Just the same with a nation. If the king only cares about making
himself strong, and the noblemen and gentlemen about their rank and
riches, and the poor people, again, only care for themselves, and
are trying to pull down the rich, and so get what they can for
themselves,--if a country is in this state, what can be more
wretched? Neither a house, nor a country, divided against itself,
can ever stand. But if the king and the nobles give their whole
minds to making good laws, and seeing justice done to all, and
workmen fairly paid, and if the poor, in their turns, are loyal, and
ready to fight and work for their king and their nobles, then will
not that country be a happy and a great country? Surely it will,
because its people, instead of caring every man for himself only,
help each other and bear one another's burdens.
And just in the same way with Christ's Church, with the company of
true Christian men. If the clergymen thought only of themselves,
and neglected the people, and forgot to labour among them, and pray
for them, and preach to them; and if the people each cared for
himself, and never prayed to God to give them a spirit of love and
charity, and never helped their neighbours, or did unto others as
they wished to be done by; and above all, if Christ, our Head, left
His Church, and cared no more about us, what would become of
Christ's Church? What would happen to the whole race of sinful man,
but misery in this world, and ruin in the next? But if the people
love and help each other, and obey their ministers, and pray for
them; and if the ministers labour earnestly after the souls and
bodies of their people; and Christ in heaven helps both minister and
people with His Spirit, and His providence and protection; in short,
if all in the whole Church bear each other's burdens, then Christ's
Church will stand, and the gates of hell will not prevail against
it.
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