But the principle on which the Church acted from the beginning is as clear as her practice; for the priesthood and the whole order of pastors in the Church having been established by the Son of God, and the perpetuity of this same priesthood in this same Church being also necessary by this divine disposition, it follows that the election of sacred ministers to maintain the succession and the disposition given by Christ to the Church, must belong by divine order to some one. As it cannot belong to laymen, it must belong to the clergy alone. In fact, St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, declares that God Himself prescribed the form of this election in the priesthood of Aaron, and that this form was observed by our Lord. "No one," he says, "takes this honour to himself but he that is called by God, as was Aaron. So, too, Christ glorified not Himself to be called High Priest, but He that said to Him, 'Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee;' as also in another place He says, 'Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.'" Exactly, then, as Aaron was elected solely by Moses at God's command, without waiting for any consent or any council of the people, so in the Church bishops did not need the consent or counsel of the people to be elected to their ministry, but they required the suffrage and the institution of their own order. And our Lord, on the day of His Resurrection, when He met His assembled Apostles, gave the whole rule, order, and descent of election and institution in His Church in the words, "As My Father sent Me, so I also send you." As He elected His apostles and disciples, excluding all consent of the multitude, so He made them electors and institutors of the ministers who should succeed them, independent of popular election. In His Church power is from above, not from below; from within, not from without; nor is any truth attested with a more complete and unbroken witness in the history of three hundred years than this. 5. The fifth point to be considered is the administration of the Church's temporal goods.