Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/112

Rh animosity, have become purely civil, and therefore equal and just to all: and within that sphere of civil life and civil obedience it is impossible that collision or conflict should arise. The purely spiritual action of the Church in a General Council will tend to dispel the panic fears and traditional suspicions in respect to the authority of popes, and to confirm the relations of freedom and of co-operation which have arisen between the Catholic Church and the civil powers, both in Catholic and Protestant countries.

(4.) Further: a General Council, by purifying the external status of the Church from local and national taints which enfeeble its action, must add greatly to its spiritual power. It is the genius of the Church to unite its action to that of the civil power; to uphold, direct, and consecrate it. But if civil governments invade its spiritual office, it knows how to hold itself aloof from all civil power, and to keep itself pure from all contact with it. This is a condition favourable to the Church, but adverse to society. Ireland is a sad and sufficient proof. It has been well said that the spiritual and civil powers are united in one person in Rome, that they may be separated everywhere else. The day seems to be past for the Church to unite itself with the civil state of modern nations. They have shattered their unity of religion, and have broken up their public law, to conform it to their religious divisions. Over such mixed states the Church has little disposition to assume control. They are too alien from