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Let there be no mistake here. My thought is not that the Protestant nations will turn renegade, and preserve that silence which becomes only the avowal of weakness and submission, in the face of vexations and outrages to which their co-religionists may here and there be subjected by Roman Catholic governments. I say not either that they will, or that they ought to act thus. This matter is exclusively their own; in it, in my character of child of God, already translated into the kingdom of the Son (Col. 1:13), I see absolutely nothing for me to do. By being Protestant they are not the less nations, and as a child of God, P have been taken out from among the nations.
My attention is never turned towards them, unless it be in the expectation, full of tender and lively affection, if, peradventure, it may be given to me to be, in the Lord's hand, the blessed means of the conversion of one or other of their number. But were I considering how I could obtain facilities for the exercise of my energy as an evangelist, or protection in the celebration of worship, or the repression of, and retribution for, the evil treatment which my brethren may have to endure, I should at once recall the thought that the nations are incompetent for such things, and that my privilege consists in the ability of access to an ear which is ever attentive, full of solicitude, and which is connected with an arm mighty to overthrow the most haughty fastnesses, and to place the abject, when the right time is come, upon an unassailable rock.
Where is now-a-days the enlightened child of God who could consent to say, after reflection and consideration, we, when speaking of Protestant nations? Who could identify himself with them - would be willing to acknowledge his full fellowship with their past and with their present, and to accept their destinies as his hiding-place? I trust that there is not even one such to be met with.
It is superfluous to notice that the "/" here is only used for the sake of facility of expression.
It is now a long while since Protestantism, considered as a body, has become that which Romanism had become many centuries before the appearance of Luther and Calvin. I mean (it has become as) the camp where all was in ruins-the camp in which the adversary has spoiled all-the camp, out of which all they who seek the Lord, should retire towards the tabernacle of the congregation which the Holy Spirit takes care to pitch for the intelligent of every dispensation and of every age (Ex. 33:7; Heb. 13:13.) [See note at the end of this paper.]
If this be the case, the line of conduct which the children of God have to follow in our day is very clearly traced. Let them keep altogether outside of all the discussions, contentions, arrangements, transactions of the nations and of worldly religions, Protestant as well as Romanist. Let them leave to them that are such to debate upon and solve, after their own fashion, the questions which pre-occupy them, the differences which have arisen, or which may rise among them. Let them, as a people that are Nazarites, as was and as still is their Savior, their Head, carefully kept themselves apart, bearing in mind that they are of heaven, and that it is still in heaven that their treasure, life, hope, power and glory are found (Eph. 1; Col. 3)