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Hence the praemotio physica of the Thomists, and the praevenient
and adjuvant grace of the theologians, without which no one can
begin the Christian life, and which must needs be supernatural
when the end is supernatural. The principle of life in all
orders is the same, and human activity no more suffices for
itself in one order than in another.

Here is the reason why the savage tribe never rises to a
civilized state without communion in some form with a people
already civilized, and why there is no moral or intellectual
development and progress without education and instruction,
consequently without instructors and educators. Hence the value
of tradition; and hence, as the first man could not instruct
himself, Christian theologians, with a deeper philosophy than is
dreamed of by the sciolists of the age, maintain that God himself
was man's first teacher, or that he created Adam a full-grown
man, with all his faculties developed, complete, and in full
activity. Hence, too, the heathen mythologies, which always
contain some elements of truth, however they may distort,
mutilate, or travesty them, make the gods the first teachers of
the human race, and ascribe to their instruction even the most
simple and ordinary arts of every-day life. The gods teach men to
plough, to plant, to reap, to work in iron, to erect a shelter
from the storm, and to build a fire to warm them and to cook
their food. The common sense, as well as the common traditions
of mankind, refuses to accept the doctrine that men are developed
without foreign aid, or progressive without divine assistance.
Nature of herself can no more develop government than it can
language. There can be no language without society, and no
society without language. There can be no government without
society, and no society without government of some sort.

But even if nature could spontaneously develop herself, she could
never develop an institution that has the right to govern, for
she has not herself that right. Nature is not God, has not
created us, therefore has not the right of property in us. She
is not and cannot be our sovereign. We belong not to her, nor
does she belong to herself, for she is herself creature, and
belongs to her Creator. Not being in herself sovereign, she
cannot develop the right to govern, nor can she develop
government as a fact, to say nothing of its right, for
government, whether we speak of it as fact or as authority, is
distinct from that which is governed; but natural developments
are nature, and indistinguishable from her. The governor and the
governed, the restrainer and the restrained, can never as such be
identical. Self-government, taken strictly, is a contradiction
in terms. When an individual is said to govern himself, he is
never understood to govern himself in the sense in which be is
governed. He by his reason and will governs or restrains his
appetites and passions. It is man as spirit governing man as
flesh, the spiritual mind governing the carnal mind.

Natural developments cannot in all cases be even allowed to take
their own course without injury to nature herself. "Follow
nature" is an unsafe maxim, if it means, leave nature to develop
herself as she will, and follow thy natural inclinations. Nature
is good, but inclinations are frequently bad. All our appetites
and passions are given us for good, for a purpose useful and
necessary to individual and social life, but they become morbid
and injurious if indulged without restraint. Each has its
special object, and naturally seeks it exclusively, and thus
generates discord and war in the individual, which immediately
find expression in society, and also in the state, if the state
be a simple natural development. The Christian maxim, Deny
thyself, is far better than the Epicurean maxim, Enjoy thyself,
for there is no real enjoyment without self-denial. There is
deep philosophy in Christian asceticism, as the Positivists
themselves are aware, and even insist. But Christian asceticism
aims not to destroy nature, as voluptuaries pretend, but to
regulate, direct, and restrain its abnormal developments for its
own good. It forces nature in her developments to submit to a
law which is not in her, but above her. The Positivists pretend
that this asceticism is itself a natural development, but that
cannot be a natural development which directs, controls, and
restrains natural development.

The Positivists confound nature at one time with the law of
nature, and at another the law of nature with nature herself, and
take what is called the natural law to be a natural development.
Here is their mistake, as it is the mistake of all who accept
naturalistic theories. Society, no doubt, is authorized by the
law of nature to institute and maintain government. But the law
of nature is not a natural development, nor is it in nature, or
any part of nature. It is not a natural force which operates in
nature, and which is the developing principle of nature. Do they
say reason is natural, and the law of nature is only reason?
This is not precisely the fact. The natural law is law proper,
and is reason only in the sense that reason includes both
intellect and will, and nobody can pretend that nature in her
spontaneous developments acts from intelligence and volition.
Reason, as the faculty of knowing, is subjective and natural; but
in the sense in which it is coincident with the natural law, it
is neither subjective nor natural, but objective and divine, and
is God affirming himself and promulgating his law to his
creature, man. It is, at least, an immediate participation of
the divine by which He reveals himself and His will to the human
understanding, and is not natural, but supernatural, in the sense
that God himself is supernatural. This is wherefore reason is
law, and every man is bound to submit or conform to reason.

That legitimate governments are instituted under the natural law
is frankly conceded, but this is by no means the concession of
government as a natural development. The reason and will of
which the natural law is the expression are the reason and will
of God. The natural law is the divine law as much as the
revealed law itself, and equally obligatory. It is not a natural
force developing itself in nature, like the law of generation,
for instance, and therefore proceeding from God as first cause,
but it proceeds from God as final cause, and is, therefore,
theological, and strictly a moral law, founding moral rights and
duties. Of course, all morality and all legitimate government
rest on this law, or, if you will, originate in it. But not
therefore in nature, but in the Author of nature. The authority
is not the authority of nature, but of Him who holds nature in
the hollow of His hand.

V. In the seventeenth century a class of political writers who
very well understood that no creature, no man, no number of men,
not even, nature herself, can be inherently sovereign, defended
the opinion that governments are founded, constituted, and
clothed with their authority by the direct and express
appointment of God himself. They denied that rulers hold their
power from the nation; that, however oppressive may be their
rule, that they are justiciable by any human tribunal, or that
power, except by the direct judgment of God, is amissible. Their
doctrine is known in history as the doctrine of "the divine right
of kings, and passive obedience." All power, says St. Paul, is
from God, and the powers that be are ordained of God, and to
resist them is to resist the ordination of God. They must be
obeyed for conscience' sake.

It would, perhaps, be rash to say that this doctrine had never
been broached before the seventeenth century, but it received in
that century, and chiefly in England, its fullest and most
systematic developments. It was patronized by the Anglican
divines, asserted by James I. of England, and lost the Stuarts
the crown of three kingdoms. It crossed the Channel, into
France, where it found a few hesitating and stammering defenders
among Catholics, under Louis XIV., but it has never been very
generally held, though it has had able and zealous supporters.
In England it was opposed by all the Presbyterians, Puritans,
Independents, and Republicans, and was forgotten or abandoned by
the Anglican divines themselves in the Revolution of 1688, that
expelled James II. and crowned William and Mary. It was ably
refuted by the Jesuit Suarez in his reply to a Remonstrance for
the Divine Right of Kings by the James I.; and a Spanish monk who
had asserted it in Madrid, under Philip II., was compelled by the
Inquisition to retract it publicly in the place where he had
asserted it. All republicans reject it, and the Church has never
sanctioned it. The Sovereign Pontiffs have claimed and exercised
the right to deprive princes of their principality, and to
absolve their subjects from the oath of fidelity. Whether the
Popes rightly claimed and exercised that power is not now the
question; but their having claimed and exercised it proves that
the Church does not admit the inamissibility of power and passive
obedience; for the action of the Pope was judicial, not
legislative. The Pope has never claimed the right to depose a
prince till by his own act he has, under the moral law or the
constitution of his state, forfeited his power, nor to absolve
subjects from their allegiance till their oath, according to its
true intent and meaning, has ceased to bind. If the Church has
always asserted with the Apostle there is no power but from
God--non est potestas nisi a Deo--she has always through her
doctors maintained that it is a trust to be exercised for the
public good, and is forfeited when persistently exercised in a
contrary sense. St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and Suarez all
maintain that unjust laws are violences rather than laws, and do
not oblige, except in charity or prudence, and that the republic
may change its magistrates, and even its constitution, if it sees
proper to do so.

That God, as universal Creator, is Sovereign Lord and proprietor
of all created things or existences, visible or invisible, is
certain; for the maker has the absolute right to the thing made;
it is his, and he may do with it as he will. As he is sole
creator, he alone hath dominion; and as he is absolute creator,
he has absolute dominion over all the things which he has made.
The guaranty against oppression is his own essential nature, is
in the plenitude of his own being, which is the plenitude of
wisdom and goodness. He cannot contradict himself, be other than
he is, or act otherwise than according to his own essential
nature. As he is, in his own eternal and immutable essence,
supreme reason and supreme good, his dominion must always in its
exercise be supremely good and supremely reasonable, therefore
supremely just and equitable. From him certainly is all power;
he is unquestionably King of kings, and Lord of lords. By him
kings reign and magistrates decree just things. He may, at his
will, set up or pull down kings, rear or overwhelm empires,
foster the infant colony, and make desolate the populous city.
All this is unquestionably true, and a simple dictate of reason
common to all men. But in what sense is it true? Is it true in
a supernatural sense? Or is it true only in the sense that it is
true that by him we breathe, perform any or all of our natural
functions, and in him live, and move, and have our being?

Viewed in their first cause, all things are the immediate
creation of God, and are supernatural, and from the point of view
of the first cause the Scriptures usually speak, for the great
purpose and paramount object of the sacred writers, as of
religion itself, is to make prominent the fact that God is
universal creator, and supreme governor, and therefore the first
and final cause of all things. But God creates second causes, or
substantial existences, capable themselves of acting and
producing effects in a secondary sense, and hence he is said to
be causa causarum, cause of causes. What is done by these second
causes or creatures is done eminently by him, for they exist only
by his creative act, and produce only by virtue of his active
presence, or effective concurrence. What he does through them or
through their agency is done by him, not immediately, but
mediately, and is said to be done naturally, as what he does
immediately is said to be done supernaturally. Natural is what
God does through second causes, which he creates; supernatural is
that which he does by himself alone, without their intervention
or agency. Sovereignty, or the right to govern, is in him, and
he may at his will delegate it to men either mediately or
immediately, by a direct and express appointment, or mediately
through nature. In the absence of all facts proving its
delegation direct and express, it must be assumed to be mediate,
through second causes. The natural is always to be presumed, and
the supernatural is to be admitted only on conclusive proof.

The people of Israel had a supernatural vocation, and they
received their law, embracing their religious and civil
constitution and their ritual directly from God at the hand of
Moses, and various individuals from time to time appear to have
been specially called to be their judges, rulers, or kings. Saul
was so called, and so was David. David and his line appear, also,
to have been called not only to supplant Saul and his line, but
to have been supernaturally invested with the kingdom forever;
but it does not appear that the royal power with which David and
his line were invested was inamissible. They lost it in the
Babylonish captivity, and never afterwards recovered it. The
Asmonean princes were of another line, and when our Lord came the
sceptre was in the hands of Herod, an Idumean Or Edomite. The
promise made, to David and his house is generally held by
Christian commentators to have received its fulfilment in the
everlasting spiritual royalty of the Messiah, sprung through Mary
from David's line.

The Christian Church is supernaturally constituted and
supernaturally governed, but the persons selected to exercise
powers supernaturally defined, from the Sovereign Pontiff down to
the humblest parish priest are selected and inducted into office
through human agency. The Gentiles very generally claimed to
have received their laws from the gods, but it does not appear,
save in exceptional cases, that they claimed that their princes
were designated and held their powers by the direct and express
appointment of the god. Save in the case of the Jews, and that
of the Church, there is no evidence that any particular
government exists or ever has existed by direct or express
appointment, or otherwise than by the action of the Creator
through second causes, or what is called his ordinary providence.
Except David and his line, there is no evidence of the express
grant by the Divine Sovereign to any individual or family, class
or caste of the government of any nation or country. Even those
Christian princes who professed to reign "by the grace of God,"
never claimed that they received their principalities from God
otherwise than through his ordinary providence, and meant by it
little more than an acknowledgment of their dependence on him,
their obligation to use their power according to his law and
their accountability to him for the use they make of it.

The doctrine is not favorable to human liberty, for it recognizes
no rights of man in face of civil society. It consecrates
tyranny, and makes God the accomplice of the tyrant, if we
suppose all governments have actually existed by his express
appointment. It puts the king in the place of God, and requires
us to worship in him the immediate representative of the Divine
Being. Power is irresponsible and inamissible, and however it
may be abused, or however corrupt and oppressive may be its
exercise, there is no human redress. Resistance to power is
resistance to God. There is nothing for the people but passive
obedience and unreserved submission. The doctrine, in fact,
denies all human government, and allows the people no voice in
the management of their own affairs, and gives no place for human
activity. It stands opposed to all republicanism, and makes
power an hereditary and indefeasible right, not a trust which he
who holds it may forfeit, and of which he may be deprived if he
abuses it.





CHAPTER VI.

ORIGIN OF GOVERNMENT--CONCLUDED.


VI. The theory which derives the right of government from the
direct and express appointment of God is sometimes modified so as
to mean that civil authority is derived from God through the
spiritual authority. The patriarch combined in his person both
authorities, and was in his own household both priest and king,
and so originally was in his own tribe the chief, and in his
kingdom the king. When the two offices became separated is not
known. In the time of Abraham they were still united.
Melchisedech, king of Salem, was both priest and king, and the
earliest historical records of kings present them as offering
sacrifices. Even the Roman emperor was Pontifex Maximus as well
as Imperator, but that was so not because the two offices were
held to be inseparable, but because they were both conferred on
the same person by the republic. In Egypt, in the time of Moses,
the royal authority and the priestly were separated and held by
different persons. Moses, in his legislation for his nation,
separated them, and instituted a sacerdotal order or caste. The
heads of tribes and the heads of families are, under his law,
princes, but not priests, and the priesthood is conferred on and
restricted to his own tribe of Levi, and more especially the
family of his own brother Aaron.

The priestly office by its own nature is superior to the kingly,
and in all primitive nations with a separate, organized
priesthood, whether a true priesthood or a corrupt, the priest is
held to be above the king, elects or establishes the law by which
is selected the temporal chief, and inducts him into his office,
as if he received his authority from God through the priesthood.
The Christian priesthood is not a caste, and is transmitted by
the election of grace, not as with the Israelites and all
sacerdotal nations, by natural Generation. Like Him whose
priests they are, Christian priests are priests after the order
of Melchisedech, who was without priestly descent, without father
or mother of the priestly line. But in being priests after the
order of Melchisedech, they are both priests and kings, as
Melchisedech was, and as was our Lord himself, to whom was given
by his Father all power in heaven and in earth. The Pope, or
Supreme Pontiff, is the vicar of our Lord on earth, his
representative--the representative not only of him who is our
invisible High-Priest, but of him who is King of kings and Lord
of lords, therefore of both the priestly and the kingly power.
Consequently, no one can have any mission to govern in the state
any more than in the church, unless derived from God directly or
indirectly through the Pope or Supreme Pontiff. Many theologians
and canonists in the Middle Ages so held, and a few perhaps hold
so still. The bulls and briefs of several Popes, as Gregory VII.,
Innocent Ill., Gregory IX., Innocent IV., and Boniface VIII.,
have the appearance of favoring it.

At one period the greater part of the medieval kingdoms and
principalities were fiefs of the Holy See, and recognized the
Holy Father as their suzerain. The Pope revived the imperial
diunity in the person of Charlemagne, and none could claim that
dignity in the Western world unless elected and crowned by him,
that is, unless elected directly by the Pope or by electors
designated by him, and acting under his authority. There can be
no question that the spiritual is superior to the temporal, and
that the temporal is bound in the very nature of things to conform
to the spiritual, and any law enacted by the civil power in
contravention of the law of God is null and void from the
beginning. This is what Mr. Seward meant by the higher law, a
law higher even than the Constitution of the United States.
Supposing this higher law, and supposing that kings and princes
hold from God through the spiritual society, it is very evident
that the chief of that society would have the right to deprive
them, and to absolve their subjects, as on several occasions he
actually has done.

But this theory has never been a dogma of the Church, nor, to any
great extent, except for a brief period, maintained by
theologians or canonists. The Pope conferred the imperial
dignity on Charlemagne and his successors, but not the civil
power, at least out of the Pope's own temporal dominions. The
emperor of Germany was at first elected by the Pope, and
afterwards by hereditary electors designated or accepted by him,
but the king of the Germans with the full royal authority could
be elected and enthroned without the papal intervention or
permission. The suzerainty of the Holy See over Italy, Naples,
Aragon, Muscovy, England, and other European states, was by
virtue of feudal relations, not by virtue of the spiritual authority
of the Holy See or the vicarship of the Holy Father. The right
to govern under feudalism was simply an estate, or property; and
as the church could acquire and hold property, nothing prevented
her holding fiefs, or her chief from being suzerain. The
expressions in the papal briefs and bulls, taken in connection
with the special relations existing between the Pope and emperor
in the Middle Ages, and his relations with other states as their
feudal sovereign, explained by the controversies concerning
rights growing out of these relations, will be found to give no
countenance to the theory in question.

These relations really existed, and they gave the Pope certain
temporal rights in certain states, even the temporal supremacy,
as he has still in what is left him of the States of the Church;
but they were exceptional or accidental relations, not the
universal and essential relations between the church and the
state. The rights that grew out of these relations were real
rights, sacred and inviolable, but only where and while the
relations subsisted. They, for the most part, grew out of the
feudal system introduced into the Roman empire by its barbarian
conquerors, and necessarily ceased with the political order in
which they originated. Undoubtedly the church consecrated civil
rulers, but this did not imply that they received their power or
right to govern from God through her; but implied that their
persons were sacred, and that violence to them would be
sacrilege; that they held the Christian faith, and acknowledged
themselves bound to protect it, and to govern their subjects
justly, according to the law of God.

The church, moreover, has always recognized the distinction of
the two powers, and although the Pope owes to the fact that he is
chief of the spiritual society, his temporal principality, no
theologian or canonist of the slightest respectability would
argue that he derives his rights as temporal sovereign from his
rights as pontiff. His rights as pontiff depend on the express
appointment of God; his rights as temporal prince are derived
from the same source from which other princes derive their
rights, and are held by the same tenure. Hence canonists have
maintained that the subjects of other states may even engage in
war with the Pope as prince, without breach of their fidelity to
him as pontiff or supreme visible head of the church.

The church not only distinguishes between the two powers, but
recognizes as legitimate, governments that manifestly do not
derive from God through her. St. Paul enjoins obedience to the
Roman emperors for conscience' sake, and the church teaches that
infidels and heretics may have legitimate government; and if she
has ever denied the right of any infidel or heretical prince, it
has been on the ground that the constitution and laws of his
principality require him to profess and protect the Catholic
faith. She tolerates resistance in a non-Catholic state no more
than in a Catholic state to the prince; and if she has not
condemned and cut off from her communion the Catholics who in our
struggle have joined the Secessionists and fought in their ranks
against the United States, it is because the prevalence of the
doctrine of State sovereignty has seemed to leave a reasonable
doubt whether they were really rebels fighting against their
legitimate sovereign or not.

No doubt, as the authority of the church is derived immediately
from God in a supernatural manner, and as she holds that the
state derives its authority only mediately from him, in a natural
mode, she asserts the superiority of her authority, and that, in
case of conflict between the two powers, the civil must yield.
But this is only saying that supernatural is above natural.
But--and this is the important point--she does not teach, nor
permit the faithful to hold, that the supernatural abrogates the
natural, or in any way supersedes it. Grace, say the
theologians, supposes nature, gratia supponit naturam. The
church in the matter of government accepts the natural, aids it,
elevates it, and is its firmest support.

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