Because religion cannot be organised, because God is everywhere and
immediately accessible to every human being, it does not follow
that religion cannot organise every other human affair. It is indeed
essential to the idea that God is the Invisible King of this round
world and all mankind, that we should see in every government, great
and small, from the council of the world-state that is presently coming,
down to the village assembly, the instrument of God’s practical control.
Religion which is free, speaking freely through whom it will, subject to
a perpetual unlimited criticism, will be the life and driving power of
the whole organised world. So that if you prefer not to say that there
will be no church, if you choose rather to declare that the world-state
is God’s church, you may have it so if you will. Provided that you
leave conscience and speech and writing and teaching about divine things
absolutely free, and that you try to set no nets about God.
The world is God’s and he takes it. But he himself remains freedom, and
we find our freedom in him.