New release from Dreisbach and Hall

Their new collaboration is due for release April 1, 2014. Faith and the Founders of the American Republic will hopefully provide more evidence of Calvinist faith from the Founding Fathers. The book has a section on Gouverneur Morris, written by Gregg Frazer. Here is one of Frazer's questionable comments:

Like the Deists, Morris and the other theistic rationalists used generic "God words" rather than specifically Christian terms for God (p. 214).  

Yet, Calvinists used this classical terminology, including Samuel Adams, William Livingston, John Witherspoon and many others. How can this understanding be used to claim someone wasn't orthodox when the orthodox used it? The fact is Morris called himself a Christian.

The problem with many historians like Frazer is the Natural Law tradition. Because many framers referred to Natural Law, scholars believe these men gave a higher respect for reason than they really did. Taken from the Scriptures, John Calvin himself promoted this tradition. Further, Montesquieu and Locke understood the Natural Law tradition from Calvin and the Reformers. Morris rejected the authority of human reason for the Kingship of Christ:

Those who slaughtered their prince and made havoc of each other; those who endeavored to dethrone the King of Heaven and establish the worship of human reason, who placed, as representative on the altar which piety had dedicated to the holy virgin, and fell down and paid to her their adoration, were, at length, compelled to see and to feel, and, in agony, to own that there is a God. I cannot proceed. My heart sickens at the recollection of those horrors which desolated France. [bold face mine] 

--An oration, delivered on Wednesday, June 29, 1814, at the request of a number of citizens of New-York : in celebration of the recent deliverance of Europe from the yoke of military despotism.

A man who believed in total depravity, as Morris did would not exalt man's reason as the rationalists did:

Your history of the two Barons is very amusing ; but when
you take occasion to pity the infirmity of human nature, be-
cause of their attachment to a trivial decoration, you assail
the wisdom of Providence in his moral government of the
world. [bold face mine]

--TO JOHN PARISH. February 18th, 1806.

The above quote refers to God's moral authority of the world. This is precisely the statement of Grotius and the Christians who denied the correct biblical atonement for the moral atonement theory Grotius and the Arminians believed.

Another comment made in the book referring to Hamilton says:

Although a consistent spokesman for Enlightened principles in politics (p. 22).

However, Hamilton rejected Enlightenment principles. He believed in Calvin's Total Depravity and rejected any human exaltation by learning:

"Experience is a continual comment on the worthlessness of the human race; and the few exceptions we find have the greater right to be valued in proportion as they are rare."

-To Colonel Richard K. Meade, Albany, August 27, 1782.

Hamilton even mentions the enlightenment with disdain by clarifying man becomes more wicked the more he learns:

"As riches increase and accumulate in few hands; as luxury prevails in society; virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard. This is the real disposition of human nature: It is what, neither the honorable member nor myself can correct. It is a common misfortune, that awaits our state constitution, as well as all others..It is a harsh doctrine, that men grow wicked in proportion as they improve and enlighten their minds. Experience has by no means justified us in the supposition, that there is more virtue in one class of men than in another. Look through the rich and the poor of the community; the learned and the ignorant. Where does virtue predominate? The difference indeed consists, not in the quantity but kind of vices, which are incident to the various classes; and here the advantage of character belongs to the wealthy. Their vices are probably more favorable to the prosperity of the state, than those of the indigent; and partake less of moral depravity. "[bold face mine]

--Alexander Hamilton, New York Ratifying Convention 21 June 1788. Papers 5:36--37, 40--43.

The kicker for rejecting Frazer's opinion is eyewitness testimony from one of Morris's best friends, who was an evangelical and claimed Morris was saved, Oct 28, 1816.
                                                                 

The Greatest Influence to Thomas Jefferson

Founding Father Thomas Jefferson claimed Francis Bacon was the greatest man that ever lived. It is ironic TJ put Bacon at the top of a circled Trinity with Locke and Newton beneath him, in view of the fact TJ was a unitarian and Bacon a Trinitarian. Bacon was a devout Anglican, who, it would appear, believed in all the fundamentals of Christianity. His rejection of Aristotle's philosophy for empiricism, and Locke's blank slate theory, for the more correct Original Sin doctrine, by man's erroneous understanding of initial information is refreshing, given Bacon had such an effect on the primary draughtsman of the Declaration of Independence.

The most influential man the world has ever known according to the rationalist Thomas Jefferson, was an Orthodox Christian. How poetic.

Alexander Hamilton; The Calvinist, Part I

Scholars that claim Alexander Hamilton was less than a Christian may be hard-pressed. However, neither Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, nor George Washington should be labeled rationalists. The correct definition of "rationalist" as Wilkipedia explains, says "reason is king." A rationalist denies the supernatural, and anything unreasonable to the enlightened man. All three believed human nature was depraved, by none other than The Fall. Original Sin is unreasonable to rationalists, which exempts all three men from the label. Calvinist Professor Gregg Frazer, claim these men are a special kind of Theistic Rationalist; one that can pick and choose what miracles; apparently biblical, are legitimate. However, Hamilton goes so far as to claim miracles are possible apart from Biblical Revelation, or Right Reason, casting further doubt on his thesis. Here is a taste of Frazer's thesis:

"They [Founding Fathers] similarly felt free to define God according to the dictates of their own reason and to reject Christian doctrines which did not seem to them to be rational..Theistic rationalists generally disdained doctrines or dogmas. They found them to be divisive, speculative, and ultimately unimportant since many roads lead to God."

Granted, there may have been some framers who denied the supernatural; Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine come to mind, however Alexander Hamilton is not one of them. Is Original Sin a divisive doctrine? Many would claim it is a fact of everyday life.

"And making the proper deductions for the ordinary depravity of human nature, the number must be still smaller of those who unite the requisite integrity with the requisite knowledge." [bold face mine]

-Hamilton, FEDERALIST No. 78

Thus, unlike, the rationalists, he did not believe learning and the enlightenment would cause virtue, but only that the depravity would change its form. Hamilton knew he couldn't change his condition, because it was inherrant:

"As riches increase and accumulate in few hands; as luxury prevails in society; virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard. This is the real disposition of human nature: It is what, neither the honorable member nor myself can correct. It is a common misfortune, that awaits our state constitution, as well as all others..It is a harsh doctrine, that men grow wicked in proportion as they improve and enlighten their minds. Experience has by no means justified us in the supposition, that there is more virtue in one class of men than in another. Look through the rich and the poor of the community; the learned and the ignorant. Where does virtue predominate? The difference indeed consists, not in the quantity but kind of vices, which are incident to the various classes; and here the advantage of character belongs to the wealthy. Their vices are probably more favorable to the prosperity of the state, than those of the indigent; and partake less of moral depravity." [bold face mine]

-Alexander Hamilton, New York Ratifying Convention 21 June 1788. Papers 5:36--37, 40--43
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s38.html

Gouverneur Morris; the Penman of the Constitution, cannot be considered a Rationalist either. He never exalted reason over revelation; however, he did attack it, hence Morris lived in Paris at the height of the French Revolution:

"Those who slaughtered their prince and made havoc of each other; those who endeavored to dethrone the King of Heaven and establish the worship of human reason, who placed, as representative on the altar which piety had dedicated to the holy virgin, and fell down and paid to her their adoration, were, at length, compelled to see and to feel, and, in agony, to own that there is a God. I cannot proceed. My heart sickens at the recollection of those horrors which desolated France." [bold face mine]

-An oration, delivered on Wednesday, June 29, 1814, at the request of a number of citizens of New-York : in celebration of the recent deliverance of Europe from the yoke of military despotism.

What is interesting in Morris' quote is his mention of the Holy Virgin. If Morris didn't believe what he wrote, why even mention it? Also, this quote proves Morris could not be a rationalist, as he says the King of Heaven is superior to reason, that the French tried to establish Reason over Christianity. One can only imagine what Morris saw in that dreadful time.

Morris, like Hamilton, Madison, Washington, et al. believed in human depravity:

"Your history of the two Barons is very amusing ; but when
you take occasion to pity the infirmity of human nature, be-
cause of their attachment to a trivial decoration, you assail
the wisdom of Providence in his moral government of the
world." [bold face mine]

-TO JOHN PARISH. February 18th, 1806.

Morris claimed to be a Christian, not a rationalist:

"As a good Christian I pray not to be led into it..."
-The diary and letters of Gouverneur Morris, Minister of the United States to France. Vol II.

Was George Washington a Christian?

The more I investigate and read the account of witnesses claiming George Washington was a Christian, the more my own view is questioned. By a careful examination of Washington's words, and the context of those words, it is evident his philosophical language, which all Christians used in reference to God, no doubt, referred to Jesus Christ. Granted, this is not an admission of faith, but, neither does it exempt the label of Christian.

Using proper English Comprehension, the key to Washington's letter to the Delaware Chiefs is not the Indians' arts and ways of life, but our ways of life, showing Jesus Christ's Religion is to be above everything else in our culture; again, Washington includes himself in "our" arts and ways of life:

"You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention; and to tie the knot of friendship and union so fast, that nothing shall ever be able to loose it."
SPEECH TO THE DELAWARE CHIEFS
Head Quarters, Middle Brook, May 12, 1779.
http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-washington?specfile=/texts/english/washington/fitzpatrick/search/gw.o2w&act=surround&offset=18502434&tag=Writings+of+Washington,+Vol.+15:+SPEECH+TO+THE+DELAWARE+CHIEFS&query=jesus+christ&id=gw150049

So George Washington never referred to God in Christian terms? Quite the contrary; he mentioned Jesus Christ to the Delaware Chiefs, and here, in 1789:

"And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions."
Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3rd, 1789

Who pardons transgressions and is The Lord? Jesus Christ is the only answer. This also shows his prayers and supplications were to Jesus, not to a deist, or theist god.

"I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation."
Washington's Farewell to the Army, June 8th, 1783
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/amrev/peace/circular.html

Without a doubt, George Washington is referring to Jesus Christ, as these Characteristicks refer only to Him. He declares, including himself, our country's religion is Christianity, whose imitation every nation should imitate.

And again, here, Washington says Revelation, which is God's will for mankind, is referring to the Bible, supported by Webster's definition of the word. Notice, God's revelation is superior to all human knowledge, including man's reason, which can only be useful and relevant if it is written down:

"[t]he Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment of our forms of Government; the free cultivation of Letters, the unbounded extension of Commerce, the progressive refinement of Manners, the growing liberality of sentiment, and above all, the pure and benign light of Revelation, have had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the blessings of Society."

There is evidence, among other reports, Washington took communion, here is one testimony in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania:

The Rev. Nathaniel Randolph Snowden, an ordained Presbyterian minister, graduate of Princeton with a degree from Dickinson College. Mr. Snowden was born in Philadelphia January 17, 1770 and died November 12, 1851. His writings cover a period from youth to 1846. In his records may be found these observations, in Mr. Snowden's own handwriting:

Mr. Snowden, as if to emphasize the piety of Washington sets forth in his records that he often saw Washington, that he accompanied seventy other clergymen to visit him on the anniversary of his birth February 22, 1792. Then Mr. Snowden adds:

"When the army lay at Morristown, the Rev. Dr. Jones, administered the sacrament of ye Lord's supper. Washington came forward at ye head of all his officers and took his seat at ye 1st table, & took of ye bread and wine, the Symbols of Christ's broken body and shed blood, to do this in remembrance of ye L J C & thus professed himself a Christian & a disciple of the blessed Jesus."
http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/washington/prayer.html

Did Washington fake communion, and this testimony false? Is the Valley Forge Prayer an accurate account? I know there are equally other testimonies rejecting Washington's faith, but, without his words rejecting Christianity, it's difficult to label him a theist. David Barton may be on safe ground claiming Washington a Christian. The claims of Washington's Grand daughter Nelly Custis-Lewis, John Marshall, Abiel Holmes, or Jared Sparks may only refer to his Christian character, not his faith in Christian Orthodoxy, which is mandatory for salvation; Marshall was a unitarian until the latter part of his life.

If Snowden's testimony is true, I have no problem with people claiming Washington a Christian, for me, I am still undecided.

Is Man's Reason Superior to Scripture?

The question in the title is, for the most part , only pondered by secularists, although, it means little to the people of today, to our Founding Fathers, it meant everything; it asks, "What law is our nation founded on? and "Where did the Founding Fathers understand where this written law came from?" To find out what the framers believed superior would be to examine their writings, and what they were taught in school, preferably college, or seminary. The answer becomes obvious, as well as showing how the doctrine of limiting the beliefs to a few infidel framers is not only disingenuous, but displays the only basis for the contrary viewpoint. Let it be clear, the morality of the Founding Fathers includes the sphere of politics; morality and politics cannot be separated. Justice was employed, not from something called the enlightenment, but, given by the law of nature as shown from the bible. The Justice of God, we sinners deserve, but mercy is the pinnacle of enlightenment; punishment fitting the crime, is derived from the bible, as earlier posts have showed. Loving your neighbor as yourself, science, freedom of conscience, and morality, come from the bible. Religion and morality are always superior to reason:

"By renouncing the Bible, philosophers swing from their moorings upon all moral subjects. . . It is the only correct map of the human heart that ever has been published. . . . All systems of religion, morals, and government not founded upon it [the Bible] must perish, and how consoling the thought, it will not only survive the wreck of these systems but the world itself. "The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." [Matthew 1:18]
Benjamin Rush
(Source: Benjamin Rush, Letters of Benjamin Rush, L. H. Butterfield, editor (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 936, to John Adams, January 23, 1807.)

Founding Father John Witherspoon believed in no distinction between spiritual and civil liberty, promoted by Christians, lead by presbyterians in the revolution. John Locke and the English Whigs may be responsible for writing on the moral sense, but reason encompasses the entire bible, of which Thomas Aquinas showed four hundred years earlier, citing an incorrect source:

"That he is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion...God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable and that the unjust attempts to destroy the one, may in the issue tend to the support and establishment of both."
The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 17 May 1776

It is also important to note Witherspoon was not a pure calvinist as some make him out to be. By his writings, it is safe to say he believed in free will over irresistable grace, that calvinism holds to, as well as denying some other aspects of the flawed doctrine.

"The doctrines I mean are, the lost slate of man by nature ; salvation by the free grace of God"
Works of Witherspoon, Vol. II.

Salvation is not free to Calvinism, but a product of unconditional election.

"Yet I think, admitting all...consider how far any thing is consonant to reason, or may be proven by reason; though perhaps reason, if left to itself, would never have discovered it."
John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, foremost of the Founding Fathers.
Lectures on Moral Philosophy.

Reason cannot discover the answer, therefore, he believed, as the other framers, only religion, inspired writings could have ultimate truth. Man's reason is only true insofar as it coincides with scripture.

"I may make one particular remark, that though many things are copied from the law of Moses into the laws of the modern nations, yet, so far as I know, none of them have introduced the lex talionis in the case of injuries, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and yet perhaps there are many instances in which it would be very proper."

An eye for an eye is enlightenment rationalism?

"If we take tradition or Revelation for our guide, the matter is plain, that God made man lord of the works of his hands, and put under him all the other creatures."

And again, is this enlightenment?

"If any should ask, how I prove that that course of action to which human nature is inclined is evil, without the acceptance of Scripture? I answer, from reason; and that many ways—from its pernicious effects on societies, and private persons; from the testimony of the world in general, when others than themselves are concerned, and from the testimony of every man's conscience in his own case."

Without Scripture as a guide, corrupted reason is just that; corrupt.

"From all this then, I would conclude, that reason accords with scripture, in saying, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God: that man in a natural state, is wretched and miserable, and poor, and and naked."

Not scripture accords with reason, but reason according to the scripture. As far as salvation, that is Jesus Christ, which is the ultimate truth, scripture must be greater than reason, because only God's word can reveal faith.

"We must conclude therefore, that however stable a foundation there is for the other attributes of God in nature and reason, the way in which, and the terms on which, he will shew mercy, can be learned from Revelation only."

Here is another instance of reason not providing ultimate truth in a matter.

"It is true, that infidels do commonly proceed upon pretended principles of reason."

As did Infidels David Hume and Thomas Jefferson.

Witherspoon was President of Princeton College, his students included, in addition to a president and vice-president of the United States, nine cabinet members, twenty-one senators, thirty-nine congressmen, three justices of the Supreme Court, and twelve state governors. Five of the nine Princeton graduates among the fifty-five members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were students of Witherspoon.

Witherspoon also claims the judging of good and evil by man's reason is not sufficiently precise and explicit, the Divine conduct being the standard of wisdom.

Let it forever by destroyed, the use of generic terms a departure of orthodoxy as Witherspoon shows in his Lectures:

"In the law of Moses, where rules are laid down for their treatment" p. 92, "many things are copied from the law of Moses into the laws of the modern nations" p. 145, "and that both in the Scripture revelation..." p. 56, "The first two of these founded on the New Testament, and the last on reason."

"The particulars which reason and nature point out, relating to the marriage contract, are as follow: 1. That it be between one man and one woman. Polygamy is condemned by nature...

The Law of Moses and the New Testament is secular? Condemnation, which would be the just punishment of homosexuality, is enlightenment rationalism?

George Washington says religion and morality, not reason, are indispensable to government:

'Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports."
George Washington, Address of George Washington, President of the United States . . . Preparatory to His Declination (Baltimore: George and Henry S. Keatinge), pp. 22-23. In his Farewell Address to the United States in 1796.)

"To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . . Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must fall with them."
Jedediah Morse, Patriot and Father of American Geography
A Sermon, Exhibiting the Present Dangers and Consequent Duties of the Citizens of the United States of America (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1799), p. 9.)

"[P]ublic utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses, and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience."
James McHenry, Signer of the Constitution

The scriptures alone, not reason, give man total truth.

Separation of religion and government? Not to the Founding Fathers:

"[T]he primary objects of government are the peace, order, and prosperity of society. . . . To the promotion of these objects, particularly in a republican government, good morals are essential. Institutions for the promotion of good morals are therefore objects of legislative provision and support: and among these . . . religious institutions are eminently useful and important. . . . [T]he legislature, charged with the great interests of the community, may, and ought to countenance, aid and protect religious institutions."
Oliver Ellsworth, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Connecticut Courant, June 7, 1802, p. 3, Oliver Ellsworth, to the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut)

"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, [and] which denounces against the wicked eternal misery, and [which] insured to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments."
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Signer of the Declaration of Independence
Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907), p. 475. In a letter from Charles Carroll to James McHenry of November 4, 1800.)

Again, the Founding Fathers are clear; the bible is superior to man's reason for government.

"Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits . . . it is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers."
Fisher Ames, Framed the final wording for the First Amendment
An Oration on the Sublime Virtues of General George Washington (Boston: Young & Minns, 1800), p. 23.)

"The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws."
John Quincy Adams, Sixth President of the United States
Letters of John Quincy Adams, to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings (Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850), p. 61.)

It is clear, the Founding Fathers believed religion far superior to man's right or wrong reason.

Exposing the Falsehoods of Ed Brayton, part two.

6.Thou shalt not kill
This one is obviously constitutional, and is a part of our legal system. But it's also found in EVERY legal system, even those that have nothing to do with the bible or Christianity.>
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/12/more_huckabee_absurdity.php

"The opinion that human reason left without the constant control of Divine laws and commands will . . . give duration to a popular government is as chimerical as the most extravagant ideas that enter the head of a maniac. . . . Where will you find any code of laws among civilized men in which the commands and prohibitions are not founded on Christian principles? I need not specify the prohibition of murder, robbery, theft, [and] trespass."
Noah Webster

A 1932 Kentucky Appeals Court:"The rights of society as well as those of appellant are involved and are also to be protected, and to that end all forms of governments following the promulgation of Moses at Mt. Sinai has required of each and every one of its citizens that "Thou shalt not murder." If that law is violated, the one guilty of it has no right to demand more than a fair trial, and if, as a result thereof, the severest punishment for the crime is visited upon him, he has no one to blame but himself."

There are yet many more declarations by our people affirming the sixth commandment into our laws.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery
Another one that is a good idea, but not constitutional if legally enforced. Adultery is a moral wrong, but it's a private matter between individuals.>

Vermont Laws of 1787 "Whereas the violation of the marriage covenant is contrary to the command of God and destructive to the peace of families: be it therefore enacted by the general assembly of the State of Vermont that if any man be found in bed with another man's wife, or woman with another's husband, . . . &c

For example, in 1898, the highest criminal court in Texas declared that its State laws on adultery were derived from the Decalogue: The accused would insist upon the defense that the female consented. The state would reply that she could not consent. Why? Because the law prohibits, with a penalty, the completed act. "Thou shalt not commit adultery" is our law as well as the law of the Bible.

8. Thou shalt not steal
This is the second one that is obviously constitutional, but also found in every legal system regardless of the religious system that may have initially spawned it. A universal imperative that would be part of the law even if the bible never existed.>

The laws regarding theft that indicate their reliance on divine law and the Decalogue are far too numerous even to begin listing. Perhaps the simplest summation is given by Chancellor James Kent, who is considered, along with Justice Joseph Story, as one of the two "Fathers of American Jurisprudence." In his classic 1826 Commentaries on American Law, Kent confirmed that the prohibitions against theft were found in divine law:To overturn justice by plundering others tended to destroy civil society, to violate the law of nature, and the institutions of Heaven.

In 1951, the Louisiana Supreme Court acknowledged the Decalogue as the basis for the unchanging civil laws against theft: In the Ten Commandments, the basic law of all Christian countries, is found the admonition "Thou shalt not steal."
There are many other examples demonstrating this commandment into our laws.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
Some have interpreted this to be analagous to our perjury laws, but nothing in the text indicates that. It's talking about lying in general, not in a legal sense during court proceedings. And while lying may be wrong, it's not legally wrong except in specific circumstances - perjury and libel/slander. Under our system, most instances of lying would be covered by the first amendment free speech clause.>

The 1924, the Oregon Supreme Court declared:No official is above the law. "Thou shalt not bear false witness" is a command of the Decalogue, and that forbidden act is denounced by statute as a felony.
There are many other examples to show this commandment was incorporated into American civil law and jurisprudence.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
Not only unconstitutional, it would require the ability to read minds.>

John Adams, one of only two individuals who signed the Bill of Rights, also acknowledged the importance of this commandment, declaring: The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shalt not covet" and "Thou shalt not steal" were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.

Many courts have also acknowledged the importance of this provision of the Decalogue. For example, in 1895, the California Supreme Court cited this prohibition as the basis of civil laws against defamation. In 1904, the Court of Appeals in West Virginia cited it as the basis of laws preventing election fraud. In 1958, a Florida appeals court cited it as the basis of laws targeting white-collar crime. And in 1951, the Oregon Supreme Court cited this Decalogue prohibition as the basis of civil laws against modern forms of cattle rustling.
There are numerous other examples that all affirm that the tenth commandment of the Decalogue did indeed form an historical part of American civil law and jurisprudence.

All the framers believed religion and morality are mandatory in our society: William Findley, a soldier in the Revolution and a U. S. Congressman, who declared:[I]t pleased God to deliver on Mount Sinai a compendium of His holy law and to write it with His own hand on durable tables of stone. This law, which is commonly called the Ten Commandments or Decalogue, . . . is immutable and universally obligatory. . . . [and] was incorporated in the judicial law."

The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws. . . . Vain, indeed, would be the search among the writings of profane antiquity . . . to find so broad, so complete and so solid a basis for morality as this Decalogue lays down."
John Quincy Adams

Justice William Paterson, a signer of the Constitution placed on the Supreme Court by President George Washington, declared: Religion and morality . . . [are] necessary to good government, good order, and good laws.

Justice Joseph Story, later appointed to the Supreme Court by President James Madison, similarly declared:I verily believe Christianity necessary to the support of civil society. One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law. . . . There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying its foundations. (emphasis added)

Dewitt Clinton, the Framer who introduced the 12th Amendment, also declared:The laws which regulate our conduct are the laws of man and the laws of God. . . . The sanctions of the Divine law . . . cover the whole area of human action.

Perhaps the best reflection of the collective belief of the Framers that religion was not to be excluded from civil society is enactment of the Northwest Ordinance, one of the four organic laws of the United States. That law, passed in 1789 by the same Congress that framed the Bill of Rights, declared:
Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

The Founding Fathers' Belief in Freewill and the New Birth in Jesus Christ

It is interesting how appellations have been applied to our Founding Fathers, regarding their religious beliefs; some of these terms are used by secularists, who redefine them. These terms include: arminianism, enlightenment, freedom of conscience, and Christianity. The secularists understanding of enlightenment, or scottish-enlightenment theory, applied to framers such as: John Witherspoon, Benjamin Rush, and James Madison, etc. is not only incorrect, but the world continues to believe this deceit from these pseudo-philosophers. Spiritual liberty was translated into Political liberty in our founding documents, written by men such as Founding Father John Jay:

"On this topic the gospel is explicit. It commands us to obey the higher powers or ruler. It reminds us that “he beareth not the sword in vain”; that “he is the minister of God, and a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” Now, if he is not to bear the sward in vain, it follows that he is to use it to execute wrath on evildoers, and consequently to draw blood and to kill on proper occasions. As to the second species of warfare, it certainly is as reasonable and as right that a nation be secure against injustice, disorder, and rapine from without as from within; and therefore it is the right and duty of the government or ruler to use force and the sword to protect and maintain the rights of his people against evildoers of another nation. The reason and necessity of using force and the sword being the same in both cases, the right or the law must be the same also."
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=64

As the framers believed in liberty of conscience, so they believed in freedom of oppression, and injustice.

The Scottish Enlightenment was more radical than that of Europe, because of its denial of the supernatural by Scots such as David Hume, and Francis Hutcheson. Because of this denial, we can exclude from this group, all the Founding Fathers, including John Locke, and the European Christian Theologians, who, without a doubt, believed in the supernatural. So what is enlightenment thought?

It is rule where reason is the ultimate standard, where man is the ultimate arbiter of truth. The other aspect of enlightenment thought that secularists apply to the framers is freewill; that this freedom of conscience originated out of the rationale of man's reason. Nothing could be farther from the truth, which is why the Founding Fathers rejected such utter nonsense.

The proof that the Founding Fathers rejected the enlightenment(rationalism) is their acceptance of the supernatural, and their understanding that freewill in man comes from the Bible, not from the mind of rationalist philosophers like David Hume, who, our framers, including Thomas Jefferson, rejected.

In my opinion, as well as that of Christian Theologians, including: John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, Richard Hooker, John Witherspoon, Samuel von Pufendorf and Martin Luther; freewill, is laden throughout the New Testament, with The Saviour, Jesus Christ the greatest promoter of this fact. Contrary to the opinion of John Calvin, who, with the others affirmed Political Liberty, but denied Spirtual Freewill.

"A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one...Yea, the more of a Christian any man is, to so many the more evils, sufferings, and deaths is he subject, as we see in the first place in Christ the first-born, and in all His holy brethren."
Martin Luther-On Christian Freedom, 1520
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~lyman/english233/Luther-CF.htm

"When a man-made law is imposed upon the soul to make it believe this or that as its human author may prescribe, there is certainly no word of God for it. If there is no word of God for it, then we cannot be sure whether God wishes to have it so, for we cannot be certain that something which he does not command is pleasing to him."
Martin Luther, Luther's Works, Christian in Society II, Vol, 45, 1523. edited by Jaroslav Pelikan et al)
http://books.google.com/books?id=At8kLNZSawoC&pg=PP1&ots=cjXvFGHcY_&dq=isbn:0800603451&sig=YKDybG8G5RpWzTGjo1FneMrnN2o#PPA6,M1
"By this procedure no one is compelled to believe, for he can still believe what he will; but he is forbidden to teach and to blaspheme."
(LW, Vol. 13, 61-62) edited by Jaroslav Pelikan et al

Here James Madison affirms Luther's leading the way in governments removal on the mind of man:

It illustrates the excellence of a system which, by a due distinction, to which the genius and courage of Luther led the way, between what is due to Caesar and what is due God, best promotes the discharge of both obligations. The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported.
TO F. L. SCHAEFFER Montpellier, Dec. 3rd ,1821
http://personal.pitnet.net/primarysources/madisonluther.html

If anyone has granted freedom of conscience to the people, it is Christian people. Luther believed in freedom of conscience, but affirmed the penalties for breaking Biblical Law. I disagree with Luther's proposed penalties apart from murder. The Founding Fathers' upholding of the second table of the law, minus the tenth commandment, is obvious and right; the first two commandments cannot be mandated, yet alone, are contrary to freedom of conscience; the just punishments to the crimes, made by the framers, I concur with.

Another interesting aspect to the enlightenment theory, as applied to the morality, and penalty to the minds of the Founding Fathers, had a non-existent effect. The Bible trumped enlightenment thought, with the death penalty for adultery not lessened until the 1780's. The fact is, the death penalty "was standard for a laundry list of crimes--from adultery to murder, from arson to stealing horses." Robbery and Counterfeiting were also capital offenses.
The Death Penalty: An American History by Stuart Banner
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ean=9780674010833&z=y#TABS

Contrary to enlightenment philosophers, here are some of Jesus' words affirming freewill:

John 4:14
"But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
John 6:40,47,51,54
"And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day."
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life."
"I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever:"
"Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
John 7:37
"In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink."
John 8:51
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death."
John 11:26
"And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"

This is just one book of the Bible; Paul, James, Luke, Jude, and Peter affirmed the same doctrine. The Bible teaches freewill for salvation; practically all of the founding fathers believed this doctrine, as well as the early church fathers, and Christian Theologians.

Pufendorf, on the Bible's superiority, and man's reason:

"For this reason in Scripture too the law is said to be "written in the hearts" of men.[4] [Romans, ii, 15.]...so that man would not be sociable either, if not imbued with religion; and since reason alone cannot go further in religion than in so far as the latter subserves the promotion of peace and sociability in this life. For, in so far as religion promotes the salvation of souls, it proceeds from a special divine revelation."
CHAPTER III On Natural Law, THE TWO BOOKS ON THE DUTY OF MAN AND CITIZEN ACCORDING TO THE NATURAL LAW

Pufendorf believed, as did the framers, man's reason could not save anyone, or reveal who God is.

The founders employed freedom of conscience into Political Liberty, the system John Witherspoon taught James Madison and other students at Princeton.

Witherspoon's students included, in addition to a president and vice-president of the United States, nine cabinet members, twenty-one senators, thirty-nine congressmen, three justices of the Supreme Court, and twelve state governors. Five of the nine Princeton graduates among the fifty-five members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were students of Witherspoon.
Witherspoon, John Locke, the Christian Philosophers, and our founding fathers, received the politically couched freedom of conscience from the Bible, not from enlightenment philosophers.

Here, Witherspoon affirms, total depravity, the supernatural, original sin, and Supreme Authority of Scripture:

"When I say it is a supernatural change, I mean that it is what man cannot by his own power effect without superior or divine aid. As we are by nature in a state of enmity against God, so this is what we cannot "of ourselves" remove or overcome. The exercise of our own rational powers, the persuasion of others, the application of all moral motives of every kind, will be ineffectual, without the special operation of the Spirit and Grace of God." John Witherspoon, Works, Section IV http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=07Ji84GdfMAC&dq=the+works+of+john+witherspoon&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=XxXlSuuHCf&sig=leZSRSgk3I-CqQk3VJf8vHcZumw#PPA14,M1

Thomas Aquinas spoke of Natural Law, primacy of reason in human affairs, five-hundred years before Deist Benjamin Franklin. Man's reason, freedom of conscience, science, and Natural Law are Biblical concepts; ascribing these theories to the enlightenment is false. Enlightenment theory, denied the supernatural, nothing more.
As to the doctrine of the New Birth(being born again) as a child of God, its reference is in John 3:7-8:

"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth...so is every one that is born of the Spirit."

All the founding fathers that learned at Princeton, James Madison referenced earlier, was taught this New Birth that Jesus speaks of. Princeton alum, Benjamin Rush(1760), who served in the Adams, Jefferson, and Madison administrations, was taught the same thing:

"But inhabiting this earthly body is the body spiritual, immortal, the essence of our Heavenly Father, which expressed the Holy Spirit. It is the awakening of this Spirit which our Saviour refers to when He tells us that we must be born again." Benjamin Rush, The Road to Fulfillment, The Law of New Birth, p.85, Harper & Brothers, 1942, New York and London.

As far as morality goes, Rush was only against the death penalty, not because of enlightenment humanitarism, but to make punishment more efficient, and better.

No doubt, there are countless other framers who believed this doctrine, including ministers: Robert Treat Paine, Lyman Hall, and Abraham Baldwin.

Belief in predestination, espoused by John Calvin, seems to be adhered to by a small percentage of founding fathers, freewill, was the pervading viewpoint. The use of philosophical language by Born Again Founding Fathers, proves the language was common by everyone, not evidence of belief in heterodoxy.

The Christian Foundation of Republican Government

For decades now, secular revisionists continue to deny the United States was founded a Christian nation; rejecting the Common Law foundation of Republican Government; Common Law, found in the Bible, is no longer a mystery; brought to light to refute the disingenuous agenda of the American secularist order. Common knowledge, and research of the Founding Fathers' writings shows the Republican Government of the United States was based on the political system of England. Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution, guarantees the United States shall guarantee every State in this Union a Republican form of Government.

The foundation of Republican Government is Law, Common Law. The basis of the Constitution's Republican Government, and Common Law, is without a doubt, The Ten Commandments from Yahweh, the God of Israel. It is an indisputable fact the Founding Fathers believed this(emphasis added). God ordained Republican Government three-thousand five-hundred years ago, albeit not formed as a theocracy, the Founding Fathers started a Constitutional Republic, based on representatives ruling for the people. It is irrelevant the differences in government, and manner the representatives came about to rule, Biblical Law is the standard, and in both cases the people agreed to the choosen Representatives:

Deuteronomy 1 (King James Version)
14And 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.

Like I said, whether the representatives were selected or elected is irrelevant, this is only a diversion to reject the Biblical foundation. Secularists distort the issue by claiming Republican Government is where citizens elect representatives to actually govern, and authority is derived from the citizens or their elected representatives.This is an incorrect assertion; no where did the Christian Philosophers(Aquinas, Calvin, Locke, Blackstone, Montesquieu, etc.) believe electing representatives was the foundation of Republicanism. Law(Biblical Law) is the foundation of Republicanism; how representatives are elected is not mandatory. The only mandatory aspect of Republicanism is the acceptance of the people to form a government that has representatives, which is true of ancient Israel, and the United States.

From the Holy Bible, we see the conscience(reason) of man, and The Ten Commandments(Divine Law), is the foundation of Law in a Republican Government; this being clearly revealed to the world in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul in Romans 2:14-15:

"For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another."

Thomas Aquinas did not need to bypass the New Testament, and employ Aristotle's theories into the church, that was an error; the sacred oracles in man(conscience) were designed in man by the true God, Jesus Christ, not the "thought thinking self" of Aristotle.

The Founding Fathers rejected every other Republican Government, except that of the English, as James Madison explains:

"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

The moral laws of the states prove their law was Biblical Law, and no other.

England is the main example of Republican Government to the Founding Fathers; the celebrated Montesquieu, their main authority on the matter. How did the English acquire Republican Government for their nation? Montesquieu explains:

"In perusing the admirable treatise of Tacitus On the Manners of the Germans, we find it is from that nation the English have borrowed the idea of their political government."
Book XI. Of the Laws Which Establish Political Liberty, with Regard to the Constitution 6. Of the Constitution ofEngland.

However, in my opinion, Sir William Blackstone provides a better explanation:

"there never was any formal exchange of one system of laws for another: though doubtless by the intermixture of adventitious nations, the Romans, the Picts, the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans, they must have insensibly introduced and incorporated many of their own customs with those that were before established; thereby in all probability improving the texture and wisdom of the whole, by the accumulated wisdom of divers particular countries. Our laws, saith lord Bacon, are mixed as our language: and, as our language is so much the richer, the laws are the more complete.

And indeed our antiquaries and early historians do all positively assure us, that our body of laws is of this compounded nature. For they tell us, that in the time of Alfred, the local customs of the several provinces of the kingdom were grown so various, that he found it expedient to compile his dome-book, or liber judicialis, for the general use of the whole kingdom. This book is said to have been extant so late as the reign of king Edward the fourth, but is now unfortunately lost. It contained, we may probably suppose, the principal maxims of the common law, the penalties for misdemesnors, and the forms of judicial proceedings. Thus much may at least be collected from that injunction to observe it, which we find in the laws of king Edward the elder, the son of Alfred."

That the Divine Law is The Ten Commandments is clear:

"Divine Providence, which, in compassion to the frailty, the imperfection, and the blindness of human reason, hath been pleased, in sundry times and diverse manners, to discover and enforce it's laws by an immediate and direct revelation. The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures" (emphasis added). Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/blackstone/introa.htm

Yet this rule admits of exception, where the former determination is most evidently contrary to reason; much more if it be dearly contrary to the divine law...And hence it is that our lawyers are with justice so copious in their encomiums on the reason of the common law, that they tell us, that the law is the perfection of reason, that it always intends to conform thereto, and that what is not reason is not law. Blackstone, SECTION THE THIRD. OF THE LAWS OF ENGLAND
http://www.constitution.org/tb/tb-1103.htm

So the immigrants from Europe brought with them their customs and religion; being primarily Christianity with Common Law. The Common Law is no doubt the Divine Law, and the Gospel as Blackstone has said. Christianity had spread into England as early as the first century; Christianity gaining converts throughout England by the beginning of the fourth century. Christianity was known in pagan saxon territory, as well as the rest of England:

"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 Common Law of the Bible was instituted by early Christians, and Christian Kings: Ethelbert, in the sixth century, and in the ninth century under Christian King Alfred the Great, the only English King called the Great. Granted, the Bible was not translated into the common language of the people, but they understood the Gospel; their Common Law is evidence of this fact. So, Christianity is the foundation of Common Law; Republican Government founded on the Law and the Gospel.

The Founding Fathers were correct in claiming Common Law is founded on Christianity; if not for the sinfulness of man, what was the reason for the separation of powers in a Republican Government? There is no other reason for the separation of powers other than sin, and wickedness of man; the Founding Fathers knowing this full well.

"If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."
James Madison, Federalist #51.

"Republican government loses half of its value where the moral and social duties are...negligently practiced. To exterminate our popular vices is a work of far more importance to the charachter and happiness of our citizens, than any other improvements in our system of education. [T]he moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws....All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, and ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible." History, p. 339. Noah Webster

"[O]ur citizens should early understand that the geniune 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.

Webster understood where true Liberty and Free Government lies:

[T]he religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and his apostles...and to this we owe our free constitutions of government." History, p. 300,

John Adams understood our Republican Government is based on Law, Common Law of the Bible:

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

Baron Charles Secondat de Montesquieu was the main influence on the Founding Fathers regarding Republican Government, his Spirit of Laws published in 1752, was studied intensely by the framers; proclaiming Christianity the foundation of Republican Law, agreeing that law and religion are twin sisters, to form the greatest government of mankind:

"The Christian religion, which ordains that men should love each other, would without doubt have every nation blest with the best civil, the best political laws; because these, next to this religion, are the greatest good that men can give and receive." - United States Founding Influences, Baron Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, "Spirit of Laws", (Philadelphia: Isaiah Thomas, 1802), Vol. II, pp. 125-126

Book XXIV.Of Laws in relation to Religion Considered in Itself,and in its Doctrines1. Of Religion in General. 3. "That a moderate Government is most agreeable to the Christian Religion, and a despotic Government to the Mahometan. The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage with which a prince punishes his subjects, and exercises himself in cruelty."

"Society notwithstanding all its revolutions, must repose on principles that do not change." - United States Founding Influences, Baron Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, "Spirit of Laws", (Philadelphia: Isaiah Thomas, 1802), Vol. I, p. 18, ad passim

Secularists try to claim Montesquieu did not use biblical examples for Republican Government; diverting the important point of Law as its foundation; the author giving examples of pagan government is not claiming they are the originators of it. To the Founding Fathers, religion and government are to work together, worthy of the peoples support, as Thomas Jefferson explains:

"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." 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.

Critics believe this is a spurious quote because of the early age of the Reverend, but many framers had diaries and writings when they were young; the quote also has confirmation from another witness; the quote was not disputed when it was published, and is harmonious with the views of other framers:

"[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, Acting President of the United States, Chairman of the House Committee which Drafted the Bill of Rights. Member of the Continental Congress (1778-79, 1781-84). 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.

"Sensible of the importance of Christian piety and virtue to the order and happiness of a state, I cannot but earnestly commend to you every measure for their support and encouragement. . . . [T]he very existence of the republics . . . depend much upon the public institutions of religion." John Hancock, member of the Continental Congress (1774-78) where he was the first signer of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and Acting President of the United States (1774-77); Senior Major-General of Massachusetts Militia (1778); delegate to the State constitutional convention (1779); and he was Governor of Massachusetts (1780-85, 1787-93). Independent Chronicle (Boston), November 2, 1780, last page; see also Abram English Brown, John Hancock, His Book (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1898), p. 269.

"[A] free government. . . . can only be happy when the public principle and opinions are properly directed. . . . by religion and education. It should therefore be among the first objects of those who wish well to the national prosperity to encourage and support the principles of religion and morality." Abraham Baldwin, Signer of the Constitution, A Framer of the Bill of Rights in the First Congress. Charles C. Jones, Biographical Sketches of the Delegates from Georgia to the Continental Congress (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1891), pp. 6-7.

The laws spoken of, are the Law and the Gospel found in the Bible; these laws are the liberty spoken of in the Bible, it is pure liberty, as the framers prohibited man from abrogating them. Most of the states laws on morality are straight from the bible, for instance laws against blasphemy, and profanity come from the bible, "...continued well beyond the Founding Era. It subsequently appeared in the 1784 laws in Connecticut, the 1791 laws of New Hampshire, the 1791 laws of Vermont, the 1792 laws of Virginia, the 1794 laws of Pennsylvania, the 1821 laws of Maine, the 1834 laws of Tennessee, the 1835 laws of Massachusetts, the 1836 laws of New York, etc.

Judge Zephaniah Swift, author in 1796 of the first legal text published in America, explained why civil authorities enforced the Decalogue prohibition against blasphemy and profane swearing: Crimes of this description are not punishable by the civil arm merely because they are against religion. Bold and presumptuous must he be who would attempt to wrest the thunder of heaven from the hand of God and direct the bolts of vengeance where to fall. The Supreme Deity is capable of maintaining the dignity of His moral government and avenging the violations of His holy laws. His omniscient mind estimates every act by the standard of perfect truth and His impartial justice inflicts punishments that are accurately proportioned to the crimes. But short-sighted mortals cannot search the heart and punish according to the intent. They can only judge by overt acts and punish them as they respect the peace and happiness of civil society. This is the rule to estimate all crimes against civil law and is the standard of all human punishments. It is on this ground only that civil tribunals are authorized to punish offences against religion.

Notice how Christian Judge Swift used philosophical language in his assessment.

In 1824, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (in a decision subsequently invoked authoritatively and endorsed by the U. S. Supreme Court ) reaffirmed that the civil laws against blasphemy were derived from divine law: The true principles of natural religion are part of the common law; the essential principles of revealed religion are part of the common law; so that a person vilifying, subverting or ridiculing them may be prosecuted at common law.The court then noted that its State's laws against blasphemy had been drawn up by James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution and original Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court:

The late Judge Wilson, of the Supreme Court of the United States, Professor of Law in the College in Philadelphia, was appointed in 1791, unanimously by the House of Representatives of this State to “revise and digest the laws of this commonwealth. . . . ” He had just risen from his seat in the Convention which formed the Constitution of the United States, and of this State; and it is well known that for our present form of government we are greatly indebted to his exertions and influence. With his fresh recollection of both constitutions, in his course of Lectures (3d vol. of his works, 112), he states that profaneness and blasphemy are offences punishable by fine and imprisonment, and that Christianity is part of the common law. It is vain to object that the law is obsolete; this is not so; it has seldom been called into operation because this, like some other offences, has been rare. It has been retained in our recollection of laws now in force, made by the direction of the legislature, and it has not been a dead letter. http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=101

This point also indicates James Wilson helped form the laws prohibiting, and penalizing homosexuality. Here Wilson differentiates rape with consensual homosexuality:

A rape is an irreparable and a most atrocious aggression on the right of personal safety. Besides the thousand excruciating, but nameless circumstances by which it is aggravated, some may be mentioned with propriety. It is a crime committed not only against the citizen, but against the woman; not only against the common rights of society, but against the peculiar rights of the sex: it is committed by one from whom, on every virtuous and manly principle, her sex is entitled to inviolable protection, and her honour to the most sacred regard. This crime is one of the selected few, which, by the laws of the Saxons, were punished with death. The same punishment it still undergoes in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. On this subject, for an obvious reason, particular observations will not be expected from a lecture in the hall: they are fit for the book and the closet only: for even the book and the closest they are fit, only because they are necessary.

The crime not to be named, I pass in a total silence.

"OF CRIMES AGAINST THE RIGHT OF INDIVIDUALS TO PERSONAL SAFETY." http://www.constitution.org/jwilson/jwilson3.htm

It seems Wilson helped write the Pennsylvania laws on morality.

Regarding the separation of powers doctrine, it was spoken about in the Bible over twenty-five hundred years ago:

Isaiah 33:22 (King James Version)For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.

A Constitutional Republic has the same foundation as a Theocracy; Law. A Theocracy and Republic differ in that God's law is supreme in a Theocracy; the people, not God, are sovereign in a Republic; our framers understanding consent of the governed is consistent with the Law of Nature's free will in man. If a people can keep a Republic, the Divine Law is superior in all cases enumerated. Sir William Blackstone explains:

To instance in the case of murder: this is expressly forbidden by the Divine. . . . If any human law should allow or enjoin us to commit it we are bound to transgress that human law. . . . But, with regard to matters that are . . . not commanded or forbidden by those superior laws such, for instance, as exporting of wool into foreign countries; here the . . . legislature has scope and opportunity to interpose. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771), Vol. I, pp. 42-43.

Because the Constitution is exempt in matters of religion, religion is left to the states; the framers then, formed Christian states. So, the Britons, including saxons, were converted to Christianity by the Apostles(Simon the Zealot in the first century), and missionaries, these Britons employed Common Law(Ten Commandments) of the Bible into their government, hence, the Founding Fathers of the United States used the same Republicanism, but varied. Despite the secularist claim, the United States was founded a nation of Christian states.

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.