Synopsis "The Vicar of Christ"
The purpose of the writer is to press home on his readers four truths: I. That Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, has a visible Kingdom on this earth. 2. That in this Kingdom He not only reigns, but rules. 3. That His rule, both in teaching and in government, is rendered actual by means of that man whom He has made to be His Vicar on this earth. 4. And that, if Christ had no visible Vicar, His royalty would he merely nominal and not real. Discussing the election of a Pope, Humphrey writes: "The predecessor of a Pontiff has power to constitute the form of election to the Roman Bishopric, and so to determine the way in which his successor is to be elected to that Bishopric; but once elected to the Bishopric of Rome the elect receives, and that immediately from Christ Himself, the power of primacy. It is obtained not from man, but in virtue of the divine law of the institution of the primacy in Peter, -the perpetuity of a series of successors to Peter in the primacy, -and the mode of succession through possession of the Roman See, with which the primacy is divinely bound up." Father Humphrey confirms that there will be Popes until the end of time: "This Church was to endure to the end of time, and throughout all time there was to exist upon the earth not only a Church of Christ, but a Vicar of Christ. Jesus had created His Vicar before He built His Church. The creation of His Vicar was on that day at Caesarea Philippi an act of the then present-the building of His Church was on that day only a purpose of His to be carried out in the future. He said, "I 'will build My Church," but He had already said to Simon of Bethsaida, "Thou, art Peter" (the Rock). He had laid the foundation before He reared upon it the superstructure." And let us consider this on civil society: "CIVIL society is the creation of God. 1Uan IS of his nature a social being. He finds himself, at his entrance into the world, a member of a human society. In that society he is a subject, and he has superiors. A man's parents are his superiors in that primary society which is called the family. The head of the woman is the man, and God has made wives to be subject to their husbands. To both husband and wife are their children subject by the ordinance of God. Every family is a true society, inasmuch as it contains a principle of authority, which is the centre of its unity. Apart from authority a society cannot exist. Without unity there cannot be one individual society. A society consists of superior and subjects, and it is the authority of the superior which constitutes it, or makes it to be a society.
