And, surely, men are doing so in these days; men are forgetting that
other foundation can no man lay save that which IS laid, which is
Christ; they laugh at the thought of a city, that is, a state and
form of government, "not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;"
they have forgotten that St. Paul tells them in the Hebrews that we
HAVE "a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is
God," a kingdom which cannot be moved. Yes, men who call themselves
learned and worldly wise, and good men too, alas! who fancy that
they are preaching God's gospel, go about and tell men, 'The men of
Babel were right after all. What have nations to do with God and
religion? Nations are merely earthly, carnal things, that were only
invented by sinful men themselves, to preserve their bodies and
goods, and make trading easy. Religion has only to do with a man's
private opinions, his single soul; the government has nothing to do
with the Church: a Christian has nothing to do with politics.' And
so these men most unwittingly open a door to all sorts of
covetousness and meanness in the nation, and all sorts of trickery
and cowardice in the government. Tell a man that his business has
nothing to do with God, and you cannot wonder if he acts without
thinking of God. If you tell a nation that it is selfishness which
makes it prosperous, of course you must expect it to be selfish. If
you tell us Englishmen that the duties of a citizen are not duties
to God, but only duties to the constable and the tax-gatherer, what
wonder if men believe you and become undutiful to God in their
citizenship? No, my friends, once for all, as sure as God made
Abraham a great nation, so if we English are a great nation, God has
made us so--as sure as God gave Abraham the land of Canaan for his
possession, so did HE give us this land of England, when He brought
our Saxon forefathers out of the wild barren north, and drove out
before them nations greater and mightier than they, and gave them