For imagine, that upon our Lord's departure, no one had been deputed to take the visible headship and rule over the Church. How, without ever fresh revelations, and an abiding miraculous power, could that complex unity of faith, of worship, and of polity, have been maintained, which the[25] Lord has set forth as the very sign and token of His Church? A multitude scattered throughout the most distant regions, and naturally differing in race, in habits, in temperament, how could it possibly be joined in one, and remain one, without a powerful bond of unity? Hence, in the fourth century, S. Jerome[26] observed, "The safety of the Church depends on the dignity of the supreme Priest, in whom, if all do not recognise a peculiar and supereminent power, there will arise as many schisms in the Church as there are priests." And the repentant confessors out of Novatian's schism, in the middle of the third century, "We know that Cornelius (the Pope) has been elected Bishop of the most holy Catholic Church, by Almighty God, and Christ our Lord.--We are not ignorant that there is one God, one Christ the Lord, whom we confessed, one Holy Spirit, and that there ought to be one bishop in the Catholic Church."[27] And these words, both of S. Jerome, and of the confessors, if they primarily apply to the diocesan bishop among his priests and people, so do they with far greater force apply to the chief bishop among his brethren in the whole Church. Now, as our Lord willed that His Church should do without fresh revelations, and new miracles, such as at first accredited it, and that it should preserve unity; and as, when it was a little flock, which could be assembled in a single room, it had yet one visible Ruler, how can we doubt that He willed this form of government to remain, and that there should be one perpetually to rule it in His name, and preserve it in unity, since it was to become co-extensive with the earth? Again, we may ask, was the condition of fold, house, family, city, and kingdom, so repeatedly set forth in Holy Scripture, to belong to the Church only while Christ was yet on earth, or to be the visible evidence of its truth for ever? Do these terms exhibit a temporary, or a perpetual state? Each one of these symbols by itself, and all together, involve one visible Ruler: therefore, so long as the Church can be called with truth, the one house, the one family, the one city, the one fold, the one kingdom, so long must it have one visible and supreme Ruler. But once grant that such a one there was after our Lord's departure, and no one can doubt that one to have been Peter. It is easier to deny the supreme Ruler altogether, than to make him any one but Peter. The whole course of the Gospels shows none other marked out by so many distinctions. Thus, even those who wish to refuse a real power to his Primacy, are compelled by the force of evidence to allow him a Primacy of order and honour.