Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/160



154 HUMAN LIBERTY.

guard them and with lawful authority explain them; and at the same time He commanded all nations to hear the voice of the Church, as if it were His own, threatening those who would not hear it with everlasting perdition. Thus it is manifest that man's best and surest teacher is God, the source and principle of all truth; and the only- begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the true Light which enlightens every man, and to whose teaching all must submit: And they shall all be taught of God} In faith and in the teach- ing of morality, God Himself made the Church a partaker of His divine authority, and through His heavenly gift ^ she cannot be deceived. ' She is therefore the greatest and most rehable teacher of mankind, and in her dwells an inviolable right to teach them. Sustained by the truth received from her divine Founder, the Church has ever sought to fulfil holily the mission entrusted to her by God; unconquered by the difficulties on all sides surround- ing her, she has never ceased to assert her Uberty of teach- ing, and in this way the wretched superstition of paganism being dispelled, the wide world was renewed unto Christian wisdom. Now, reason itself clearly teaches that the truths of divine revelation and those of nature cannot really be opposed to one another, and that whatever is at vari- ance with them must necessarily be false. Therefore the divine teaching of the Church, so far from being an obstacle to the pursuit of learning and the progress of science, or in any way retarding the advance of civihzation, in reality brings to them the sure guidance of shining light. And for the same reason it is of no small advantage for the perfecting of human Uberty, since our Saviour Jesus .i Christ has said that by truth is man made free : Yoji^shaU. 1 1 knowt he truth, an d the truthdixfRjB^hs-ymiJ^e} There-' fore there is no reason why genuine liberty should grow indignant, or true science feel aggrieved, at having to


 * John vi. 45. ^ John viii. 32.