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Page 8
Therefore she is bound, when her supernatural principles clash with
human natural principles, to be the occasion of disunion. Her marriage
laws, as a single example, are at conflict with the marriage laws of the
majority of modern States. It is of no use to tell her to modify these
principles; it would be to tell her to cease to be supernatural, to
cease to be herself. How can she modify what she believes to be her
Divine Message?
Again, since she is organized on a supernatural basis, there are
supernatural elements in her own constitution which she can no more
modify than her dogmas. Recently, in France, she was offered the
_kingdom of this world_ if she would do so; it was proposed to her that
she actually retain her own wealth, her churches and her houses, and
yield up her principle of spiritual appeal to the Vicar of Christ. If
she had been but human, how evident would have been her duty! How
inevitable that she should modify her constitution in accordance with
human ideas and preserve her property intact! And how entirely
impossible such a bargain must be for a Society that is divine as well
as human!
Take courage then! We desire peace above all things--that is to say, the
Peace of God, not _that peace which the world_, since it _can give_ it,
can also _take away_; not that peace which depends on the harmony of
nature with nature, but of nature with grace.
Yet, so long as the world is divided in allegiance; so long as the
world, or a country, or a family, or even an individual soul bases
itself upon natural principles divorced from divine, so long to that
world, that country, that family, and that human heart will the
supernatural religion of Catholicism bring _not peace, but a sword_. And
it will do so to the end, up to the final world-shattering catastrophe
of Armageddon itself.
"I come," cries the Rider on the White Horse, "to bring Peace indeed,
but a peace of which the world cannot even dream; a peace built upon the
eternal foundations of God Himself, not upon the shifting sands of human
agreement. And until that Vision dawns there must be war; until God's
Peace descends indeed and is accepted, till then _My Garments must be
splashed in blood_ and from My Mouth comes forth _not peace, but a
two-edged sword_."
II
WEALTH AND POVERTY
_Make to yourselves friends of the Mammon of iniquity_.
_You cannot serve God and Mammon_.-LUKE XVI. 9, 13.
We have seen how the Church of the Prince of Peace must continually be
the centre of war. Let us go on to consider how, as a Human Society
dwelling in this world, she must continually have her eyes fixed upon
the next, and how, as a Divine Society, she must be open to the charge
of worldliness.
I. (i) The charge is a very common one: "Look at the extraordinary
wealth and splendour that this Church of the Poor Man of Nazareth
constantly gathers around her and ask yourself how she can dare to claim
to represent Him! Go through Holy Rome and see how the richest and most
elaborate buildings bear over their gateways the heraldic emblems of
Christ's Vicar! Go through any country which has not risen in disgust
and cast off the sham that calls herself 'Christ's Church' and you will
find that no worldly official is so splendid as these heavenly delegates
of Jesus Christ, no palaces more glorious than those in which they dwell
who pretend to preach Him who _had not where to lay His head!_
"Above all, turn from that simple poverty-stricken figure that the
Gospels present to us, to the man who claims to be His Vicegerent on
earth. See him go, crowned three times over, on a throne borne on men's
shoulders, with the silver trumpets shrilling before him and the ostrich
fans coming on behind, and you will understand why the world cannot take
the Church seriously. Look at the court that is about him, all purple
and scarlet, and set by that the little band of weather-beaten
fishermen!
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