Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/377



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 371

To this end He established in the Church all those prin- ciples which necessarily tend to make organized human societies, and through which they attain the perfection proper to each. That is, in it (the Church) all who wished to be the sons of God by adoption might attain to the perfection demanded by their high calling, and might obtain salvation. The Church, therefore, as we have said..-is_ma n's guideto^ hatevp,r pert^i4:is. to heaven. This is the office appointed unto it by God: that it may watch over and may order all that concerns religion, and may, without let or hindrance, exercise, according to its judgment, its charge over Christianity. Wherefore they who pretend that the Church has any wish to interfere in civil matters, or to infringe upon the rights of the State, know it not, or wickedly calumniate it.

God indeed even made tli^Chm^^h a society far more _perfectthaii any other. For the end for which the Church exists is as much higher than the end of other societies as divine ^race is above nature, as immortal blessings are abo\'e the transitory things on the_s&rth. Therefore the Church is a society divine in its origin, ^supernatural in its end and in the means proximately adapted to the attain- ment of that end; ibut jt is Sijiupmn community inasmuch as it is composed of men. For this reason we find it called in holy WTit by names indicating a perfect society. It is spoken of as the house of God, the city placed upon the mountain to which all nations must come. But it is also the fold presided over by one Shepherd, and into which all Christ's sheep must betake themselves. Yea, it is called the kingdom which God has raised up and which will stand forever. Finally it is th^Modn of Christ â€” that is, of course, His mystical body, but a body living and duly organized and composed of many members; members indeed which have not all the same functions, but which, united one to the other, are kept bound together by the guida nce ^nd authorit y, of the head.

Indeed no true and perfect human society can be con-