I have stated their arguments as fairly as I can, but you must not for an instant suppose, my brethren, that I admit either their principles or their facts. It is a simple paradox to say that ecclesiastical and temporal power cannot lawfully, religiously, and usefully be joined together. Look at what are called the middle ages—that is, the period which intervenes between the old Roman empire and the modern world; as I have said, the Pope and the bishops saved religion and civil order from destruction in those tempestuous times—and they did so by means of the secular power which they possessed. And next, going on to the principles which the Pope's enemies lay down as so very certain, who will grant to them, who has any pretension to be a religious man, that progress in temporal possessions is the greatest of goods, and that everything else, however sacred, must give way before it? On the contrary, health, long life, security, liberty, knowledge, are certainly great goods, but the possession of heaven is a far greater good than all of them together. With all the progress in worldly happiness which we possibly could make, we could not make ourselves immortal—death must come; that will be a time when riches and worldly knowledge will avail us nothing, and true faith and divine love and a past life of obedience will be all in all to us. If we were driven to choose between the two, it would be a hundred times better to be Lazarus in this world than to be Dives in the next.
However, the best answer to their arguments is contained in sacred history, which supplies us with a very apposite and instructive lesson on the subject, and to it I am now going to refer.
Now observe, in the first place, no Catholic maintains that that rule of the Pope as a king, in Rome and its provinces, which men are now hoping to take from him, is, strictly speaking, what is called a theocracy, that is, a divine government. His government, indeed, in spiritual matters, in the Catholic Church throughout the world, might be called a theocracy, because he is the vicar of Christ, and has the assistance of the Holy Ghost; but not such is his kingly rule in his own dominions. On the other hand, the rule exercised over the chosen people, the Israelites, by Moses, Josue, Gideon, Eli, and Samuel, was a theocracy: God was the king of the Israelites, not Moses and the rest—they were but vicars or vicegerents of the Eternal Lord who brought the nation out of Egypt. Now, when men object that the Pope's government of his own states is not what it should be, and that therefore he ought to lose them, because, forsooth, a religious rule should be perfect or not at all, I take them at their word, if they are Christians, and refer them to the state of things among the Israelites after the time of Moses, during the very centuries when they had God for their king. Was that a period of peace, prosperity, and contentment? Is it an argument against the divine perfections, that it was not such a period? Why is it, then, to be the condemnation of the Popes, who are but men, that their rule is but parallel in its characteristics to that of the King of Israel, who was God? He indeed has his own all-wise purposes for what he does; he knows the end from the beginning; he could have made his government as perfect and as prosperous as might have been expected from the words of Moses concerning it, as perfect and prosperous as, from the words of the prophets, our anticipations might have been about the earthly reign of the Messias. But this he did not do, because from the first he made that perfection and that prosperity dependent upon the free will, upon the cooperation of his people. Their loyal obedience to him was the condition, expressly declared by him, of his fulfilling his promises. He proposed to work out his purposes through them, and, when they refused their share [{584}] in the work, everything went wrong. Now they did refuse from the first; so that from the very first, he says of them emphatically, they were a "stiff-necked people." This was at the beginning of their history; and close upon the end of it, St. Stephen, inspired by the Holy Ghost, repeats the divine account of them: "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do you also." In consequence of this obstinate disobedience, I say, God's promises were not fulfilled to them. That long lapse of five or six hundred years, during which God was their king, was in good part a time, not of well-being, but of calamity.
Now, turning to the history of the papal monarchy for the last thousand years, the Roman people have not certainly the guilt of the Israelites, because they were not opposing the direct rule of' God; and I would not attribute to them now a liability to the same dreadful crimes which stain the annals of their an ancestors; but still, after all they have been a singularly stiff-necked people in time past, and in consequence, there has been extreme confusion, I may say anarchy, under the reign of the Popes; and the restless impatience of his rule which exists in the Roman territory now is only what has shown itself age after age in times past. The Roman people not seldom offered bodily violence to their Popes, killed some Popes, wounded others, drove others from the city. On one occasion they assaulted the Pope at the very altar in St. Peter's, and he was obliged to take to flight in his pontifical vestments. Another time they insulted the clergy of Rome; at another, they attacked and robbed the pilgrims who brought offerings from a distance to the shrine of St. Peter. Sometimes they sided with the German emperors against the Pope; sometimes with other enemies of his in Italy itself. As many as thirty-six Popes endured this dreadful contest with their own subjects, till at last, in anger and disgust with Rome and Italy, they took refuge in France, where they remained for seventy years, during the reigns of eight of their number. [Footnote 170]
[Footnote 170: I take these facts as I find them in Gibbon's History, the work which I have immediately at hand; but it would not be difficult to collect a multitude of such instances from the original historians of those times.]
That I may not be supposed to rest what I have said on insufficient authorities, I will quote the words of that great saint, St. Bernard, about the roman people, seven hundred years ago.
Writing to Pope Eugenius during the troubles of the day, he says: "What shall I say of the people? why, that it is the Roman people. I could not more concisely or fully express what I think of your subjects. What has been so notorious for ages as the wantonness and haughtiness of the Romans? a race unaccustomed to peace, accustomed to tumult; a race cruel and unmanageable up to this day, which knows not to submit, unless when it is unable to make fight. . . . I know the hardened heart of this people, but God is powerful even of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. . . . When will you find for me out of the whole of that populous city, who received you as Pope without bribe or hope of bribe? And then especially are they wishing to be masters, when they have professed to be servants. They promise to be trustworthy, that they may have the opportunity of injuring those who trust them. . . . They are wise for evil, but they are ignorant for good. Odious to earth and heaven, they have assailed both the one and the other; impious towards God, reckless toward things sacred, factious among themselves, envious of their neighbors, inhuman toward foreigners, . . . . they love none, and by none are loved. Too impatient for submission, too helpless for rule; . . . importunate to gain an end, restless till they gain it, ungrateful when they have gained it. They have taught [{585}] their tongue to speak big words, while their performances are scanty indeed." [Footnote 171]
[Footnote 171: St. Bernard is led to say this to the Pope in consequence of the troubles created in Rome by Arnald of Bresela. "Ab obitu Caelestini hoc anno invalescere coepit istiusmodi rebellio Romanorum adversus Pontficem, eodemque haeresis dicta Politicorum, sive Arnaldistarum. Ea erant tempora infelicissime, cùm Romani ipsi, quorum fides in universo orbe jam à tempore Apostolorum annunciata semper fuit, resilientes modo à Pontifice, dominandi cupidine, ex filiis Petri et discipulis Christi, fiunt soboles et alumni pestilentissimi Arnaldi de Brixiâ. Verùm, cùm tu Romanos audis, ne putes omnes eâdem insaniâ percitos, nam complures ex nobilium Romanorum familiis, iis relictis, pro Pontifice rem ageoant, etc." Baron. Annal. in ann. 1144. 4.—De Consid. iv. 2.]
Thus I begin, and now let us continue I parallel between the Israelites and the Romans.