Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/376

370 since it continues the mission of the Saviour forever. The Church alone offers to the human race that religion — that state of absolute perfection — which He wished, as it were, to be incorporated in it. And it alone supplies those means of salvation which accord with the ordinary counsels of Providence.

But as this heavenly doctrine was never left to the arbitrary judgment of private individuals, but in the beginning delivered by Jesus Christ, was afterwards committed by Him exclusively to the Magisterium already named, so the power of performing and administering the divine mysteries, together with the authority of ruling and governing, was not bestowed by God on all Christians indiscriminately, but on certain chosen persons. For to the apostles and their legitimate successors alone these words have reference: "Going into the whole world preach the Gospel." " Baptizing them." " Do this in commemoration of Me." "Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them." And in like manner He ordered the apostles only and those who should lawfully succeed them to feed—” that is to govern with authority—” all Christian souls. Whence it also follows that it is necessarily the duty of Christians to be subject and to obey. And these duties of the apostolic office are, in general, all included in the words of St. Paul: Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God.

Wherefore Jesus Christ bade all men, present and future, follow Him as their leader and Saviour; and this not merely as individuals, but as forming a society, organized and united m mind. In this way a duly constituted society should exist, formed out of the divided multitude of peoples, one in faith, one in end, one in the  participation of the means adapted to the attainment of the end, and one as subject to one and the same authority.