Founded on universal and immutable
principles, the church can never grow old or obsolete, but is the
church for all times and Places, for all ranks and conditions of
men. Man cannot change either the church or the dogmas of faith,
for they are founded in the highest reality, which is above him,
over him, and independent of him. Religion is above and
independent of the state, and the state has nothing to do with
the church or her dogmas, but to accept and conform to them as it
does to any of the facts or principles of science, to a
mathematical truth, or to a physical law.
But while the church, with her essential constitution, and her
dogmas are founded in the Divine order, and are catholic and
unalterable, the relations between the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities may be changed or modified by the changes of time and
place. These relations have not been always the same, but have
differed in different ages and countries. During the first three
centuries of our era the church had no legal status, and was
either connived at or persecuted by the state. Under the
Christian emperors she was recognized by the civil law; her
prelates had exclusive jurisdiction in mixed civil and
ecclesiastical questions, and were made, in some sense, civil
magistrates, and paid as such by the empire. Under feudalism,
the prelates received investiture as princes and barons, and
formed alone, or in connection with the temporal lords, an estate
in the kingdom.
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