A REVIEW OF SUNDAY LEGISLATION IN CENTURY NINETEEN. NO. 19.
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE, CONCLUDED.
LET us now consider this papal medieval mythological theory. In the last citation but one, the statement is made that the "leading principle" concerning government, in the Middle Ages, was "THE EXACT CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN EARTH AND HEAVEN." Now this is a pet theory with the Church of Rome. It was then. It is now. And, like all the rest of the pet theories of Rome, it is wrong and unscriptural from beginning to end. It is sublimely ridiculous and utterly impracticable. Look at it a moment:—
The government of heaven is one of love. The only law necessary in heaven will be complete, supreme love to God and Jesus Christ. There will be perfect peace in heaven, because there will be perfect love. It will be the supreme and ruling passion of every soul to do the will of God. It is by love and love alone that heaven is and evermore will be ruled.
But the government of earth is not, and of necessity cannot be, of love. The Bible shows this very clearly. "He [civil government, as the context shows] is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." The "sword" is force, not love. Civil government can only be maintained by force. Moreover, although civil government can never be moulded after the pattern of heavenly, it is, nevertheless, ordained of God. As long as men are unregenerate there will be, nay, there must be, force in the earth. Now government is legally authorized force. Anarchy is illegal, unauthorized force. Of the two, government is immeasurably the superior. But when compared with divine government it is imperfect, and ever must be, and can never be operated upon the same basis. It therefore follows logically that this "leading principle" of the Papal Middle Ages governmental ideas is a bad one of the worst sort.
Now it is true that the church of Jesus Christ on earth should be guided and controlled, if so strong a word as "control" may be used, by the same power which controls390in heaven, viz., LOVE. But here the Papacy is at fault again. She never did rule by love. She ever has reigned through force and craft. So that at the only point where there could be a correspondence between the governments of things in heaven and things on earth, the Papacy is at variance.
Next the analysis of the relations of Church and State, by means of the illustration of the relations between soul and body. The Church was represented by the soul. The State, by the body. But anyone will admit that the welfare of the soul is of more importance than the welfare of the body; and no reasonable man can deny that the body is an instrument through which the soul works. This is all true; but, though it is all so, it by no means follows that there is the slightest analogy between the relations of soul and body on one hand and Church and State on the other. Anyone who can see analogy here could no doubt see sense in that famous piece of school-boy logic:—
All men are made of clay;
All bricks are made of clay;
Therefore all men are bricks.
It was, however, good papal logic; that is, it was very convenient in accomplishing her ends. It relegated the emperor to a place of inferiority, and to a place where he must do Rome's bidding in all things. It made him the punisher of heretics at home, and the propagator of the faith, by the means of carnal weapons, abroad.
The truth of the matter is, however, that this kind of a dual government was and would now be an ecclesiastical despotism of the veriest type. It is nevertheless "the one perfect and self-consistent scheme of the union of Church and State." It made the State an ecclesiastical instead of a temporal institution. The churchman assumed the habit of a secular prince, while the emperor adorned himself in sacradocial vestments. "The emperor, besides the sword, globe, and scepter of temporal power, receives a ring as a symbol of his faith, is ordained a subdeacon, assists the pope in celebrating mass, partakes as a clerical person of the communion in both kinds, is admitted a canon of St. Peter's and St. John Lateran." From all this it is manifest beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Holy Roman Empire was a State Church and a Church State. Both names mean the same thing, and either is applicable. Says Bryce:—
In nature and compass the government of these two potestates [pope and emperor] is the same, differing only in the sphere of its working; and it matters not whether we call the pope a spiritual emperor, or the emperor a secular pope. Nor, though the one office is below the other as far as man's life on earth is less precious than his life hereafter, is therefore, on the older and truer theory, the imperial authority delegated by the papal. Nor, as has been said already, God is represented by the pope, not in every capacity, but only as the ruler of spirits in heaven; as sovereign of earth, he issues his commission directly to the emperor. Opposition between two servants of the same king is inconceivable, each being bound to aid and foster the other, the coöperation of both being needed in all that concerns the welfare of Christendom at large. This is the one perfect and self-consistent scheme of the union of Church and State; for, taking the absolute coincidence of their limits to be self-evident, it assumes the infallibility of their joint government, and derives, as a corollary from that infallibility, the duty of the civil magistrate to root out heresy and schism no less than to punish treason and rebellion. It is also the scheme which, granting the possibility of their harmonious action, places the two powers in that relation which gives each of them its maximum of strength. But by a law to which it would be hard to find exceptions, in proportion as the State became more Christian, the church, who, to work out her purposes, had assumed worldly forms, became by the contact worldlier, meaner, spiritually weaker.
True enough, this is "the one perfect and self-consistent scheme of the union of Church and State." And Rome knows it, and has known it all the time. And this is why she stands by and placidly watches the Protestant denominations try to fix up their petty projects of union with the civil power. Rome knows full well that all their plans of union with Cæsar will fall through, because not one of them is "self-consistent." Then they must ultimately adopt her scheme. And when they do that, then they are themselves ROME on that doctrine. But if they adopt her views on the union of Church and State, it will become necessary for them, in order to be "self-consistent," to admit all her other doctrines. When that day comes, the long game which Rome has been playing ever since the time of the great Reformation of century sixteen will have been played to a finish and won.
This is why Rome is so quietly, yet so interestedly, watching the Sunday-law campaign of the so-called Protestant sects of the United States and of the world. They have started on the religious legislation road. That road knows no ending save in the arms of Rome. And so she watches them and quietly bides her time.
More than all this, not only will the Sunday legislation road land all the Protestant denominations who engage in it in the lap of Rome, but it will land the United States Government there also. These churches claim to control the United States Government, and the United States Government admits the claim. Now listen to the last trap which Rome sprung upon the nations of the Middle Ages, and which she has now already set, and is eagerly waiting the time when all will be ripe to spring again on the United States:—
The complete accord of the papal and imperial powers which this theory, as sublime as it is impracticable, requires, was attained only at a few points in their history. It was finally supplanted by another view of their relation, which, professing to be a development of a principle recognized as fundamental, the superior importance of the religious life, found increasing favor in the eyes of fervent churchmen. Declaring the pope sole representative on earth of the Deity, it concluded that from him, and not directly from God, must the empire be held—held feudally, it was said by many, AND IT THEREBY THRUST DOWN THE TEMPORAL POWER, TO BE THE SLAVE INSTEAD OF THE SISTER OF THE SPIRITUAL.
Exactly, that is the way the thing worked in the Middle Ages in the Holy Roman Empire; and that is the way it will work in century nineteen in the United States. Such will be the outcome of the Sunday legislation now being urged.
Rome has already commenced to propagate the former of the two theories that have formed the leading themes of this paper. In a speech delivered in Baltimore, Md., Oct. 19, 1893, Cardinal Gibbons gave utterance to these words:—
Here [in America] the Church and State run in parallel lines. Here religion upholds the State by proclaiming the distinct authority of civil legislators and holding them up as the distinct representatives of God himself. She [the Papal Church] sanctifies respect for civil laws by declaring that obedience to civil authority is not a servile homage paid to man, but the free homage of men paid to God.
This "parallel lines" theory is simply another wording of the "sister" theory of the Middle Ages. And just as the "State sister" was soon relegated to the place of "slave" to the spiritual in the Middle Ages, so does Rome intend it shall be with the United States government in century nineteen.
How now stands the fact? In the near future the Sunday legislation campaign already entered upon will end in the complete enthrallment of all the so-called Protestant churches who are engaged in it by the Papacy, and then the enslavement of the United States Government.
But enough for Rome. In my next paper I will pass to the consideration of the career of the Church of England.