Christian state

“ How much better are modern Pagan nations? These evils have been extinguished in the ratio of the circulation and influence of the Bible. The relation between the state and its citizens the Bible recognizes as of divine appointment; the foundation of civil government is the will of God. Government is an ordinance of God. “The powers that be are ordained of God.” The great author of our rights, life, liberty, peace, order, public morals and religion, has not left these interests to chance, anarchy or the social compact. ”

“ Let any party in the Church universal advocate the divine institution of their own form of government. But I do not believe that any particular form of government is laid down in the Bible; and yet I admit that church government is as essential and fundamental a matter as a worldly government. Government, then, must be in both Church and State. This is recognized in the Scriptures. No institution or State can live without it. Men are exhorted by apostles to obey it, as a Christian duty. ”

“ The foundations of religious orders were as many attempts to realize the Christian ideal, and to this day the Roman Catholic Church, whose clergy and religious orders unquestionably afford a splendid living example of devotion to a common cause, self-abnegation, obedience and humility, clings to the ideal of a state in which temporal power is wielded by a hierarchy raised to rulership from all ranks, merely by virtue of personal, moral and intellectual qualities. Throughout the Christian church the ideal of religious democracy prevails. ”

“ But except in these instances, the American state is, we believe, true to the Christian principle on which it is based, as true, that is, as it can be in a mixed community of Catholics, Jews, and Protestants. The state has no spiritual competency, and cannot decide either for itself or for its citizens which is or is not the church that authoritatively represents the spiritual order. ”

“ In the so-called Christian State it is true that alienation counts, but not the individual. The only individual who counts, the king, is a being specially distinguished from other individuals, who is also religious and directly connected with heaven, with God. The relations which here prevail are still relations of faith. The religious spirit is therefore not yet really secularized. ”

“ Peculiarly Christian in principle, in its kingly administration as vigorous and successful as any other state in the most brilliant eras of the history of the world, while in the internal development of its republican members and constituents it was more rich and varied, and, in truth, much freer than even the most lauded among the mixed constitutions of modern times. ”

“ It was in these circumstances that Jesus came to set up on earth a spiritual kingdom, which, by separating the theological from the political system, made the State no longer one, and brought about the internal divisions which have never ceased to trouble Christian peoples. ”

“ We shall see again Christian states founded on Christian principles and traditions, with Christian laws and rulers. Whether these rulers will be kings or presidents we know not; but they will in either case consider themselves as mere delegates of Jesus Christ, and of his people, not as Byzantine despots or representatives of mob tyranny. They will understand that statesmanship does not consist in giving license to the wicked [6] and forging chains for the good. We shall have Christian schools, Christian universities, Christian statesmen. Ye liberals in name, well may ye grow pale! ”

“ All state obligations are against the conscience of a Christian—the oath of allegiance, taxes, law proceedings, and military service. ”

“ Religious and clerical societies, which have no corporate rights, can only acquire those rights by special laws. Article 14. The Christian religion is taken as the basis of those State institutions which are connected with the exercise of religion--all religious liberty guaranteed by Art. ”

“ They who have so great a reverence for human government, who respect in the nation an ultimate irresponsible power, ought, [pg 135] if they were consistent, when they acknowledge Christ as having come in the flesh, to acknowledge His government in the kingdom which He has set up. All that his country is to the patriot, the Church is to the Christian, but in so much higher a degree, as the object for which Christ came is above the needs and cares of this present life. ”

“ In addressing the Saints, I make no distinction; when I say a religious system, I mean that which unites principles of political government and religions, which is perfectly sufficient for, and completely adapted to, all the wants of cities, boroughs, counties, states, kingdoms, empires, or the world, or a million of worlds; that system of religion or government, just which you please to call it, that regulates things in heaven, and for which all professing Christian men pray. ”

“ Ye know that, while the apostles remained on earth, the believers had all things common, except wives and children, disowned all government except that of Jesus, obeyed all laws for the sake of peace except such as conflicted with conscience, and so builded up the Christian communes that governed themselves by the laws of Christ alone, inflicting no temporal punishment except that they refused to fellowship the obdurately wicked. Ye know that they commonly wrought miracles to prove the divinity of Jesus and the right of the Church to preach and to teach in his name. ”

“ Now if men were to engage in religion as in politics, commerce, arts; if the absolute religion, the Christianity of Christ, were applied to life with all the might of this age, as the Christianity of the church was then applied, what a result should we not behold! We should build up a great state with unity in the nation, and freedom in the people ”

“ Religion is the supreme human interest, government is the supreme human organization; therefore, government ought to take care for religion, and a Christian government should maintain distinctively Christian religious institutions. ”

“ The government that maintains liberty of conscience as one of its fundamental principles, and under which Christianity is recognized as the common law, has just claims upon the Christian citizen for the vigilant exercise of all political rights. ”

“ If any man say that the laws of the Church have not binding force unless confirmed by the civil power, and that it is competent to the civil power to judge or decree in causes where religion is implicated, let him be anathema.
The logical succession of ideas was manifest. The first five Canons established the principle that the Christian Church is a society which has Form, Visibility, Unity, and is necessary to salvation. ”

“ Some, overlooking the twofold agency, partly civil, partly ecclesiastical, by which the Most High promotes his own ends and the well being of his creatures, have resolved each into the other, making religion an affair of the state, and civil government a matter for ecclesiastical influence ”

“ But spiritual jurisdiction is the expression of Christ's sovereignty on earth, and in the order just described it is linked with His Person as strictly as the worship exercised by means of His Priesthood, and the spiritual character which every one of His children bears. Surely no kingdom has ever been so contained in its king, no family in its father, no worship in its object, as the Christian kingdom, family, and worship, which together is the Church. ”

“ So also the teachings of Christ, which were at first practised and developed by a small coterie of religious-minded men, acquired, under the conditions of the world, such secular and political influence, that about the time of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the Church organisations of the Christian society alone were the real political authorities, and discharged all the important functions of the secular states. ”

“ My church, the Catholic Church, is, by virtue of my citizenship and my right of conscience, the law of the state so far as her own freedom is concerned, and as is necessary to protect and defend her in the free and full enjoyment of her rights. ”

“ And since the Church alone has, through the grace of God, received the means necessary to realize such end, she has her fixed laws, special spheres of action, and a certain method, fixed and conformable to her nature, of governing Christian peoples. But the exercise of such governing power is difficult, and leaves room for numberless conflicts, inasmuch as the Church rules peoples scattered through every portion of the earth, differing in race and customs, who, living under the sway of the laws of their respective countries, owe obedience alike to the civil and religious authorities. ”

“ The men united there meant to insert God in our constitution, as we have him already on our coins, by the inscription, 'In God we trust.' They intend to christianize our country, against the clear and emphatic spirit and letter of the constitution. And I must leave it to the learned judge of the Supreme Court of the United States who presided over those meetings, to decide whether this future Christian country hereafter shall be a Catholic or a Protestant country. ”

“ A nation joining in the profession of christianity is a true church of God; whence it evidently followeth, that there must be a form of ecclesiastical government over a nation as a church, as well as of civil government over it, as a society governed by the same laws.—For every society must have its government belonging to it as such a society ”

“ For the same reason the Protestant churches of Europe, to gain national favor, protection and assistance, became State churches, and they, as Papacy did, recognize the reigning families as possessed of Divine title to the office and rulership of the people. God's Word, on the contrary, denounces all the governments of earth as beastly, selfish, oppressive, and recognizes only one Kingdom as being of God's appointment, viz., the Kingdom soon to be established in all the earth—Christ and His saints in glory. ”

“ As for what you were saying of Christ’s kingdom being indeed not of this world, but that, according to prophecy, the kingdoms of the earth are to become the kingdoms of the Lord, this we conceive must be understood of the people themselves becoming Christians; because we conceive that, if it were understood as authorising the state, as a civil community, to enforce and regulate Christianity by the secular sword, then Christ’s kingdom does become a kingdom of this world. ”

“ By Liberal Catholics may be understood those who desiderate freedom not only for but in the Church, and would subject all arbitrary power of Church as well as State in matters of religion to law and tradition ”

“ So Christianity extends itself by the aid of the secular power, relying, not on the victories of Christian arms, but on the progress of institutions and ideas that harmonise with ecclesiastical freedom. Hence, those who have most actively served the interests of the Church are not always those who have been most faithful to her doctrines. ”

“ Our only hope is in the work of the Christian church through all its agencies, social, ecclesiastical and educational, moulding out of the glorious material so abundantly at its disposal, a band of men who shall convert the seats of power into seats of righteousness, and make government and purity synonymous terms. ”

“ Faithfully clinging to the ideal of a regenerated religious democracy, the early Christian church maintained itself through centuries of persecution and is slowly advancing, amidst almost overwhelming and innumerable difficulties, towards its realization. ”

“ Does our doctrine, containing such views, sentiments, and practices, and exercising so genial an influence upon society; or in other words, does our religion disqualify us from being faithful, good, and patriotic citizens of the American government? Have the American people so far gone astray, and wandered from the light and power of the Gospel, that they cannot understand, recognize, and appreciate the savory element of religious influence, high tone of morality, and exemplary practice of virtuous and holy principles? ”

“ An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. ”

“ All residents in the Realm enjoy entire freedom of faith and of conscience. The undisturbed practice of religion is guaranteed by the constitution and under the protection of the State. General legislation shall not be affected thereby. ”

“ We demand that all laws looking to the enforcement of “Christian” morality shall be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal rights, and impartial liberty.
9. We demand that not only in the constitutions of the United States and of the several States, but also in the practical administration of the same, no privileges or advantage shall be conceded to Christianity or any other special religion; that our entire political system shall be founded and administered on a purely secular basis ”

“ Independent of the established Church, from whom it neither expects nor demands aught—neither the purple, nor the cross, nor benefices—the Society of Jesus, thanks to its accommodating and tolerant doctrines, will speedily conquer the empire of the human conscience. It will be the confessor of Kings and lackeys, of the mendicant monk and the cardinal, of the courtesan and the princess, the female bourgeois and her cook, of the concubine and the empress. ”

“ New dignities, new organizations, new institutions for the government of the Church successively arose. All societies must have a government. This is a law recognized in the nature of things. So Christian society must be organized and ruled according to the necessities of the times; and the Scriptures do not say what these shall be,--they are imperative and definite only in matters of faith and morals. To guard the faith, to purify the morals according to the Christian standard, overseers, officers, rulers are required. ”