It has come not by our act. It has arisen in its time appointed. It will for awhile raise alarm and suspicion; it will kindle animosity and encourage bigotry but it will manifest the truth with a wider light than England has seen for three hundred years. I will therefore freely and frankly enter upon this debate, and, in order to be clear, I will treat the subject under the following propositions:

1. The authority of Princes and the allegiance of subjects in the Civil State of nature is of Divine ordinance; and, therefore, so long as Princes and their laws are in conformity to the law of God, the Church has no power or jurisdiction against them, nor over them.

2. If Princes and their laws deviate from the law of God, the Church has authority from God to judge of that deviation, and to oblige to its correction.

3. The authority which the Church has from God for this end is not temporal, but spiritual. 4. This spiritual authority is not direct in its inci

dence on temporal things, but only indirect: that is to say, it directly promotes its own spi- . ritual end; it indirectly condemns and declares not binding on the conscience such temporal laws as deviate from the law of God, and therefore impede or render impossible the attainment of the eternal happiness of man.

5. This spiritual authority is inherent in the Divine constitution and commission of the Church; but its exercise in the world depends on certain moral and material conditions, by which

alone its exercise is rendered either possible or just.

I have affirmed that the relations of the Catholic Church to the Civil Powers are fixed primarily by the Divine constitution of the Church and of the Civil Society of men. But it is also true that these relations have been declared by the Church in acts and decrees which are of infallible authority. Such, for instance, is the Bull of Boniface VIII., Unam Sanctam. As this has become the text and centre of the whole controversy at this moment, we will fully treat of it. This Bull, then, was beyond all doubt an act ex cathedra. It was also confirmed by Leo X. in the Fifth Lateran Ecumenical Council. Whatever definition, therefore, is to be found in this Bull is to be received as of faith. Let it be noted that the Unam Sanctam does not depend upon the Vatican Council for its infallible authority. It was from the date of its publication an infallible act, obliging all Catholics to receive it with interior. assent. Doctrines identical with those of the Unam Sanctam had been declared in two Ecumenical Councils—namely, in the Fourth Lateran in 1215, and the First of Lyons in 1245.' On this ground, therefore, I have affirmed that the relations of the Spiritual and Civil Powers were immutably fixed before the Vatican Council met, and that they have been in no way changed by it.

V. We will now examine, (1) the complete text of the Unam Sanctam; (2) the interpretations of its assail

'Bellarmin. De Potes'. Papa. in præf, p. 844, Cologne, 1617.

ants and its defenders; (3) the interpretation which is of obligation on all Catholics.

1. The Bull was published by Boniface VIII., in 1302, during the contest with Philip le Bel of France.

Before the Bull was published, the Regalists or partisans of the King declared that the Pope had claimed, as Mr. Gladstone also supposes, to be supreme over the King, both in spiritual and in temporal things. The Chancellor Flotte made this assertion in the year 1301, at Paris, in the Church of Notre Dame. The cardinals sent by Boniface declared that the Pope made no such claim; that he claimed no temporal, but only a spiritual power.1 Nevertheless this prejudice, once created, before the publication of the Unam Sanctam, ensured its being misinterpreted when it was issued. Boniface, by the Bull Ausculta Fili, had promptly exposed this misinterpretation. But the prejudice was already established.2

I will now give the whole text of the Bull, before commenting upon it. It runs as follows:

'We are bound to believe and to hold, by the obligation of faith, one Holy Church, Catholic and also Apostolic; and this (Church) we firmly believe and in simplicity confess out of which there is neither salvation nor remission of sins. As the Bridegroom declares in the Canticles, "One is my dove, my perfect one, she is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her;" who represents the one mystical Body, the Head of which is Christ; and the Head of Christ is God.

1

Döllinger's Church History, vol. iv. p. 9o. 2 Ibid. p. 91.

Cant. vi. 8.

2

In which (the one Church) there is one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism. For in the time of the Flood the ark of Noe was one, prefiguring the one Church, which was finished in one cubit, and had one governor and ruler, that is Noe; outside of which we read that all things subsisting upon earth were destroyed. This also we venerate as one, as the Lord says in the Prophet," Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword: my only one from the hand of the dog."3

For He prayed for the soul, that is, for Himself; for the Head together with the Body: by which Body he designated the one only Church, because of the unity of the Bridegroom, of the Faith, of the Sacraments, and of the charity of the Church. This is that coat of the Lord without seam, which was not rent, but went by lots. Therefore of that one and only Church there is one body and one Head, not two heads as of a monster: namely, Christ and Christ's Vicar, Peter and Peter's successor; for the Lord Himself said to Peter, "Feed my sheep." 5 Mine, he says generally; and not, in particular, these or those: by which He is known to have committed all to him. If, therefore, Greeks or others say that they were not committed to Peter and his successors, they must necessarily confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ, for the Lord said (in the Gospel) by John, that. there is "One fold, and one only shepherd." By the words of the Gospel we are instructed that in this his (that is Peter's) power there are two swords, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say, "Behold, here are two swords," that is,' in the Church, the Lord did not say, "It is too much," but "it is enough." Assuredly, he who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter, gives ill heed to the word of the Lord, saying,

"Put up again thy sword into its place." Both, therefore, the spiritual sword and the material sword are in the power of the Church. But the latter (the material sword) is to be wielded ON BEHALF OF the Church; the former (the spiritual) is to be wielded By the Church: the one by the hand of the priest; the other by the hand of kings and soldiers, but at the suggestion and sufferance of the priest. The one sword ought to be subject to the other, and the temporal authority ought to be subject to the spiritual power. For whereas the Apostle says, "There is no power but from God; and those that are, are ordained of God; " they would not be ordained (or ordered) if one sword were not subject to the other, and as the inferior directed by the other to the highest end. For, according to the blessed Dionysius, it is the law of the Divine order that the lowest should be guided to the highest by those that are intermediate. Therefore, according to the order of the universe, all things are not in equal and immediate subordination; but the lowest things are set in order by things intermediate, and things inferior by things superior. We ought, therefore, as clearly to confess that the spiritual power, both in dignity and excellence, exceeds any earthly power, in proportion as spiritual things are better than things temporal. This we see clearly from the giving, and blessing, and sanctifying of tithes, from the reception of the power itself, and from the government of the same things. For, as the truth bears witness, the spiritual power has to instruct, and judge the earthly power, if it be not good; and thus the prophecy of Jeremias is verified of the Church and the ecclesiastical power: "Lo, I have set thee this day over the nations and over kingdoms," etc If, therefore, the earthly power deviates (from its end), it will be judged by the spiritual; but if a lesser spiritual power transgresses, it will be judged by its superior;

1 St. Matthew xxvi. 52.

Romans xiii. I.

* Jeremiah i 10.