authority, the sway, the counsels of the Church, characterized by
greater faithfulness and perseverance, for that is to be regarded as a
perpetual law which Ivo of Chartres wrote to Pope Paschal II.: "When the
kingdom and the priesthood are agreed between themselves, the world is
well ruled, the Church flourishes and bears fruit. But when they are at
variance, not only does what is little not increase, but even what is
great falls into miserable decay." (_Ep._ ccxxxviiii.)

But that dreadful and deplorable zeal for revolution which was aroused
in the sixteenth century, after the Christian religion had been thrown
into confusion, by a certain natural course proceeded to philosophy, and
from philosophy pervaded all ranks of the community. As it were, from
this spring came those more recent propositions of unbridled liberty
which obviously were first thought out and then openly proclaimed in the
terrible disturbances in the present century; and thence came the
principles and foundations of the new law, which was unknown before, and
is out of harmony, not only with Christian, but, in more than one
respect, with natural law. Of those principles the chief is that one
which proclaims that all men, as by birth and nature they are alike, so
in very deed in their actions of life are they equal and each is so
master of himself that in no way does he come under the authority of
another; that it is for him freely to think on whatever subject he
likes, to act as he pleases; that no one else has a right of ruling over
others. In a society founded upon these principles, government is only
the will of the people, which as it is under the power of itself alone,
so is alone its own proper sovereign. Moreover, it chooses to whom it
may entrust itself, but in such a way that it transfers, not so much the
right, as the function of the government which is to be exercised in its
name. God is passed over in silence, as if either there were no God, or
as if He cared nothing for human society, or as if men, whether as
individuals or in society, owed nothing to God, or as if there could be
any government of which the whole cause and power and authority did not
reside in God Himself. In which way, as is seen, a State is nothing else
but a multitude, as the mistress and governor of itself. And since the
people is said to contain in itself the fountain of all rights and of
all power, it will follow that the State deems itself bound by no kind
of duty