Lecture VI. The Sovereignty of God over the Course of the World

And a voice came out from the throne, saying: Give praise to our God, all ye His servants; and you that fear Him, little and great. And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunders, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord our God, the Almighty, hath reigned.' Apoc. xix. 5, 6.

After all that the world can do, God is still upon His throne: and after all the rebellions of man, He sits above the water-floods, and abides a King for ever. The last subject which remains for us is the sovereignty of God over the course of the world.

This vision which St. John describes, is the summing-up of the whole history of the world, and of the conflict between the sovereignty of God and the rebellious will of man. This conflict began in Paradise, and will never cease until the Son of God shall come to judge the living and the dead.

In these days, any man who quotes the statutes of an earthly kingdom is listened to; for an immediate, prompt, and inexorable power executes, at once, its sentence upon all gainsayers; but any man who quotes the laws of Holy Scripture is derided, because the Divine judgment tarries, and the sovereignty of God bides its time: because judgment is not speedily executed upon earth, the heart of man is set to do evil. But we are not ashamed to quote the words of Holy Writ; for Holy Writ is the word of God, and Heaven and earth shall pass away, but His word shall not pass.awray.

The history written in Holy Scripture is God's history of His own sovereignty. From first to last, it is the annals of the reign of God over the world: from the Creation, to the manifestation of His kingdom in Jesus Christ, the whole narrative of the sacred Books is the revelation of the sovereignty of God over men and nations. It is, therefore, the history of the world written by a supernatural light; and an interpretation of the history of the world as it is read by the principalities and powers in heavenly places, to whom is made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God. I take, therefore, the page of Holy Scripture as the witness of the sovereignty of God over the course of this world. To illustrate my subject — because I can do no more than give its outline — it is enough to remind you that, from Adam to Noe, God had His servants on earth, who did His will in the midst of those who rebelled against Him. He was sovereign over both: in grace over the faithful, in justice over the rebellious. The Flood, which purged the earth, was an act of God's judicial sovereignty upon the sins of man. From Noe to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to the Messias — that is, to the coming of God in our manhood — the sovereignty of God was more and more visibly displayed among men, until it was incorporated in the priesthood and the kingdom of Israel. But the theocracy of Israel was only a shadow: a type and prophecy of a more manifest revelation and of a sovereignty yet to come. The law was the shadow, the gospel is the substance: that which was typified in the theocracy of Israel was fulfilled in the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ. The coming of our Divine Lord into the world was the foundation of His kingdom and the revelation of His sovereign power, which, by the line of His Vicars upon earth, He exercises at this day.

Let us here take up again our last subject. We have seen that God has created two societies for the sanctification of man, — the natural society, or the human and political or civil order; the supernatural society, or the order of grace, which is His Church; and that His will and predestination was, that these two societies should be united together; so. that as the body and soul in man constitute one perfect humanity, so the natural and the supernatural societies should be united together in their full integrity and perfect amity under one Head, Jesus Christ, each retaining its due proportions of power, and both mutually co-operating for the welfare and sanctification of mankind. This was our last conclusion. And I then pointed out that the civilisation of mankind, to be true, must be Christian; that no civilisation is real but that which is

Christian; that civilisation, if it puts off its Christianity, returns again to the order of nature, and becomes merely human, and incurs all the penalties of its relapse; that all progress in the world, intellectual, moral, social, civil, and political, depends, as upon its chief condition, on the direction and the laws of Christianity; and that when civilisation departs from Christianity, instead of progressing, it goes backward, and falls from the order which God has instituted for its perfection. It relapses into the state of man before the Son of God came into this world, and the kingdom of God was revealed. When, therefore, we hear the Catholic Church, and above all, the head of the Catholic Church, denounced as an obstacle to civilisation and to progress, it is the whispering of that same tempting voice which, in the garden, said, ' Why hath God commanded you?' and ' For God doth know.'1 Civilisation, as the world preaches it, is the will and the intellect claiming independence of the laws of God; and progress is, man going where he wills and doing as he lists. From the conclusion of our last subject, this follows as a corollary — that civilisation without 1 Gen. iii. 1-5.

Christianity is degradation, and that social progress out of the line of that civilisation is a going backward.

1. There is no doubt that the Christian civilisation of the world is, in part, broken up, and, in part, threatened: and that throughout the whole of Christendom. I am met therefore, at the outset, with the objection, 'Where, then, is this sovereignty? The nations of the world are casting it off. People that were Christian are Christian now no longer. Those who were highly Catholic have rejected, if not the Catholic Church, at least the temporal power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. You are too late in the day to talk of the sovereignty of God. In the middle ages it may have been superstitiously believed, but the illumination of these latter ages has cast it off.' To this I reply: it is most true, as a fact, that these two societies, natural and supernatural, which ought to be united for the welfare of mankind, are at this moment almost everywhere disunited. This separation began when the Oriental, or Eastern Church, severed itself from the unity of the Catholic Church, and fell under the supremacy of the Imperial power. From that time the civil power of the empire fostered, encouraged, and abetted the spread of schism for its own purposes. Religion, under the direction of the civil power, becomes a powerful instrument of political government. It becomes a department of the State, and a vast field for patronage. Such the separated Eastern Church became in the hands of the Byzantine Emperors. From that time it became intensely Erastian — that is to say, the supreme fountain of its jurisdiction, and the supreme guide of its legislation and of its executive power, was in the civil authority. Flowing from this came unimaginable corruptions, which exist to this day. Perhaps there is no part of Christendom which exhibits a sterility so utter, or a fixedness so rigid and death-like, as the Oriental Church separated from the Holy See.

Next, the same usurpation by the civil powers manifested itself in the north and in the west of Europe. It would be against my will to go into any detail of matters nearer home; but for clearness it must be said that, for the last three hundred years, in Germany and in these countries, the relation of the two societies, civil and spiritual, and the order which God had instituted, have been inverted. Religion has been made a part of legislation and of government. Religion and State Churches have been, as it is called, * established.' But this is the inversion of the whole Divine order. It is the State that needs to be established by the Church, not the Church by the State; the inferior cannot sustain the superior. It is not the order of nature that upholds the order of grace; it is the order of grace that upholds and perfects the order of nature. All human power, human authority, human legislation, human society, depends, as I have shown, for its perfection, its perpetuity, its progress, its welfare, its peace, upon the sovereignty of God, by and through His Church. The Church may hold and use temporal power, but it will not be established by it. In other countries, which profess to remain within the unity of the Catholic Church, has appeared a pernicious illusion, which has blinded and seduced many better minds. It is called the ' Free Church in the Free State.' This imagination rests on the assumption that the two societies are perfectly free and independent one of another, which is absolutely true of the Church, but absolutely false of the State; that they are two societies upon a perfect equality. This again is absolutely false, because the supernatural or Divine order is higher than the natural and human. Lastly, it assumes that they may go each their way without reciprocal duties and mutual co-operation; which is contrary to the law of God, both in nature and in grace. We have seen that the supernatural society elevates and perfects the natural, even in the order of civilisation. The separation of these two works of God is the loss and fall of the civil and political society of the world. But in the east, the north, the west, and now in the south of Christendom, there are not only theories and principles, but actual policies and systems of legislation, the ultimate object of which is to divorce and to separate the two societies which God has created to be united together. You are aware that, in the Syllabus, the Holy See has condemned the following proposition: ' That the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.'2

2. Such are the historical facts. Let us now see what is the cause, what has brought about this separation of the two societies which ought to be united. In one word, it is the rejection of the sovereignty of God: first, individuals have rejected, 2 Syllab. Pii. IX. Prop. 55.

one by one, the prerogative of God over the intellect and over the will; then, as they grow in number and in activity, they form a public opinion, which at last directs the course of legislation and rejects the sovereignty of God over society. And every Christian nation, England included, has reached an advanced point in this departure from God. You will ask, 'How could this have ever come to pass? How was it that the work of God's providence, which was rising like sap in a vigorous and living tree, should have sunk down again to the root, and that the tree, once so green and widespread, should have begun to wither?" The truth must be told without fear. It was because in Christendom the salt had begun to lose its savour. The blood of Christian nations was tainted. Do not confound Christian nations with the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church is imperishable, immutable in its sanctity. Every heresy and schism, every pestilence, moral, intellectual, and spiritual^ the Church expels from its living system, as the living and healthful action of the human body expels the morbid humours which threaten its life: but in every nation individuals may corrupt and accumulate in number, and may at last do all manner of evil against the Church. For example; in the period before the Council of Constance, the nations of Europe were beginning, from national pride and mutual jealousy, to rise against the spiritual authority of the Church, and to separate themselves and their laws from the laws of the Church, into what by a strange irony was called 6 obediences.' This spirit of schismatical nationality caused what is called the great western schism: out of the great western schism came, ultimately, what is called the Keformation, or the final separation of many nations from the unity of the Catholic Church. But you may again ask, ' What was the cause of this schismatical nationalism?' The truth must be told, 'The salt had lost its savour.' Kings and princes, pastors and people, had forsaken their first charity. They were led by the spirit of the world rather than by the Spirit of God. Zeal, self-denial, mortification, devotion, fidelity, piety, generosity, compassion for the poor, love of souls, were faint and low. Christian men lived lives that were not Christian; society was corrupted: and the course of kingdoms and of legislation swerved out of the track of faith. This is not to be denied. And what came next? Heresies and schisms. There is not a heresy, so far as I can remember, in the history of the Church, which has not begun in some bishop or priest. Some man, ordained to be a witness of truth, and a preacher of justice, has fallen from the Church which is divinely guided to teach the faithful, as Satan fell like lightning from Heaven. They who should have been as a light to guide the intellect of men be-came a wildfire to blast and wither the soul. And whence came these heresies'? From intellectual pride; that is, from the revolt of the intellect against the sovereignty of faith, springing from a perverse will and confirming its perversion. From heresies came schisms like that which has separated England these three hundred years from the unity of the Church. Since that evil day, the spiritual life of England has withered. We are told by public authority, that one-half of the people of England never set their foot in a place of worship. Whether that calculation be true or not, I leave to those who made it to determine; but we are told, and I repeat what I have heard, that in this city of London, one-half — that is, a million and a half of men — on this very day, and at this very hour at which I am speaking, neither have been, nor in the course of this day will be, in any place of Christian worship. May I not well say, then, the salt has lost its savour? And what is the result upon the public life and laws of England? To legislate for a people divided in religion is impossible, unless we exclude religion from legislation. Christianity must be shut out of the sphere of legislation before you can make laws applicable to those who are divided in religion. What is the effect of such legislation? Truth and error are put upon the same footing. Toleration becomes a duty, and under cover of toleration it has come to pass that the civil society of the world has ceased to distinguish truth from error. Christianity is left to the individual conscience; it is no longer a matter of public law. Again, in the education of children, religion must be excluded from the school; or, in other words, the baptised child cannot be educated in the faith of his baptism: that is to say, he must be robbed of his inheritance. And why? Because men will wrangle about religion, and therefore their poor children are to grow up without the knowledge of God and their Redeemer. Men have broken the bonds of faith; and the penalty falls upon their children's children.

3. The civil society of the world, then, has been departing, in its legislation, in its public laws, in the education of the young, from the sovereignty of God through His Church. Now the consequences of this are twofold. First of all, as to the Church. The Church has two offices: the one is to convert and to save individuals, and the other is to sanctify and to uphold the civil order of mankind. But when the civil society of man refuses any longer to be guided and upheld by the sanctifying grace and the sovereignty of God, the Church shakes off the dust from its feet, and goes back to its apostolic work of saving men one by one. It is at this time doing that work, and will do it; and in doing it the Church becomes more free, more independent, more separate from all contacts and embarrassments of this world. It may indeed be persecuted, perhaps it may become less in numbers,.because nations and races go out from it. But it becomes once more, what it was in the beginning, a society of individuals, vigorous, pure, living, and life-giving. So much for the consequences to the Church. For the Church, then, we have no fear. But what is its consequence on the State or political society of men? I may sum it up in these three words: it is privation, degradation, and dissolution.

First, as man, when he separates himself from God, is deprived of supernatural grace, which sustains his whole moral and spiritual life; even so the civil society of a nation, when it separates from the Church, in like manner is deprived of its supernatural perfection. It no longer has the support and guidance, the light and sanctification, which the Kingdom of God bestowed upon it. Just as men are born, through the sin of Adam, into a state of privation, so the kingdom or people, which has separated itself from the Church, is thereby deprived of the truth and grace of Christianity. Generation after generation are born into that state of public privation of the light and grace of faith.

Secondly, if Christianity be the elevation of a people, to fall from it is a degradation; because, as I said in the beginning, it is a retrograde movement, a going backward from the state of Christian civilisation into the state of nature before Christianity entered into the civil life of men.

And, thirdly, it is dissolution; because the bonds of civil society are loosened. As man, who came out of the dust, when his living spirit departs, returns to dust again, so, most assuredly, every state or kingdom which rejects the sovereignty of God, in due time will dissolve and turn again into its original confusion. How this may happen, we need not seek to know; whether by revolutions, or internal disorders, or loss of coherence, or the impossibility of maintaining its social state, or by foreign aggression, by warfare, by conquest, by whatsoever means I know not; but the word of God stands plain, and sooner or later shall be fulfilled: ' The nation and the kingdom that will not serve Thee, shall perish;'3 and that, not only by a judicial sentence, but by an intrinsic law of its own being, which works out its own dissolution.

And if such be the effect of this revolt upon the civil society of the world, what is its effect upon men one by one? When families and households have lost their domestic Christianity, which illuminated and sanctified parents and children, brothers and sisters, the result can be easily foreseen. If, as ' Isaias Ix. 12.

M has been said before, submission to the sovereignty of God by faith be the perfection and the dignity of the intellect, then, most assuredly, the loss of that submission is its abasement. If submission of the will to the sovereignty of God, to the laws of faith and of charity, be the perfection of the human heart, then, certainly, any man or woman who refuses to submit to that sovereignty is degraded. If to be a disciple of Jesus Christ be the highest and most perfect state to which we can attain, they who fall from that state of discipleship fall from their dignity and welfare. And when that is the condition of households, God help such a people, for there is no help left in themselves.

4. Such, then, being the first consequences upon states, families, and men, what must be the future of the world, in the course upon which nations and people have now entered? First of all, the moral powers of the civil society of the world will become weaker and weaker. The moral authority, the moral sanctions, the moral influence, the power of prevailing over subjects to live in civil obedience, become less and less potent and persuasive in proportion as the State departs from its public profession and practice of Christianity. As the government becomes weak, its power of coercing is paralysed, its power of conciliating is lost. The same befalls the authority of parents over their children; the moral self-control in which men ought to be trained up becomes impossible. Philosophers describe a man who has lost self-control— that is, the government over himself — as an intemperate man. And when men have lost the government over their passions, lusts, anger, avarice, and the like, what will be the state of society and of the commonwealth? Next, while the moral power diminishes, the material power must be perpetually increased — laws of coercion,. penalties, police, standing armies. When men can no longer be governed by the free assent of the reason convinced of duty, and by the spontaneous obedience of the will submitted to the law, what remains to government but brute force? At this moment, five or six millions of men are / under arms in the heart of this Christian Europe of ours, and are looking in each other's face, watching to see who shall make the first spring. St. Paul, describing the state of men in the last times, says that they shall be ' faithless;' the word in the

1G4 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD original means men with whom you can make no treaties; aWov^o/,4 men in whose fidelity you. cannot trust; with whom you can make neither convention nor truce, whom no international law, no respect of mutual rights can bind. And are not these last days now upon us? What treaty, or law, or obligation binding nations to respect the rights of weaker neighbours is respected now? Treaties bind no one, if interest intervene. Compacts and conventions perish, where there is hope to extend a frontier, or to annex a province, or sacrilegiously to usurp a city. Then it is sufficient to put the sword through all treaties and all conventions. The fruit of this is manifest — perpetual danger of external war, and the most horrible conflicts which this world has ever seen. And the conflicts which were external become internal too. A spirit of strife is poured out upon men; class is set against class, interest against interest, household against household, man against man, men against their rulers, against law, against authority. In the shock and disorder of contentions, society is dissolved. When the masses learn to know their power, the day is come to use it. From all this

« 2 Tim. iii. 3.

results one of two things: either the tyranny of a multitude, blind to everything but the freaks and gusts of its own will, or the iron despotism of a military dictator. Wo to the world when the Legislator, who, on the mountain, promulgated the eight beatitudes, is no longer acknowledged as the Lawgiver and Sovereign of mankind! There remains nothing for the nations but the raging sea of popular.lawlessness, or the iron rule of despots. 5. If such be the effect upon the world, what will be the effect upon the Church'? Let us sum up what is the state of the Church at this moment. There never was a time, from the beginning of Christianity, when the Catholic Church was so widespread as it is now; when it had so nearly attained to that universal sway which is its Divine prerogative. Though the number of nations and of men that are external to Christianity still be vast, yet the wide-spread missions of the Church, extending beyond its visible pale, are at this day penetrating into all races and peoples upon earth. The circle of its unity, the spread and sway of its Episcopate, the apostolic thrones of the Church, at this moment not only reach throughout the Old World, but overshadow the

New. It has taken possession not only of the four continents known to our ancestors, but it holds also a fifth, with the islands of the Southern Seas. The sovereignty which began in the guest chamber at Jerusalem, and afterwards spread through the dispersion of Israel, and then extended to the fulness of the Gentiles, and then formed Christian Europe, has taken possession of America in the North and in the South, and has penetrated into Asia; is surrounding Africa, has obtained for its possession the great continent of Australia, and has made its home in the islands of the Pacific. There is no part of the world in which the one Church, Catholic and Roman, united to its one visible Head, is not at this moment to be found. Be sure of it, whatsoever may befall the civil society of the world, nothing can wither the mystical vine. There never was a moment when that world-wide Church was so perfectly united — its pastors to its people, and both to their visible Head.

The union of the pastors with their people is never so intense as when the world rejects them. Take Ireland, for example. The pastors of Ireland have been not only the spiritual shepherds of that inviolate Catholic people, but they have been the friends, the counsellors — I may say the guardians and the rulers of Ireland, through three hundred years of suffering. And that which has taken place in Ireland is taking place at this moment all over the Christian world. In France, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, wheresoever the civil society of the world turns against the faith and against the Holy See, there at once the people rally round their pastors with an intensity of union and fidelity which has never been surpassed. When the winds rave and the sun is covered, then the sheep and their shepherds draw together. And there is the same unity among the pastors one with another. The bishops of the Church were never more of one mind and of one heart than they are now. We read every day, in papers that profess to know the inmost mind of the Catholic Church, and yet know nothing, because they are either misled or they willingly go astray from truth — and which it may be I am not the judge to say — we read every day that, among the bishops of the Catholic Church who met last year in the (Ecumenical Council, there were oppositions, debates, divisions. True it is, that in matters of prudence and legislation we had our divergences of judgment; but in matters of Catholic doctrine and faith, none existed. The result is proof. The world has endeavoured to find among the bishops of the Church some patron or abettor of its rebellion against the Holy See. But not one can be found. Almost every one who, in the liberty which we all enjoyed, judged and spoke with freedom on matters outside the faith, have explicitly and publicly declared their perfect and entire submission to the Divine authority of the Council. The unity of the pastors of the Teaching Church was never more solid and compact. I say it without hesitation, and I repeat it again — the Episcopate never was so unanimous as at this hour. After the Councils of Nice, Chalcedon, Constance, and Trent, there were bishops of the Church who forsook its unity, who fell, as I said before, like lightning from heaven. Now, at this moment, the unity of the bishops of the Church throughout the whole world is such, that I know not of one who has withdrawn his obedience from its Divine authority. I know not, I say, of one, and until I see the fact, I shall believe there will be none. But, more than this: the unity of faith at this moment throughout the

Catholic Church is such that there does not exist (what is rife elsewhere) an open question touching the matter of faith. There was a question, not open indeed, but not denned until the other day, and that question was this: ' Did our Divine Saviour promise to St. Peter that he and his successors/by the Divine assistance, should continue to the end of time to be the supreme and unerring teachers of the faith which He delivered?' There were a few who thought that the promise was made to the successors of St. Peter, to be enjoyed by him only when acting with the bishops throughout the world; but the Church ever believed that the promise was made not only to the successors of Peter together with the bishops, but to the successors of Peter as such; and that, as the Pontiff holds the supreme authority and jurisdiction attached to the Primacy, so he has also a Divine assistance perpetually guid- / ing him, in order that, in the exercise of his supreme authority, upon which the whole Church of God depends, the successor of St. Peter and the Vicar of the Good Shepherd shall never go astray. There was, indeed, a divergence so far, and within that narrow limit: a divergence now closed for ever by the Divine authority of the Church, and sealed with the signet of the Spirit of Truth. I say, then, there never was a time when, in faith, the Church throughout the world was so united; and united not only in what it believes, but in the principle upon which it believes; because it holds with one heart the infallibility of the supreme and Divine authority from which all teaching flows. And, further, the Church is at this moment more self-evident in the eyes of men than in any previous age of the world. There never was a time when the words of our Lord were more emphatically, I may say, more articulately fulfilled, ' A city that is set on a mountain cannot be hid;'5 and most assuredly the Catholic and Eoman Church at this moment stands out with a definite universality, with a visible unity, with an effulgence of light, never seen before. I do not think that anybody who professes to believe in a Church at all can stand for a moment in doubt whether the Church of Jesus Christ be the Greek Church, or the Anglican Church, or the Church Catholic and Roman, which alone spreads from sunrise to sunset. Our Lord said to His Apostles,; You are the light of the world,' and never has that light shone out of 5 St. Matt. v. 14.

darkness with so luminous a splendour, giving evidence of itself, and testifying so clearly to its own existence and to its own authority, as at this hour. The sovereignty, therefore, of God, manifested through His Church, is at this moment more than ever revealed to the intellect and to the heart of men. Whether they will believe or whether they will not believe, there is a system spreading from east to west, not only claiming 1800 years of traditionary history, but exercising its prerogatives at this day, and manifestly seen to exercise them: known also never to have abdicated them for an hour; inflexible in its fidelity to the Divine revelation, requiring of all men — from its highest pastor r the supreme Pontiff, who sits on the throne as Vicar of Jesus Christ, down to the little Catholic child in the school — the same act of faith, the same submis- / sion of the intellect and of the will to the sovereignty of God. No one is exempt from that changeless law of faith and of submission. It is one and the same for all. Now, a system like this is so unlike anything human, it has upon it notesr tokens, marks so altogether supernatural, that men now acknowledge it to be either Christ or Antichrist. There is nothing between these extremes..

Most true is this alternative. The Catholic Church is either the masterpiece of Satan or the kingdom of the Son of God.

Now I will conclude by drawing two very plain consequences: first, that all things are fulfilling the will of God. All things are for the sake of His elect, and He is accomplishing in the world His sovereignty in a way so unerring and so luminous, that they who believe can see it, and they who will not believe, in their blindness seem to be reduced to railing instead of reasoning against it. I have pointed out that there has been a line of the faithful servants of God, in all ages, from the beginning, — an unbroken chain, link within link; from just Abel down to the present day. This line of faithful became a people, chosen and preserved, by the grace of God, before and after the Incarnation; organised and knit together into one kingdom of faith. The typical Church of Israel was a shadow; the substance of the shadow is the Church of Jesus Christ. This family of grace is the special object, for the salvation of which all the order of God's sovereignty has been and is directed. The empires of the ancient world were employed to chastise, or to liberate, or to restore, or to scatter it. The kingdoms and revolutions of the Christian world, in like manner, fulfil His purpose towards His elect. God willed all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the Truth. He willed also that all men should be called to the unity of the Church. His Apostles were sent to make disciples of all nations. Whoso will believe, he may freely enter into it; whoso will not believe, he closes the door against himself. The gates of the heavenly city stand open day and night; God never shuts them. They who have never heard of the kingdom of God will not have to give an account of it. They will be judged by the little they knew, and not by that which they could not have known. Those who might have known it, will be judged according to the way in which they received or rejected the light that was offered to them. All things are ordered for this work of salvation. God knows from all eternity who will be saved, and how many they will be. He does not diminish the number by refusing salvation to the willing, and He will not multiply the number by forcing the freewill of those who will not believe. It is a mystery of sovereign grace and of human freedom.

All things are working for the accomplishment of the mystery of salvation: ' all things work together for good to those who love God.'6 Even the sins and the wickedness and the persecutions of this world, all tend to the salvation of those who believe. This world is the wine-press, in which the grapes are trodden; it is the threshing-floor, on which the wheat is beaten and winnowed from the chaff. The wine and the wheat are being made ready for the supper of the Lamb in the kingdom of God. These are the elect of God, who are faithful, and persevere in faith unto the end. The words, therefore, of John the Baptist are true at this hour. Our Divine Lord is in the midst of His Church, and ' His fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but the chaff He will burn Avith unquenchable fire.'7 If this be not sovereignty, in what does it consist? And it is of this the Apostle spoke when he said, in his own name and in the name of his successors, ' We are unto God the good odour of Christ, in them who are saved and in them who perish: to some, indeed, the odour of death unto death: but to the 6 Rom. viii. 28. " St. Matt. iii. 12.

others, the odour of life unto life.'8 That work of separation is going on now. It is not stayed, but accomplished by the apostasy of the civil order of men. They may go their way in the civilisation they have chosen, and in the progress of which they boast, but they will not diminish by one jot or tittle the sovereignty of God over the world. No; nor will they diminish the manifestation of that sovereignty in the confusions and torments of the world, to which it is hastening in speed. Its disorders, its revolutions, the rising of people against people and kingdom against kingdom, the dissensions among brethren, the treason against laws, the conspiracies which undermine the social order of the world, the visible changing into death and into dust, which is upon the whole political order of men who have renounced Christianity,— all this manifests, by an unconscious acknowledgment, the sovereignty of God. The Church, by its unity, its universality, its luminous action upon the intellect of men, whether they will believe or not; the Holy See, imperishable in the midst of eighteen hundred years of conflict, imperial over the intellect and will of men, reign- 8 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16.

ing in the supernatural order over nations, races, and people; — these things also manifest the sovereignty of God. When St. Paul was shipwrecked upon the coast of Malta, a viper came out of the fire and fastened on his hand. The people at first said, ' This is a murderer, whom the vengeance of God will not suffer to live.' But when they saw that he neither swelled nor fell down dead, when unhurt he shook the deadly beast into the fire, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god. Surely the reason of man, seeing that the endless, manifold, world-wide, unrelenting enmity of the serpent has never prevailed over the Catholic and Roman Church; that all the power and malice of the world have never been able to overthrow the sovereignty of the Holy See, even though revolutions may sacrilegiously occupy the city of Rome, which the providence of God has given to be the throne of His Vicar — though at first they think the Church of Jesus Christ to be Antichrist, reason must, on calmer, wiser thoughts, conclude that there is in it a life which is not of man, and a power, which is not for evil, but for good; and if so, that it must be the life and the power of God.

We have come now to the end of what I have endeavoured to say. You will recollect that we have seen, first, that the sovereignty of God over the intellect by faith illuminates, elevates, and perfects the reason of man, and that to reject faith is to degrade the reason. Secondly, that the sovereignty of God over the will by the law and grace of charity, perfects the image of God in man. Thirdly, that the sovereignty of God, over the whole civil order and collective commonwealth of men, is the principle from which the welfare and well-being, the civilisation, the progress of human society depends. And now we have traced out, slightly and faintly, and only in outline, as I well know, the sovereignty of God over the whole world, — enough, at least, to show that the apostacy of the world does in no way diminish that sovereignty, but that in its rebellion it is accomplishing and perfecting the work to which that sovereignty is directed; and, further, that at this time there are tokens which, I might almost say, are like the voices and thunderings in heaven, and the writings of a man's hand upon the wall, warning the world of those things which are coming upon the earth. There are voices as the

N voices of a great multitude, not only in heaven, but among men. These earthly voices are discordant, harsh, and terrific. They are the cries of Antichristian and anti-social revolutions, visible on the face of nations, of dark and sanguinary conspiracies, hiding themselves under the surface of the earth — more perilous, because not seen. The time is come when the only safety for nations and for men is in the recognition of the sovereignty of God. There is nothing else that can save the Christian society of the world — nothing else that can save the soul in the day of the great account.

1 We give Thee thanks, 0 Lord God Almighty, who art, and who wast, and who art to come; because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and Thou hast reigned.

' And the nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that Thou shouldst render reward to Thy servants, the prophets, and the saints, and to them that fear Thy Name, little and¹ great; and shouldst destroy them who have corrupted the earth.'9

' Great and wonderful are Thy works, 0 Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, 0 King of Ages.

' Who shall not fear Thee, 0 Lord, and magnify Thy Name? For Thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and shall adore in Thy sight, because Thy judgments are manifest.'10

9 Apoc. xi. 15, 17, 18. 10 Ibid. xv. 3, 4.

Abraham, 148.

Abuse of the will, 39, 41.

Accidents of the Church, 8.

Account to be rendered, 57.

Act of faith, 3, 5, 52; of reason, 12.

Adam, the first, 14, 46, 64; the second, 70.

Advent of the Son of God, 30.

Affections of man, 41.

Africa, 169.

Agony of our Lord, 45, 62, 78, 131.

Allies on the Formation of Christendom, 133.

Alphabet, letters of the, 48.

Altar, Sacrament of the, 9, 55, 131.

America, 169.

Anarchy, gospel of, 61.

Anathema of the Vatican Council, 3.

Anatomy, 24.

Angelic salutation, 43.

Anglicanism, 35, 170.

Animals have not will, 37.

Antagonism, homage of, 103.

Antichrist, 110, 171, 176.

Antioch, 82.

Apocalypse quoted, 128.

Apostles, 69, 173.

Appetite, rational, 32.

Aquinas, St. Thomas, 20, 22.

Aristotle, 19, 20. Armies, standing, 163. Ascension of our Lord, 64. Assistance, Divine, 11, 83, 169. Athenians, St. Paul to the, 1, 8,

Athens, morals of ancient, 133. Augustine quoted, 16, 116. Australia, 169. Authority, 4, 5, 11. Axioms of science, 22.

Baptism, 4, 46, 63, 119, 158.

Beatitudes, the eight, 69.

Bede, quoted, 127.

Belief in truth, 3; the obedience of faith, 12.

Benedictions of sweetness, 54. Bishops, 106, 167. Blessings of sweetness, 54. Blood, the Precious, 62, 78, 92,

Body, mystical, 48, 64. Bonds of sin, 56. Burial, intramural, 140. Byzantine emperors, 152.

Canons of the Vatican Council, 3. Carmel, the beauty of, 87. Catholic Church, the unity of, 34; testimony of, 51.

Cemeteries, Christian, 100.

Certainty, Divine, 11, 29; axioms of, 23.

Charity, 78, 130.

Chemistry, 24.

Christendom, 51, 76.

Christianity, history of, 20; at stake, 27.

Church of Jesus Christ, 8; unity of, 9, 125, 166, 175; indefectibility of, 8, 67, 118; preserving revelation, 52; formation of, 66; and state, 134, 154, 162; accidents of, 8.

Civilisation without Christianity, 133, 142; modern, 107, 138, 150.

Commandments of God, 41, 69.

Communion of Saints, 17, 100, 109.

Conscience, 25, 56.

Consciousness, facts of, 26.

Constitutions of the Vatican Council, 27.

Contemplation of truth, 5.

Council of Constance, 156; of Florence, 83; of Trent, 168; of the Vatican, 2, 27, 83, 167.

Creator, God as, 2, 6, 34, 36.

Credulity of men, 36, 53.

Creed, haptismal, 35.

Critics of God, 12.

4 Crown -rights' of Jesus Christ, 86.

Culture, intellectual, 21.

DAVID, his highest title to glory,

Death, penalty of, 4. Debasement of human reason, 25. Decrees of the Vatican Council,

Degradation of the intellect, 23. Deists, 24.

Deprivation of unbelief, 23. Dignity of the intellect, 14, 20, 25. Disciples of God, 12. Disobedience, irrational, 42, 49. Divinity of God, 6. Doctrines of the faith, 9. Dogma, 121. Dollinger on the Gentile and the

Jew, 133. Donatists, 116. Doubt, 26. Duty of man, 4.

EASTEEN Church, 151.

Education, Christian, 53, 77.

Elevation of reason, 23.

Episcopate, 106.

Equilibrium of liberty, 39.

Erastianism, 152.

Error, responsibility for, 5; in the Church, 122. Ethics of Aristotle, 20. Eve, 43. Evidence, uncertainty of, 26; of the truth, 34. Existence of God, 6; of the soul,

24; of the Church, 10, 22. Eye, analogy of the, 32. Ezechiel, the prophet, 19.

FAITH, act of, 3; definition of, 3;

commanded by God, 4; an act of obedience, 22, 33; makes the reason perfect, 52. Fall of man, 35. Flood, 148.

Florence, Council of, 83. Force, brute, 163. France, 108, 167. Freedom of the act of faith, 3; of the will, 37.

Gentile world, 6, 18. Germany, 67, 82.

Ghost, the Holy, 11; perpetual presence of, 11.

God, perfect intelligence, 31; justice of, 33; light of, 14; commands faith, 4; knowledge of, 14; man's ignorance of, 5; vision of, 17, 50.

Gospel, 30; of anarchy, 61.

Governments, weak, 163.

Grace of the Holy Spirit, 65; state of, 46; inspirations of, 54.

Gregory the Great, 73.

Heart of Jesus, 55, 78.

Heptarchy, 76.

Heresy, 123.

History of Christianity, 20; of mankind, 8.

Holy Ghost, 11; perpetual presence of, 11.

Homage, two kinds of, 103.

Humanity, Sacred, 44, 114, 120.

Identity of the truth, 9. Idiotcy of intellect, 26. Ignorance, vincible, 7; human, 5. Illumination of the reason, 13,

Immutability of the Church, 9. Impossibilities not commanded,

33; to contend with, 53. Incarnation of our Lord, 10, 16,

Incorruptibility of the Church, 8. Incredulity, 114. Indefectibility of the Church, 8,

67, 118. Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff,

28, 71, 83, 102, 107, 169; of the

Church, 28, 124, 128. Innocence, 121. Inspirations of grace, 54. Intellect controlled by the will,

32; and the first temptation,

40; submission of, 4. Ireland, 103, 166. Irenaeus quoted, 42. Isaias, the prophet, 19, 79. Israel, elevation of, 18. Italy, 167.

JESUS CHEIST, the Sacred Heart of, 55, 78; Sacred Humanity of, 14, 44.

Jerusalem, 81, 84.

Jews, 18.

Jurisdiction, key of, 71.

Justice of God, 33, 59; original, 46.

John the Baptist, 174.

Judge of revelation, 123.

Judgment, moral, in man, 6.

KEYS of jurisdiction and science,

71. Kingdom, supernatural, 9; of

God, 160. Knowledge of God, 14.

Law of liberty, 55; international, 164; of God, 7, 35, 48; of morals, 9, 16; of nature, 31.

Legislation of the Church, 74, 77, 130; of revolution, 108.

Libanus, the glory of, 79, 87.

Liberalism, 142.

Liberty, perfect, 38; three kinds of, 38; law of, 55.

Light of God, 14; of nature, 5, 7.

Love of God, 50.

Lutheranism, 137.

Marriage, law of, 77.

Mary, obedience of, 42; united with Jesus, 101. Mary Magdalen, 89, 121.

Messias, 80, 148. Morality, perfect, 15. Morals, law of, 9. Moses, 148. Mount, Sermon on the, 15.

Nature, state of, 46; intellectual and moral, 7. Nice, Council of, 168. Noe, 148.

OBEDIENCE, test of, 4; of faith, 22; of Jesus Christ, 31; irrational, 31; of Mary, 42; first law of the soul, 31.

Ohlation of our Lord, 15.

Ohstinacy, sin of, 114.

Opinions, human, 53.

Opportunities, 57.

Oriental Church, 151.

PAGANISM, 136, 139. Paradise, 40, 147. Paralysis, intellectual, 26. Passion of our Lord, 44, 92, 96. Passions of man, 41. Patriarchs, 18, 93. Patrimony of the Church, 74. Penitence, 121. Perfection of our Lord, 45; of the Blessed, 38; moral, 15. Person of Jesus Christ, 14. Peter, primacy of, 67, 169. Philosophers, modern, 22. Physiology, 24. Pilate, 121. Plato, 19.

Pontiff, the Roman, 28, 81, 169. Primacy of St. Peter, 67, 169. Principles of 1789, 108, 137. Probation, 34.

Progress, modern, 107, 139. Pro-passions of our Lord, 44.

Reason not independent, 3; paralysis of, 26.

Rebellion against God, 41.

Reformation, 136, 156.

Regeneration, 63, 119, 127.

Renaissance, 135.

Respect, mutual, 78, 131.

Responsibility for error, 5, 33.

Resurrection, 97, 115.

Revelation, doctrines of, 34, 52, 122.

Revolution, the French, 142.

Right and wrong, 7.

Rome, the centre of the Christian order, 81; morals of ancient, 133.

Sacrifice, the true, 11, 15.

Saints, Communion of, 17, 100, 109.

Sanctity of the Church, 119.

Saron, the beauty of, 87.

Satan, masterpiece of, 172; messenger of, 49.

Sceptics, standard of, 21, 26.

Schism, 157.

Science, men of, 20; key of, 71.

Scotland, 86.

Self-control, 163.

Sermon on the Mount, 15.

Sin not knowing God, 5, 7; coming through the intellect, 39.

Slavery, extinction of, 76, 129.

Sovereignty of God as Creator, 2, 10, 22.

Spontaneity, 37.

State, 134, 154, 162.

Suarez, 21.

Summa of St. Thomas, 22.

Superstition, 36, 52.

Sweetness, 54.

Syllabus of Pope Pius IX., 154.

Temptation, the first, 40.

Testament, the Old, 18.

Testimony of the Church, 8, 9, 10.

Theism of Plato, 19.

Theology, moral, 20.

Thomas, Apostle, 114; Aquinas, 20, 22.

Toleration, 158.

Tradition, 145.

Treaties, disregard of, 164.

Trent, Council of, 168.

Truth, Jesus Christ, 121; identity of, 9; perpetuity of, 9; two kinds of, 3; supernatural, 17; evidence of, 34.

Uncertainty of evidence, 26. Unity of the Church, 125, 166, 175.

VICAE of our Lord, 67, 71, 74, 81,

102, 107, 111, 149, 169, 176. Vision of God, 17, 50, 91.

WAR, perpetual danger of, 164. Warfare, restraint of, 77, 130. Wayfarers, 50. Will, submission of, 4; rational,

32; freedom of, 37; definition of, 37.

Witness of revelation, 72, 123. Woman, redemption of, 77, 130.

Footnotes

1. There were great voices in heaven, saying: The kingdom of this world is become our Lord's and His Christ's, and He shall reign for ever and ever. Amen. ↩