And if Constantine had not had the authority over the patronage of the Church, those things which he allotted from the Empire he could not have had the right to allot; and so the Church would be using this gift against right; whereas God wills that offerings should be pure, as is commanded in Leviticus: "No meat offering that ye shall bring unto the Lord shall be made with leaven." And though this command appears to regard those who offer, nevertheless it also regards those who receive an offering. For it is folly to suppose that God wishes to be received that which He forbids to be offered, for in the same book there is a command to the Levites: "Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth; neither shall ye make yourselves unclean with them, that ye shall be defiled thereby."[309] But to say that the Church so misuses the patrimony assigned to her is very unseemly; therefore the premiss from which this conclusion followed is false. [Footnote 309: Levit. ii. 11; xi. 43.--(W.)] XIV.--Again, if the Church had power to bestow authority on the Roman Prince, she would have it either from God, or from herself, or from some Emperor, or from the universal consent of mankind, or at least of the majority of mankind. There is no other crevice by which this power could flow down to the Church. But she has it not from any of these sources; therefore she has it not at all. It is manifest that she has it from none of these sources; for if she had received it from God, she would have received it either by the divine or by the natural law: because what is received from nature is received from God; though the converse of this is not true. But this power is not received by the natural law; for nature lays down no law, save for the effects of nature, for God cannot fail in power, where he brings anything into being without the aid of secondary agents. Since therefore the Church is not an effect of nature, but of God who said: "Upon this rock I will build my Church," and elsewhere: "I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do," it is manifest that nature did not give the Church this law. Nor was this power bestowed by the divine law; for the whole of the divine law is contained in the bosom of the Old or of the New Testament, and I cannot find therein that any thought or care for worldly matters was commanded, either to the early or to the latter priesthood. Nay, I find rather such care taken away from the priests of the Old Testament by the express command of God to Moses,[310] and from the priests of the New Testament by the express command of Christ to His disciples.[311] But it could not be that this care was taken away from them, if the authority of the temporal power flowed from the priesthood; for at least in giving the authority there would be an anxious watchfulness of forethought, and afterwards continued precaution, lest he to whom authority had been given should leave the straight way.