Christian patriotism, loyalty to the law and government of the Most High, is the loftiest aspiration that can ever come to any soul.
The separation of religion and the State is one of the most important questions that any people can ever be called upon to consider in connection with Christian patriotism; because the union of religion and the State has marked the greatest apostasies from God, and has caused more misery than any other thing in all history.
The complete separation of religion and the State is Christian. Unswerving loyalty to this principle is Christian patriotism. This is not a mere sentiment or side issue of Christianity; it is one of the fundamental principles and chief characteristics of Christianity.
The Bible, not merely the New Testament, but the whole Book, is the Book of Christianity. The New Testament is not a revelation new and distinct from the Old; it is the culmination of the revelation begun in the Old Testament.
The Old Testament and the New are one book -- one consistent, harmonious revelation of God through Jesus Christ; because Jesus Christ is the revelation of God before the world was made, when the world was made, and through all the history of the world from beginning to end.
The first chapter of Genesis is Christian as certainly as is the first chapter of John. The book of Genesis is Christian as really as is the book of Revelation or any other book in the Bible. We repeat, therefore, that the whole Bible is the Book of Christianity, the Book of the Christian religion, the revelation of God through Jesus Christ.
And the separation of religion and the State is one of the great thoughts of this great Book. It is one of the leading principles of that Book which for man is the source of all sound principle.
Many people think that the two or three expressions of Christ as recorded in the New Testament are all that the Bible contains on the subject of the separation of Church and State; and many others are disposed even to argue against these passages, and to modify them by other passages from the Old Testament. But separation of religion and the State is one of the original thoughts of the Bible, and reaches from the beginning to the end of the Book; and neither the Book nor this subject can be fairly understood in reference to this matter till this is clearly defined in the mind.
We purpose here to give a series of studies of the Bible from beginning to end, on this great subject of Christian patriotism or the separation of religion and State.
Being one of the great thoughts of the Bible, one of the great thoughts of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, this subject is of vital importance to men everywhere in their relations to God, and not merely in their relations to the State. It is a principle that is involved in the daily experience of the Christian in his relation to God; and not merely an abstract question that man can stand, as it were, apart from and view simply as a speculative question of the relations between religion and the State.
The ways of God are right. His Word is the only certain light, the only sure truth. The principles which He has announced are the only safe principles for the guidance of men. We hope, and shall seriously endeavor, to make each study so plain that every reader can easily see and readily grasp the truth of it in very principle. We shall begin at the beginning.