Donahoes Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 | Page 4

laws, and not to institute or decree anything which is incompatible with its security. They owe this also to the citizens over whom they rule. For all of us men are born and brought up for a certain supreme and final good in heaven, beyond this frail and short life, and to this end all efforts are to be referred. And because upon it depends the full and perfect happiness of men, therefore, to attain this end which has been mentioned, is of as much interest as is conceivable to every individual man. It is necessary then that a civil society, born for the common advantage, in the guardianship of the prosperity of the commonwealth, should so advance the interests of the citizens that in holding up and acquiring that highest and inconvertible good which they spontaneously seek, it should not only never import anything disadvantageous, but should give all the opportunities in its power. The chief of these is that attention should be paid to a holy and inviolate preservation of religion, by the duties of which man is united to God.
Now which the true religion is may be easily discovered by any one who will view the matter with a careful and unbiassed judgment; for there are proofs of great number and splendor, as for example, the truth of prophecy, the abundance of miracles, the extremely rapid spread of the faith, even in the midst of its enemies and in spite of the greatest hindrances, the testimony of the martyrs, and the like, from which it is evident that that is the only true religion which Jesus Christ instituted Himself and then entrusted to His Church to defend and to spread.
For the only begotten Son of God set up a society on earth which is called the Church, and to it He transferred that most glorious and divine office, which He had received from His Father, to be perpetuated forever. "As the Father hath sent Me, even so I send you." (John xx. 21.) "Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world." (Matt. xxviii. 20.) Therefore as Jesus Christ came into the world, "that men might have life and have it more abundantly" (John x. 10), so also the Church has for its aim and end the eternal salvation of souls; and for this cause it is so constituted as to embrace the whole human race without any limit or circumscription either of time or place. "Preach ye the Gospel to every creature." (Mark xvi. 15.) Over this immense multitude of men God Himself has set rulers with power to govern them; and He has willed that one should be head of them all, and the chief and unerring teacher of truth, and to him He has given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. "To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. xvi. 19.) "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep." (John xxi. 16, 17.) "I have prayed for thee that thy faith may not fail." (Luke xxii. 32.) This society, though it be composed of men just as civil society is, yet because of the end that it has in view, and the means by which it tends to it, is supernatural and spiritual; and, therefore, is distinguished from civil society and differs from it; and--a fact of the highest moment--is a society perfect in its kind and in its rights, possessing in and by itself, by the will and beneficence of its Founder, all the appliances that are necessary for its preservation and action. Just as the end, at which the Church aims, is by far the noblest of ends, so its power is the most exalted of all powers, and cannot be held to be either inferior to the civil power or in any way subject to it. In truth Jesus Christ gave His Apostles unfettered commissions over all sacred things, with the power of establishing laws properly so-called, and the double right of judging and punishing which follows from it: "All power has been given to Me in heaven and on earth; going, therefore, teach all nations;... teaching them to keep whatsoever I have commanded you." (Matt. xxviii. 18, 19, 20.) And in another place He says: "If he will not hear, tell it to the Church" (Matt. xviii. 17); and again: "Ready to punish all disobedience" (2 Cor. x. 6); and once more: "I shall act with more severity, according to the powers which our Lord has given me unto edification and not unto destruction." (2 Cor. xiii. 10.)
So then it is not the State but the Church that ought to be men's guide to heaven; and it is to her that God has assigned the office of watching and legislating for