independence and supreme direction over all Christians, and all Christian societies, inherent in the office of Vicar of Christ, and head of the Christian Church? When the Civil powers became Christian, faith and obedience restrained them from casting so much as a shadow of human sovereignty over the Vicar of the Son of God. They who attempt it now will do it at their peril.
The Church of God cannot be bound, and its liberty is in its head. The liberty of conscience and of faith, since the Church entered into peace, have been secured in his independence.
For a thousand years his independence, which is sovereignty, has been secured by the providence of God in the temporal power over Rome: the narrow sphere of his exemption from all civil subjection. But men are nowadays wiser than God, and would unmake and mend His works. They are therefore dissolving the temporal power as He has fashioned it; and in so doing, they are striking out the keystone of the arch which hangs over their own heads. This done, the natural society of the world will still subsist, but the Christian world will be no more. One thing is certain; let all the Civil powers of this world in turn, or all together, claim the Vicar of Jesus Christ as their subject, a subject he will never be. The Non possumus is not only immutable, but invincible. The infallible head of an infallible Church cannot depend on the sovereignty of man. The Council of the Vatican has brought out this truth with the evidence of light. The world may despise and fight against it, but the Church of God will believe and act upon this law of divine faith.
