and--a fact of the highest moment--is a society perfect in its kind and in its rights, possessing in and by itself, by the will and beneficence of its Founder, all the appliances that are necessary for its preservation and action. Just as the end, at which the Church aims, is by far the noblest of ends, so its power is the most exalted of all powers, and cannot be held to be either inferior to the civil power or in any way subject to it. In truth Jesus Christ gave His Apostles unfettered commissions over all sacred things, with the power of establishing laws properly so-called, and the double right of judging and punishing which follows from it: "_All power has been given to Me in heaven and on earth; going, therefore, teach all nations;... teaching them to keep whatsoever I have commanded you._" (Matt. xxviii. 18, 19, 20.) And in another place He says: "_If he will not hear, tell it to the Church_" (Matt. xviii. 17); and again: "_Ready to punish all disobedience_" (2 Cor. x. 6); and once more: "_I shall act with more severity, according to the powers which our Lord has given me unto edification and not unto destruction._" (2 Cor. xiii. 10.) So then it is not the State but the Church that ought to be men's guide to heaven; and it is to her that God has assigned the office of watching and legislating for all that concerns religion, of teaching all nations; of extending, as far as may be, the borders of Christianity; and, in a word, of administering its affairs without let or hindrance, according to her own judgment. Now this authority, which pertains absolutely to the Church herself, and is part of her manifest rights, and which has long been opposed by a philosophy subservient to princes, she has never ceased to claim for herself and to exercise publicly: the Apostles themselves being the first of all to maintain it, when, being forbidden by the readers of the Synagogue to preach the Gospel, they boldly answered, "_We must obey God rather than men._" (Acts v. 29.) This same authority the holy Fathers of the Church have been careful to maintain by weighty reasonings as occasions have arisen; and the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased to defend it with inflexible constancy. Nay, more, princes and civil governors themselves have approved it in theory and in fact; for in the making of compacts, in the transaction of business, in sending and receiving embassies, and in the interchange of other offices, it has been their custom to act with the Church as with a supreme and legitimate power. And we may be sure that it is not without the singular providence of God that this power of the Church was defended by the Civil Power as the best defence of its own liberty.