Vote is in for Greatest Founding Father...not Alexander Hamilton

The vote is over for considering who the greatest founding father is; Thomas Jefferson and George Washington each received seven votes, Madison, Hamilton, and Samuel Adams each had one vote. Maybe Jefferson's reputation helped him, but Washington lead the vote count up until the end. Washington was an upright man, with the integrity, and character Jefferson lacked. Despite Jefferson having nothing to do with the formation or ratification of the Constitution, his popularity continues to grow.

I agree with Hercules Mulligan that Washington had the universal confidence and respect from the other framers to be first President of the early Republic; from President James Monroe's testimony, without Washington's leadership, the Constitutional Convention would have likely failed.

I have questions regarding Washington's Christianity; unlike Alexander Hamilton, whose writings tell us he believed the Christian Religion Divine, amidst his personal failures. In comparing Washington's simple genius with the brilliance of Alexander Hamilton, my allegiance is with the latter.

From his birth in the West Indies, he overcame adversity Washington, or any other framer never experienced. He also had to deal with prejudice from some framers who were born with silver spoons in their mouths, some launching assaults at his birth out of wedlock.

He was, as John Adams later claimed, "the bastard brat of a Scottish peddler." Hamilton, at the age of 13, had to prevail when his mother, who had pieced together a livelihood as a retailer, died. He prevailed again when his guardian, a distant relative named Peter Lytton, committed suicide the following year.

At 19, in the United States, Hamilton put a brigade together on his own, getting his troops and supplies himself, while being appointed a captain of the New York Artillery. Hamilton and his men fought bravely in several early battles, including the unsuccessful attempt to hold Manhattan from the British. Hamilton and his unit covered Washington's retreat across New Jersey. In the sharpest exchanges, Hamilton's artillery kept the British at bay while the bulk of the American forces crossed first the Raritan River and later the Delaware. Hamilton also took part in the successful, and famous, counterattacks at Trenton and Princeton in the winter of 1776–77.

Hamilton was not only a military genius, he was an administrative, legal, economic, and political genius as well. Washington recognized his talent, giving ever-increasing responsibility to the young officer, now a lieutenant colonel. During the next few years of fighting, when desertion was all too common, Hamilton stayed loyally by his commander's side. He was there for the frozen winters at Valley Forge and Morristown; the military disasters like the abandonment of New York City in 1776 and the subsequent retreat across New Jersey; the real treacheries of Benedict Arnold, and the perceived treacheries of an impotent Continental Congress; and the failed opportunities like Monmouth, when he was at Washington's side when the Virginia gentleman lambasted General Charles Lee in mid-battle for gross misconduct. And Hamilton was with Washington during the good times, the infrequent victories, and the secret march to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/910687.html

Hamilton was also the first man over the wall at Yorktown, defeating the British, showing his undaunted bravery. His genius started during the Revolutionary War, when he first thought of the National Bank. Central to Hamilton's early plans were several key provisions of what would later be the hallmarks of his financial program: foreign loans, partial government ownership of a national bank, and use of that bank to provide the national government with short-term loans.

Hamilton's thought was often far in advance of that of most of his contemporaries. This is not to say that he could see the future but rather that he took positions that remained unpopular or misunderstood until well into the nineteenth century. Two episodes in 1784 demonstrate his prescience. First, Hamilton established a private commercial bank. The innovation came not so much from the bank itself, which closely followed the procedures established by its predecessor, the Bank of North America. Rather, the innovation came from the way in which the bank, the very same Bank of New York that still graces Wall Street, found legal life. The New York legislature was against his idea, so he by-passed them and started it himself; the most essential advantages of his idea: joint-stock form, negotiable shares, status as a legal entity, and limited liability. So the Bank of New York formed and began business anyway, under private "articles of association" instead of a special legislative act. Hamilton used the same technique again with the Merchants' Bank in the early nineteenth century.

Hamilton presented several monumental state papers that, when combined with the entrepreneurial talents and self-interested desires of thousands of Americans, forged a national financial system: The Report on Public Credit (January 9, 1790), The Report on the Bank (December 13, 1790), The Establishment of a Mint (January 28, 1791), and The Report on Manufactures (December 5, 1791). Taken together, Hamilton's reports were nothing short of a strategic outline for the establishment of a thriving economy rooted solidly in the bedrock of sound fiscal management, a stable monetary system, extensive short-term commercial credit, and long-term development capital. On the grandest scale, the secretary's policies helped to solidify the new government by creating incentives for wealthy individuals to invest in it, directly through ownership of its bonds and indirectly through ownership of shares in the Bank of the United States. He surmised, correctly as it turned out, that the financial system would be "the powerful cement of our Union."

His ideas on the National Bank Jefferson and Madison despised, making Virginia pay the debts of other states, as well as a threat to Republican Government. Hamilton had no loyalty to any state, but to the Constitution. Hamilton saw paying the debt a blessing rather than a burden, in addition to aligning the interests of the wealthy with those of the government, his funding plan would increase the nation's credit overseas, making it cheaper and easier for both the government and private enterprises to obtain foreign financing. Finally, funding would create a form of liquid capital that would help the economy to allocate resources more efficiently.

Madison's solution on paying the debt was insufficient, and discriminatory; Madison wanted to group the original debt holders at the expense of current debt holders; Hamilton eventually crushed the discrimination argument with his usual barrage of logic and first principles. The debt instruments were simply a species of property, the value of which fluctuated with the government's fortunes and interest rates. They were, moreover, fully negotiable instruments. In other words, exchanging them was perfectly legal. The original holders had not been coerced into selling and had received a valuable consideration for the ownership of the obligations. Only the current owners of the bonds, Hamilton concluded, could be compensated. For those who could not follow his reasoning, Hamilton offered the Continental Congressional resolution of April 26, 1783, authored ironically enough by Madison, that solemnly pledged that there would be no discrimination against those who obtained government debt in the secondary market.

Thinking through the matter of the Bank being owned and operated by the government, or being privitized, in Hamilton's view, independent managers would prevent abuse by the government and provide a necessary check against its possible perfidy, much like judicial review did for courts and legislatures. The private status of the Bank would ensure that the government could never use it as a tool of oppression. As Hamilton noted, governments were never "blessed with a constant succession of upright and wise Administrators." But the Bank, as a private institution, would have a "magnetic sense" of its "own interest ... the prosperity of the institution" and thereby prevent the government from succumbing to "the temptations of momentary exigencies."
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/910687.html

Today's corruption, and greed of man is a totally different animal compared to 18th century America. It seems the longer the nation exists, the more wicked it becomes, throwing off the Biblical fundamentals the Founding Fathers grew up with. Of Hamilton,
Chancellor James Kent called him, a lawyer that had no superior. (emphasis added)

Politically, if he would have been more sympathetic, and understanding, the Federalists would not have lost the Presidency of 1800. If he could have united the Federalists, rather than splitting them up, Adams would have beaten Jefferson in 1800; even with Hamilton's death, the Federalists would still have been the most powerful party. But Hamilton had enemies, and helped divide the party.

In the end, Hamilton fell mortally wounded on the dueling grounds at Weehawken, the financial system was thriving. Joint-stock banks were rapidly multiplying, as were other types of joint-stock companies, not all of which, thanks to Hamilton's insight, needed formal incorporation to begin operations. The credit of the U.S. was among the best in the world; U.S. bonds and stock in the Bank of the United States regularly traded in London as well as in the active securities markets of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston. The nation's credit was so good that it easily borrowed to purchase Louisiana and to fight wars. The first Bank helped to keep the macroeconomy on an even keel by checking the note issue of state banks. The entire nation had a single unit of account, the U.S. dollar, that was firmly defined in terms of gold and silver. Fire and marine insurance was almost fully formed; life insurance lay just over the horizon, as did trust companies, savings banks, and building-and-loans. Great leaps in manufacturing—ultimately funded by banks and capital markets—began just a few years after Hamilton's death. Most importantly, economic growth, increases in real per capita output, was picking up steam, soon literally as well as figuratively.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/910687.html

Alexander Hamilton was the creator of the U.S. financial system, the engine of America's remarkable nineteenth-century economic and political transformations. Wall Street, and our modern banking system, was designed by him. His legacy will always be with us. I consider him one of the great geniuses the United States has produced.

"I consider Napoleon, Fox, and Hamilton the three greatest men of our epoch, and if I were forced to decide between the three, I would give without hesitation the first place to Hamilton. He divined Europe." --Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Is President George Bush a Born Again Christian?

Being Born Again is not a recent phenomenon, Jesus used the words signaling the New Birth:
John 3 (King James Version)
3Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
8The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

So we understand from Jesus that being Born Again, is to accept Jesus as Our Savior and Lord, so the Spirit of God can indwell our bodies to help us live the Christian life.

1. The first proof the Spirit of God does not indwell President George Bush is his clear violation of Joel 3:2 (King James Version)
"I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land."

Granted, this verse is talking about future judgment of nations that persecuted Israel. Notice God claims the land belongs to Him, not a people, or a government. God makes this clear again in the Torah:

Leviticus 25:23 (King James Version)
"The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me."

It is irelevant if Bush claims he is a replacement Christian, which I doubt he does. This is the belief that the Church has replaced Israel, and Israel has no part in the future with God. Bush can be a replacement Christian and not promote the giving away of God's land, which is what he wants to do. Does the Spirit of God indwell a person who blatantly contradicts the Word of the Spirit?

Speaking at the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Bush insisted that "Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle-Eastern peace and set in motion progress toward a truly democratic Palestinian state." 4 March 2003
Bush personally committed to a Palestinian State.
Michael Freund The Jerusalem Post,
[The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications & Policy Planning in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office from 1996 to 1999.] http://www.revelations.org.za/PalestinianState.htm#Bush

It is an insane belief to form a nation that wants to destroy Israel? How could a Christian believe this?

PLO Charter, July 1-17, 1968. These words are still in effect, the original charter still displayed by the Palestine legation to the UN and other Palestinian bodies. These words will never be repealed despite what the greatest terrorist, Yasser Arafat claimed:

Article 15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine.

Article 22: Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress. Israel is a constant source of threat vis-a-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East.

Article 23: The demand of security and peace, as well as the demand of right and justice, require all states to consider Zionism an illegitimate movement, to outlaw its existence, and to ban its operations. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/The+Palestinian+National+Charter.htm

And this demonic state is what George Bush supports.

November 21, 2001
Colin Powell's Message in Biblical Perspective.
United States Secretary of State Colin Powell’s message on Monday in Louisville, Kentucky, was reported to represent the Bush Administration’s Middle East position. The Bush Administration is in favor of the United Nations Security Council “land for peace” concept as spelled out in Resolutions 242 and 338 (reducing Israel back to the pre-1967 borders).
http://www.revelations.org.za/PalestinianState.htm#Bush

Abu Mazen, Palestinian Prime Minister, and Nabil Shaath, his Foreign Minister, describe their first meeting with President Bush in June 2003.
Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"
Abu Mazen was at the same meeting and recounts how President Bush told him: "I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2005/10_october/06/bush.shtml

In June, US President George Bush stated in a speech, “I call upon the Palestinian people to elect new leaders” and for Israel, “I challenge Israel to take concrete steps to support the emergence of a viable, credible Palestinian state.”
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/MiddleEast/Palestine/Background.asp

Helping to form a state that's prime goal is to destroy Israel is not something a Christian would do. God will never reject Israel, in the future, Israel will once again be God's people, although now, they have rejected their true Messiah. God has always rebuked His people when they disobey, but God has vowed by covenant to always be Israel's God.

"First, we are strengthening our financial commitment. Immediately after President Abbas expelled Hamas from the Palestinian government, the United States lifted financial restrictions on the Palestinian Authority that we had imposed. This year, we will provide the Palestinians with more than $190 million in American assistance -- including funds for humanitarian relief in Gaza. To build on this support, I recently authorized the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to join in a program that will help generate $228 million in lending to Palestinian businesses. Today, I announce our intention to make a direct contribution of $80 million to help Palestinians reform their security services -- a vital effort they're undertaking with the guidance of American General Keith Dayton. We will work with Congress and partners around the world to provide additional resources once a plan to build Palestinian institutions is in place. With all of this assistance, we are showing the Palestinian people that a commitment to peace leads to the generous support of the United States." George Bush July 16, 2007 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070716-7.html

March 22, 2005, Israel defies God by giving away his land. Israel hands over Tulkarem in the West Bank to the Palestinians. Bush supported this betrayal.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7183904

This information is plenty of proof that George Bush has affirmed the giving away of Israel's land in violation of Joel 3:2, and Lev 25:23. Can a true Christian have this belief? The answer is an emphatic no!

2. George Bush supports homosexuality, as he is believes in civil unions for gays. He has appointed more homosexuals to Federal office than any other President in history. This is another violation of several scriptures:

Proverbs 17:15 (King James Version)
"He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD."

Leviticus 20:13 (King James Version)
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

George Bush seems to always justify the wicked.

"I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do," the president stated. "[S]tates ought to be able to have the right to pass ... laws that enable people to, you know, be able to have rights, like others."
As noted by UPI, that is in sharp disagreement with the Republican Party platform. In fact, ABC's Gibson followed up with: "So the Republican platform on that point, as far as you're concerned, is wrong?" To which Bush replied: "Right." OCTOBER 24, 2004. http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/10/272004d.asp

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/4/112001b.asp Bush nominates another homosexual to office, April 11, 2001.

Bush appoints yet another homosexual to Federal office violating the Law of Nature. http://www.baptiststandard.com/2001/6_4/pages/bush.html

Jesus affirmed the condemnation of homosexuality by affirming the law:

Matthew 5:17-18 (King James Version)
17Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

3. George Bush believes The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is also the el ilah(allah) the moon god of the kabah of islam. When Mohammed rounded up his pirates to take over the world, he attacked the kabah in Arabia to destroy the three hundred idols there, took the name of the chief deity allah (el ilah), the god of all the gods. The chief deity was named "sin" who was the moon god, this is evidenced by the artifacts of crescent moons excavated in Arabia, along with the crescent moon on islamic flags, on top of churches, and the holy month of ramadan, which starts and ends with the appearing of the crescent moon. Muslims are worshipping the moon god.

The sabeans did not initially revolt or misunderstand who Mohammed's god was, because they already knew who allah was. “Allah” cannot be “God” if “allah” is the Arabic word for “god” because in the Qur’an Allah says that “Ilah” is the Arabic word for “God” and that “Allah” is the “Ilah’s” name. If that is not true, the ilah named Allah is lying, proving that he is not what Mohammad claimed him to be. If allah is the word for god than the islamic god has no name.

Oct. 26, 2004,
Bush on Religion and God
President Says He Believes Muslims and Christians Pray to Same God
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=193746&page=1

4. George Bush promotes the murder of unborn children, which the Law of Nature calls murder:

Bush Signs Title X Funding Increase for 2005
Planned Parenthood's Abortion Funding Increased
President George W. Bush and the Republican-majority Congress Increased Title X to record $288.3 million in FY 2005 on 12/8/04Title X is one of two major federal government funding sources for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nation's largest chain of abortion centers (murdering over 244,000 unborn human beings per year by surgical abortion alone).
The Title X program includes funding for contraceptive birth control; birth control that causes chemical abortions; and birth control for unmarried adolescents, even if their parents object to the federal government giving their children hormonal drugs and devices with which to fornicate.The Title X program is also one of the principal federal government funding mechanisms for Planned Parenthood Federation of America (founded by Margaret Sanger), the nation's largest chain of child-murder-by-abortion centers.
http://www.covenantnews.com/lefemine050208.htm

George Bush has approved funding almost every year for abortions.

Judges 13:5 (King James Version)
"For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines."

Conceiving is part of the birth of a son. It is not conceiving and bear tissue, but a human being.

In the end, George Bush is a pro homosexual, pro murder by abortion, anti-constitution, anti-Jesus Christ ecumenist. There are also many more violations of the Constitution that George Bush has committed, including Article I, Section 8, and the Fourth Amendment. Do not be deceived, George Bush is an enemy of Jesus Christ! Beware.

James Madison believed the United States was a Christian Nation.

The words of James Madison while forming the nation is the greatest proof of our Christian heritage. His words while forming the nation reflect Christian beliefs, rather than the words of a syncretist ex post facto.

How could Madison believe two different religions joined together could form a National Religion in a Christian Nation?

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

A national religion cannot refer to every religion, it must refer to a specific religion, that being Christianity. Madison's personal beliefs about Christianity aren't as important as his believing we were 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

Here, Madison claims "these principles" are proper for Christian nations to conform to. Freedom of Conscience is what he is referring to, while comparing us with all Christian nations, to what common sense dictates, we must be a Christian nation.

Common sense asks why would Madison compare us with a Christian nation if he did not believe we were such?

James Madison believed the context of the First Amendment, as the other Founding Fathers believed, that freedom of conscience was granted to all, and a Christian denomination was the only sect that could not be established by the Federal Government. Notice the correct context for the First Amendment by the Father of the Bill of Rights:

"[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."
Col. George Mason
Kate Mason Rowland, The Life of George Mason (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1892, Vol. I, p.28.

James Madison agreed with this context as did the other framers. If Madison was a syncretist at this time, it's a mystery why he would tell Christians we were a Christian nation. It's more likely he was confused about Christianity, his relationship with the infidel Thomas Jefferson as evidence. The other religions were not involved in this establishment, and never had a chance to be the established church:

Thomas Jefferson also believed the First Amendment only referred to a denomination 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." Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush on September 23, 1800.

Jefferson would never have neglected the other religions if the amendment encompassed them, for it was against his sense of duty:

"On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and 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 Supreme Court Justice William Johnson June 12, 1823

The ratifiers make it clear, the First Amendment granted freedom of conscience but the establishment clause only referred to a particular sect of Christianity., as Constitution signer Henry Abbot explains:

"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.

Here also is First Amendment Ratifier Samuel Johnston in the North Carolina ratifying convention:

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

The Christian nation naysayers have James Madison to contend with.

Secularist Ed Brayton comments on D. James Kennedy

My question to Ed is, "What are Mr. Kennedy's claims and where is your refutation of them?

"And I feel the same way I felt about Jerry Falwell dying. Like Falwell, Kennedy was a man who spent his life peddling lies to the credulous and the ignorant. You'll pardon me if I don't shed a tear for him."
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/09/d_james_kennedy_dies.php

Are servants of Jesus Christ ignorant? It is you who need a tear shed for.

By calling James Kennedy ignorant, you make a fool of yourself, by calling the Founding Fathers ignorant:

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.

[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.

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.
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=101

Sodomy . . . shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labour in the penitentiary during the natural life or lives of the person or persons convicted of th[is] detestable crime. GEORGIA
A Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia (Milledgeville: Grantland & Orme, 1822), p. 350.

That the detestable and abominable vice of buggery [sodomy] . . . shall be from henceforth adjudged felony . . . and that every person being thereof convicted by verdict, confession, or outlawry [unlawful flight to avoid prosecution], shall be hanged by the neck until he or she shall be dead. NEW YORK
Laws of the State of New-York . . . Since the Revolution (New York: Thomas Greenleaf, 1798), Vol. I, p. 336

That if any person or persons shall commit sodomy . . . he or they so offending or committing any of the said crimes within this province, their counsellors, aiders, comforters, and abettors, being convicted thereof as above said, shall suffer as felons.
Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: John Bioren, 1810), Vol. I, p. 113
[And] shall forfeit to the Commonwealth all and singular the lands and tenements, goods and chattels, whereof he or she was seized or possessed at the time . . . at the discretion of the court passing the sentence, not exceeding ten years, in the public gaol or house of correction of the county or city in which the offence shall have been committed and be kept at such labor. PENNSYLVANIA
Collinson Read, An Abridgment of the Laws of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1801), p. 279

Mr. Brayton, if your going to bash someone and accuse them of peddling lies after they die, have the guts to back up your statements! It is more likely you don't have the information refuting Mr. Kennedy, or else you would have posted it. Let me speak for Mr. Kennedy, and see if you can refute my words.

The United States was formed a nation of Christian states. What part of this do you not understand? The Framers believed religion is left to the states, and the people of the states could choose whatever religion they desired:

"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."
Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, 1805

The secularist twist on the Treaty of Tripoli signed by John Adams is referring to the Federal Government, which was to have nothing to do with religion.The Founding Fathers chose Christianity as the Religion of the several states. What else would you call a nation whose states chose Christianity as their religion?

Constitution of the State of North Carolina (1776), stated: There shall be no establishment of any one religious church or denomination in this State in preference to any other. Article XXXII That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State. (until 1876)

Constitution of the State of Maryland (August 14, 1776), stated: Article XXXV That no other test or qualification ought to be required, on admission to any office of trust or profit, than such oath of support and fidelity to this State and such oath of office, as shall be directed by this Convention, or the Legislature of this State, and a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion.” That, as it is the duty of every man to worship God is such a manner as he thinks most acceptable to him; all persons professing the Christian religion, are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty; wherefore no person ought by any law to be molested… on account of his religious practice; unless, under the color [pretense] of religion, any man shall disturb the good order, peace or safety of the State, or shall infringe the laws of morality… yet the Legislature may, in their discretion, lay a general and equal tax, for the support of the Christian religion. (until 1851) [pp.420-421]

Constitution of the State of New Hampshire (1784,1792), required senators and representatives to be of the: Protestant religion. (in force until 1877)The Constitution stipulated: Article I, Section VI. And every denomination of Christians demeaning themselves quietly, and as good citizens of the state, shall be equally under the protection of the laws. And no subordination of any one sect of denomination to another, shall ever be established by law. [p.469]

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]

The Constitution of the State of Connecticut (until 1818), contained the wording: The People of this State… by the Providence of God… hath the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State… and forasmuch as the free fruition of such liberties and privileges as humanity, civility, and Christianity call for, as is due to every man in his place and proportion… hath ever been, and will be the tranquility and stability of Churches and Commonwealth; and the denial thereof, the disturbances, if not the ruin of both. [p.179]

NEW YORK 1777 (until 1821) That all such parts of the said common law, and all such of the said statutes and acts aforesaid, or parts thereof, as may be construed to establish or maintain any particular denomination of Christians or their ministers, or concern the allegiance heretofore yielded to, and the supremacy, sovereignty, government, or prerogatives claimed or exercised by, the King of Great Britain and his predecessors, over the colony of New York and its inhabitants, or are repugnant to this constitution, be, and they hereby are, abrogated and rejected.

NEW JERSEY 1776 (until 1844) XIX. That there shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this Province, in preference to another; and that no Protestant inhabitant of this Colony shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right, merely on account of his religious principles; but that all persons, professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect, who shall demean themselves peaceably under the government, as hereby established, shall be capable of being elected into any office of profit or trust, or being a member of either branch of the Legislature, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and immunity, enjoyed by others their fellow subjects.

That a Republican Government is based on the Bible is beyond dispute, as it was first instituted by Moses in ancient Israel.

Deut 1 (King James Version)
13Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you.
4And ye answered me, and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do.
15So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes.

Republican Government, ruled under God's Law from 1500 B.C is exactly how the United States was formed. The means of its execution in America may have been different, but the essential principles are the same. Consent of the Governed with God's Law as the authority is Christianity in its greatest, and best extent.

The Founding Fathers applied Republican Government in the words of Montesquieu to the Law of the Bible, not the law of pagan Rome, or Greece:

"Sparta, Rome, and Carthage...These examples, though as unfit for the imitation, as they are repugnant to the genius, of America, are, notwithstanding, when compared with the fugitive and turbulent existence of other ancient republics, very instructive proofs of the necessity of some institution that will blend stability with liberty. I am not unaware of the circumstances which distinguish the American from other popular governments, as well ancient as modern; and which render extreme circumspection necessary, in reasoning from the one case to the other."
James Madison, Federalist #63
http://www.llpoh.org/federalist/63.html

Madison's error was he failed to give credit, or understand the Republicanism of the Bible, as Webster, Adams, and the other framers did:

"[O]ur citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion."
Noah Webster
History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), p. 6."

No good government but what is republican...the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.''
John Adams, "Thoughts on Government" January, 1776

Regarding the First Amendment, infidel Thomas Jefferson realized what it referred to, although it granted freedom of conscience, the amendment only referred to Christianity, as only a Christian denomination could be the established church:

"[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."
Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush on September 23, 1800.

Jefferson would never have neglected the other religions if the amendment encompassed them, for it was against his sense of duty:

"On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and 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 Supreme Court Justice William Johnson June 12, 1823

Notice the same idea from Founding Father James Wilson and Joseph Story:

"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it."
James Wilson, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Signer of the Constitution

"The first and fundamental rule in interpretation of all instruments[documents] is to construe them according to the sense of the terms and the intention of the parties."
Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice appointed by James Madison

The liberties granted in the United States is founded upon the Law of Nature, which is without a doubt, Yahweh, the God of Israel, is clear from the writings of Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, to John Locke, and William Blackstone. The Founding Fathers did not corrupt the identity of the Law of Nature and Nature's God, secularists are the ones with this misguided goal.

Secularists like you want to twist the words of the framers to refute the Christian nation thesis. The truth of their writings and statutes are clear, the United States was formed by Christians founded on Religion and Law:

W]e can only depend on the all powerful influence of the Spirit of God, whose Divine aid and assistance it becomes us as a Christian people most devoutly to implore. Therefore I move that some minister of the Gospel be requested to attend this Congress every morning during the sessions in order to open the meeting with prayer."
Elias Boudinot, President of Congress, Chairman of the House Committee which formed the First Amendment.The Life, Public Service, Addresses, and Letters of Elias Boudinot, LL.D., President of the Continental Congress, J. J. Boudinot, editor (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1896), Vol. I, p. 21, to the First Provincial Congress of New Jersey.

[T]he law . . . dictated by God Himself is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.
General Alexander Hamilton, Signer of the Constitution
The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, Harold C. Syrett, editor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), Vol. I, p. 87, February 23, 1775, quoting William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771), Vol. I, p. 41.

"[T]he . . . law established by the Creator . . . extends over the whole globe, is everywhere and at all times binding upon mankind. . . . [This] is the law of God by which he makes his way known to man and is paramount to all human control."
Rufus King, Signer of the Constitution, Ratifier of the Bill of Rights
The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, Charles R. King, editor (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1900), Vol. VI, p. 276, to C. Gore on February 17, 1820.

The Jury System of English Common Law is also based on the Bible. Common Law is subservient to Ecclesiastical Law, which is based on the Word of God. The Separation of Powers doctrine can also be found in the Bible,(Isa 33:22), which only seems logical as its foundation. Power, divided in a Republican Government is purely Biblical. Other than sin, can you think of a better reason to separate human governance? The Fourth Amendment has its foundation in Deut 24:10-11, showing that Biblical doctrine was the foundational aspect in our country's design. The framers also spoke of "principles that do not change" this can only be found in the Bible, for another morality is incompatible with the beliefs of the Founding Fathers. Our form of government can only last as long as there is virtue and morality in the people.

Please enlighten us and post the lies Mr. Kennedy is guilty of peddling. Refute my statements the United States was built on Biblical Foundations.

Secularists distortions never end...again

Bloggers, marvel at this quote:

A reader skeptical of this theory asked whether Adams believed the Bible was errant or man’s reason was penultimate before the 1800s when he resumed his correspondence with Jefferson. The answer is yes. I’ve written about it here. In 1785, Adams wrote:

What suspicions of interpolation, and indeed fabrication, might not be confuted if we had the originals! In an age or in ages when fraud, forgery, and perjury were considered as lawful means of propagating truth by philosophers, legislators, and theologians, what may not be suspected?
– John Adams, marginal note in John Disney’s Memoirs (1785) of Arthur Sykes. Haraszti, Prophets of Progress, 296. Taken from James H. Hutson, The Founders on Religion, p. 26.>>

Can you believe this? What is the context? What is fabricated that Adams is talking about? A marginal note in John Disney's Memoirs of Arthur Sykes? If this was put in a book, the author couldn't get this published. Where does Adams mention the Bible, or Scriptures, so we know what the context is? Who are the philosophers, legislators, and theologians Adams is supposedly referring to? We don't know because the blogger doesn't tell us. Where are the quotes John Adams rejected miracles prior to 1800? Where are the quotes affirming man's flawed conscience is superior to the Bible? Common sense dictates man's reason has to be flawed, or he would be God. Since man's reason is flawed, reason needs a higher authority.

Any structure of government or human society that places man's reason at the top of the "authority ladder" is a government of man, because it is man's reason, and no higher authority, that makes the laws. Absolute, higher law, must come from a super-human being, a being without flaw, and that being would be GOD. His law is revealed in the Scripture, and this law is completely reasonable (but this does not mean that God's law must be subject to man's reason, because man does not know better than God does).
http://thefoundationforum.blogspot.com/

Where are the quotes before 1800 refuting this quotes by John Adams:

The great and almighty Author of nature, who at first established those rules which regulate the World, can as easily Suspend those Laws whenever his providence sees sufficient reason for such suspension. This can be no objection, then, to the miracles of J [Jesus] C [Christ]. Altho' some very thoughtfull, and contemplative men among the heathen, attained a strong persuasion of the great Principles of Religion, yet the far greater number having little time for speculation, gradually sunk in to the grossest Opinions and the grossest Practices.
John Adams diary March 2, 1756
http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/aea/cfm/doc.cfm?id=D1&numrecs=6&archive=all&hi=on&mode=&query=%20MARCH%202%2C%201756&queryid=&rec=2&start=1&tag=text#firstmatch

Any secularist, where are the quotes from James Madison prior to 1808 rejecting his belief in the miracles of Christianity? Madison became a syncretist after the nation was formed and established:

"To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence.
James Madison-Memorial and Remonstrance 1785

This miraculous aid is the aid God provided to the early church, as recorded in the Book of Acts. Paul and Peter raising people from the dead, Peter and John healing a lame man, Peter striking dead Ananias and Sapphira with his words, sudden earthquakes, and many other supernatural events like prison locks automatically opening to free the Apostle Paul.

Where are the quotes from Thomas Jefferson affirming syncretism before he left office? I'll give you a hint blogger, 1809 is after Jefferson left office.

If quotes are found affirming Jefferson a syncretist, at least they would be posted, but to say Madison and Adams were rationalists while forming the nation has not been established.

More Secularist Distortions

This time the opinion on the religious beliefs of Thomas Jefferson:

"The Declaration was written by a man who believed in a very different "creator" than Barton. Remember, Jefferson explicitly condemned the Old Testament God as "cruel, capricious, vindictive and unjust" and rejected the notion that Jesus was divine or part of any trinity."
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/more_hindu_prayers.php#more

Just because Jefferson did not believe in the Deity of Jesus Christ doesn't mean he believed in a different Creator, or a "very different" Creator. It is the same Creator, rejecting the second and third person of the Godhead. Jefferson believed in the God of Israel, his error was his perception on the person of Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ is God, is a distinction of God, just as Jefferson not believing The Holy Spirit is not God. The distortion is Ed Brayton portraying Jefferson as worshiping a different God altogether. Unitarians believe they worship the God of Israel. The Creator is the same, of which Jefferson himself declared he was a unitarian:

"But the population of my neighborhood is too slender, and is too much divided into other sects to maintain any one preacher well. I must therefore be contented to be an Unitarian by myself, although I know there are many around me who would become so, if once they could hear the questions fairly stated."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, January 8, 1825

"The pure and simple unity of the Creator of the universe, is now all but ascendant in the Eastern States; it is dawning in the West, and advancing towards the South; and I confidently expect that the present generation will see Unitarianism become the general religion of the United States."
Thomas Jefferson to to Rev. James Smith, December 8, 1822.

"To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other."
Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803

No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I, as Chief Magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example.
Thomas Jefferson in 1803-Hutson (see n. 8) at p. 96, quoting from a handwritten history in possession of the Library of Congress, “Washington Parish, Washington City,” by Rev. Ethan Allen.

Jefferson, was deceived about Christianity and its essentials. But his unitarian God, like that of John Adams, was Yahweh, the God of Israel:

"I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and Creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association assurances of my high respect and esteem."
Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association, January 1, 1802

This common Father to Christians is the God of Israel. Where is the evidence Jefferson was a universalist while forming the nation? Where is this evidence at any point in his life?

Why secularists call Adams and Madison Universalists is incorrect...again

"All of the Founders Sali invokes were syncretic universalists who believed many or all world religions were valid ways to God."
http://positiveliberty.com/2007/08/how-the-christian-nation-thesis-hurts-religious-conservativesagain.html

Let us examine if this statement conforms to the evidence. Quoting the Founding Fathers on their religious beliefs MUST BE WHILE THEY FORMED THE GOVERNMENT. The beliefs after these men left office is irrelevant as it has no effect on the nation. This is definitely the situation with John Adams, as any secularist will be hard pressed to find any quotes by him affirming universalism before he left office. The nearest example of Adams portraying a universalist is in 1794:

"To him who believes in the Existence and Attributes physical and moral of a God, there can be no obscurity or perplexity in defining the Law of Nature to be his wise benign and all powerful Will, discovered by Reason."-- John Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, March 19, 1794. Adams Papers (microfilm), reel 377, Library of Congress. Seen in James H. Hutson's, "The Founders on Religion," p. 132.

I have yet to find the access to this quote affirming its reliability, as it is not in the Adams papers, nor does it speak of universalism, but only that God's law can be found from man's conscience, it does not affirm that he believed reason is superior to revelation.

The writings from John Adams indicate he was a Christian Unitarian while helping to form the United States. John Adams believed the Bible was the Word of God, and ONLY the God of Israel is the Law of Nature:

My Religion you know is not exactly conformable to that of the greatest Part of the Christian World. It excludes superstition. But with all the superstition that attends it, I think the Christian the best that is or has been. I would join with those who wish ecclesiastical Tyranny abolished, and the frauds of the Priesthood detested: But in this Country We have little of this. If my feeble Testimony has done any good, rejoice and have my reward.
John Adams to Abigail Adams JAN 28,1799.

Adams believed Christianity the true religion, with superstition obviously the Roman Catholicism he despised. The wickedness of the Romish clergy throughout the centuries is well documented:

"Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself.
All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude....Of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve ... the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from episcopal fingers."
John Adams, "A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law," printed in the Boston Gazette, August 1765

Prior to his renewed relationship with Thomas Jefferson, he(along with Joseph Priestley) never doubted the miraculous, or that reason superceded revelation, but quite the contrary:

"Thus we are equally obliged to the Supream Being for the Information he has given us of our Duty, whether by the Constitution of our Minds and Bodies or by a supernatural Revelation. For an instance of the latter let us take original sin. Some say that Adams sin was enough to damn the whole human Race, without any actual Crimes committed by any of them. Now this Guiltis brought upon them not by their own rashness and Indiscretion, not by their own Wickedness and Vice, but by the Supream Being. This Guilt brought upon us is a real Injury and Misfortune because it renders us worse than not to be, and therefore making us guilty upon account of Adams Delegation, or Representing all of us, is not in the least diminishing the Injury and Injustice but only changing the mode of conveyance."
John Adams diary August 15, 1756.

The great and almighty Author of nature, who at first established those rules which regulate the World, can as easily Suspend those Laws whenever his providence sees sufficient reason for such suspension. This can be no objection, then, to the miracles of J [Jesus] C [Christ]. Altho' some very thoughtfull, and contemplative men among the heathen, attained a strong persuasion of the great Principles of Religion, yet the far greater number having little time for speculation, gradually sunk in to the grossest Opinions and the grossest Practices.
John Adams diary March 2, 1756
http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/aea/cfm/doc.cfm?id=D1&numrecs=6&archive=all&hi=on&mode=&query=%20MARCH%202%2C%201756&queryid=&rec=2&start=1&tag=text#firstmatch

Adams also believed in eternal judgment while forming the nation:

[S]uch compliances [compromises]...of my honor, my conscience, my friends, my country, my God, as the Scriptures inform us must be punished with nothing less than hell-fire, eternal torment; and this is so unequal a price to pay for the honors and emoluments [profits from government]...The duration of future punishment terrifies me. If I could but deceive myself so far as to think eternity a moment only, I could comply and be promoted."
John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1850), Vol II, p. 294, diary entry for February 9, 1772.

His mentor in Unitarianism, Joseph Priestley believed the same:

"All of these things being considered, it appears to me that no facts in the whole compass of history, are so well authenticated as those of the miracles, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, and also what is related of the Apostles in the book of Acts.
Joseph Priestley, Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, Part Two (Birmingham, 1787)

Adams, along with Priestley, only rejected the person of Jesus Christ as God, but in no way was Adams a rationalist or universalist while serving the United States.

I challenge any secularist to find any of John Adams' writings affirming universalism while he was in office! John Adams became a universalist while unwisely rekindling his relationship with the infidel Thomas Jefferson.

Neither was James Madison a universalist while he helped form this nation:

"To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence.
Memorial and Remonstrance 1785

This miraculous aid is the aid God provided to the early church, as recorded in the Book of Acts. Paul and Peter raising people from the dead, Peter and John healing a lame man, Peter striking dead Ananias and Sapphira with his words, sudden earthquakes, and many other supernatural events like prison locks automatically opening to free the Apostle Paul.

Madison, likewise, referred to God as “The Great Spirit” when speaking to unconverted Indians.>>

Madison made the statement about "The Great Spirit" in 1812, after he helped form the nation, showing it is irrelevant to the discussion, as well as showing again what happens to a Christian man who allow an infidel like Thomas Jefferson to influence their beliefs.

"It’s not Christianity, or even “Judeo-Christianity” that is America’s implicit public religion. Rather America’s Founding political theology is theistic rationalism which prefers to speak of God in generic philosophical terms and encompasses religions outside of the “Judeo-Christian” tradition like Islam, Hinduism, Native American and pagan Greco-Roman spirituality."

This statement is so false, and contrary to established fact, it's amazing some secularists continue to say it.

Constitution of the State of North Carolina (1776), stated: There shall be no establishment of any one religious church or denomination in this State in preference to any other. Article XXXII That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State. (until 1876)

Constitution of the State of Maryland (August 14, 1776), stated: Article XXXV That no other test or qualification ought to be required, on admission to any office of trust or profit, than such oath of support and fidelity to this State and such oath of office, as shall be directed by this Convention, or the Legislature of this State, and a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion.” That, as it is the duty of every man to worship God is such a manner as he thinks most acceptable to him; all persons professing the Christian religion, are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty; wherefore no person ought by any law to be molested… on account of his religious practice; unless, under the color [pretense] of religion, any man shall disturb the good order, peace or safety of the State, or shall infringe the laws of morality… yet the Legislature may, in their discretion, lay a general and equal tax, for the support of the Christian religion. (until 1851) [pp.420-421]

Constitution of the State of New Hampshire (1784,1792), required senators and representatives to be of the: Protestant religion. (in force until 1877)The Constitution stipulated: Article I, Section VI. And every denomination of Christians demeaning themselves quietly, and as good citizens of the state, shall be equally under the protection of the laws. And no subordination of any one sect of denomination to another, shall ever be established by law. [p.469]Constitution of the State of Vermont (1786), stated: Frame of Government, Section 9. And each member [of the Legislature], before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: “I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scripture of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration, and own and profess the [Christian] religion. And no further or other religious test shall ever, hereafter, be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this State.” [p.623]

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]

It is obvious what the religion of the framers was, and the evidence of this fact is conclusive.

I do believe the evidence suggests Washington and Franklin were universalists. This leaves two men to support their revisionist dogma. Secularists, please provide some evidence that Thomas Jefferson was a universalist before he left office. Calling John Adams, and James Madison universalists, is neglecting the overwhelming evidence. More of the actual key founders: Rufus King, Samuel Adams, John Jay, John Quincy Adams, George Mason, Elias Boudinot, and Roger Sherman were born again Christians.

Due Credit to Other Founding Fathers

Most of the Founding Fathers, if not all, were in agreement on the Law of Nature,(state of nature) being from the same source, the Bible. In agreement are Born Again Christian "key founders" like: Father of the Bill of Rights George Mason, Author of the House Language of the First Amendment Fisher Ames, Chairman of the House Drafting Committee for the First Amendment Elias Boudinot, Bill of Rights and Constitution Ratifier, Senator Rufus King, Father of the Revolution Samuel Adams, and the First Supreme Court Justice John Jay of New York. How could secular progressives not list Samuel Adams as a key founder? He was most responsible for starting rebellion against England, organizing the Boston Tea Party, Ratifying the Constitution, A Signer of the Declaration of Independence, and helped frame the Articles of Confederation.

It is obvious they have an agenda to suppress the Christian foundation of the United States. Could it be the rest of the framers have different views than Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison on certain issues? From the design of our government(Representative Government, mentioned in Ex 18:21), to separation of church and state, why would the minority view be more authoritative than the majority view? Who they are should be irrelevant since James Madison believed the most important framers were the ones who ratified instruments. Jefferson, it seems, would agree with Madison, that the "key founders" label is incorrect. Being President, or holding an office is irrelevant to who the "key founders" are according to James Madison.

James Monroe believed George Washington was the key to the Constitution, and Madison was initially against a Bill of Rights, until he realized he was on the losing side of the issue. I disagree James Madison is the Father of the Constitution. Even he admitted such:

“Dear Sir,–Your letter of the 18th Ult. was duly received. You give me a credit to which I have no claim, in calling me ” the writer of the Constitution of the U. S.” This was not, like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, the offspring of a single brain. It ought to be regarded as the work of many heads & many hands."-TO WILLIAM COGSWELL. … MAD. MSS.Montpellier, March 10, 1834.

It is more logical to call Madison one of the distinguished founders, who played a large role in forming the Constitution, rather than claiming he is the Father, or author of the Constitution. How could Madison be the Father of the Constitution, when his idea of it was not most beneficial, and without acceptance from men like: George Mason, Elbridge Gerry, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and Edmund Randolph? There is no legitimate spokesman for the Constitution.

A good example of the intolerance of Liberalism...again:

Ed Brayton at his blog, and other secular progressives(positive liberty) make their living attacking anyone and everyone who doesn't agree with their views, calling them ignorant, nutball, etc. But they aren't the only ones, there are many liberal blogs that hate. The hatred for George Bush is an example. Most hard core liberals do not just disagree with Bush's policies, they despise everything about him. This is liberalism to the core, intolerance for any viewpoint contrary to their own, but yet they love to label conservatives bigotted, intolerant, etc., when they are the true bigots! I do not agree with the Presidents policies, nor do I hate him like liberals do, or believe he is a true Christian. There are some people on their websites that do wish evil upon George Bush, I don't ever recall conservatives acting like this to Bill Clinton.

An example on Ed Brayton's blog:

I'm afraid I've tired of Mr. Goswick's ignorant ravings already. We banned him from Positive Liberty (the only one ever banned from there, I might add) and his performance will be no less irritating here. He has his own blog, which I've linked to; let him rant there.
Posted by: Ed Brayton August 13, 2007 08:36 PM
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/the_irony_of_david_barton.php#commentsArea

Mr. Brayton, obviously thinks the Founding Fathers ignorant as well, since it is their quotes that bring out his anger, rejecting the obvious will of the Framers to promote his revisionist agenda. There are hundreds of the framers' quotes affiming religion, and morality the foundation of Republican Government, with the religion being Christianity is beyond dispute. Only dishonest liberals reject the United States WAS formed a nation of Christian states, for the state constitutions, besides Virginia, and Pennsylvania mandated Christianity as the religion of their states. It's a wonder I was the only person banned at positive liberty, with the Gospel the most irritating to them.

More hate from Brayton and his blog, this seems a daily occurance:

I hate Carman. Hate him, hate him, hate him. He makes my skin crawl. You simply can't get more fake and ridiculous. He makes Jan Crouch look credible by comparison.
Posted by: Ed Brayton August 11, 2007 07:23 PM
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/robert_obrien_trophy_winner_al_1.php

It sounds like Brayton has an issue with a guy named Carman. I doubt Carman hates him. Mr. Brayton should know, hate is a strong word. Jesus said to hate your brother is committing murder in your heart.

The Postive Liberty blog is no exception to intolerance:

# Jason Kuznicki on 18 Jun 2007 at 5:23 pm
James Goswick wrote,
really and truly believe that people should be put to death for loving another person of the same sex?>>
I’m only affirming what the Creator has ordained.
To which I reply,
If someone appeared at my doorstep pushing this line, I’d tell him to get lost. If he didn’t leave, I’d close the door in his face. If he still didn’t leave, I’d call the cops. A blog is just the same, and you are no longer welcome here, Mr. Goswick. You can’t say I didn’t warn you, either. Further posts by you will be deleted.
http://positiveliberty.com/2007/06/let-maryland-be-next.html#comments

Notice this, not only did he ban me, but he is actually banning EVERY Founding Father that gave him the right to ban someone. Consider why he would ban the Founding Fathers from his website. Most likely he would persecute, our Framers for executing justice of biblical law, of which he would be a victim:

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.

[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.

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.
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=101

These statutes, one, declare matters of religion, and morality for the most part, are reserved to the states, and two, their morality was based on the bible, enforcing the belief our Republican government is based on biblical natural law, not the law of reason, or any other law. The conscience inside man does not repeat word for word Lev 20:13, for the prohibition and penalty of homosexuality. This is another proof reason does not refer to the Divine Law.

Some quotes from the Framers on religion and morality mandatory for government:

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, dated October 11, 1798.

Adams similarly explained:

Statesmen, my dear sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.
Ibid, Vol. IX, p. 401, dated June 21, 1776.

Of all the dispositions and habits which leads to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity [happiness]. Let it simply be asked, "Where is the security for property, for reputation for life, if the sense of religious obligations desert . . . ?" And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. 'Tis substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it [free government] can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?
George Washington
Address of George Washington . . . Preparatory to His Declination (Baltimore: Christopher Jackson, 1796), pp. 22-24.

It is sad to think what these people would do to George Washington, yet alone Jesus Christ.

Rowe's incorrect view of The State of Nature...Again:

Positive Liberty's Jon Rowe, as well as the secular progressive movement continue to distort our Founding Father's view of the Law of Nature(State of Nature), by violating the Framers and Christian Philosophers' application of words. Rowe's latest post is incorrect because he attributes philosophical wordage, an abandonment of a biblical view.
http://positiveliberty.com/2007/08/the-state-of-nature.html#more-2623

ADDED UPDATE ON JOHN LOCKE, AUG 10, 2007.

John Locke was NOT an adherent of the enlightenment. He fought against it with his many treatises. The true enlightenment thinkers: Hume, Rousseau, Voltaire, etc. were the ones Locke, Blackstone, Grotius, Puffendorf, and Montesquieu rivaled with. The enlightenment thinkers were ones who denied the essentials of the faith, the supernatural, etc. Locke and the other Christian Philosophers did not deny essentials of the salvation of Christianity.

Until Rowe and the secular progressives understand this error, they will continue to misunderstand the Christian beliefs of the Founding Fathers. The framers used philosophical wordage, as well as the Born Again Christian founders:
And let us play the man for our God, and for the cities of our God; while we are using the means in our power, let us humbly commit our righteous cause to the great Lord of the Universe, who loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity... let us joyfully leave our concerns in the hands of him who raiseth up and pulleth down the empires and kingdoms of the world as he pleases; and with cheerful submission to his sovereign will, devoutly say: "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet we will rejoice in the Lord, we will joy in the God of our salvation."
John Hancock-Boston Massacre Oration. March 5th, 1774.

Rowe and secular progressives who deny John Locke's Christianity is a betrayal of truth and the promotion of revisionist history. Rowe and secular progressives do not understand Christianity, that's why they doubt John Locke's Christianity. The man was a Theologian, who studied the bible all day long! It's unbelievable how the secular progressive movement perverts the views of the Christian Philosophers. I dare one secular progressive to post the writings of John Locke clearly denying the the Trinity, and Deity of Jesus Christ! Denying original sin, and eternal damnation is not mandatory to be a Christian, as well as claiming someone is of the enlightenment or theistic rationalist leanings. As long as the essentials of Christianity are not violated, it is not heresy. If you read Locke's Second Vindication, you will see his reason for rejecting original sin is that he couldn't believe God would condemn babies who had prematurely died, and humans not attaining the age of accountability. Locke wrongfully assumed God will judge all humans based on original sin. God only judges people that are at the age of accountability. That is why King David believed he would again see his new born son that died, on account of his sin with Bathsheba.

Rowe wrongfully describes the Law of Nature and who the Founders attributed it to:

The idea of the state of nature traces to Hobbes. Though the form that our Founders embraced was Locke’s. This is important: Locke’s state of nature differed from Hobbes’ and provided the model our Founders followed when they declared independence; but the concept of the state of nature itself was nonetheless formulated by Hobbes.>>

The state of nature, which actually is encompassed in the Law of Nations, is derived from the Law of Nature-our Founding Fathers believed it was from God. The concept was understood from the scriptures through Christian Theologians. A Republican form of Government(ruled by law) is straight from the Bible, for it is God's Law that rules from elected representatives, rather than the perverted form of democracy, where Biblical law can be changed by the will of the majority. Under a Republic, murder will always be murder because the Bible says so. The United States is founded on the Religion and morality of the Bible, rather than the perverted liberal enlightenment principles, which attack, and pervert the Bible. A Republican form of Government is based on Deut 1:15-17,
"...made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes..."
This government can only last if the people are moral and virtuous, as the framer's claimed. and the majority rules doctrine, beyond the rule of law is consistent with the Law of Nature. Locke did not form any theories that were not already laid down in the Bible, the jury system of Common Law, and separation of powers is also in the Bible.

Here is another instance of Rowe perverting Christianity, and the views of John Locke:

Now, because Locke 1) has God take a central role in this theory, and 2) called himself a Christian and defended the Christian religion as “reasonable,” otherwise uninformed folks could easy confuse Locke’s teachings from his second treatise with authentically Christian principles. However, they are not...Just because Locke had God play a central role in his liberal democratic theory does not mean there is anything authentically biblical or Christian about Locke’s teachings.>>
http://positiveliberty.com/2007/08/the-state-of-nature.html#more-2623

It doesn't get anymore whacky than this. Because Locke didn't believe in original sin, Rowe uses this to twist Locke's views on Christianity. Denying original sin, or eternal damnation is not a product of the enlightenment or rationalism, it is what Locke wrongly thought the Bible taught. Rowe and the secular progressives need to study the scriptures more and understand original sin is not mandatory to be a Christian, but I doubt they will. There is no clear evidence, I repeat, there is no clear evidence that John Locke denied the Deity of Jesus Christ!

Again Rowe mistakenly assumes:

Just because Locke had God play a central role in his liberal democratic theory does not mean there is anything authentically biblical or Christian about Locke’s teachings.>>

It doesn't get anymore perverted than that statement! John Locke was a Christian Theologian, Yet so heavily did Locke draw from the Bible in developing his political theories that in his first treatise on government, he invoked the Bible in one thousand three hundred and forty nine references; in his second treatise, he cited it one hundred and fifty seven times.
How can so many references to the Bible in Locke's most famous political work be reconciled with the charge that his political philosophies were totally secular? or theistic.
In 1669, John Locke assisted in the drafting of the Carolina constitution under which no man could be a citizen unless he acknowledged God, was a member of a church, and used no “reproachful, reviling, or abusive language” against any religion.
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=106
John Locke, A Collection of Several Pieces of Mr. John Locke Never Before Printed or Not Extant in His Works (London: J. Bettenham for R. Francklin, 1720), pp. 3, 41, 45, 46.

Locke went to seminary! How does this refer to secular philosophy?

It only gets worse folks, Rowe again:

And in doing so, arguably they invoked a different God — a benevolent unitarian deity — the God of the theistic rationalists, not the biblical God.>>

Locke's belief in miracles takes care of the theistic rationalist rant:

God only rarely uses miracles. "Though it be easy for omnipotent power to do all things by an immediate overruling will, and to make any instruments work even contrary to their nature, in subserviency to his ends, yet his wisdom is not usually at the expense of miracles . . . but only in cases that require them for the evidencing of some revelation or mission to be from him...If it were not so, the course and evidence of things would be confounded; miracles would lose their force and name; and there could be no distinction between natural and supernatural."
The Reasonableness of Christianity

The reason why Rowe and the secular progressives are so wrong on all the issues is because they do not understand Christianity and the Bible. This proves my point:

Orthodox Christians needed to rely on such an a-biblical Enlightenment system of thought because the Bible simply doesn’t speak to issues with which the Whig republicans were concerned (like a right to revolt).>>

It is in the Bible! Just find where it is and reconcile it. God affirms revolt over an unrighteous kingdom at the beginning of human history in Gen 14:14-20. A Theophany of Jesus Christ(Melchizidek) Priest of the Most High God affirms what Abram did. Righteous revolt over government is in the Bible countless times.

Even orthodox Christians like John Witherspoon, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry and John Jay were influenced by an a-biblical Enlightenment worldview, especially when they argued for republicanism.>>

None of those men denied the Deity of Jesus Christ, and believed the Bible was superior in all matters.

Jesus didn’t overturn one social institution. Not slavery, not any of the illiberal forms of government.>>

Was He supposed to? What was His mission? Is do unto others as you would have them do to you not anti-slavery?

And indeed, Paul instructs Christians, in Romans 13, in no uncertain terms, to obey an illiberal, undemocratic, unelected tyrant who never sought consent to rule over believers.>>

Another incorrect quote. It's amazing so many errors on one post. The context is to be a minster of God to thee for good. Only a just and righteous government has God's approval.

Overall, Rowe and the secular progressive movement are completely wrong about the beliefs of the Founding Fathers, John Locke, The Law of Nature, and practically everything they propose because they lack the true understanding of this universe through the Law of Nature's revelation, the Bible.

Jon Rowe Betrays our Founders and Hindus...Again:

Jon Rowe, the secular progressive, attacks Judge Roy Moore for his correct statement about the Christian foundation of the United States, then posts this:

Hindus, like Christians claim to worship one God."
http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html

Yes folks, the man, with his fellow secular progressives, continue to distort the Christian heritage of the United States as well as the Law of Nature, Separation of Church and State, the First Amendment, and now, if you can believe it, Hinduism.

The contradiction of Hinduism starts in their scriptures known as the Vedas. These Vedas are a mass of contradictions worthy of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. The last part of the Vedas teach pantheism, karmic retribution, and reincarnation-the Bhapavad-Gita seems monotheistic, contradicting the earlier vedas. The earlier vedas are:

"definitely pantheistic (all of existence is, in some way, divine) and perhaps even monistic (all of existence is one, whether any divinity exists at all).
Walter Martin, The Kindgom of the Cults. Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 55438. 1997, p. 388.

The Hare Chrishnas have promoted the monotheism of Hinduism, while others believe everything is god, and still others believe in a multitude of gods. Reincarnation, common to all Hindus-Rowe's comment that Hindus worship one god, is as accurate as the pagan catholics claiming the earth is flat! Hinduism is the epitome of contradiction, Hindus believing in a creator god, and others believing everything is god-this false religion is a disgrace to the Christian foundation of the United States Judge Roy Moore spoke about. Judge Moore's issue is with a pagan religion(prayer) in a nation founded on the precepts of the Bible.

Yes, the Law of Nature in the Declaration of Independence is the God of the Bible as the Christian Philosophers, and our Founding Fathers claimed.

[The] "Law of nature" is a role of conduct arising out of the natural relations of human beings established by the Creator and existing prior to any postive precept [human law]....These...have been established by the Creator and are, with a peculiar felicity of expression, denominated in Scripture, "ordinances of heaven."
Noah Webster(1758-1843) was among the first to call for the Constitutional Convention (1785)and was responsible for the copyright and patent protection clause found in Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution.

Oh, I forgot, only Rowe and secular progressives' "key founders" Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin, are the only ones that matter, or who can speak for the other two hundred fifty Founding Fathers.

Rowe's quotes is most likely from the ISKCON sect of Hinduism, where Krishna is supreme in the Godhead. To ISKCON, Jesus Christ is Krishna's son, but not the unique Son of God. The Hare Krishnas pick and choose parts of the bible just like Jefferson and Adams did.

I had to throw this quote in here showing how deceived Rowe and the secular progressives are about our Founding Fathers:

Completely wrong. If anything, the political theology of the Founding suggests the Founders granted religious freedom to all precisely because they believed all religions -- Muslims, Hindus, Native Americans, etc. -- worshipped the same God they did."
http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html

When Rowe says this, he means only Jefferson and Adams can speak for the Framers, not the other two hundred framers, like Rufus King, who drafted the First Amendment, Drafted and Ratified the Constitution :

[In o]ur laws...by the oath which they prescribe, we appeal to the Supreme Being so to deal with us hereafter as we observe the obligation of our oaths. The Pagan world were and are without the mighty influence of this principle which is proclaimed in the Christian system."
Reports of the Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1821, Assembled for the Purpose of Amending The Constitution of the State of New York (Albany: E. and E. Hosford, 1821), p. 575, Rufus King, October 30, 1821.

King, only Drafted and Ratified the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, but he isn't Jefferson, or Adams, so he shouldn't be quoted, and doesn't know what he's talking about! James Madison believed the "key founders" were those who ratified these documents like Rufus King:

He believed, as he repeatedly affirmed, that the meaning of a statute must be sought in the intentions of those who ratified it, not of those who drafted it--in the case of the First Amendment in the minds of the members of the state legislatures, not of the members of the First Federal Congress.
James Hutson-Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/loc/madison/hutson-paper.htm

Madison seems to destroy the "key founders" of Rowe and the secular progressives, as well as their dogma of the First Amendment referring to any religion becoming the National Church. Rowe and the secular progressives can push their schemes all they want, but it's deceit. Rowe asks:

Why would the Biblical God grant men an unalienable right to break his commandments? Arguably, He wouldn't. Hence arguably, the rights granting "Nature's God" of the key Founders is not the Biblical God.>>

This is a perfect example of one who needs to study a lot more. Rowe is confusing the Old and New Testaments, the First Commandment ONLY applied to the theocracy of Israel, not the freedom of conscience embodied in the Christian Philosophers' Law of Nature. The Biblical God grants an unalienable right to break his commandments because this isn't Israel, and the United States is not a Theocracy. Religion is left to the States, and the key Founders' God is the Biblical God.

Rowe's final statement claims:

challenge Roy Moore or anyone sympathetic to his view to find one quotation from Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, or Franklin clearly expressing the belief that Hindus, Muslims, Native Americans, or any non-Christians worship false Gods. (I'll give you a hint: They can't because they don't exist.)>>

Why should I try to find any quotes from anyone else, they aren't "key founders", so they do not matter.

Jon Rowe from Positive Liberty, and secular progressives continue to Distort the Will of the Founding Fathers

by James J. Goswick

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."

Wells, William V. The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams: Being a Narrative of His Acts and Opinions, and of His Agency in Producing and Forwarding the American Revolution, with Extracts From His Correspondence, State Papers, and Political Essays. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1865.

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