Page:The Parochial System (Wilberforce, 1838).djvu/129

 remit our exertions until it is effected. Let us ask ourselves, Is the government of our land bound to do any thing to relieve those pressing spiritual necessities which have been shown to exist? It is but to ask, in other words, whether the same men who are bound to do what they can in one place for Christ and their brethren, are bound also to do what they can in another. We may not be Christians in our churches, our closets, and in our studies, and heathens in our council chambers and our senates. If the government refuse to serve God as a government, then do they, as a government, plainly declare that they will not have Him to reign over them; and if the nation suffer them to do so, the nation become partakers of their guilt. So far all is plain.

It is important that every man who has any political power or influence should distinctly and explicitly avow this principle, and enforce it on the attention of our rulers; for it has become a common practice with public men to express a disapprobation of what they are pleased to call "the voluntary system," without explaining what they mean by the words. If their actions are any sufficient comment upon their meaning, it must be marvellously poor and meagre; for these same men are not found so much as to propose any application of the public revenue in aid of those exertions which churchmen have been making, both in societies and as individuals, to