The essential point, for our present purpose, is that the guarantees of individual Roman Catholics, no matter how positively or how confidently stated, are of no account as against the steady age-long policy of the Roman Church. It is well known to all students that, while other religious bodies have, both in theory and in practice, renounced certain old methods of persuasion, the Roman Church still formally claims the power to control states, to depose princes, to absolve subjects from their allegiance, to extirpate heresy. She has never accepted the modern doctrine of toleration.