Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/192



186 CHIEF DUTIES OF CHRISTIANS AS CITIZENS.

the Apostle St. Paul, who, in writing to Titus, after re- minding Christians that they are to he subject to yrinces and powers, and to obey at a word, at once adds. And to he ready to every good work} Thereby he openly declares that if laws of men contain injunctions contrary to the eternal law of God, it is right not to obey them. In like manner the prince of the apostles gave this courageous and sublime answer to those who would have deprived him of the liberty of preaching the Gospel : If it he just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard?

Wherefore, to love both countries, that of earth below and that of heaven above, yet in such mode that the love of our heavenly surpass the love of our earthly home, and that human laws be never set above the divine law, is the essential duty of Christians, and the fountain-head, so to say, from which all other duties spring. The Re- deemer of mankind of Himself has said: For this was I horn, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth.^ In like manner, / am come to cast fire upon earth, and what will I hut that it he kindled?* In the knowledge of this truth, which constitutes the highest perfection of the mind; in divine charity which, in like manner, completes the will, all Christian life and liberty abide. This noble patrimony of truth and charity en- trusted by Jesus Christ to the Church, she defends ,and maintains ever with untiring endeavor and watchfulness.

But with what bitterness and in how many guises war has been waged against the Church, it would be ill-timed now to urge. From the fact that it has been vouchsafed to human reason to snatch from nature, through the investigations of science, many of her treasured secrets and to apply them befittingly to the divers requirements of life, men have become possessed with so arrogant a sense of their own powers, as already to consider them-

Â» Tit. iii. i. * John xviii. 37.

2 Acts iv. 19, 20. * Luke xii. 49.