Page:Pastoral letter of the first National Council of the United States - held in Baltimore in May, 1852 (IA PastoralLetter1852).pdf/9

Rh We exhort you, brethren, to sustain your prelates in their efforts to maintain the discipline of the Church in this no less than in other matters. It is from them, and not from the stranger, and still less from disobedient brethren,—that you are to learn her principles, and those rules of conduct which the experience of centuries has taught her to regard as conducive to your real interests. In this no less than in matters of faith and practice, you have to attend to the Apostle's admonition: "Obey your prelates and be subject to them."

The Church claims obedience not only when she teaches you the truths of faith, but also when she prescribes rules of conduct. We have the consolation to know that her claims are recognised, to their full extent, by the vast majority of her children; but we know also, that some who profess to look upon her as the Mother who has brought them forth in Christ,—who alone has the words of eternal life;—have, in disregard of her authority,—attached themselves to certain societies, which she either entirely condemns, or views with well founded apprehension. What want, either of body or of mind, is left unprovided for in the principles she teaches and in the holy associations which she has sanctioned ? Because men, having rejected the principle of Christian charity, feel the void which they themselves have created, they endeavor to substitute human virtues as the remedy for the evils which nothing less than a divine grace can heal. There can, then, be no necessity for the children of the Church to seek out of her what they can find in her alone; nor any excuse for the insubordination which would regard the exercise of her authority in this matter as uncalled for or injudicious. We exhort our venerable Brethren the clergy to urge the faithful to observe all the regulations on this subject that have emanated from the Holy See, as also those contained in the decrees of the Councils of Baltimore, which have received the sanction of the Supreme Pastor of the Church.

The wants of the Church in this vast country, so rapidly advancing in population and prosperity, impose on us, your pastors, and on you, our children in Christ, peculiar and very arduous duties. We not only have to build up the Church, by