Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/462

456 world to its uttermost ends. On what foundation this sovereign power rests is made sufficiently plain by the words, Thou art My Son. For by the very fact that He is the Son of the King of all, He is also the heir of all His Father’s power: hence the words — I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, which are similar to those used by Paul the Apostle, whom He hath appointed heir of all things.

But we should now give most special consideration to the declarations made by Jesus Christ, not through the apostles or the prophets, but by His own words. To the Roman governor who asked Him, Art Thou a king, then? He answered unhesitatingly, Thou say est that I am a king. And the greatness of this power and the boundlessness of His kingdom is still more clearly declared in these words to the apostles:  All power is given to Me in heaven and on earth.  If, then, all power has been given to Christ, it follows of necessity that His empire must be supreme, absolute and independent of the will of any other, so that none is either equal or like unto it: and since it has been given in heaven and on earth it ought to have heaven and earth obedient to it. And verily He has acted on this extraordinary and peculiar right when He commanded His apostles to preach His doctrine over the earth, to gather all men together into the one body of the Church by the baptism of salvation, and to bind them by laws which no one could reject without risking his eternal salvation.

But this is not all. Christ reigns not only by natural right as the Son of God but also by a right that He has acquired. For He it was who snatched us from the powers of darkness, and gave Himself for the redemption of all. Therefore not only Catholics, and those who have duly received Christian Baptism, but also all men, individually