they do this with the intent that it may be possible to act against
their pledged faith with impunity, and to have the final decision over
everything, all obstacles having been removed. But when the Church
cannot bear that patiently, nor indeed is able to desert its greatest
and most sacred duties, and, above all, requires that faith be wholly
and entirely observed with it, contests often arise between the sacred
and the civil power, of which the result is commonly that the one who is
the weaker yields to the stronger in human resources. So it is the
custom and the wish in this state of public affairs, which is now
affected by many, either to expel the Church altogether, or to keep it
bound and restricted as to its rule. Public acts in a great measure are
framed with this design. Laws, the administration of States, the
teaching of youth unaccompanied by religion, the spoliation and
destruction of religious orders, the overturning of the civil
principality of the Roman Pontiffs, all have regard to this end; to
emasculate Christian institutes, to narrow the liberty of the Catholic
Church, and to diminish her other rights.

Natural reason itself convinces us that such opinions about the ruling
of a State are very widely removed from the truth. Nature herself bears
witness that all power of whatever kind ultimately emanates from God,
that greatest and most august fountain. Popular rule, however, which
without any regard to God is said to be naturally in the multitude,
though it may excellently avail to supply the fires of many
blandishments and excitements of many forms of covetousness, yet rests
on no probable reason, nor can have sufficient strength to ensure public
security and the quiet permanence of order. Verily things under the
auspices of these doctrines have come to such a pass that many sanction
this as a law in civil jurisprudence, to wit, that sedition may rightly
be raised. For the idea prevails that princes are really nothing but
delegates to express the popular will; and so necessarily all things
become alike, are changeable at the popular nod, and a certain fear of
public disturbance is forever hanging over our heads.

But to think with regard to religion, that there is no difference
between unlike and contrary forms, clearly will have this issue--an
unwillingness to test any one form in theory and practice. And this, if
indeed it differs from atheism in name, is in fact the same thing. Men
who really bel