their hearts
continually stood at the gate ready to depart, so that they had no
inclination whatever to build houses, to cultivate farms, to make
gardens, to take wives and rear children. Nevertheless, the prophet
bids them meet all the requirements of citizens of that country; and
more than that, to pray for their hosts in the same spirit in which
they would pray for their neighbors and fellow-citizens, asking God
for peace and prosperity upon the city.

CHRISTIANS SUBJECTS OF TWO KINGDOMS.

14. So, too, Christians are subjects of two kingdoms--they have
experience of two kinds of life. Here on earth where the world has its
home and its heavenly kingdom, we surely are not citizens. According
to Paul (Phil 3, 20), "our conversation"--our citizenship--"is with
Christ in heaven"; that is, in yonder life, the life we await. As the
Jews hoped to be released from Babylon, we hope to be released from
this present life and to go where we shall be lordly citizens forever.
But being obliged to continue in this wretched state--our Babylon--so
long as God wills, we should do as the Jews were commanded to
do--mingle with other mortals, eat and drink, make homes, till the
soil, fill civil offices and show good will toward our fellows, even
praying for them, until the hour arrives for us to depart unto our
home.

15. He who is guided by these facts, who comprehends the distinction
between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of the world, will know
how to resist successfully all classes of fanatics. For these latter
paint this life in a terrible aspect. They want to run out of the
world entirely, and are unwilling to associate with anyone; or they
proceed to disturb civil regulations and to overthrow all order; or
again, as with the Pope, they interfere in secular rule, desiring
temporal authority, wholly under the name and color of Christianity.

Having as Christians forgiveness of sins, and being now people of God,
children of his kingdom, citizens no longer of Babylon but of heaven,
let us know that during the period of our sojourn here among
strangers, it is ours to live righteously, honorably and chastely, to
further civil and domestic peace and to lend counsel and aid to
benefit even the wicked and ungrateful, meanwhile constantly striving
after our inheritance and keeping in mind the kingdom whither we are
bound.

16. In short, a Christian must be one who, as Paul says (1 Cor 7,
29-31), uses this world as not abusing