They made mistakes, and often worse
than mistakes, for they were but men. But this I tell you, that if they
had not had a deep and sound belief that they were in the kingdom of God,
the kingdom of heaven; and that they and all men must obey the laws of
the kingdom of heaven; and that the first law of it was, that wrongdoing
would be punished, and rightdoing rewarded, in this life, every day, and
all day long, as sure as Christ the living Lord reigned in righteousness
over all the earth; if they had not believed that, I say, and acted on
it, we should probably have been heathen at this day. As it is, unless
we Protestants get back the old belief, that God is a living God, and
that His judgments are abroad in the earth, and that only in keeping His
commandments can we get life, and not perish, we shall be seriously in
danger of sinking at last into that hopeless state of popular feeling,
into which more than one nation in our own time has fallen,--that, as the
prophet of old says, a wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the
land; the prophets--that is, the preachers and teachers--prophesy
falsely; and the priests--the ministers of religion--bear rule by their
means; and my people love to have it so--love to have their consciences
drugged by the news that they may live bad lives, and yet die good
deaths.
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