The Founding Fathers formed our government with the provision that free speech is obscene according to the standard of the Bible. Common Law then, is subservient to church law based on the Bible. Despite what Thomas Jefferson believed, Common Law is based on Christianity and the Bible-ecclesiastical law was superior to statute law, as Sabbath, desecration of the Lord’s Day, apostasy from Christianity, heresy, and Blasphemy laws support. Jefferson's error was his assumption that Christianity was not introduced to Britain until the seventh century, and that Christianity wasn't introduced until the Saxons came from Germany.
Jefferson wrote in 1814,
"If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians."
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl227.htm
Evidence shows the Christians were underground in the Roman Empire, including Britain,
" The discovery of the Darenth Bowl (a glass communion chalice c.450 A.D.) discovered by the Dartford District Archaeological Group in a Saxon grave in the grounds of the old Darenth Park Hospital has raised all sorts of questions about the possible survival of Christian belief in and around Dartford."
http://www.dartfordarchive.org.uk/early_history/religion_s.shtml
The fact is Christianity existed throughout Britain from the beginning, as well as where the Saxons lived. Jefferson's claim that Christianity was not legislatively implemented by the Saxons is irrelevant to Christianity and Common Law. Common Law may have been formerly legislated to the entire people of Britain in the seventh century, but most of the people knew Christianity, and lived by it from the time of the Apostles. Foxes Book of Martyrs claims Simon the Zealot preached in Britain where many converts were made.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/martyrs/index.htm
Statute law was not the foundation of human laws-according to ecclesiastical law, the Law and the Gospel are the basis of Common Law. There's no evidence of falsifing Prisot's words as Jefferson claims. Ancien[t] scripture has to be the complete Bible, or church law based on the Bible-that ancient scripture includes the New Testament is clear from the instruction to the Clergy by the Apostle Paul. At the beginning of Common Law in the sixth century under Christian King Ethelbert, or in the ninth century under Christian King Alfred the Great , Biblical law did not need to be established by legislative action, the Bible was common to the people. The proof of Common Law is the Church's inclusion of Biblical law into civil law.
Jon Rowe, Ed Brayton, Lenni Brenner, Forrest Church, Mark Wheldon Whitten, Tom Van Dyke, Radio host Tom Hartmann, Dr. Gregg Frazer, or any other revisionist that denies the Biblical foundations the United States was built on, this information is for you. What is the actual beliefs of our framers regarding the Law of Nature, The First Amendment, Separation of Church and State, and the Constitution? Let's examine the framers' actual words, along with the Christian Theologians who first espoused some of these principles from the bible, showing Rowe's promotion of his "key founders" term is the basis of the liberal, progressive secularist agenda to neglect the other important framers who helped draft the Constitution, along with the First Amendment. This is a very important deception limiting the authority of the Founding Fathers to a select few like Jefferson, Adams, and Madison. But of course they know what they're doing, this evidence exposes their schemes.
Let's first refute the claim that Thomas Jefferson is a "key founder" as Rowe claims. He had nothing to do with the organic laws of our nation, the formation of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Northwest Ordinance, or Articles of Confederation, and contrary to popular belief, he was a smaller player as his credit due in the formation of the Declaration of Independence. Despite Jefferson's hand in establishing the executive department during the first three Presidencies, along with his rough draft of the DOI, he should not be considered a "key founder."
Did Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence or did he borrow principles already laid down by previous Constitutions, and Christian Theologians? The evidence says the latter, so why is Jefferson considered a "key founder?" John Adams said the principles of the Declaration were already laid down [mistakenly] by James Otis, the actual author was born again Christian Samuel Adams:
"As you justly observe, there is not an idea in it [the Declaration of Independence] but what had been hackneyed in Congress two years before. The substance of it is contained in the Declaration of Rights, and the Violations of those Rights, in the journals of Congress in 1774. Indeed, the essence of it is contained in a pamphlet voted and printed by the town of Boston before the first Congress met, composed by James Otis, as I suppose, in one of his lucid intervals, and pruned and polished by Samuel Adams." (John Adams's Works, II. 514).
http://www.constitution.org/bcp/right_col.htm
Quoting Adams biographer William V. Wells, "There certainly is a similarity between the "Rights of the Colonists" in 1772 and the "Declaration of Rights" in 1774, and between them both and the Declaration of Independence; but, as all are founded on the time-honored principles of Locke, Hooker, Sydney, and Harrington, some of whom are duly quoted by Samuel Adams in his treatise, the disputes as to the originality are needless.
Finally, Wells says, "Here [in the paper of 1772] is embodied the whole philosophy of human rights, condensed from the doctrines of all time, and applied to the immediate circumstances of America. Upon this paper was based all that was written or spoken on human liberty in the Congress which declared independence; and the immortal instrument itself is, in many features, but a repetition of the principles here enunciated, and of Joseph Warren's list of 5grievances, which followed the Rights of the Colonists in the report."
A committee of five persons, four considered themselves Christians, put the Declaration together, Jefferson wrote the rough draft borrowing from what was already known. There are other men considered more honestly "key founders" than Thomas Jefferson, of which the liberals disect his writings to promote their agenda at the exclusion of other more important framers like: Alexander Hamilton, Roger Sherman, John Marshall, Rufus King, Father of the Bill of Rights George Mason, Elbridge Gerry, Edmund Randolph, Gouverneur Morris, James Wilson, and The Father of the Revolution Samuel Adams. All of these men are far more important to our founding than Thomas Jefferson. General Hamilton was the first man over the wall at Yorktown defeating the British, as well as his economic ideas are implemented to this day. A Father of American Jurispurdence James Kent claimed there was no greater lawyer than Alexander Hamilton. Many things are said about Hamilton's supposed fornication with women, besides an affair he had by which he was framed, they should not be noted without proper proof. Based on Hamilton's economic policies, he is the greatest genius, and founder this country has ever had. Roger Sherman is the only man to sign all four documents of our government, proposed the two chamber format of the legislature, and was on the House committee forming the Bill of Rights. Marshall was a Revolutionary General, one of the minutemen; fought in the Battles of Great Bridge (1775), Brandywine (1777), Germantown (1777), and Monmouth (1778), helped ratify the Constitution, author of Judicial Review, Secretary of State, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Jefferson's work in the executive department is noted, but overall, other men did more at the founding legislatively, militarily, and executively.
The identity of the Law of Nature is the key to understanding the will of the Founding Fathers. That the law of nature is Jesus Christ is indisputable, both from the Founding Fathers and the Christian Theologians who first started to use the term taken from the Torah and emphasized by Paul in Romans 2:14-15. The Law of Nature is from the Creator, the conscience inside of every human being convicting us of what is right and wrong (that lieing and stealing is wrong, etc,.) according to the Ten Commandments, and the Gospel. This internal conscience can be seared by the will, limiting the path to the true God. This searing of the conscience is found in Deut 12:6, "every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes." For the pagan without revelation in the Old Covenant, this is what kept them from a relationship with God, Job being an example of the exception.
All the Christian Theologians: Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Hugo Grotius, Richard Hooker, Samuel de Puffendorf, John Locke, Baron Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, William Blackstone, etc. all believed the Law of Nature was from the God of the bible, with the bible always supreme over reason.
"divine revelation; because the truth about God such as reason could discover, would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors...in order that the salvation of men might be brought about more fitly and surely, it was necessary they should be taught divine truths by divine revelation, It was therefore necessary that besides philosophical science built up by reason there should be a sacred science learned by revelation." Aquinas, Summa, First Part, Q.1, Art.1
If Aquinas incorrectly attributed his belief on the Law of Nature to Aristotle, it doesn't change who its identity is
John Calvin:
...we ought to seek our conviction in a higher place than human reasons...the testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. Institutes, 1.7.
Hooker refers to reason including the Holy Spirit as "right reason." Hooker was the main influence for the chief expert on the Law of Nature among the Founding Fathers James Wilson.
"Scripture indeed teacheth things above nature, things which our reason by iselfe could not reach unto. Yet those things we also believe, knowing by reason the scripture is the Word of God." Hooker, Lawes, III.8.11: I.229.33–230.10
“Right Reason” Reason thus informed by the Holy Spirit becomes right reason in the thinking of Hooker because it results in faith, by which humans may enjoy both the understanding and assurance of salvation proclaimed by the Gospel.
"For even if 'the forceof naturall reason is great. The force whereof unto those effects is nothing without Grace." Hooker, Lawes, III.8.11: I.229.15f
Locke affirmed Hooker, and believed scripture was superior to reason:
[L]aws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made. John Locke, Two Treatises on Government (London: J. Whiston, etc., 1772), Book II, p. 285, Chapter XI, §135, n., quoting Hooker's Eccl. Pol. 1. iii, sect. 9.
Liberals attack Locke for being an Arian, which is a total falsity. So Locke did not believe in original sin or eternal damnation, both are non essentials of salvation. As for Locke not believing in Jesus' deity, the evidence is that he believed Jesus divine, which is all that is relevant. He may have believed as Justin Martyr that Jesus was created from the Father, but as long as Jesus is believed as God, there is no heresy. Locke's last work shows evidence of his believing Jesus divine:
“...believe that Christ is a good man, and not above the nature of a man, and sent of God to give instruction to the world: and my faith,” he says, “is of the very same scantling.” This I shall desire him to prove; or, which in other words he insinuates in this and the neighbouring pages, viz. John Locke A SECOND VINDICATION OF THE REASONABLENESSOF CHRISTIANITY, 1697.
A man that is above the nature of a man is divine. The point is not that Locke believed Jesus was less than God, anyone that is above the nature of man is divine, regardless of a persons personal belief.
Our Founding Fathers affirmed the beliefs of the Christian philosophers, and employed these beliefs in the Declaration of Independence. The Law of Nature is therefore Jesus Christ, for He is the express image of God, co-equal to The Father and Holy Spirit. According to "key founder" James Wilson, the Bible is Supreme:
"Thus it is with regard to reason, conscience, and the holy scriptures. Where the latter give instructions, those instructions are supereminently authentick." THE WORKS OF James Wilson. http://www.constitution.org/jwilson/jwilson1.doc
I repeat, the Law of Nature is not subservient to reason. The framers believed this, and to think the Creator of human reason is not above reason is the epitome of ignorance. John Rowe likes to quote Jefferson and Adams as speaking for the framer's as only their views were important- that they believed only parts of the bible does not change the Law of Nature, only their personal view of it. Rowe and the rest of the secular progressives will not quote the other framers because they know it contradicts their own views. Consider "key founder" one of the writer's of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution Roger Sherman:
I believe that there is one only living and true God, existing in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . . that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are a revelation from God. . . . that God did send His own Son to become man, die in the room and stead of sinners, and thus to lay a foundation for the offer of pardon and salvation to all mankind so as all may be saved who are willing to accept the Gospel offer. Lewis Henry Boutell, The Life of Roger Sherman (Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Company, 1896), pp. 272-273.
Liberals and secularists would never quote Sherman, or the other more important framer's like Hamilton, Samuel Adams, James Wilson, or John Jay to show their belief who the Law of Nature is. Born Again Christian Samuel Adams on the Law of Nature:
In the supposed state of nature, all men are equally bound by the laws of nature, or to speak more properly, the laws of the Creator. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Harry Alonzo Cushing, editor (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1908), Vol. IV. p. 356, to the Legislature of Massachusetts on January 17, 1794.
Original Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Jay:
[T]he...natural law was given by the Sovereign of the Universe to all mankind. The Life of John Jay, William Jay, editor (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833), Vol. II, p. 385, to John Murray on April 15, 1818.
To say that John Locke, the Christian theologians, or the framer's, besides Jefferson, Adams, Washington, and Franklin did not believe the bible superior to reason is a disgrace to knowledge. How could the maker of reason not be superior to it? James Wilson, regarding the Law of Nature was not Lockean at all, but a disciple of Richard Hooker. Locke himself learned this doctrine from Hooker because he uses Hooker's quote.
Moving to the First Amendment only referring to Christianity is clear to see, despite the absence of a Christian reference in the words. The context was clear in the general public, and ratifying debates. The basis of the establishment clause is very simple, to prohibit a National Church, that is all, nothing more. The only religion that had a chance to be a National Church is a denomination of Christianity, as the greatest judge explains:
"the First Amendment, which was written not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity. Rather, it was designed to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. The goal was not the freedom to foster religious diversity, but the avoidance of a national ecclesiastical establishment such as the Church of England.
Joseph Story-Commentaries, Vol. III, p. 728, 1871. Father of American Jurisprudence, Founder of Harvard Law School. He produced nine major treatises within the space of twelve years: Bailments (1832), Commentaries on the Constitution (3 Vols., 1833), Conflict of Laws (1834), Equity Jurisprudence (2 Vols., 1836), Equity Pleadings (1838), Agency (1839), Partnership (1841), Bills of Exchange (1843), and Promissory Notes (1845). Judge Story was also the author of valuable notes on prize, admiralty, maritime, and patent law contained in appendices to Supreme Court reports, and a frequent contributor to the North American Review, in which he published legal essays. His judicial opinions and writings laid the foundation for admiralty law, equity jurisprudence, and commercial law in the United States. Though a member of the judiciary, Story also worked diligently to clarify and improve Federal laws. He drafted legislation to extend the jurisdiction of the circuit courts and revise the bankruptcy laws. Story may justly be regarded as the real founder of the Harvard Law School; for his appointment marked an important turning point in the history of an institution that was faltering until Story took command. As a result of his leadership, enrollment increased, the quality of instruction improved, and the school's reputation for excellence grew rapidly. American Reference Library, The Ultimate Reference to American History and Political Science, World Book Encyclopedia. 1998 World Book, Inc and Western Standard Publishing Company.
Liberals and secular progressives violate a fundamental principle in interpreting statutes as the framers explained:
Whenever words are understood in a sense different from that which they had when introduced....mistakes may be very injurious.
Noah Webster, The Holy Bible...With Amendments of the Language (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1833), p. iii,
On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted....instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
Thomas Jefferson to Judge William Johnson on June 12, 1823
The probable context is what the signers and ratifiers wrote down, not what liberals and progressives want to squeeze out of the text. Does Constitution signer Henry Abbot know the context of the First Amendment?
"Many wish to know what religion shall be established. I believe a majority of the community are Presbyterians. I am, for my part, against any exclusive establishment; but if there were any, I would prefer the Episcopal."
Elliot's Debates, Vol. IV, pp. 191-192, July 30, 1788.
Notice Abbot believes a denomination is a religion like the First Amendment reads. Maybe the liberals believe Abbot didn't understand what he was doing, after all he only signed the Constitution, he wasn't a "key founder." Did Constitution ratifier Governor Samuel Johnston understand the context of the First Amendment? He helped frame the Bill of Rights, did he not know the correct application of the First Amendment? Liberals have the audacity to say no:
I know but two or three States where there is the least chance of establishing any particular religion. The people of Massachusetts and Connecticut are mostly Presbyterians. In every other State, the people are divided into a great number of sects. In Rhode Island, the tenets of the Baptists, I believe prevail...I hope, therefore, that gentlemen will see there is no cause of fear that any one religion shall be exclusively established. July 30, 1788
James Madison believed like the other framers in the original intent of the Constitution, not to change its meaning :
I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution...What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense.
to Henry Lee on June 25, 1824
Madison believed the context of a statute should be in the manner of those who ratified it, not those who drafted it. And the States ratified it, so the states' context is the correct context. Even Thomas Jefferson believed the First Amendment only referred to an establishment of Christianity as Jefferson neglected the other religions, showing again, liberals and secular progressives love to change probable meanings of words-notice how Jefferson refers to the First Amendment but only speaks of Christianity:
[T]he clause of the Constitution which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity through the United States; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes and they believe that any portion of power confided in me will be exerted in oppostion to their schemes. And they believe rightly.
to Benjamin Rush September 23, 1800.
Did James Madison not agree with the context of the Father of the Bill of Rights George Mason:
[A]ll men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no particular sect or society of Christians ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others. Kate Mason Rowland, The Life of George Mason (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1892, Vol. I, p.28.
James Madison agreed with the context of every other framer, as his testimony for the First Amendment shows.
MR. MADISON thought, if the word 'National' was inserted before religion, it would satisfy the minds of honorable gentlemen. He believed that the people feared one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion, to which they would compel others to conform. Annals of Congress 1:434-435) Saturday August 15, 1789
How could Madison believe two different religions joining together to form a National Religion in a Christian Nation? It's absurd and ridiculous, because he believed the United States was a Christian nation!
If the public homage of a people can ever be worthy the favorable regard of the Holy and Omniscient Being to whom it is addressed, it must be that in which those who join in it are guided only by their free choice, by the impulse of their hearts and the dictates of their consciences; and such a spectacle must be interesting to all Christian nations as proving that religion, that gift of Heaven for the good of man, freed from all coercive edicts, from that unhallowed connection with the powers of this world which corrupts religion into an instrument or an usurper of the policy of the state...Upon these principles and with these views the good people of the United States are invited, in conformity with the resolution aforesaid, to dedicate the day above named to the religious solemnities therein recommended.
Given at Washington, this 23d day of July, A. D. 1813.
[seal.] JAMES MADISON
Why would Madison compare us with Christian nations if he didn't believe we were a Christian nation? Of course it doesn't make sense if you take a perverted context of the First Amendment. It is clear, the First Amendment only refers to an establishment of a particular denomination of Christianity, like the church of England.
The lie of separation of church and state may be more absurd of a lie than the revisionists view of the First Amendment. Thomas Jefferson, who the revisionists get their dogma from, violated the separation dogma several times, proving they have perverted the correct meaning of separation of church and state. Showing Jefferson violated government supporting Christianity should be sufficient enough:
In an 1803 federal Indian treaty, Jefferson willingly agreed to provide $300 to “assist the said Kaskaskia tribe in the erection of a church” and to provide “annually for seven years $100 towards the support of a Catholic priest.” He also signed three separate acts setting aside government lands for the sole use of religious groups and setting aside government lands so that Moravian missionaries might be assisted in “promoting Christianity.”
American State Papers, Walter Lowrie and Matthew St. Claire Clarke, editors (Washington, D. C.: Gales and Seaton, 1832), Vol. IV, p. 687; see also Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, at 103 (1985), Rehnquist, J. (dissenting); see also, The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, Richard Peters, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846), Vol. VII, p. 79, Article III, “A Treaty Between the United States and the Kaskaskia Tribe of Indians,” December 23, 1803; Vol. VII, p. 88, Article IV, “Treaty with the Wyandots, etc.,” 1805; Vol. VII, p. 102, Article II, “Treaty with the Cherokees,” 1806.
There are many more instances disproving separation of church and state, but this one act by Jefferson is sufficient to refute the entire dogma. Separation of church and state refers only to the Federal Government aligning itself with a church, like the Anglican church of England. The states were free to do with religion whatever they wanted, most formed Christianity as the religion of the state. Thomas Jefferson explains:
In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general [federal] government. Second Inaugural Address, 1805 http://www.wallbuilders.com/
This is why Constitution signers Richard Bassett and George Read could form a state constitution like this, as if these men did not understand the First Amendment:
The Constitution of the State of Delaware (until 1792) stated:
Article XXII Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust… shall… make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit:
“I, _______, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the
Holy Ghost, one God, blessed forevermore; I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old
and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.” [p.203]
One of the many misinterpretations and betrayals of original intent is the Treaty of Tripoli claiming the United States is not a Christian nation. It is true those words are in the Treaty, but the comment is referring to the Federal Government, remember, religion is left to the states. The Federal Government is supposed to have nothing to do with religion in general. In almost every case Jon Rowe and secular progressives corrupt the views of the framer's, here is one of their tricks:
So whereas the God of Scripture, in the very first command, forbids the worship of any false gods, the Founders’ Nature’s God grants men an unalienable right to worship no God or false gods. http://positiveliberty.com/2007/06/the-founders-and-higher-law-redux.html#more-2510
Notice how Rowe tries to reduce the superiority of the Gospel, eliminating the primary attribute of the Law of Nature. He's a master at twisting the text for his own agenda. The Old Covenant was specifically for Israel, the New Testament is for Christians, the current dispensation is superior. Adams and Jefferson are the only ones quoted, he neglects the other two hundred framers, showing how incorrect Adams and Jefferson were, believing the Old Covenant is superior to the Gospel and the correct application of the Law of Nature. The Law of Nature grants freedom of conscience to all peoples, but Rowe takes the perverted views of Adams and Jefferson and invents his scheme around it. Matters of morality, which were based on the Bible, is left to the states. The New Covenant is based on free will, not the theocracy of Israel. No matter how many times this fact is mentioned, revisionists always seem to forget it. For instance the states' stance on homosexuality, some of these are direct quotes from Lev 20:13:
That if any man shall lie with mankind as he lieth with womankind, both of them have committed abomination; they both shall be put to death. CONNECTICUT The Public Statute Laws of the State of Connecticut (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1808), Book I, p. 295.
That if any man lieth with mankind as he lieth with a woman, they both shall suffer death. VERMONT Statutes of the State of Vermont (Bennington, 1791), p. 74.
]T]he detestable and abominable vice of buggery [sodomy] . . . be from henceforth adjudged felony . . . and that the offenders being hereof convicted by verdict, confession, or outlawry [unlawful flight to avoid prosecution], shall suffer such pains of death and losses and penalties of their goods. SOUTH CAROLINA Alphabetical Digest of the Public Statute Laws of South-Carolina (Charleston: John Hoff, 1814), Vol. I, p. 99.
The Federal Government was for the most part exempt from matters of morality and religion:
The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State...The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.
James Madison, Federalist #45
