originally made after the image and likeness of God, is sent into this life in order that he may in a future life attain the end of his being, that is, the enjoyment of God, is the primary fundamental truth which is presupposed in that whole work of Christ just described. The supernatural society exists for a supernatural end. The total denial of this end would be the complete and perfect heathenism of which the original heathenism was but a shadow; for that state of man in which the whole of his public and private life was encircled by the ties and consecrated by the rites of religion, even though those rites were prostituted by being offered to false gods, was not a denial of this end. In such a state man acknowledged a power beyond himself – beyond visible nature: his mind, his heart, his imagination were filled with the sense of that power. This is true of the great mass of the heathen before the coming of Christ, and is true in a large degree of those nations remaining still outside the Christian faith in their traditional religion, which descends in however fragmentary, however perverted a form, from the religion of Noah, and the primal and universal covenant for all his family struck with him. It is only the apostasy of a few from the Christian faith itself which has readied that final and absolute impiety – the greatest which the human mind can reach – of entirely denying this end of man.
Now, in considering the relation between the Civil and the Spiritual Power in all its bearings, we assume as a postulate this supernatural end of man. As it is the kernel of our belief, so it is the absolute basis of our argument. It cannot be put in a terser form than that in which our Lord stated it to those about Him when He asked the question, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Those only who have come to such a negation of reason as to suppose that they have no souls can disregard it. And as it is of absolute necessity, so it is all that is required for a full consideration of the subject.
“There is then a certain good beyond the natural society of man in this his condition of mortal life, which is that ultimate beatitude which is looked for after death in the enjoyment of God. And so the Christian, who has acquired a right to that beatitude by the blood of Christ, and has received the earnest of the Holy Spirit in order to attain it, requires, beyond the aid which temporal government gives him for the concerns of this life, a spiritual care which is given to the faithful by the ministers of Christ’s Church. Now, as to the ultimate end which they are to seek, the same must be said of the whole mass of men as of one man. If, then, the one man’s end lay in any good existing in himself, the ultimate end of government for the mass of men would be similarly that it should reach such good and secure its possession. But all the goods of this present life offer no such end, whether it be health, or riches, or knowledge, or even virtue. For the virtuous life, whether of the individual or the mass, is subordinate to a further end, which is the future enjoyment of God. If that end could be obtained by a power of human nature, it would belong to the office of temporal government to direct men to it, since that is supreme in things purely human. But since man does not attain the end of enjoying God by any merely human power but by divine power, according to St. Paul’s word, that ‘the grace of God is eternal life,’ it requires not a human but a divine government to lead men to that end. And so it is that such a government belongs to a King who is not only man but also God, that is, to our Lord Jesus Christ, who has introduced men to the glory of heaven by making them sons of God. This, then, is the kingdom which has been delivered to Him, and which shall not be broken up, on account of which He is named in Scripture, not Priest only, but King. Hence a royal priesthood is derived from Him; and, what is more, all the faithful of Christ, so far forth as they are His members, are called kings and priests. Therefore the ministry of this kingdom, in order that spiritual things might be distinguished from temporal, has been entrusted not to the kings of the earth but to priests, and in the highest degree to the priest who is over all, the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the Roman Pontiff, to whom all kings of the Christian people are to be subject as to our Lord Jesus Christ himself; for this is in accordance with the principle that those to whom belongs the care of antecedent ends should be subject to him who has the care of the final end, and be directed by his rule.”22
What we have just said amounts to this, that the whole life of man, whether single or in society, while he lives upon earth, is subject to the life which he hopes for in heaven as its supreme purpose and end; and that being so subject, as there is a society to aid him in attaining the goods of his natural life, so much more is there a society to aid him in attaining that supernatural good to which the natural goods are subordinate. We have next to compare the regimens of these two societies with each other in regard to their completeness.
The analogy between the Two Powers is full of instruction; but it is to be remembered that as, since the coming of Christ, the Spiritual Power is one in all countries and in all times, whereas the Temporal Power is one only in each country and at each time, the comparison of the two can only take those points which belong to the Temporal Power alike in all countries and times; and this will be found sufficient for our purpose. We have just seen the conception of spiritual jurisdiction as wielding the priesthood and the teaching: it corresponds in this respect to secular sovereignty, under which is ranged on the one hand authority in every degree, as held by all officials in administration, by all councillors in legislating, by all judges in their several tribunals, by all officers in the public force. Whoever in the public service holds a portion of the public authority may be ranged under the general head of magistrate, and stands herein to the sovereign power in the same relation as the priest to the bearer of supreme spiritual jurisdiction. On the other hand, whoever is engaged in the whole circle of human arts and sciences, which comprehends the vast domain of human knowledge as acquired by learning, answers to the spiritual teacher. This triple division runs through every state, at every time, whatever may be its relative advancement in the scale of government. And the comparison as to both Powers is exhaustive with regard to their range, since in both, man, individual or collective, is a being who acts because he first knows and then wills. Sovereignty, presiding in the various kinds of magistracy over all who command, and over all in the various arts and sciences who teach, because they have first learned, covers that triple domain in the one case, and in the other spiritual royalty, which acts through the priest and the teacher. But the society is knit together in a much stricter bond, by a far more perfect interaction of forces, in the spiritual than in the temporal order; and this arises from the fact that all spiritual power in its triple range actually descends from the spiritual head through every degree, which is far from being the fact in temporal sovereignty. That is the pre-eminence of Christ in His spiritual kingdom; and it is the perfection of the Divine Legislator that He exercises His royalty by the indivisible action of His Jurisdiction, Priesthood, and Teaching, communicated to the whole structure at the head of which He stands.
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