Perhaps you will say, but I love my country, Therefore I am for the _country-interest_. I fear, you know not what you say. Are you against your king because you love your country? Who taught you to separate your king from your country? To set one against the other? Be assured, none that loves either. True lovers of their country do not talk in this senseless manner.
Is not the interest of the king of _England_ and of the country of _England_, one and the same? If the king is destroyed, doth it profit the country? If the country, does it profit the king? Their interest cannot be divided. The welfare of _one_ is the welfare of _both_.
Have you an objection of a different kind? Do you say, I am for the _church_? The church of _England_ for ever! Therefore I vote for ――――. He is a true _churchman_, a lover of the church. Are you sure of that? Friend, think a little. What kind of a churchman is he? A whoring churchman? A gaming churchman? A drunken churchman? A lying churchman? A cursing and swearing churchman? Or, a red-hot persecuting churchman, that would send all dissenters to the devil at a clap? For shame! for shame! Do you call a man a churchman, who knows no more of God than a Turk? Call a man a churchman, that does not even _pretend_ to so much religion, as would serve an honest Heathen? He is a lover of the church who is a lover of God, and consequently of all mankind. Whoever else talks of loving the church is a cheat. Set a mark upon that man.
Above all, mark that man, who talks of loving the church, and does not love the king. If he does not love the king, he cannot love God. And if he does not love God, he cannot love the church. He loves the church and the king just alike. For indeed he loves neither one nor the other.
Oh beware, you who truly love the church, and therefore he cannot but love the king: beware of dividing the king and the church, any more than the king and country. Let others do as they will, what is that to you? Act you as an honest man, a loyal subject, a true Englishman, a lover of the country, a lover of the church; in one word, a Christian! One that fears nothing but sin, that seeks nothing but heaven, and that desires nothing but God. Nothing but glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men!
ADVICE to a SOLDIER.
1. ARE _you_ to die? Must _you_ leave this world, and carry nothing of it away with you? Naked as you came out of your mother’s womb, naked shall you return. And are you never to come back into this world? Have you no more place under the sun? When you leave these houses and fields, this flesh and blood, do you part with them for ever? Are you _sure_ of this? Must _all_ men die? Can _none at all_ escape death? Do _rich_ men likewise die, and leave their riches for others? Do _princes_ also fall and die like one of their people? Can _you_ then escape it? You do not think so. You know death is as sure as if you felt it already: as if you was now gasping for life, sweating and trembling in those last pangs, till the soul started off from the quivering lips, into the boundless ocean of eternity.