POLITICAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHURCH 193
of individuals, and which gives to each one equal rights. All authority in the Church is delegated, and recognises no such thing as natural rights. This confusion of the ideas belonging to different orders has been productive of serious and dangerous errors. \Vhilst heretics have raised the episcopate to a level with the papacy, the priesthood with the episcopate, the laity with the clergy, impugning successively the priinacy, the episcopal authority, and the sacramental character of orders, the application of ideas derived from politics to the system of the Church led to the exaggera- tion of the papal power in the period immediately preceding the Reformation, to the claim of a permanent aristocratic government by the Council of Basel, and to the democratic extravagance of the Observants in the fourteenth century. If in the stress of conflicting opinions we seek repose and shelter in the view that the kingdom of God is not of this world; that the Church, belonging to a different order, has no interest in political forms, tolerates them all, and is dangerous to none; if we try to rescue her from the dangers of political controversy by this method of retreat and evasion, we are compelled to admit her inferiority, in point of temporal influence, to I every other religious system. E very other religion impresses its image on the society that professes it, and the government always follows the changes of religion. Pantheism and Polytheism, Judaism and Islamism, Protestantism, and even the various Protestant as ,vell as Mahometan sects, call forth corresponding social and political forms. All power is from God, and is exercised by men in His stead. As men's notions are, therefore, in respect to their position towards God, such must their notion of temporal power and obedience also be. The relation of man to man corresponds \vith his relations to God - most of al1 his relations to\vards the direct representative of God. The vie\v \ve are discussing is one founded on timidity and a desire of peace. But peace is not a good great o
