Supposing, however, that something like moderation were visible in this
political sermon; yet politics and the pulpit are terms that have little
agreement. No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing
voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty and civil
government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of
duties. Those who quit their proper character to assume what does
not belong to them, are, for the greater part, ignorant both of
the character they leave, and of the character they assume. Wholly
unacquainted with the world in which they are so fond of meddling, and
inexperienced in all its affairs, on which they pronounce with so much
confidence, they have nothing of politics but the passions they excite.
Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed
to the dissensions and animosities of mankind.