first is this: That civilization can
be perfect only ,vhen it is Christian;
that civilization, or the culture and
ripening of the civil and political soci-
ety of man, is never perf
ct, and can
never be perfect, unless elevated by
unIon with the laws of Christianity
nnder the sovereignty of the Son of
God.
The civil and domestic society of man
in the order of nature existed before
204 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF TIlE CHURCH
Christianity came on earth. This also
is God's ,york, and in this order there
may be a natural civilization. Let any-
body, \vho desires to kno,v ,vhat the
civilization of lllan became before Chris-
tianity, read any,vork on the literature
and the morals of Rome and Athens.
And if you desire the name or title of
a book on this subject, I ,vill say read
a book on The Fornzation of Ohristianity,
lately published among us; or, if you
\vish something more detailed and ex-
tensive, read a work called The Gentile
and the Jew, by a ,vell-kno,vn professor
of history in Germany. A rankness of
abomination, intellectual and nloral, is
to be found in the pages of the latter
book \vhich no Christian heart could
conceive. Such ,vas civilization \vith-
out Christianity.
When the supernatural society of
DERIVED FRO
1 ITS DIVINE HEAD. 205
the Church descended upon the natural
society of the ,vorld, the order of nature
was elevated by regeneration, by bap-
tism, by grace, by faith, by light, and
by guidance. Then there was a union
between those t\VO societies, natural and
supernatural; or, as men commonly say,
"Church and State."
hat is to say,
they mutually recognized each other as
creations of God in different spheres,
mutually recognized each other's office,
mutually recognized each other's func-
tions, and, being united together, they
co-operated for the welfare of man under
one and the saIne IIead, one and the
same Sovereign. vVhen the civil order
of the world acknowledged Jesus Christ
as its true Head and Sovereign, then
civilization was Christian, and then t.here
was progress. Progress signifies an ad-
vance in the order of perfection, both
206 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
internal in states, and external with
their neighbors. This includes intellec-
tual cultivation, kno,vledge, both scien-
tific and spiritual; justice - that is, just
la,vs, and just administration of la,vs;
and lastly, the arts and the fruits of
peace in ind.ustries of every kind of hu-
man skill and toil. This progress, I
assert, was steadily advancing, so long
as the \vorld was Christian. This is
our first concl usion.
And the second is self-.evident: That
,vhat is called modern civilization, is
civilization \vithout Christianity. I be-
lieve, indeed, that the men, at least
lnany of them, \vho use the \vords do
not know ,vhat they imply, and would
reject it if they saw it. But civilization
,vithout the sovereignty of Jesus Christ,
is the rejection of the Christian order
under \v hich the progress of the \vorld
has hitherto steadily advanced.
DERIVED FRO1\! ITS DIVINE HEAD. 207
In order to make this as clear as I
can, and in as few \vords, let me remind
you that there are three causes which
11
ve broken up the Christian civiliza-
tion of Europe and of the world.
In the fifteenth century, the study
and cultivation of classical literature
excited in the lllinds of the leading men
of the European. countries a sort of
admiration, \yhich I rnay call ,vorship.
The models of pagan antiquity, of its
phi10sophy and its policy, of its patri-
ots, of its public morality - that \vhich
is styled the Renaz.ssance, or the ne\v
birth of the Christian ,vorld- profound-
ly infected the men of that day. This
anti-Christian reaction has spread do\vn
to the present time. People were de-
ceived i.!!"to thinking that the Renais-
sance must be classical and refined,
cultivated and civilized. This was the
208 THE BOVEREIG
TY OF THE CHURCH
first step, as I will sho\v, to the rejection
of Christian civilization.
I t in trod uced paganism in to books,
into literature, into art, into education.
On the testimony of n1ultitudes of Iuen,
in ,vhich I bear Iny o,vn part, the equ-
cation of Christian nations has been
based and formed upon \vhat is called
classical literature. The exanlples, lnax-
ims, principles, the deeds, the crirnes,
personal, private, and public, even to
the assassination of princes and revolt
of peoples, glorified in classical litera-
ture, have been taken in unconsciously
by boys in their early education for
these three hundred years. In Italy
and France this is already bearing its
fruit.
Next came a period, of ,,,hich I have
no \vish to speak controversially to-
night, but I must speak. clearly; calling
DERIVED FRO
I ITS DIVINE HEAD. 209
.
itself the Reformation. This \vas the
second step towards the rejection of
Christian civilization.
The first \vork of this Reformation
,vas to shatter the unity of fitith: to
render impossible the unity of '\vorship,
to excite individuals to \vithdraw their
obedience frOln the one Church of Jesus
Christ, to n1ake families and house-
holds withdraw their obedience from
the truth; then states, peoples, and
governments. Finally, governrnents set
up, in the place of the one and undi-
vided religion, I know not ho\v many
forms of Christianty established hy la,v.
In to this I will not farther enter. The
,vork of disintegration ,vas begun; the
unity of faith and \vorship among the
nations was shattered. Then national
religions and their sub-divisions ren-
dered unity ÏInpossible. So far as the
14
.
210 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
.
Reformation extended itself; it carried
religious division throughout the Chris-
tian society of Inen.
Thirdly. I have already spoken of
,vhat are called the principles_of 1789.
I will not say more of them no,,,,, than
to add that they are the legitimate
application of the principles of the Ref..
ormation to states. They are Luther-
anisru in politics, and they have done
for the civil order that which the Ref..
ormation did for the ecclesiastical. The
Reformation broke up the religious
unity, and the principles of 1789 broke
up the political unity, of Christian Eu..
rope. From that day a perpetual disso..
lution, crumbling, and decay in the
foundations of society has undermined
every country where these principles
have taken root.
One main cause of it is thi8, that those
DERIVED FRO
l ITS DIVINE HEAD. 211
principles were not a developluent or
a progressive expansion of the exist-
ing traditional institutions of Europe.
They began with destruction, by cutting
through the roots, by pulling down the
tree. It \vas a work of ruin, and in
place of Christian civilization \vere sub-
stituted principles that \vere directly
subversive of it.
T,vo plain conclusions follow from
what has just been said.
First. That the differentia of modern
civilization is the exclusion from the
political order of religious unity in faith,
worship, and education; the separation
of Church from State, and State from
Church. It is the separation of the
civil and political order of the world
from Christianity, and from the sov-
ereignty of its Divine Head.
The second conclusion is this; that
212 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
,vhat is called progress, in this kind of
civilization, is not progress, but regress;
it is not going on,vard, but backward.
As the Renæt"ssance of ,vhich I spoke
,vas the return to the political state of
the world before Christ, and because
óefore Christ, necessarily without Christ,
so the civilization which springs fronl it
is a civilization ,vhich goes its o,vn ,yay
,vithout regard to the faith or the la,vs
of Jesus Christ: that is to say, it is a
return into the state of the world be-
fore Christ. I deny to this the nalne
of Progress. It is a going back\vard,
not on\vard. It is a relapse into the
civilization of JPa.ganism.
Let us take an example of the day.
We are hearing all day long of that which
is called the Religious Difficulty: the
poor children of our streets cannot be
educated together-and \vhy? Because
DERIVED FROl\I ITS DIVINE HEAD. 213
of the religious difficulty. And legis-
lators meet, night after night, to debate
the religious difficulty, and know not
what to do for the education of the
poor, because of the religious difficulty.
What is the religious difficulty? 'Vhere
was the religious difficulty before the
unity of the Faith was shattered? What
has caused the religious difficulty? The
shattering of the Faith, and the shatter-
ing of the Unity of the Church. But
,vho did these things? and what has re-
duced us to secular education \vithout
Christianity? The religious difficulty,
and they who made it. Tell 1ne, is this
.
progress? I should as soon call the
turning off from the straight sea-line
homeward, into an ocean full of rocks
and shoals, a home\vard voyage. It is
not progress, it is regress; it is error,
deviation, ,vandering: and the further
214 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
and faster men go in this direction, the
further and faster they are leaving the
sovereignty of Jesus Christ.
We are told what great things mod-
ern civilization has done. It has abol-
ished penal laws. But who made them?
I thank no man for abolishing penal
la,vs against the Catholic Faith. I ac-
cuse those who enacted theIn, and set
up the tyranny and persecution under
which the Faith has suffered. I accuse
the forefathers of those ,vho, happily
for thell1selves, by the. working of a
higher and nobler spirit, have undone
the deeds of their forefitthers. I am
not grateful, except for the kindly feel-
ing of those who may be llloved in sYln-
pathy to do it. But I recognize nothing
noble in this. I recognize nothing in
the man ,vho has done me a ,vrong, and
then retracts the wrong, but that he
DERIVED FRO}! ITS DIVINE HEAD. 215
has at last done that which was right.
To be just is silnple duty. To thank
men for doing a duty implies a doubt
of their integrity.
I an1 told also, I know not \vhat, of
the advantages of progress, of electric
telegraphs, railways, and the prohibition
of intramural burial. Do Inen desire
to make so grave a subject as this to be
contemptible?
This, then, is the truth: The world
under the constant action of Christian-
ityand the sovereignty of Divine la\v
was advancing in civilization and l11ak-
ing true progress, until a blight fell
upon it. The disorders and anarchies
of three hundred years ago came to
check and to overthrow the course of
its advance. Christianity ,vonId havè
abolished all social evils with greater
speed and certainty, if its onward course
216 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
had not been stayed. As for the ab-
olition of old tyrannies, it ,vas this
very departure from Christianity which
caused them. There never could have
been State Churches to be disestab-
lished, if dominan t heresies and schislns
had not first established them.
'Ve have not yet seen to ,,,hat mod-
ern civilization is on its way. It is
111aking progress, it is true; but what
will it progress to? To the utter and
entire rejection of Christianity; to the
abolition of the "religious difficulty"
from legislation - froln education, and
from domestic life - to the relegating
and banishing of religion from all pub-
lic life to the individual conscience and
private life of Iuan. _Civilization before
Christianity ,vas bad enough: but civ-
ilization ,vhich is apostate from Chris-
tianity, is worse than all. Before it
DERIVED FRO
I ITS DIVINE HEAD. 217
became Christian, civilization persecuted
Christianity with the blind brute force
of the heathen; but apostate civiliza-
tion will know ho\v to persecute with
refined and cunning procedure, ,vhich
nothing but a knowledge of Christian-
ity could have given.
Look into the words and deeds - I
will not say of the first French Revo-
lution - that hideous masquerade of
Feasts of the Supreme Being and ,vor-
ship of reason, with the abominable
personifications of that worship - I \vill
not go so far back: \vhat did we read
yesterday? A man at the head of the
movement in Paris - and yet a moder-
ate - \vho has separated himself from
the leaders of the extreme Revolution,
wrote such \vords as these: "Why'
should not the churches be robbed?
'Vhy should not the treasures of Notre
218 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
Dalne be taken? How were they ob..
tained ? By teaching people to believe
in heaven and hell. It is money ob-
tained under false pretences; there is
no heaven and hell; Frenclunen have
ceased to believe in it." That is not
yet the last word of civilization without
Christianity; but to that, and more, it
has already come.
There is as yet a time of stillness and
indifference. Liberalism is a t\vilight
state in which all errors are softened:
in \vhich no persecution for religion will
be countenanced. It is the stillness
before the storm. There is a time com-
ing when nothing \viII be persecuted
but truth: and if you possess the truth,
you will share it.
We were told yesterday, again: "As
for the temporal power of the Pope"
- the temporal po\ver is the public
DERIVED FRO
I ITS DIVINE HEAD. 219
recognition of the sovereignty of Jesus
Christ over both orders, civil and spirit-
ual, the union of pontiff and king in
one person, as pontiff and king are
united in the Divine Head WhOlll he rep-
resents - we were told," This strange
anomaly has gone do\vn in the tide of
advancing civilization and progress."
There is, indeed, a tide rising on every
side; and a wiser than the \vriter of
those words has said: "As in the days
before the flood, they were eating and
drinking, and marrying and giving in
marriage, and they knew not till the
flood came and took them all a\vay."
So assuredly this rising tide of civiliza-
tion and progress will carry R\Vay the
blind apostles \vho are now preach-
in g it.
There remains in England, and I
thank God to know it, much of the
220 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHURCH
Christian and Catholic tradition of our
civil order still unbroken. The founda-
tions of our civil state \vere laid in
times before regenerations and reforma-
tions and the adoration of pagan life
and its examples had turned the heads
of men. The foundations of our civil
order date back a thousand years. Our
Inonarchy, popular freedom, open tribu-
nals, maxims of just judgment, and the
broad base upon \vhich the public order
of England reposes, \vere solidly and
peacefully con1 pacted, before mod ern
civilization and modern progress had its
TIaTIle or being. There is in England a
belief in Christianity as a Divine reve-
lation, and in the ,vritten VV ord of God
as part of it, and a recognition of the
duty of public ,vorship, and respect for
that first day of the ,veek, sacred to our
Lord's Resurrection; and above all,
DERIVED FROJ\1 ITS DIVINE HEAD. 221
there is that which Englishn1en love,
and \vhich even the poor and the "\vork-
ing Inen last year publicly testified to
be their desire - Christian education
for their children. Thev desire that
0/
they be educated, indeed, but as Chris-
tians. The voice of the people of Eng-
land has been decisively heard on this,
and I bless God for it. I speak not
only to you who are of Iny flock, but
to all who hear me, though they be not
of my flock - I would to God they
were. Hold fast to those Catholic tra-
ditions of our land; they are more pre-
cious than life itself. Hold fast to them,
and hand them on as the true and only
inheritance of Christian civilization, and
of progress.
I "\vill believe in modern civilization,
\vhen I see its apostles lift up their
hands and say to the Redeelner of the
222 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
world ,vith ThoI11as: "My Lord and
my God;" then I will believe. Mean...
while with Thomas I will say, "]{on
credanz," I ,vill not believe.
OVER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 223
LECTURE VI.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD OVER THE
COURSE OF THE WORLD.
"And a voice came out from the throne, say-
ing: Give praise to our God, all ye IIis
servants j and you that fear HÙn, little and
great. And I heard as it were a voice
of a great multitude, and as the voice of
many wate'rs, and as the voice of great
thunders, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord
our God, the Almighty, hath reigned."
Apoc. xix.
AFTER all that the world can do, God
is still upon His throne: and after aU
the rebellions of man, He sits above the
224 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF. GOD
,vater-floods, and abides a King for
ever. The last subject which rem'ains
for us is the sovereignty of God over
the course of the ,vorId.
This vision \vhich St. John describes,
is the summing-up of the ,vhoIe history
of the ,vorId, and of the conflict be-
t,veen the sovereignty of God and the
re bellious ,viII of man. This conflict
began in Paradise, and will never cease
until the Son of God shall come to
judge the living and the dead.
In these days any man who quotes
the statutes of an earthly kingdom is
listened to; for an immediate, prolnpt,
and inexorable po\ver executes, at once,
its sentence upon nIl gainsayers; but
any Dlan ,vho quotes the la\vs of Holy
Scripture is derided, because the Divine
judgment tarries, and the sovereignty
of God bides its tin1e: because judg-
OVER THE COURSE OF THE 'VORLD. 225
n1ent is not speedily executed upon
earth, the heart of n1an is set to do
evil. But '\ve are not ashamed to quote
the \vords of Holy 'V rit; for Holy 'V rit
is the \vord of God, and" Heaven and
earth shall pass a\vay," but His \vord
shall not pass a\vay.
The history written in Holy Scrip-
ture is God's history of His own sover-
eignty. From first to last, it is the
history of the reign of God over the
\vorld: from the Creation, to the mani-
festation of His kingdom in Jesus Christ,
the \vhole narrative of sacred history is
the revelation of the sovereignty of
.God over men and nations. It is, there-
fore, the history of the \vorld \vritten
by a supernatural light; and an inter-
pretation of the l1Ïstory of the \vorld
as it is read Ly the principalities and
powers in heavenly places, to \vhom is
15
226 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
nlade kno,vn by the Church the manI-
fold ,visdolll of God. I take, therefore,
the page of Holy Scripture as the ,vit-
ness of the sovereignty of God over
the course of this world. To illustrate
my subject,- because I can do no more
than give its outline, - it is enough to
remind you that, from Adanl to Noe,
God had His servants on earth, who
did His \vill in the n1Ïdst of those ,vho
rebelled a.gainst Him. He ,vas sover-
eign over both: in grace over the faith-
ful, in justice over the rebellious. rrhe
Flood, ,vhich purged the earth, ,vas an
act of God's judicial sovereignty upon
the sins of man. Froln Noe to Abra-
ham, from Abrahanl to l\'Ioses, from
l\Ioses to the l\Iessias, - that is, to the
coming of God in our manhood, - the
sovereignty of God ,vas nlore and more
visibly displayed _ among luen, until it
OVER THE COURSE OF THE 'VORLD. 227
was incorporated in the priesthood and
tbe kingdoIn of Israel. But the the-
ocracy of Israel ,vas only a shado,v: a
type and prophecy of a more manifest
revelation, and a sovereignty yet to
come. The law ,vas the shado,v, the
gospel is the substance: that \vhich was
typified in the theocracy of Israel was
fulfilled in the 111anifestation of God in
Jesus Christ. The conlÎng of our Di..
vine Lord into the world ,vas the foun-
dation of His kingdoln, and the revela-
tion of His sovereign power, \vhich, by
"Íhe line of His Vicars upon earth, He
exercises at this clay.
Let us here take up again our last
subject. "\Ve have seen that God has
created t,vo societies for the sanctifica-
tion of man, - the natural society, or
the hUlnan and political or civil order:
the supernatural society, or the order
228 TIlE SOVEREIGKTY OF GOD
of grace, which is His Church; and
that His \vill and predestination \vas,
that those t\VO societies should be uni-
ted together; so that as the body and
soul in Ulan constitute one perfect hu-
manity, so the natural 'and the super-
natural societies should be united to-
gether in their full integrity and perfect
amity under one head, Jesus Christ,
each retaining its due IJfoportions of
po,ver, and both n1utua1Jy co-operating
for the \ve1fitre and sanctification of
mankind. This was our last conclusion.
And I then pointed out that the civ-
ilization of mankind, to be true, In ust be
Christian; that no civilization is true
but that which is Christian; that civili-
ation, if it loses its Christianity, re-
turns again to the order of nature, and
becoInes lnerely hll1nan, and incurs all
the penalties of its relapse; that all
OVER THE COURSE OF THE 'VORLD. 229
progress in the \vorld, intelIectual, mor-
al, social, civil, and political, depends,
as upon its chief condition, on the di-
rection of the la \VS ')f Christianity; and
that \vhen civilization departs froIn
Christianity, instead of progressing, it
goes back\vard, and falls from the order
\vhich God has instituted for its perfec..
tiol1: it relapses into the state of man
before the Son of God came into this
world, and the kingdom of God \vas
revealed. When, therefore, 've hear
the Catholic Church, and, above an, the
head of the Catholic Church, denounced
as an obstacle to civilization and to
progress, it is the whispering of that
same telnpting voice ,vhich, in the gar-
den, said, "'Vhy hath God cOlnmanded
YOll?" and "For God doth know." *
Civilization, as the \vorld preaches it, is
.,. Gen. iii. 1-5.
230 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF GOD
the ,vill and the intellect clairning inde-
pendence of the la,vs of God; and
progress is, man going ,vhere he ,vilIs,
and doing as he lists. From the con-
clusion of our last subject, this follo,vs
as a corollary, - that civilization with-
out Christianity is degradation, and
tbat social progress out of the line
of that civilization is a going back-
ward.
There is no doubt that the Christian
civilization of the ,vorId is, in part, bro-
ken up, and, in part, threatened, and
- .
that throughout the whole of Christen-
dom; and I am met, therefore, at the
outset, wi
h the objection, "Where,
then, is this sovereignty? The nations
of the \vorld are casting it off People
that ,vere Christian' are Christian no,v
no longer. Those ,vho \vere highly
Catholic have rejected, if not the Cath-
OVER THE COURSE OF THE 'VORLD. 231
olic Church, the temporal power of thn
Vicar of Jesus Christ. You are too
late in the day to talk of the sover-
eignty of God. In the Iniddle ages it
may have been superstitiously believed,
but the illlunination of these latter
ages has cast it off" To this I reply:
it is most true, as a fact, that these
two societies, natural and supernatural,
which ought to be united for the \vel-
fare of mankind, are at this rnoment
almost every\v here disunited. This sep-
aration began \vhen the Oriental, or
Eastern Church, severed itself from the
unity of the Catholic Church, and fell
under the suprernacy of the Imperial
power. From that tÎIne the civil po\ver
of the empire fostered, encouraged, and
abetted the spread of schism for its o\vn
purposes. Religion, under the direction
of the civil po\ver, becomes a powerful
232 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
instrument of political government. It
becon1es a department of the State, and
a vast field for patronage. Such the
separated Eastern Church becan1e in
the hands of the Byzantine Emperors.
:From that time it became intensely
Erastian - that is to say, the sllprelne
fountain of its jurisdiction, and the su-
prelne guide of all its legislation, and
of its executive po\ver, ,vas in the civil
authority. Flo\ving froIn this came
uninluginabte corruptions, ,vhich exist
to this day. Perhaps there is no part
of ChristendoIn \vhich exhibits a steril-
ity so utter, or a fixeùne
s so rigid and
death-like, as the Oriental Church sep-
arated fronl the IIoly See.
Next, the salue usurpation by the
civil po\vers Inanifested itsplf in the
north and in the \vest of Europe. It
would be against my '\vill to go into
OVER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 233
any detail of n1atters nearer horne ; but
for clearness it Inust be said that, for
the last three hundred years, in Ger-
many, and in these countries, the rela-
tion of the t\VO societies, civil and
spiritual, and the order \vhich God had
instituted, have been inverted. Religion
has been made a part of legislation and
of government. Religion and State
Churches have been, as it is called, " es-
tablished." But this is the inversion
of the ,vhole Divine order. It is the
State that needs to be established by
the Church, not the Church by the
State; the inferior cannot sustain the
superior. It is not the order of nature
that upholds the order of grace; it is
the order of grace that upholds and
perfects the order of nature. All hu-
man po,ver, human authority, hUlllan
legislation, human society, depends, as
234 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
I have sho\vn, for its perfection, its per-
petuity, its progress, its \velfare, its
peace, upon the sovereignty of God, by
and through His Church. rrhe Church
may hold and use tenlporal po,ver, but
it \vill not be established by it. In
other countries, \vhich profess to remain
within the unity of the Catholic Church,
has appeared a pernicious illusion, ,vhich
has blinded and seduced nlany better
Ininds. It is called the" Free Church
in the Free State." This imagination
rests on the assumption that the t,vo
societies are perfectly free and inde-
pendent one of another, \vhich is abso-
lutely true of the Church, but abso-
lutely false of the State; that they are
t\VO societies upon a perfect equality.
This again is absolutely false, because
the supernatural or Divine order is
higher than the natural and human.
OYER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 235
Lastly, it assumes that they Inay go
each their way ,vithout reciprocal du-
ties and Inutual co-operation; which is
contrary to the la,vof God, both in na-
ture and in grace. We have seen that
the supernatural society elevates and
perfects the natural, even in the order
of civilization. The separation of these
two works of God is the loss and fall
of the civil and political society of the
,vorld. But in the east, the north, the
,vest, and no\v in the south of Christen-
dom, there are not only theories and
principles, but actual policies and sys-
tems of legislation, the ultilnate object
of \vhich is to divorce and to separate
the t\VO societies which God has created
to be united together. You are a,vare
that, in the Syllabus, the Holy See has
condemned the follo,ving proposition:
" That the Church ought to be separated
236 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
from the State, and the State from the
Church." *
Such are the historical facts. Let us
no\v see wbat is the cause, ,vhat has
brought about this separation of' the
t\VO societies \vhich ought to be united.
In one \vord, it is the rejection of the
sovereignty of God: first, by individuals
rejecting, one by one, the prerogative of
God over the intellect and over the ,vill ;
then, as they grew in number and in
activity, forming a public opinion, ,vhich
at last directs the course of legislation
and rejects the sovereignty of God over
society. And every Christian nation,
England included, has reached an ad-
vanced point in this departure froln
God. Yon win ask, "Ho\v could this
have ever come to pass? How \vas it
that the \vork of God's providence, \\' hich
· Syllab. P. ix. Prop.
OVER THE COURSE OF THE 'WORLD. 237
,vas rising like sap in a vigorous and
living tree, should have sunk do,vn
again to the root, and that the tree,
once so green and \videspread, should
have begun to \vither?" The truth
must be told without fear. It ,vas be-
cause in Christendom the salt had begun
to lose its savor. The blood of Chris-
tian nations ,vas tainted. Do not con-
found Christian nations ,vith the Church
of Jesus Christ. The Church is im-
perishable, immutable in its sanctity.
Every heresy and schisln, every pesti-
lence, moral, intellectual, and spiritual,
the Church expels from its living sys-
tem, as the living and healthful action
of the human body expels the morbid
humors which threaten its life; but in
every nation individuals may corrupt
and accumulate in number, and may at
]ast do all manner of evil against the
238 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
Church. For example; in the period
before the Council of Constance, the
na tions of Europe ,vere beginning, fronl
national pride and mutual jealousy, to
rise against the spiritual authority of
the Church, and to separate themselves
and their laws from the la\vs of the
Church, into what by a strange irony
was called "obediences." This spirit
of schismatical nationality caused \vhat
is called the great western schism: out
of the great western schislll came, ulti-
nlately, \vhat is called the Reformation,
or the final separation of many nations
from the unity of the Catholic Church.
But you lIlay again ask, " "\Vhat \vas the
cause of this schismatical nationalism?"
Then I ,viII frankly say, at once, "The
salt had lost its savor." Kings and
princes, pastors and people, had for-
saken their first charity. They ,vere
OVER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 239
led by the spirit of the \vorld rather
than by the Spirit of God. Zeal, self:
denial, mortification, devotion, fidelity,
piety, generosity, compassion for the
poor, love of souls, ,vere faint and Io\v.
Christian men lived lives that were not
Christian; society ,vas corrupted; and
the course of kingdoms and of legisla-
tion s\verved out of the track of faith.
'Ibis is not to be denied. And what
came next? Heresies and schisn1s.
There is not a heresy, so far as I can
reluember, in the history of the Church,
,vhich has not begun in some bishop
or priest. Some man ordained to be a
witness of truth, and a preacher of jus-
tice, has fallen from the Church ,:v.hich
is divinely guided to teach the faithful,
like as Satan fell like lightning from
Heaven. They who should have been
as a Hght to guide the intellect of men
240 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
became a \vildfire to blast and ,vither
the soul. And \vhence can1e these here-
sies? From intellectual pride; that is,
from the revolt of the intellect against
the sovereignty of faith, springing from
a perverse will and confirming its per-
version. Froln heresies came schisms
like that \vhich has separated England
these three hundred years from the
unity of the Church. Since that evil
day, the spiritual life of England has
,vithered. 'Ve are told by public au-
thority, that one half of the people of
England never set their foot in a place
of \yorsbip. vVhether that calculation
be true or not, I leave to those who
made it to detern1Îne; but we are told,
and I repeat what I have heard, that in
this city of London, one half-that is,
a million and a half of men - on this
very day, and at this very hour at \vhich
OVER THE COURSE OF THE 'VORLD. 241
I aln speaking, neither have been, nor
in the course of this day \viII be, in any
place of Christian ,vorship. lVlay I not
,veIl say, then, the salt has lost its sa-
vor? And what is the result upon the
public life and la,vs of England? To
legislate for a people divided in religion
is impossible, unless we exclude religion
froln legislation. Christianity must be
shut out of the sphere of legislation
before you can make laws applicable
to those vvho are divided in religion.
What is the effect of such legislation?
Truth and error are put upon the san1e
footing. Toleration becomes a duty,
and under cover of toleration it has
come to pass that the civil society of
the ,vorld has ceased to distinguish
truth from error. Christianity is left
to the individual conscience; it is 110
longer a 11latter of public la,v. Again,
16
242 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
in the education of children, religio
must be excluded from the school; or,
in other ,vords, the baptized child can-
not be educated in the faith of his bap-
tism: that is to say, he lllust be robbed
of his inheritance. And why? Because
men \vill ,vrangle about religion, and
therefore their poor children are to grow
up \vithout the kno\vledge of God and
their Redeemer. lVlen have broken the
bonds of fh,ith, and the penalty fans
upon their children's children.
The civil sooiety of the ,vorId, then,
has been departing, in its legislation, in
its public Ia\vs, in the education of the
young, from the sovereignty of God
through His Church. No,v the con-
sequences of this are t,,"ofold. First of
all, as to the Church. The Church has
t,vo offices: the one is to convert and
to save individuals, and the other is to
OVER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 243
sanctify and to uphold the civil order of
n1ankind. But ,vhen the civil society
of lnan refuses any longer to be guided
und upheld by the sanctifying grace
and the sovereignty of God, the Church
shakes off the dust frOIn its feet, and
goes back to its apostolic work of saving
men one by one. It is at thi
time
doing that ,york, and will do it; and in
doing it the Church becomes more free,
Illore independent, more separate from
aU contacts and embarrassments of this
,vorld. It may indeed be persecuted,
perhaps it may become fewer in nunl-
ber, because nations and races go out
from it. But it becolnes once more,
,vhat it \vas in the beginning, a society
of individuals, vigorous, pure, living,
and life-giving. So much for the con-
sequences to the Ohurch. For the
Church, then, we have no fear. But
244 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
what is its consequence on the State
or political society of men? I may sun1
it up in these three ,vords: it is priva-
tion, degradation, and dissol utÌon.
First, as man, when be separates him-
self from God, is deprived of super-
natural grace, ,vhich sustains his \"hole
moral and spiritual life, even so the civil
society of a nation, \vhen it separates
from the Church, in like manner is
deprived of its supernatural perfection.
It no longer has the support and guid-
ance, the light and sanctification, \vhich
the Kingdom of God bestowed upon it.
Just as men are born, through the sin
of Adam, into a state of privation, so
the kingdom or people, \vhich has sepa-
rated itself from the Church, is there-
fore dcprived of the truth and grace of
Christianity. Generation after genera-
tion are born into that state of public
OYER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 245
privation of the light and grace of
fai tho
Secondly, if Christianity be the ele-
vation of a people, to fà1l from it is a
degradation; because, as I said in the
beginning, it is a retrograde movement,
a going back\vard fron1 the state of
Christian civilization into the state of
nature before Christianity entered into
the civil life of Inen.
And, thirdly, it is dissolution; be-
cause the bonds of civil society are
loosened. As man, \v ho carne out of
the d nst, \v hen bis living spirit departs,
returns to dust again, so, most assur-
edly, every state or kingdom \vhich re-
jects the sovereignty of God, in due
tilne will dissolve and turn again. into
its original confusion. Ho,v this Inay
happen \ve need not seek to kno,v;
whether by revolutions, or internal dis-
246 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD.
orders, or loss of coherence, or the im-
possibility of nlaintaining its social
state, or by foreign aggression, by ,var-
fare, by conquest, by whatsoever means
I kno,v not; but the ,yord of God
stands plain, and sooner or later shall
be fulfilled: "The nation and the king-
dom that will not serve Thee, shall per-
ish;" * and that, not only by a judicial
sentence, but by an intrinsic la,v of its
o\vn being, \vhich \vorks out its o\vn
dissolution.
And if such be the effect of this re-
volt upon the civil society of the ,vorld,
what is its effect upon men one by
one? "\Vhen families and households
have lost the dOlnestic Christianity,
which- illuminated and sanctified par-
ents and children, brothers and sisters,
the result can be easily foreseen. If;
· Isaias Ix. 12.
OVER THE COURSE OF THE 'VORLD. 247
as has been said before, submission to
the sovereignty of God by faith be the
perfection and the dignity of the intel-
lect, then, lllost assuredly, the loss of that
submission is its abasement. If sublnis-
sion of the will to the sovereignty of
God, to the Ia\vs of :h'1ith and of charity,
be the perfection of the human heart,
then, certainly, any man or ,voman ,vho
refuses to sublnit to that sovereignty is
degraded. If to be a disciple of Jesus
Christ be the highest and most perfect
state to \vhich we can attain, they who
fall from that state of discipleship faU
from their dignity and \vel:h'1re. And
,vhen that is the condition of house..
holds, God help such a people, for
there is no help left in themselves.
Such, then, being the first conse..
q uences upon states, families, and n1en,
,rhat must be the future of the world,
248 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
in the course upon \y hich nations and
people have no,v entered? First of al1,
the llloral po,vers of the civil society
of the ,vorld \vill become \veaker and
\ve
ker. The moral authority, the
moral sanctions, the nloral influence,
the po,ver of prevailing over subjects
to live in civil obedience, become less
and less potent and persuasive in pro-
portion as the State departs from its
public profession and practice of Chris-
tianity. As the government becornes
\veak, its po,ver of coercing is paralyzed,
its po,ver of conciliating is lost. The
same befalls the authority of parents
over their children; the moral self.con-
trol in ,vhich Dlen ought to be trained
up becolnes impossible. Philosophers
describe a n1an \v ho has lost self-control
- that is, tIle governlnent over hinIself
- as an intemperate man. And ,vhen
OVER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 249
men have IOE=,t the government over
their passions, lusts, anger, avarice, and
the like, ,vhat \vill be the state of society,
of the cOIDInon,vealth? Next., ,vhile
he
moral po,ver dilninishes, the n1ate1'ial
power must be perpetually increased
- laws of coercion, penal ties, police,
standing armies. 'Vhen men can no
longer be governed by the free assent
of the reason convinced of duty, and
by the spontaneous obedience of the
,viII submitted to the la,v, ,vhat relnains
to governluent but brute force? At
this mOlllent, five or six Inillions of men
are under arn1S in the heart of this
Christian Europe of ours, and are look-
ing in each other's face, \vatching to
see \vho shall 11lake the first spring.
St. Paul, describing the state of Inen in
the last tinH:
s, says that they shall b
" faithless;" the word in the original
250 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF GOD
means men l\"ith \vhom 'yOU can make
no treaties; àanovð'ot,* '1l1en in \v hose fi-
delity JOu cannot trust; \vith whonl you
can Inake neither cOflvention nor truce,
,vhoril no international la\v, no respect
of mutual rights can bind. And are
not these last days no\v upon us?
What treaty, Qr la,v, or obligation
binding nations to respect the rights of
weaker neighbors is respected now?
Treaties bind no one, if interest inter-
vene. Cornpacts and conventions per-
ish, ,vhere there is hope to extend a
frontier, or to annex a province, or
sacrilegiously to usurp a city. Then it
is sufficient to put the s\vord through
all treaties and all conventions. The
fruit of this is manifest - perpetual
danger of external ,var, and the lllost
horrible conflicts which this ,vorld has
· 2 Tim. üi. 3.
OVER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 251
ever seen. And the conflicts \vhich
\vere external becolne internal, too. A
spiri t of strife is poured out upon Inen ;
class is set against class, interest against
interest, household against household,
man against man, men against their
rulers, against la,v, against authority.
In the shock and disorder of conten-
tions, society is dissolved. '\Vhen the
masses learn to kno\v their po\ver, the
day is come to use it. From all this
results. one of tlVO things: either the
tyranny of a multitude, blind to every-
thing but the freaks and gusts of its
o\vn ,viII, or the iron despotisnl of a
lnilitary dictator. 'V oe to the \vorld
"\vhen the Legislator, ,vho, on the moun-
tain, prolnulgated the eight beatitudes,
is no longer ackno,vledged as the La\"..
gi vel" and Sovereign of n1ankind! There
remains nothing for the nations but the
252 THE SOYEREIGNTY OF GOD
raging sea of popular la,vlessness, or
the iron rule of despots.
If such be the effect upon the \vorld,
\v hat ,vill be the effect upon the Church?
Let us sum up \vhat is the state of the
Church at this moment. There never
\vas a tilDe, froIn the beginning of Chris-
tianity, ,vhell the Catholic Church \vas
so \videspread as it is 110\V; ,vhen it
had so nearly attained to that univer-
sality which is its Divine prerogative.
Though the l1unlber of nations and of
lllen that are external to Christianity
still be vast, yet the \videspread mis-
sions of the Church, extending beyond
its visible pale, are at this nlOIDent pen-
etrating into aU races and peoples upon
earth. The circle of its unity, the
spread and s\vay of its Episcopate, the
apostolic thrones of the Church, at this
moment not only reach throughout the
OVER THE COURSE OF THE 'VORLD. 253
Old 'V orld, but overshadow the Ne,v.
I t has taken possession not only of the
four continents kno,vn to our ancestors,
but it holds also a fifth, '\vith the islands
of the Southern Seas. The sovereign-
ty \vhich began in the guest chamber
, at Jerusalem, and after\vards spread
through the dispersion of Israel, and
then extended to the fuIness of the
Gentiles, and then formed Christian
Europe, has taken possession of Amer-
ica in the North and in the South, and
has penetrated in to Asia; is surround-
ing Africa, has obtained for its posses-
sion the great continent of Australia.,
and has made its home in the islands
of the Pacific. There is no part of the
,vorId in which the one Church, Cath-
olic and Rornan, united to its one visi-
ble Head, is not at this mOl11ent to be
found. Be sure of it, whatsoever may
2 h 4
u THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
beulII the civil society of the "\yor1d,
nothing can ,vither the mystical vine.
There never ,vas a IT10ment ,vhen that
\vorld-\vide Church ,vas so perfectly
united - its pastors to its people, and
both to their visible Head.
The union of the pastors ,vith their
people is never so intense as when the
,vorld rejects theIne Take Ireland, for
example. The pastors of Ireland have
been not only the spiritual shepherds
of that inviolate Catholic people, but
they have been the friends, the coun..
sellors - I may sày the guardians and
rulers of Ireland, through three hun-
dred years of suffering. And that
'v hich has taken place in Ireland is
taking place at this mOlnent all over
the Christian ,vorld. In France, in
Gerlnany, in Italy, in Spain, ,vhereso-
ever the civil society of the ,vorld turns
OVER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 255
against the fhith and against the Holy
See, there at once the people rally
round their pastors with an intensity
of union and fidelity which has never
been sUI]?Rssed. When the ,vinds rave
and the sun is covered, then the flock
and their pastors draw together. And
there is the same unity among the pas-
tors one \vith another. The bishops of
the Church were never n10re of one
mind and of one heart than they are
now. We hear every day, in papers
that profess to know the inmost mind
of the Catholic Church, and yet kno\v
nothing, because they are either misled
or they \villingly go astray from truth
- and ,vhich it may be, I am not the
judge to say - \ve hear every day that,
among the bishops of the Catholic
Church who met last year in the CEcu-
menical Council, there \vere opposi-
256 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
tions, debates, diyisions. True it is,
that in matters of prudence and legis-
lation ,ve had our divergences of judg-
ment; but in matters of doctrine and
faith none existed. The result is proof:
The \vorld has endeavored to find
among the bishops of the Church
some patron or abettor of its rebellion
against the IIoly See. But not one can
be found. Ahnost everyone ,,,ho, in
the liberty \vhich ,ve all enjoyed, judged
and spoke \vith freedolll on nlatters
outside the faith, have explicitly and
publicly declared their perfect and en..
tire submission to the Divine authority
of the Council. The unity of the pas-
tors of the Teaching Ch
rch ,vas never
so solid and compact. I say it ,vithout
hesitation, and I repeat it again - the
Episcopate never ,vas so unaniu10us as
at this hour. After the Councils of
OVER THE COURSE OF THE 'VORLD. 257
Nice, Chalcedon, Constance, and Trent,
there were bishops of the Church \vho
forsook its unity, \vho fell, as I said be-
fore, like lightning from heaven.
Now, at this moment, the unity of
the bishops of the Church throughout
the \v hole \vorld is such, that I kno,v
not of one that has \vithdrawn his obe..
dience fro 111 its Divine authority. I
kno\v not, I say, of one, and until I see
the fact, I shall believe there will be
none. But, n10re than this: the unity
of faith at this moment throughout the
Catholic Church is such that there does
not exist (what is rife elsewhere) an
open question touching the matter of
faith. There was a question, not open
indeed, but not defined until the other
da.y, and that q uestiol} \vas this: "Did
our Divine Saviour prornise to St. Peter
that he and his successors, by the Divine
17
258 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
assistance, should continue to the end
of time to be the supreme and unerring
teachers of the faith \vhich lIe deliv-
ered ?" There \vere a fe\v \vho thought
that the promise \vas made to the suc-
cessors of St. Peter, to be enjoyed by
hiln only when united with the bishops
throughout the \vor1d; there ,vere oth-
ers \v ho believed that the promise ,vas
made pot only to the successors of Pe-
ter \vith the bishops united, but to the
successors of Peter as such; and that,
as the Pontiff holds the supreme au-
thority and jurisdiction attached to the
Primacy, so he has al
o a Divine assist-
ance perpetnaUy guiding hiln, in order
that, in the exercise of his supreme au-
thority, upon \vhich the ,v hole Church
of God depends, the successor of St.
Peter and the Vicar of the Good Shep-
herd shall never go astray. There ,vas,
OVER TIlE COURSE OF THE 'VORLD. 259
indeed, a divergence so fitr, and \vithin
that narrow limit: a divergence no\v
closed forever by the Divine authority
of the Church, and sealed \vith the sig-
net of the Spirit of Truth. I say, then,
there never was a time when, in faith,
the Church throughout the world \vas
so uniteù; and united not only in what
it believes, but in the principle upon
which it believes; because it holds \vith
one heart the infallibility- of the su-
preme and Divine authority from \vhich
all teaching flo\vs.
And, further, the Church is at this
rnOlnent lIlore self-evident in the eyes
of lnen than in any previous age of the
\vorld. There never \vas a time when
the ,vords of our Lord were 1110re eln..
phatically, I may say, more articulately
fulfilled, " A city that is set on a moun..
tain cannot be hid;" * and Inost assur-
III St. Matt. v. 14.
260 THE SO\TEREIGNTY OF GOD
edIy the Catholic and ROlnan Church
at this mOlnent stands out \vith a defi-
nite universality, with a visible unity,
,vith an effulgence of light never seen
before. I do not think that anyhody
who professes to believe in a Church at
all can stand for a m01l1el1t in doubt
,vhether the Church of Jesus Christ be
the Greek Church, or the Anglican
Ch urch, or the Church Catholic and
ROlnan, \y hich spreads frODI sunrise to
sunset. Our Lord said to His Apostles,
" You are the light of the world," and
never has that light shone out of dark-
ness with so luminous a splendor, giving
evidence of itselÇ and tcstifying so
clearly to its o,vn existence and to its
o,vn authority, as at this hour. The
sovereignty, therefore, of God, mani-
fested through IIis Church, is at this
moment more than ever revealed to the
OVER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 261
in tellect a.nd to the heart of men.
"\Vhether they win believe or ,vhether
they ,vill not believe, there is a systeln
spreading from east to ,vest not only
clairning eighteen hundred Jears of
traditionary history, but exercising its
prerogatives at this day, and lnanifestly
seen to exercise them: kno\vn also
never to bave abdicated thelll for an
hour; inflexible in its fidelity to the
Divine revelation, requiring of an Inen
- from its highest pastor, the suprenle
Pontifl
\vho sits on the throne as Vicar
of Jesus Christ, down to the little Cath-
olic child in the school - the saIne act
of faith, the same submission of the in-
tellect and of the ,viII to the sovereign ty
of God. No one is exempt from that
changeless la\v of faith and of subn1Ìs-
sian. It is one and the same for all.
N O\V, a systern like this is so unJike
262 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
anything human, it has llpon its notes
tokens, ll1arks so altogether supernat-
ural, that men no,,' ackl1o,vIedge it to
he either Christ or Anti-Christ. There
is nothing bet,vcen these extremes.
l\iost true is this alternative. The
Catholic Church is either the rnaster-
piece of Satan or the kingdom of the
Son of God.
No,v I ,vill conclude by drawing t,vo
very plain consequences: first, that aU
things are fulfìlling the ,viII of God.
All things are for the sake of His elect,
and He is accolnplishing in the ,vorld
I-lis sovereignty in a ,yay so unerring
and so luminous, that they ,vho believe
can see it, and they ,vho ,vill not be-
lieve, in their blindness seem to be rc-
d uced to railing instead of reasoning
against it. I have pointed out that
there has been a line of the faithful
OVER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 2G3
servants of God, in all ages, from the
beginning, - an unbroken chain, link
,vithin lin}\:; from just Abel do\vn to
the present day. This line of faithful
becalne a people, cho:sen and preserved,
by the grace of God, before and after
the Incarnation; organ
zed and knit
together into one kingdom of faith.
The typical Church of Israel ,vas a
shado\v; the substance of the shadQVI
is the Church of Jesus Christ. This
family of grace is the sp
cial object, for
the
alvation of ,vhich all the order of
God's sovereignty has been and is di-
rected. The empires of the ancient
,,"arId ,vere elnployed to chastise, or to
liberate, or to restore, or to scatter it.
11he kingdoms and revolutions of the
Christian ,vorld, in like manner, fulfil
His purpose to\vards His elect.
God \villed all men to he saved, and
264 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
to come to the kno\vledge of the Truth.
lIe willed also that all men should be
called to the unity of the Church. I-lis
Apostles were sent to make disciples of
all nations. Whoso ,viII believe, he may
freely enter into it; \vhoso will not be-
lieve, he closes the door against himself.
The gates of tbe heavenly city stand
open day and night; God never shuts
theIne They \vho have never heard of
the kingdom of God \vill not have to
give an account of it. They ,viII be
judged by the little they kne\v, and
not by that \vhich they could not have
}{no\vn. . Those \vho might have kno,vn
it, \vill be judged according to tbe \vay
in \vhich they received or rejected the
light that "\\Tas offered to them. All
things are ordered for this work of sal-
vation. God kno\vs frotH all eternity
,vho \vill be saved, and ho\v lnany they
OVER THE COURSE OF TIlE WORLD. 265
,vill be. He does not din}inish the num-
ber by refusing salvation to the ,villing,
and He will not n1ultiply the nUInber
by forcing the free\vill of those 'v ho
,vill not believe. It is a mystery of
sovereign grace and of human freedoln.
All things are \vorking for the aCCOlTI-
plishment of the n1ystery of salvation:
"aU things \vork together for good to
those \v ho love God." * Even the sins
and the \vickedness, and the persecu-
tions of this world, all tend to the sal-
vation of those \vho believe. This ,vorld
is the wine-press, in \vhich the grapes
are trodden; it is the threshing-floor,
on \vhich the ,vheat is beaten and ,vin-
no\ved from the chaff. The \vine and
the ,vheat are being made ready for
the supper of the Larnb in the kingdoln
of God. These are the elect of God,
* Rom. viii. 28.
C") f) ' (j
4" 'lBL
OVLI{EIGSTY OF GOD
,vho 'Ire faitlJfuJ, and p
rsevere in fitith
unto the end. rfhe \vorù
, therefore, uf
.J olJTJ the I
flptir;t are true at this hour.
()ur Divine Lord i'i in the rniùst uf Ili:i
(1ft urch, and "IIi,; fan is in Ilis hauù,
and 1 Ie \vil] thoroughly clean
e Ili
Hoor, tind gather IIi:i wheat into the
harll; but the; -haiT lIe ,viII burn ,vith
1lJH!IlPIH.hahle fire."? If thiH be not
ov 1fcignty, ill '" hat docs it cunsiRt?
And it j
of this tlJe Apostle Hpoke \vhcn
he R(tid, in Ilis o\vn l1:tIn
and in the
nalne of IJi" successors," 'Ve are unto
(j()d HJe good odor of Christ, in thern
,vho ar
sav(.ù and in thclfl \vho pl'ri:..:ll :
10 Horne, indcpd, the oùor of death unto
death; but to the other:.;, the odor uf
life nn to life." -r That \vork of 8epara-
tion i
gain:! on no\v. J t is not HtuyCcJ,
}Jut ac(.olnp]jl:5hcd IJY the apostasy of
thp civil order of }ucn. l\len 11lay go
St. '1att. jjj. 12.
t 2 Cor. ii. Iti, 1G.
OYER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 267
their \yay in the civilization they have
chosen, and in the progress of \v hieh
they boast, but they \vill not dirninish
by one jot or tittle the sovereignty of
God over the \vorld. No; nor \viH they
llin1ini
h the D1anifestation of that sov-
ereignty in the confusions and torrnents
of the ,vorld, to ,vhich it is hastening in
speed. Its disorders, its revolution
, the
rising of people against people and king-
dOin against kingdoln, the dissen
ions
anlong brethren, the treason against
la,ys, the conspiracies ,,,hich undermine
t.he social order of the ,vorId, the visi-
ble changing into death and into dust
,yhich is upon the ,vhole political order
of lnen ,vho have renounced Christian-
ity, - all this manifests, by an nllcon-
scions ackno,vledgmel1t, the sovereignty
of God. The Church, by its unity, its
universality, its luminous action upon
the intellect of men, \vhether they ,vill
268 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
believe or not; the Holy See, ilIlperish-
able in the n1idst of eig
teell hundred
years of conflict, imperial over the in-
tellect and will of n1en, reigning in the
supernatural order over nations, races,
and people; - all these things nlanifest
the sovereignty of God. 'Vhen St. Paul
,vas shipwrecked upon the coast of
.l\Ialta, a viper came out of the fire and
fastened on his hand. The people at
first said, "This is a lTIurderer, ,,,,hOlll
the vengeance of God ,viII not suffer
to live." But ,vhen they sa,v that he
neither s\velled nor fell do,vn dead,
,vhen he shook the deadly beast into
the fire, they changed their minds, and
they said that he ,vas a god. Surely
the reason of man, seeing that the end-
less, Inanifold, ,yorld-,vide, unrelenting
enrnity of the serpent has never pre-
vailed over the Catholic and ROlnan
Church; that all the po,ver and 1ualice
OVER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 269
of the ,vorld have never been able to
overthro,v the sovereignty of the Holy
See, even though revolutions may sac-
rilegiouRly occupy the city of ROIne,
which the providence of God has given
to be the throne - of IIis 'Vicar - though
at first 111en may think 'the Church of
Jesus Christ to be Antichrist, they must,
011 calUler, "riser thoughts, conclude that
there is in it a life which is not of man,
and a po\ver, \vhich is not for evil, but
for good; and if so, it must be the life
and po,ver of God.
I have COlne no,v to the end of ,vhat
I have endeavored to say. You ,vill
recollect that we have seen, first, that
the sovereignty of God over the intel-
lect by faith illuminates, elevates, and
perfects the reason of man, and that to
reject faith is to degrade the reason.
Secondly, that the sovereignty of God
over the ,viII by the la \v and grace of
270 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
charity, perfects the -image of God in
Ulan. Thirdly, that the sovereign ty
of God over the whole civil order and-
collective commonwealth of 11len, is the
principle from \"hich the welfare and
\vell-being, the civilization, the progress
of hun1an society depends. And no\v
I have traced out, slightly and faintly,
and only in outline, as I \vell kno\v, the
sovereignty of God over the \y hole
\vorld,- enough, at least, to sho\v that
the apostasy of the ,vorld does in no
\vay diluinish that sovereignty, but that
in its rebellion it is accornplishing and
perfecting the \vork to \vhich that sover...
eignty is direc
ed; and further, that at
this time there are tokens ,vhich, I
lnight ahnost say, are like' the voices
and thunderiugs in heaven, and the
,yritings of a Ulan's haud upon the \vall,
\varning the \vor1d of those things \\' hich
are coming upon the earth. 1'here are
O\ER THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. 271
voices as the voices of a great lllulti-
tude, not only in heaven, but on earth.
These earthly voices are discordant,
harsh, and terrific. They are the cries
of Anti-christian and anti-social revo-
lutions, visible on the L1ce -of nations,
of dark and sanguinary conspiracies,
hiding themselves under the surface of
the earth - rnore perilous, because not
seen. The tin1e is come ,vhen the only
safety for nations and for men is in the
recognition of the sovereignty of God.
There is nothing else that can save the
Christian society of the ,vorld - noth-
ing else that can save the soul in the
day of the great account.
"There ,vere great voices in heaven,
saying: The kingdom of this ,vorId is
becolne our Lords's and IIis Christ's,
and lIe shall reIgn for ever and ever.
Arncn.
272 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD.
" We give Thee thanks, 0 Lord God
Almighty, who art, and ,vho ,vast, and
\vho art to come; because Thou hast
taken to Thee Thy great power, and
Thou hast reigned.
"And the nations were angry, and
Thy \vrath is COIne, and the time of the
dead, that they should be judged, and
that Thou shouldst render re,vard to
Thy servants, the prophets, and the
saints, and to then1 that fear Thy Nan1e,
little and great; and shoulùst destroy
them who have corrupted the earth." *
" Great and \vonderful are Thy works,
o Lord God Almighty; just and true
are Thy ways, 0 I(ing of Ages.
"'Vho shall not fear Thee, 0 Lord,
and magnify Thy Name? For Thou
only art holy: for all nations shaH come
and shall adore in Thy sight, because
Thy judglnents are manifest." t
* Apoc. xi. 15) 17, 18.
t Ibid. xv. 3, 4.
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