If I travel in distant lands, my passport is the sign that all the
power of these United States is pledged to protect me from
injustice. Think of the sensitiveness of governments to any wrong
done to their private citizens. England went to war with Abyssinia
to protect and deliver two Englishmen. And shall God do less? Can he
do less? If it is only just and right and necessary for earthly
governments to thus care for their citizens, shall not the ruler and
"judge of all the earth do right?"
Now you and I are commanded to be heirs of God, to attain to
likeness to him. This is therefore our legal right, guaranteed by
him, for every command of God is really a promise. And he will
exhaust every power in the universe before he allows anything to
prevent us from gaining our legal rights, provided only that we are
earnest in claiming them.
But if I alienate my rights to my inheritance, the commonwealth
cannot help me. If I renounce my citizenship, the government of the
United States can no longer protect me. And so I can alienate my
"right to the tree of life," and to entrance into the city, and I
can forfeit my heirship to all that God would give me. "For I am
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, shall be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
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