Church and State as Seen in the Formation of ChristendomAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Church and state; Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Religion and state
13. There is yet one more quality, as distinctive and as peculiar as any
which we have yet passed in review. It is the kingdom not only of the
truth, but of Charity. Not that within it there have not been innumerable
scandals; not that within it sin has not ever been fighting with grace;
but that the whole kingdom is compacted and held together by a divine
charity, and has in it as a common possession the treasure of the merits
of Jesus Christ. "The king is one with the kingdom, because He bears its
sins; the kingdom is one with the King, because it bears His cross."[26]
This is an interchange of charity which goes on for ever. It is an effect
of this bond that no virtue and no suffering in it is lost. The whole
kingdom, from the beginning to the end, makes up "that which is wanting
of the sufferings of Christ." There is no such bond of unity, no such
fruit of communion, in any temporal kingdom comparable to this. I suppose
that patriotism in the natural society corresponds to the charity
engendered in the supernatural kingdom; and patriotism is limited to the
temporal objects of the particular society; charity extends to the
eternal interests of the kingdom without end.
3.—_Relation of the Two Powers to each other._
In the treatment hitherto pursued we have divided the consideration of
the two Powers into the period before Christ and the period which ensues
upon His coming.
In the period before Christ we have found that both Powers were
originally of divine institution in the beginning of man, and that both
belonged to him as a race. Civil government began with the family;
worship, and with it priesthood, began also with the family; both were
united in the head of the race; both were instituted for the good of man
as he lived in society. Their subject was the same—man—the secular Power
treating him in his relation to his natural end, its object being to
provide all things which concerned the temporal prosperity of his life;
the Spiritual Power treating him in relation to his supernatural or last
end, its object being to provide whatever concerned his eternal state
after this life. And their relative importance was determined by their
end, with regard to which the temporal life was subject to the future
life. No fact was more strikingly illustrated by the whole history than
this; for three times the condition of the whole race upon the earth was
affected by its conduct in regard to the last end, which belongs to the
Spiritual Power. Once, and at a stroke, the whole race fell in its first
sire from its state of original justice, and from the happiness which
depended on the preservation of that state, by disregard of the end for
which it was created. A second time the whole race, with the exception of
one family, because disobedience to God became universal, fell in like
manner, and was destroyed. A third time the lapse proceeded to the
corruption of the idea of God Himself; the unity and brotherhood of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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