Ecclesiastics, without doubt, ought to be allowed sufficient to live honorably, but not as members of or as representing the Church, for the Church itself claims neither sovereignty nor possession in this world. But if it be necessary for ministers to preside at t the altar, it is proper that society should support them in the same manner as the magistracy and soldiers. It is, therefore, for the civil law to make a suitable provision for the priesthood. Even when the possessions of the ecclesiastics have been bestowed on them by wills, or in any other manner, the donors have not been able to denationalize the property by abstracting it from public charges and the authority of the laws. It is always under the guarantee of the laws, without which they would not possess the insured and legitimate possessions which they enjoy. It is, therefore, still left to the sovereign, or the magistracy in his name, to examine at all times if the ecclesiastical revenues be sufficient; and if they are not, to augment the allotted provision; if, on the contrary, they are excessive, it is for them to dispose of the superfluity for the general good of society. But according to the right, commonly called canonical, which has sought to form a State within the State, "_imperium in imperio_," ecclesiastical property is sacred and intangible, because it belongs to religion and the Church; they have come of God, and not of man. In the first place, it is impossible to appropriate this terrestrial wealth to religion, which has nothing temporal. They cannot belong to the Church, which is the universal body of the believers, including the king, the magistracy, the soldiery, and all subjects; for we are never to forget that priests no more form the Church than magistrates the State. Lastly, these goods come only from God in the same sense as all goods come from Him, because all is submitted to His providence. Therefore, every ecclesiastical possessor of riches, or revenue, enjoys it only as a subject and citizen of the State, under the single protection of the civil law. Property, which is temporal and material, cannot be rendered sacred or holy in any sense, neither literally nor figuratively. If it be said that a person or edifice is sacred, it only signifies that it has been consecrated or set apart for spiritual purposes. The abuse of a metaphor, to authorize rights and pretensions destructive to all society, is an enterprise of which history and religion furnish more than one example, and even some very singular ones, which are not at present to my purpose. SECTION III. _Of Ecclesiastical or Religious Assemblies._ It is certain that nobody can call any public or regular assembly in a state but under the sanction of civil authority. Religious assemblies for public worship must be authorized by the sovereign, or civil magistracy, before they can be legal.