Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom. Allies Thomas William

in the name and by the power of the world’s lord, who bears the crown of majesty and wields the authority of worship. The guards of His enemies sit beside His tomb.

      Such was the fact on the great Sabbath, the high day of the Jewish Pasch.

      What can be conceived more improbable at that moment, and under these circumstances, than the fact which we have now to record as following in its evolution during so many ages? The sovereign in whose name and by whose power that Body had been put to death held undisputed in his hands the supremacy of Spiritual as well as Civil Power through the great world of Gentilism, represented by the Roman empire. From that Body was to spring, beginning with the morrow, the distinction and independence of the Spiritual over against the Civil Power, which was to dissolve this twofold supremacy throughout the whole range of that empire. And this was to be accomplished by a series of actions arising out of the sole proclamation of envoys taken from the people which had rejected Him – a proclamation derived from the commission which He should give in the Body raised again to life. The distinction, indeed, of the two Powers, so far from being new, has been coeval with the human race itself, as we have seen; but it has been broken down by human sin in all nations but one, and that one, created for its maintenance, made, through all its history, prophetical for its fulfilment when the time of that fulfilment came, has rejected its Bearer; and yet out of its bosom, on the morrow, is to go forth that word of power which in the end shall change the condition of human society, and create it after another order.

      It will be well thoroughly to grasp the truth that all which followed depended upon a fact, the supernatural character of which cannot be exaggerated. We are considering the Spiritual Power which arose and diffused itself in the world from the Person of Christ. It took its origin from the Body in which He appeared to His Apostles after His resurrection. Without their belief in that resurrection, as evidenced to all their senses, there was no ground for their conduct. Without the reality of that resurrection there was no source for the Power. It would seem that, whatever else the Christian order of things may be, it must be supernatural and miraculous, since, to exist at all, it presupposes a fact which is a lordship over nature and a miracle in the highest degree. Without this primary miracle all Christian faith is vain, and in the power which worked it all subsequent miracles are included. That the fact took place, let the results which followed testify, at the beginning of which our exposition stands. The Jews expected a Messias, who, according to the prophecies long enshrined in their nation about Him, was to be Priest, Prophet, and King. They put to death one who claimed to come before them in this triple character. From one dead, so long as he continues dead, no life can spring. But life and multifold life sprung up here; therefore He who was dead had arisen, and all of which we have to speak is the result of His life. The fundamental truth on which we have to dwell is the going forth of a supernatural power from the Person of Christ.

      We have seen Adam in Paradise created in the full maturity of intellect and will, and placed at the head of a double order of things, of civil and of spiritual authority. We have now to consider that greater One whom Adam prefigured, and who, coming forth from the tomb, assumed forthwith that double headship. When the great act of His pontificate had been accomplished in giving up His Body to death for the sins of the world, and its efficacy acknowledged by His resurrection, He declared to His Apostles “that all power had been given to Him in heaven and upon earth.” This all-power in heaven and on earth, given to the God-man as the fruit of His incarnation and the reward of His sacrifice, divides itself into two – temporal and spiritual. The first is that by which He disposes of all persons and all events. This power He has not delegated to any one in chief, but keeps it in His own hands. Yet it is a part of this power of which it is said, “By me kings reign, and princes decree justice.” The whole civil sovereignty is founded on an apportionment to it of the divine sovereignty for the maintenance of human society. A part of the second or Spiritual Power He delegated to St. Peter in chief, and to the Apostles, with St. Peter at their head. Out of this all-power He set up and sent forth in them a royal priesthood to proclaim and maintain the truth which He had come to declare to the world; that is to say, He took His own priesthood and put it upon them, investing it with a reproductive ordering and maintaining power in His spiritual kingdom. To it He attached the gift of truth, that is, of communicating, unfolding, guarding, the whole body of doctrine which He came upon earth to declare; and in it He placed the jurisdiction which is necessary to the priesthood in order to exert itself in offering the sacrifice and in dispensing the sacraments which He instituted, and in guarding the truth with which they are bound up.

      That power, then, which He designated in the keys given to Peter, in the Rock which He set in his person, in the pastoral charge which He laid upon him over His sheep, and in which He sent forth His Apostles to make disciples all nations, to baptize them in the sacred Name, to teach them to observe all which He had commanded, and in the exercise of which He promised to remain with them to the end of the world, is one and indivisible in itself, and triple in its range and direction – a priesthood proclaiming the truth and ruling in the sphere which belongs to its priesthood and its teachings. As Adam is created one and complete, and his race springs from him, so this kingdom of Christ springs complete from Him in its regimen, which is not the result of history, but formed in His Person before its history begins, as He is at once Priest, Teacher, and King. Thus this Power comes from above, not from below; proceeds from emanation; is not gathered gradually by accretion; is an effect of positive institution, derived from the Head; not the effect of a need or the working out of a natural capacity in the body.

      The root of that Power is the act for the accomplishment of which our Lord Himself took our flesh upon Him – the act of His high priesthood, by which, having taken our flesh, He took also the sins of the world upon Himself, and offered Himself for them on the cross. It is as Redeemer that He is Priest, the sacrifice of His body being the offering which He made. It is in the perpetual service and offering of that body that the priesthood which He created for others exists and provides the perpetual bread of life, which is the food of sanctification, for His people. In the priesthood, therefore, we have to deal with the whole range of subject which embraces grace on the part of God and worship on the part of man. It is most fitting that all spiritual power should grow upon this stock. All priesthoods in the world from the beginning had been connected, as we have seen, with the sense and acknowledgment of guilt; and with the rite of sacrifice. In the Aaronic priesthood this has been specially noted. Thus it bore a perpetual prophetical witness to the act which Christ accomplished. All future priesthood dated from the accomplishment of that act, and took its force from it. Thus it was truly the central act of human history. Had not the Son of God assumed our nature, He could not have been a Priest. His priesthood, therefore, carried in it the two great divine acts – His incarnation and His satisfaction, which make up the economy of human salvation. The first direction, then, of the power which He delegated is that of the Priest.

      The second is that of the Teacher. A principal part of His ministry while on earth certainly was to teach. He was the Prophet that was to come into the world, and all that He taught bore reference to the two acts just dwelt upon, that He came forth from God and was going to God. Not a sentence of His teaching but presupposes His Incarnation and His Passion. That whole body of truth, therefore, which He did not write down Himself, but committed to the living ministry of His Apostles, proceeds, as it were, out of His Pontificate, and rests upon it. It is the truth of the Word made flesh, and of God sacrificed for His creatures. The gift of teaching, as the illuminating power in His Church, corresponds to the virtue of faith in the taught, and implies the possession of truth in the teacher. As the priesthood has a perpetual sacrifice stored up within it, and a perpetual gift of grace accompanying it, so the teaching has a perpetual gift of truth. The fountain of truth, therefore, in this Power, can be no more discoloured and polluted than the fountain of grace in the priesthood can be turned into sin. By virtue of it Christ remains for ever the one Teacher and Master whom all His people have to follow. Theology is an outcome of this Power. The issuing of doctrinal decrees is grounded upon it, and the censure of writings and of all false opinions on whatever subject which may impair Christian doctrine.

      The third direction of the one Power is that of ruling and ordering, not to be separated from the former two, since it consists, in fact, in the free, legitimate, and ordered use of them, and has, therefore, been termed Jurisdiction, inasmuch as it is government in the whole domain of grace and truth. In every government there is a power which administers,