New insight has been found concerning the religious beliefs of James Madison, maybe this information is common knowledge, but let Mr. Madison's words speak for himself; in no way was Mr. Madison a rationalist, the evidence from his Memorial and Remonstrance in 1785, without any other quotes from him supporting heterodoxy prior to 1785, he must be considered an orthodox Christian, or at the least, a unitarian. Without any quote from Madison regarding Socianism, Arianism, or Unitarianism that I have overlooked, the evidence from the Memorial support his orthodoxy. Let James Madison speak for himself:
"All civilized societies would be divided into different sects, factions...the disciples of this religious sect or that religious sect. In all cases where a majority are united by a common interest or passion, the rights of the minority are in danger. What motives are to restrain them? A prudent regard to the maxim, that honesty is the best policy, is found by experience to be as little regarded by bodies of men as by individuals. Respect for character is always diminished in proportion to the number among whom the blame or praise is to be divided. Conscience, the only remaining tie, is known to be inadequate in individuals; in large numbers, little is to be expected from it. Besides, religion itself, may become a motive to persecution and oppression." James Madison, June 6, 1787. Journal of the Federal Convention by Madison.
Madison is saying reason is insufficient as the primary revelation of truth, thus eliminating the rationalist label put upon him. To Madison, man's reason was insufficient to be ultimate truth, yet alone, to base religion or morality upon. Madison defers to religion because the correct religion is obviously superior to reason; a substitute for the conscience, and this religion is the "light of revelation" he speaks about in his Memorial. He then, claims even religion, can be perverted, as its past abuses show. Madison then claims his belief of the remedy is Republicanism by God's Law:
"The only remedy is, to enlarge the sphere, and thereby divide the community into so great a number of interests and parties, that, in the first place, a majority will not be likely, at the same moment, to have a common interest separate from that of the whole, or of the minority; and in the second place, that in case they should have such an interest, they may not be so apt to unite in the pursuit of it. It was incumbent on us, then, to try this remedy, and, with that view, to frame a republican system on such a scale, and in such a form, as will control all the evils which have been experienced." Madison, June 6, 1788. Elliot's Debates In the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution(Virginia).
Not only was Madison orthodox in his beliefs in Christianity, included in that orthodoxy he believed in was original sin, evidenced by all his references about the evil of man, and Republicanism as a partial remedy. There is no partial depravity in man, man is a sinner or he isn't. Of course man can be good, but this is common sense. Madison again on the depravity of man, which he believed in from his childhood to the orthodox teaching he received at Princeton:
"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." Federalist #51.
The internal control over man he speaks of is to halt the depravity of man, which he believed in. Only until he became a polytheist did he become a clear arminian.
From these statements, we know Madison believed Republicanism was designed to limit sin, as much as possible, which Madison believed was the reason for a separation of powers in a Republican Government. As you can see, while Madison helped form the nation, he concurred with Montesquieu, that the separation of powers doctrine is a part of the only true religion, Christianity, and Jeremiah 17:9 is inherent in it, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"
The sum of this matter, which has been speculated on for years, is, unless new insights into Madison's words are revealed, that James Madison was an orthodox Christian; his notes referring to "what is christianity" by itself, does not support him being heterodox, but only that he thought those sects were Christian. It seems at this point in his life, he held the same views as fellow framer, Benjamin Rush, which were orthodox views on the essentials of Christianity.
Madison's departure from these essentials happened after he helped form the nation, as I earlier noted. What is clear, so far, is James Madison was no rationalist, or theistic rationalist. He believed man's reason was insufficient for determining truth, because man's reason is flawed and can never be trusted to be superior to God's word, which is direct, rather than unreliable like our conscience. To believe man's flawed reason is superior to a direct revelation from God, is the height of foolishness. Even in large numbers, Madison believed man's reason was flawed, because a written law is not employed. Only Republicanism, of God's Law is sufficient.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
The Religion of James Madison While He Helped Form the Nation
If, it is agreed that the beliefs of our Founding Fathers is only relevant during the time they helped establish the nation, the fact is, James Madison held to orthodox Christian views, until his unfortunate relationship with the infidel Thomas Jefferson led him away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. By a close examination of Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance, one perceives he was still an orthodox Christian, not departing from the faith until years later.
If another religion was adequate for salvation, Madison would never have said this. Again, Madison exalts Christianity over the other false religions; quite different from his "best and purest religion" comment in 1833. Madison again:
"Compare the number of those who have as yet received it with the number still remaining under the dominion of false Religions; and how small is the former! Does the policy of the Bill tend to lessen the disproportion? No; it at once discourages those who are strangers to the light of revelation from coming into the Region of it; and countenances by example the nations who continue in darkness, in shutting out those who might convey it to them. Instead of Levelling as far as possible, every obstacle to the victorious progress of Truth"
As to the faith of James Madison after forming the nation, I see it as irrelevant; although, I firmly believe he abandoned Jesus Christ, and became a polytheist, as is current President, George Bush.
The Memorial is filled with declarations for the truth of Christianity, that is, the orthodox beliefs held by the majority of Christians for hundreds of years.
"Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us." James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance, [ca. 20 June 1785] http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/jm4/writings/memor.htm
Madison is here, including himself with orthodox Christians, not infidel whigs, or anyone else. He is saying I am one of you. A key point to understand is the audience the seminary student is addressing; most, if not all those Virginians were orthodox Christians, as historian James Hutson notes, this document was “written to appeal to evangelical forces during a petition campaign in 1785.″ These evangelical forces were orthodox, the secret "infidel" whigs were not a threat. http://positiveliberty.com/2007/09/bishop-meade-on-james-madisons-creed.html
Another point to reflect on is Bishop Meade's comments on Madison's words for Christianity. When Meade writes,
"It is drawn up on the supposition of the truth of Christianity. It must indeed have done this in order to be acceptable to those by whom it was solicited." http://books.google.com/books?id=M0oOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA305&dq=bishop+meade,+old+churches+volume+II+papers#PPA1,M1
Does Meade understand this comment as an attack against Madison not being truthful, or an obvious statement? I believe it's the latter; accusing Madison of being disengenious, lying to his family, and the people of Virginia just to defeat an assessment bill doesn't seem right to me. Even if Bishop Meade does believe Madison is lying to garner votes, does that seem to be Madison's character? The words Madison uses in the Memorial seem to be authentic, with a great deal of time and thought put into it:
"Because the Bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion as an engine of Civil policy... The second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation."
Madison is saying Christianity is the only truth, and Jesus is the only means of salvation. Earlier, he explained Christianity is true, and everything else false; again, do not be deceived about the Christianity Madison is talking about. He is referring to orthodoxy, not heterodoxy. Madison was no universalist at this time, and from the orthodox audience he's addressing, labeling him anything else is unreasonable as well. Here Madison wishes everyone would be a Christian:
"Because the policy of the Bill is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity. The first wish of those who enjoy this precious gift ought to be that it(Christianity) may be imparted to the whole race of mankind."If another religion was adequate for salvation, Madison would never have said this. Again, Madison exalts Christianity over the other false religions; quite different from his "best and purest religion" comment in 1833. Madison again:
"Compare the number of those who have as yet received it with the number still remaining under the dominion of false Religions; and how small is the former! Does the policy of the Bill tend to lessen the disproportion? No; it at once discourages those who are strangers to the light of revelation from coming into the Region of it; and countenances by example the nations who continue in darkness, in shutting out those who might convey it to them. Instead of Levelling as far as possible, every obstacle to the victorious progress of Truth"
As to the faith of James Madison after forming the nation, I see it as irrelevant; although, I firmly believe he abandoned Jesus Christ, and became a polytheist, as is current President, George Bush.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Who is the God of the Founding Fathers, The Law of Nature and Nature's God?
Without any doubt whatsoever, The Law of Nature is Jesus Christ, The image of the invisible God(Yahweh, the God of Israel). The Founding Fathers made this very clear before they made the Declaration of Independence. William Livingston(Yale 1741) prepared a Congressional proclamation for a national day of prayer and fasting, which Congress designated May 17, 1776, as the day of its observance. The proclamation declared:
"The Congress...desirous...to have people of all ranks and degrees duly impressed with a solemn sense of God's superintending providence, and of their duty devoutly to rely.... on His aid and direction... do earnestly recommend...a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that we may with united hearts confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions and, by a sincere repentance and amendment of life,...and through the Merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain His pardon and forgiveness."
Journals of Congress (1905), Vol. IV, pp. 208-209, May 17, 1776.
The acting President of the Colonies was John Hancock, who was the only signer of the Declaration on July 2. To say that Hancock, and Congress would sign a Declaration affirming a deist, undefined god, when they declared a month and a half earlier their God was Jesus Christ, is deceit!(emphasis added)
To ascribe unalienable rights from an undefined Creator is illogical, and an embarrassment to Jesus Christ, who was given the homage for His merciful Blessings upon the colonies. Because of God's Providence in the American victories at Bennington, Stillwater, Saratoga, and others, Congress drafted and approved a proclamation for a national day of prayer and thanksgiving; this proclamation was approved on November 1, 1777:
"Forasmuch as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with gratitude their obligation to Him for benefits received...[to offer] humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot [our sins] out of remembrance...and to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth "in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
Journals of...Congress (1907), Vol. IX, 1777, pp 854-855, November 1, 1777.
As you can see, this proclamation drafted by the same men who signed the Declaration, prayed to Jesus Christ, not to an undefined creator. Did the Founding Fathers apply laws and morality from an undefined creator? Of course not. They knew who their God was, and they studied His Word their entire lives in the schools; the Law of Nature in the Declaration of Independence is Jesus Christ, who is the express image, or exact representation of the God of Israel. That the Christian philosophers from Thomas Aquinas to John Locke agreed, is indisputable. The Christian State Constitutions were drafted by mostly the same men who drafted the Declaration, it is unreasonable to say they would have forgot who their God was. That a few Founding Fathers: Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Allen, were in error believing in a universalist god is their problem; ultimately, is irrelevant to the God, religion, law, and morality of the United States, which is based on the Bible.
"The Congress...desirous...to have people of all ranks and degrees duly impressed with a solemn sense of God's superintending providence, and of their duty devoutly to rely.... on His aid and direction... do earnestly recommend...a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that we may with united hearts confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions and, by a sincere repentance and amendment of life,...and through the Merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain His pardon and forgiveness."
Journals of Congress (1905), Vol. IV, pp. 208-209, May 17, 1776.
The acting President of the Colonies was John Hancock, who was the only signer of the Declaration on July 2. To say that Hancock, and Congress would sign a Declaration affirming a deist, undefined god, when they declared a month and a half earlier their God was Jesus Christ, is deceit!(emphasis added)
To ascribe unalienable rights from an undefined Creator is illogical, and an embarrassment to Jesus Christ, who was given the homage for His merciful Blessings upon the colonies. Because of God's Providence in the American victories at Bennington, Stillwater, Saratoga, and others, Congress drafted and approved a proclamation for a national day of prayer and thanksgiving; this proclamation was approved on November 1, 1777:
"Forasmuch as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with gratitude their obligation to Him for benefits received...[to offer] humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot [our sins] out of remembrance...and to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth "in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
Journals of...Congress (1907), Vol. IX, 1777, pp 854-855, November 1, 1777.
As you can see, this proclamation drafted by the same men who signed the Declaration, prayed to Jesus Christ, not to an undefined creator. Did the Founding Fathers apply laws and morality from an undefined creator? Of course not. They knew who their God was, and they studied His Word their entire lives in the schools; the Law of Nature in the Declaration of Independence is Jesus Christ, who is the express image, or exact representation of the God of Israel. That the Christian philosophers from Thomas Aquinas to John Locke agreed, is indisputable. The Christian State Constitutions were drafted by mostly the same men who drafted the Declaration, it is unreasonable to say they would have forgot who their God was. That a few Founding Fathers: Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Allen, were in error believing in a universalist god is their problem; ultimately, is irrelevant to the God, religion, law, and morality of the United States, which is based on the Bible.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Founding Fathers Justified Righteous Rebellion From the Bible
The Founding Fathers justified their civil war(as it was called in the beginning) by the will of God in the Bible, not by enlightenment rationalism, or any other ism(sp), by infidels like: Jean Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, or Joseph Priestley.
Romans 13:
3For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
4For he is the minister of God to thee for good.
Rulers in this case is the government correct? God says this ruler is the minister of God, correct? Only good government is ordained by God, that evil government is ordained by God is not possible, and irrational, though all power is ultimately from God. This is all common sense. The heroes of the faith in the book of Hebrews rebelled against authority; they are exalted because what they rebelled against was contrary to the Law of Nature. That God would ordain wickedness and corrupt government, which He condemns in His Word, is absurd!
Here, John Jay speaks of Biblical justification for righteous rebellion in Romans 13:
"As to the first species of warfare, in every state or kingdom, the government or executive ruler has, throughout all ages, pursued, and often at the expense of blood, attacked, captured, and subdued murderers, robbers, and other offenders; by force confining them in chains and in prisons, and by force inflicting on them punishment; never rendering to them good for evil, for that duty attaches to individuals in their personal or private capacities, but not to rulers or magistrates in their official capacities. This species of war has constantly and universally been deemed just and indispensable. 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."
John Jay, appointed by President George Washington as the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In addition to serving on the Supreme Court, Jay had a very distinguished history of public service. He was a member of the Continental Congress (1774-76, 1778-79) and served as President of Congress (1778-79); he helped write the New York State constitution (1777); he authored the first manual on military discipline (1777); he served as Chief-Justice of New York Supreme Court (1777-78); he was appointed minister to Spain (1779); he signed the final peace treaty with Great Britain (1783); and he was elected as Governor of New York (1795- 1801). Jay is also famous as one of the three coauthors, along with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, of the Federalist Papers, which were instrumental in securing the ratification of the federal Constitution. John Jay was a strong Christian, serving both as vice-president of the American Bible Society (1816-21) and its president (1821- 27), and he was a member of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In this series of letters, John Jay expounds on the Biblical view of war. The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, Henry Johnston, editor (New York: G. P. Punam's Sons, 1893), Vol. IV, pp. 391-393, 403-419, letters to John Murray, October 12, 1816 and April 15, 1818. http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=64
Founding Father James Otis (a leader of the Sons of Liberty and the mentor of Samuel Adams) in a 1766 work argued that the only king who had any Divine right was God Himself; beyond that, God had ordained power to rest with the people:
Has it [government] any solid foundation? any chief cornerstone. . . ? I think it has an everlasting foundation in the unchangeable will of God, the Author of Nature whose laws never vary. . . . Government. . . . is by no means an arbitrary thing depending merely on compact or human will for its existence. . . . The power of God Almighty is the only power that can properly and strictly be called supreme and absolute. In the order of nature immediately under Him comes the power of a simple democracy, or the power of the whole over the whole. . . . [God is] the only monarch in the universe who has a clear and indisputable right to absolute power because He is the only one who is omniscient as well as omnipotent. . . . The sum of my argument is that civil government is of God, that the administrators of it were originally the whole people.
James Otis, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (Boston: J. Williams 1766), pp. 11, 12, 13, 98.
Rebellion against corrupt govt was approved by the framers:
[T]here was no anarchy. . . . [T]he people of the North American union, and of its constituent States, were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians in a state of nature, but not of anarchy. They were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.
John Quincy Adams, An Address Delivered at the Request of the Committee of Arrangements for the Celebrating the Anniversary of Independence at the City of Washington on the Fourth of July 1821 upon the Occasion of Reading The Declaration of Independence (Cambridge: Hilliard and Metcalf, 1821), p. 28.
Notice that Adams, and the rest of the Founding Fathers believed the author of nature, state of nature, is God, not just man's reason. To separate reason from the Creator of Reason is laughable, and illogical.
Romans 13:
3For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
4For he is the minister of God to thee for good.
Rulers in this case is the government correct? God says this ruler is the minister of God, correct? Only good government is ordained by God, that evil government is ordained by God is not possible, and irrational, though all power is ultimately from God. This is all common sense. The heroes of the faith in the book of Hebrews rebelled against authority; they are exalted because what they rebelled against was contrary to the Law of Nature. That God would ordain wickedness and corrupt government, which He condemns in His Word, is absurd!
Here, John Jay speaks of Biblical justification for righteous rebellion in Romans 13:
"As to the first species of warfare, in every state or kingdom, the government or executive ruler has, throughout all ages, pursued, and often at the expense of blood, attacked, captured, and subdued murderers, robbers, and other offenders; by force confining them in chains and in prisons, and by force inflicting on them punishment; never rendering to them good for evil, for that duty attaches to individuals in their personal or private capacities, but not to rulers or magistrates in their official capacities. This species of war has constantly and universally been deemed just and indispensable. 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."
John Jay, appointed by President George Washington as the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In addition to serving on the Supreme Court, Jay had a very distinguished history of public service. He was a member of the Continental Congress (1774-76, 1778-79) and served as President of Congress (1778-79); he helped write the New York State constitution (1777); he authored the first manual on military discipline (1777); he served as Chief-Justice of New York Supreme Court (1777-78); he was appointed minister to Spain (1779); he signed the final peace treaty with Great Britain (1783); and he was elected as Governor of New York (1795- 1801). Jay is also famous as one of the three coauthors, along with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, of the Federalist Papers, which were instrumental in securing the ratification of the federal Constitution. John Jay was a strong Christian, serving both as vice-president of the American Bible Society (1816-21) and its president (1821- 27), and he was a member of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In this series of letters, John Jay expounds on the Biblical view of war. The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, Henry Johnston, editor (New York: G. P. Punam's Sons, 1893), Vol. IV, pp. 391-393, 403-419, letters to John Murray, October 12, 1816 and April 15, 1818. http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=64
Founding Father James Otis (a leader of the Sons of Liberty and the mentor of Samuel Adams) in a 1766 work argued that the only king who had any Divine right was God Himself; beyond that, God had ordained power to rest with the people:
Has it [government] any solid foundation? any chief cornerstone. . . ? I think it has an everlasting foundation in the unchangeable will of God, the Author of Nature whose laws never vary. . . . Government. . . . is by no means an arbitrary thing depending merely on compact or human will for its existence. . . . The power of God Almighty is the only power that can properly and strictly be called supreme and absolute. In the order of nature immediately under Him comes the power of a simple democracy, or the power of the whole over the whole. . . . [God is] the only monarch in the universe who has a clear and indisputable right to absolute power because He is the only one who is omniscient as well as omnipotent. . . . The sum of my argument is that civil government is of God, that the administrators of it were originally the whole people.
James Otis, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (Boston: J. Williams 1766), pp. 11, 12, 13, 98.
Rebellion against corrupt govt was approved by the framers:
[T]here was no anarchy. . . . [T]he people of the North American union, and of its constituent States, were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians in a state of nature, but not of anarchy. They were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.
John Quincy Adams, An Address Delivered at the Request of the Committee of Arrangements for the Celebrating the Anniversary of Independence at the City of Washington on the Fourth of July 1821 upon the Occasion of Reading The Declaration of Independence (Cambridge: Hilliard and Metcalf, 1821), p. 28.
Notice that Adams, and the rest of the Founding Fathers believed the author of nature, state of nature, is God, not just man's reason. To separate reason from the Creator of Reason is laughable, and illogical.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Founding Fathers Considered Clergy
The colleges the Founding Fathers graduated from were seminaries; some of them are: Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. Most of the Founding Fathers were not pastors, but were church officers, elders, managers, or founders of Bible societies; showing the clergy label upon them is correct.
It is correct then, that almost half the signers of the Declaration of Independence, as well as most every Founding Father graduated from orthodox Christian teaching seminaries. That Harvard, and William and Mary taught infidelity[a disbelief in the Scriptures and in Christianity] is irrelevant; the relevant point is did the founding fathers subscribe to infidelity? The answer is a definite no!(emphasis added) Infidels Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall(became orthodox at the end of his life), and John Adams are the only popular founding fathers who attended hotbeds of infidelity that were not orthodox; William and Mary, and Harvard respectively.
Many of our Founding Fathers graduated from seminaries, were considered church elders/church officers; here is a small list:
SAMUEL ADAMS, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION, FATHER OF THE REVOLUTION, ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
JOHN HANCOCK, FIRST SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION, ACTING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, STARTED THE "MINUTEMEN," commissioned George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS, ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS: SIXTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, Vice-President of the American Bible Society; of the Massachusetts Bible Society. ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
ROBERT TREAT PAINE (SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION): Military Chaplain. HELPED WRITE THE MASSACHUSETTS CONSTITUTION. ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
RUFUS KING (SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION): Selected as manager@ of the American Bible Society, Signer of the Constitution, Ratifier of the Bill of Rights, ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
BUSHROD WASHINGTON was a (U. S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE), Vice-President of the American Bible Society, and Vice-President of the American Sunday School Union. ATTENDED WILLIAM AND MARY, WAS ORTHODOX.
JOHN LOWELL (REVOLUTIONARY OFFICER; MEMBER OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS): Member of the Society for the Propagating of the Gospel among the Indians and Others. ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX. Authored Article I in Massachusetts Constitution of 1779, and his insistence upon its adoption into the Bill of Rights, "All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties..."
JONATHAN TRUMBULL, GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT, ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX, ORDAINED PASTOR.
TIMOTHY PICKERING, REVOLUTIONARY GENERAL; SECRETARY OF STATE, His ideas formed the Northwest Ordinance, ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
WILLIAM SAMUEL JOHNSON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION, ATTENDED YALE, WAS ORTHODOX.
ZEPHANIAH SWIFT, AUTHOR OF AMERICA'S FIRST LEGAL TEXT, ATTENDED YALE, WAS ORTHODOX.
JAMES BOWDOIN (GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS): Member of the Society for Propagating the Gospel Among the Indians and Others. ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
JAMES KENT (FATHER OF AMERICAN JURISPRUDENCE) ATTENDED YALE, WAS ORTHODOX.
JOEL BARLOW (DIPLOMAT UNDER WASHINGTON AND ADAMS): Chaplain in the American Revolution for three years. ATTENDED YALE, WAS ORTHODOX, NOT BECOMING A LIBERAL UNTIL 1794.
JOHN COTTON SMITH (GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT; U. S. CONGRESSMAN): President of the Litchfield County Foreign Missionary Society; first President of the Connecticut Bible Society; President of the American Bible Society; President of the American Board of Foreign Missions. ATTENDED YALE, WAS ORTHODOX, A PURITAN MINISTER.
It is correct then, that almost half the signers of the Declaration of Independence, as well as most every Founding Father graduated from orthodox Christian teaching seminaries. That Harvard, and William and Mary taught infidelity[a disbelief in the Scriptures and in Christianity] is irrelevant; the relevant point is did the founding fathers subscribe to infidelity? The answer is a definite no!(emphasis added) Infidels Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall(became orthodox at the end of his life), and John Adams are the only popular founding fathers who attended hotbeds of infidelity that were not orthodox; William and Mary, and Harvard respectively.
Many of our Founding Fathers graduated from seminaries, were considered church elders/church officers; here is a small list:
SAMUEL ADAMS, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION, FATHER OF THE REVOLUTION, ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
JOHN HANCOCK, FIRST SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION, ACTING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, STARTED THE "MINUTEMEN," commissioned George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS, ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS: SIXTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, Vice-President of the American Bible Society; of the Massachusetts Bible Society. ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
ROBERT TREAT PAINE (SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION): Military Chaplain. HELPED WRITE THE MASSACHUSETTS CONSTITUTION. ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
RUFUS KING (SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION): Selected as manager@ of the American Bible Society, Signer of the Constitution, Ratifier of the Bill of Rights, ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
BUSHROD WASHINGTON was a (U. S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE), Vice-President of the American Bible Society, and Vice-President of the American Sunday School Union. ATTENDED WILLIAM AND MARY, WAS ORTHODOX.
JOHN LOWELL (REVOLUTIONARY OFFICER; MEMBER OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS): Member of the Society for the Propagating of the Gospel among the Indians and Others. ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX. Authored Article I in Massachusetts Constitution of 1779, and his insistence upon its adoption into the Bill of Rights, "All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties..."
JONATHAN TRUMBULL, GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT, ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX, ORDAINED PASTOR.
TIMOTHY PICKERING, REVOLUTIONARY GENERAL; SECRETARY OF STATE, His ideas formed the Northwest Ordinance, ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
WILLIAM SAMUEL JOHNSON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION, ATTENDED YALE, WAS ORTHODOX.
ZEPHANIAH SWIFT, AUTHOR OF AMERICA'S FIRST LEGAL TEXT, ATTENDED YALE, WAS ORTHODOX.
JAMES BOWDOIN (GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS): Member of the Society for Propagating the Gospel Among the Indians and Others. ATTENDED HARVARD, WAS ORTHODOX.
JAMES KENT (FATHER OF AMERICAN JURISPRUDENCE) ATTENDED YALE, WAS ORTHODOX.
JOEL BARLOW (DIPLOMAT UNDER WASHINGTON AND ADAMS): Chaplain in the American Revolution for three years. ATTENDED YALE, WAS ORTHODOX, NOT BECOMING A LIBERAL UNTIL 1794.
JOHN COTTON SMITH (GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT; U. S. CONGRESSMAN): President of the Litchfield County Foreign Missionary Society; first President of the Connecticut Bible Society; President of the American Bible Society; President of the American Board of Foreign Missions. ATTENDED YALE, WAS ORTHODOX, A PURITAN MINISTER.
JOHN TREADWELL (GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT; MEMBER OF CONTINENTAL CONGRESS): Member of the Missionary Society of Connecticut. ATTENDED YALE, WAS ORTHODOX.
Most of these men were important Founding Fathers, which, without their leadership militarily, or as ratifiers of the Constitution, the United States would not exist as it is. Some of the secularist claims distort the issue, or twist the context so all the colleges appear to teach infidel principles and that every framer was an infidel; that deceit does not get past this blog. Here is an example:
"Barton is the one who most notably asserts something along the lines of 27 signers of the Declaration of Independence had "seminary" degrees. The reality is, they had degrees from places like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton which were originally founded with orthodox Christian missions. Something the Christian Nation crowd doesn't tell us about these "Christian" colleges, is during the time the founders (and the ministers they followed) were educated, those colleges became hotbeds of "infidelity," and even the seminary schools trained their ministers in "infidel" principles. The result was Harvard trained ministers like Jonathan Mayhew, Samuel West, and Charles Chauncy embraced theological unitarianism, universalism and rationalism and, in so doing, arguably ceased being "Christian," (or at least "Christian" as defined by its historic orthodoxy). These men also delivered the most notable and influential pro-revolutionary sermons from the pulpit. And even Witherspoon, who was an orthodox Christian, when he argued for Revolution from the pulpit, left his orthodox Christianity at the church door and instead turned to Locke, the Scottish Enlightenment and rationalism, because the Bible/orthodox Christianity could not provide a sufficient basis to justify revolt while those a-biblical sources could and did." http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2007/10/david-bartons-myths-strike-mike.html
First, Princeton University was Presbyterian that did not teach infidel principles; Yale did not teach infidelity whatsoever; the student body may have been corrupt, but that has nothing to do with Yale, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Princeton, or any other seminaries' curriculum. The fact is, the faulty curriculum of Harvard and William and Mary had no effect on the beliefs of the Founding Fathers; most likely Jefferson, and John Adams held their beliefs before they entered seminary, Jefferson a universalist, Adams a unitarian. Notice how this secularist names the different colleges, but only mentions preachers from Harvard; the list of orthodox preachers from the other seminaries(which are many more), or the orthodox preachers who came from Harvard he doesn't list.
"and many others including America’s key founding fathers, as theological unitarians and universalists arguably weren’t “Christians” (at least not as evangelicals or Catholics understand the term). Keep that in mind next time proponents of the Christian America thesis note the involvement of ministers or figures with “seminary” degrees who played key roles in America’s founding." http://www.positiveliberty.com/2007/09/conditions-of-orthodoxy-at-founding-era-colleges.html
This is a false statement, as there are not many other founding fathers who were unitarians and universalists, there are a few at the most: Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, John Adams, and John Marshall are the more popular ones that come to mind. In the end, the infidelity Harvard and William and Mary taught is irrelevant to the beliefs of the Founding Fathers. Some may have indeed turned to Born Again Christian John Locke for his beliefs on some issues; a justification to revolt is in the Bible, of which the framers knew.
Here, John Jay speaks of Biblical justification for righteous rebellion in Romans 13:
"As to the first species of warfare, in every state or kingdom, the government or executive ruler has, throughout all ages, pursued, and often at the expense of blood, attacked, captured, and subdued murderers, robbers, and other offenders; by force confining them in chains and in prisons, and by force inflicting on them punishment; never rendering to them good for evil, for that duty attaches to individuals in their personal or private capacities, but not to rulers or magistrates in their official capacities. This species of war has constantly and universally been deemed just and indispensable. 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."
John Jay, appointed by President George Washington as the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In addition to serving on the Supreme Court, Jay had a very distinguished history of public service. He was a member of the Continental Congress (1774-76, 1778-79) and served as President of Congress (1778-79); he helped write the New York State constitution (1777); he authored the first manual on military discipline (1777); he served as Chief-Justice of New York Supreme Court (1777-78); he was appointed minister to Spain (1779); he signed the final peace treaty with Great Britain (1783); and he was elected as Governor of New York (1795- 1801). Jay is also famous as one of the three coauthors, along with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, of the Federalist Papers, which were instrumental in securing the ratification of the federal Constitution. John Jay was a strong Christian, serving both as vice-president of the American Bible Society (1816-21) and its president (1821- 27), and he was a member of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In this series of letters, John Jay expounds on the Biblical view of war. The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, Henry Johnston, editor (New York: G. P. Punam's Sons, 1893), Vol. IV, pp. 391-393, 403-419, letters to John Murray, October 12, 1816 and April 15, 1818. http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=64
Saturday, October 6, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Vote is in for Greatest Founding Father...not Alexander Hamilton
The vote is over for considering who the greatest founding father is; Thomas Jefferson and George Washington each received seven votes, Madison, Hamilton, and Samuel Adams each had one vote. Maybe Jefferson's reputation helped him, but Washington lead the vote count up until the end. Washington was an upright man, with the integrity, and character Jefferson lacked. Despite Jefferson having nothing to do with the formation or ratification of the Constitution, his popularity continues to grow.
I agree with Hercules Mulligan that Washington had the universal confidence and respect from the other framers to be first President of the early Republic; from President James Monroe's testimony, without Washington's leadership, the Constitutional Convention would have likely failed.
I have questions regarding Washington's Christianity; unlike Alexander Hamilton, whose writings tell us he believed the Christian Religion Divine, amidst his personal failures. In comparing Washington's simple genius with the brilliance of Alexander Hamilton, my allegiance is with the latter.
From his birth in the West Indies, he overcame adversity Washington, or any other framer never experienced. He also had to deal with prejudice from some framers who were born with silver spoons in their mouths, some launching assaults at his birth out of wedlock.
He was, as John Adams later claimed, "the bastard brat of a Scottish peddler." Hamilton, at the age of 13, had to prevail when his mother, who had pieced together a livelihood as a retailer, died. He prevailed again when his guardian, a distant relative named Peter Lytton, committed suicide the following year.
At 19, in the United States, Hamilton put a brigade together on his own, getting his troops and supplies himself, while being appointed a captain of the New York Artillery. Hamilton and his men fought bravely in several early battles, including the unsuccessful attempt to hold Manhattan from the British. Hamilton and his unit covered Washington's retreat across New Jersey. In the sharpest exchanges, Hamilton's artillery kept the British at bay while the bulk of the American forces crossed first the Raritan River and later the Delaware. Hamilton also took part in the successful, and famous, counterattacks at Trenton and Princeton in the winter of 1776–77.
Hamilton was not only a military genius, he was an administrative, legal, economic, and political genius as well. Washington recognized his talent, giving ever-increasing responsibility to the young officer, now a lieutenant colonel. During the next few years of fighting, when desertion was all too common, Hamilton stayed loyally by his commander's side. He was there for the frozen winters at Valley Forge and Morristown; the military disasters like the abandonment of New York City in 1776 and the subsequent retreat across New Jersey; the real treacheries of Benedict Arnold, and the perceived treacheries of an impotent Continental Congress; and the failed opportunities like Monmouth, when he was at Washington's side when the Virginia gentleman lambasted General Charles Lee in mid-battle for gross misconduct. And Hamilton was with Washington during the good times, the infrequent victories, and the secret march to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/910687.html
Hamilton was also the first man over the wall at Yorktown, defeating the British, showing his undaunted bravery. His genius started during the Revolutionary War, when he first thought of the National Bank. Central to Hamilton's early plans were several key provisions of what would later be the hallmarks of his financial program: foreign loans, partial government ownership of a national bank, and use of that bank to provide the national government with short-term loans.
Hamilton's thought was often far in advance of that of most of his contemporaries. This is not to say that he could see the future but rather that he took positions that remained unpopular or misunderstood until well into the nineteenth century. Two episodes in 1784 demonstrate his prescience. First, Hamilton established a private commercial bank. The innovation came not so much from the bank itself, which closely followed the procedures established by its predecessor, the Bank of North America. Rather, the innovation came from the way in which the bank, the very same Bank of New York that still graces Wall Street, found legal life. The New York legislature was against his idea, so he by-passed them and started it himself; the most essential advantages of his idea: joint-stock form, negotiable shares, status as a legal entity, and limited liability. So the Bank of New York formed and began business anyway, under private "articles of association" instead of a special legislative act. Hamilton used the same technique again with the Merchants' Bank in the early nineteenth century.
Hamilton presented several monumental state papers that, when combined with the entrepreneurial talents and self-interested desires of thousands of Americans, forged a national financial system: The Report on Public Credit (January 9, 1790), The Report on the Bank (December 13, 1790), The Establishment of a Mint (January 28, 1791), and The Report on Manufactures (December 5, 1791). Taken together, Hamilton's reports were nothing short of a strategic outline for the establishment of a thriving economy rooted solidly in the bedrock of sound fiscal management, a stable monetary system, extensive short-term commercial credit, and long-term development capital. On the grandest scale, the secretary's policies helped to solidify the new government by creating incentives for wealthy individuals to invest in it, directly through ownership of its bonds and indirectly through ownership of shares in the Bank of the United States. He surmised, correctly as it turned out, that the financial system would be "the powerful cement of our Union."
His ideas on the National Bank Jefferson and Madison despised, making Virginia pay the debts of other states, as well as a threat to Republican Government. Hamilton had no loyalty to any state, but to the Constitution. Hamilton saw paying the debt a blessing rather than a burden, in addition to aligning the interests of the wealthy with those of the government, his funding plan would increase the nation's credit overseas, making it cheaper and easier for both the government and private enterprises to obtain foreign financing. Finally, funding would create a form of liquid capital that would help the economy to allocate resources more efficiently.
Madison's solution on paying the debt was insufficient, and discriminatory; Madison wanted to group the original debt holders at the expense of current debt holders; Hamilton eventually crushed the discrimination argument with his usual barrage of logic and first principles. The debt instruments were simply a species of property, the value of which fluctuated with the government's fortunes and interest rates. They were, moreover, fully negotiable instruments. In other words, exchanging them was perfectly legal. The original holders had not been coerced into selling and had received a valuable consideration for the ownership of the obligations. Only the current owners of the bonds, Hamilton concluded, could be compensated. For those who could not follow his reasoning, Hamilton offered the Continental Congressional resolution of April 26, 1783, authored ironically enough by Madison, that solemnly pledged that there would be no discrimination against those who obtained government debt in the secondary market.
Thinking through the matter of the Bank being owned and operated by the government, or being privitized, in Hamilton's view, independent managers would prevent abuse by the government and provide a necessary check against its possible perfidy, much like judicial review did for courts and legislatures. The private status of the Bank would ensure that the government could never use it as a tool of oppression. As Hamilton noted, governments were never "blessed with a constant succession of upright and wise Administrators." But the Bank, as a private institution, would have a "magnetic sense" of its "own interest ... the prosperity of the institution" and thereby prevent the government from succumbing to "the temptations of momentary exigencies."
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/910687.html
Today's corruption, and greed of man is a totally different animal compared to 18th century America. It seems the longer the nation exists, the more wicked it becomes, throwing off the Biblical fundamentals the Founding Fathers grew up with. Of Hamilton,
Chancellor James Kent called him, a lawyer that had no superior. (emphasis added)
Politically, if he would have been more sympathetic, and understanding, the Federalists would not have lost the Presidency of 1800. If he could have united the Federalists, rather than splitting them up, Adams would have beaten Jefferson in 1800; even with Hamilton's death, the Federalists would still have been the most powerful party. But Hamilton had enemies, and helped divide the party.
In the end, Hamilton fell mortally wounded on the dueling grounds at Weehawken, the financial system was thriving. Joint-stock banks were rapidly multiplying, as were other types of joint-stock companies, not all of which, thanks to Hamilton's insight, needed formal incorporation to begin operations. The credit of the U.S. was among the best in the world; U.S. bonds and stock in the Bank of the United States regularly traded in London as well as in the active securities markets of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston. The nation's credit was so good that it easily borrowed to purchase Louisiana and to fight wars. The first Bank helped to keep the macroeconomy on an even keel by checking the note issue of state banks. The entire nation had a single unit of account, the U.S. dollar, that was firmly defined in terms of gold and silver. Fire and marine insurance was almost fully formed; life insurance lay just over the horizon, as did trust companies, savings banks, and building-and-loans. Great leaps in manufacturing—ultimately funded by banks and capital markets—began just a few years after Hamilton's death. Most importantly, economic growth, increases in real per capita output, was picking up steam, soon literally as well as figuratively.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/910687.html
Alexander Hamilton was the creator of the U.S. financial system, the engine of America's remarkable nineteenth-century economic and political transformations. Wall Street, and our modern banking system, was designed by him. His legacy will always be with us. I consider him one of the great geniuses the United States has produced.
"I consider Napoleon, Fox, and Hamilton the three greatest men of our epoch, and if I were forced to decide between the three, I would give without hesitation the first place to Hamilton. He divined Europe." --Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
I agree with Hercules Mulligan that Washington had the universal confidence and respect from the other framers to be first President of the early Republic; from President James Monroe's testimony, without Washington's leadership, the Constitutional Convention would have likely failed.
I have questions regarding Washington's Christianity; unlike Alexander Hamilton, whose writings tell us he believed the Christian Religion Divine, amidst his personal failures. In comparing Washington's simple genius with the brilliance of Alexander Hamilton, my allegiance is with the latter.
From his birth in the West Indies, he overcame adversity Washington, or any other framer never experienced. He also had to deal with prejudice from some framers who were born with silver spoons in their mouths, some launching assaults at his birth out of wedlock.
He was, as John Adams later claimed, "the bastard brat of a Scottish peddler." Hamilton, at the age of 13, had to prevail when his mother, who had pieced together a livelihood as a retailer, died. He prevailed again when his guardian, a distant relative named Peter Lytton, committed suicide the following year.
At 19, in the United States, Hamilton put a brigade together on his own, getting his troops and supplies himself, while being appointed a captain of the New York Artillery. Hamilton and his men fought bravely in several early battles, including the unsuccessful attempt to hold Manhattan from the British. Hamilton and his unit covered Washington's retreat across New Jersey. In the sharpest exchanges, Hamilton's artillery kept the British at bay while the bulk of the American forces crossed first the Raritan River and later the Delaware. Hamilton also took part in the successful, and famous, counterattacks at Trenton and Princeton in the winter of 1776–77.
Hamilton was not only a military genius, he was an administrative, legal, economic, and political genius as well. Washington recognized his talent, giving ever-increasing responsibility to the young officer, now a lieutenant colonel. During the next few years of fighting, when desertion was all too common, Hamilton stayed loyally by his commander's side. He was there for the frozen winters at Valley Forge and Morristown; the military disasters like the abandonment of New York City in 1776 and the subsequent retreat across New Jersey; the real treacheries of Benedict Arnold, and the perceived treacheries of an impotent Continental Congress; and the failed opportunities like Monmouth, when he was at Washington's side when the Virginia gentleman lambasted General Charles Lee in mid-battle for gross misconduct. And Hamilton was with Washington during the good times, the infrequent victories, and the secret march to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/910687.html
Hamilton was also the first man over the wall at Yorktown, defeating the British, showing his undaunted bravery. His genius started during the Revolutionary War, when he first thought of the National Bank. Central to Hamilton's early plans were several key provisions of what would later be the hallmarks of his financial program: foreign loans, partial government ownership of a national bank, and use of that bank to provide the national government with short-term loans.
Hamilton's thought was often far in advance of that of most of his contemporaries. This is not to say that he could see the future but rather that he took positions that remained unpopular or misunderstood until well into the nineteenth century. Two episodes in 1784 demonstrate his prescience. First, Hamilton established a private commercial bank. The innovation came not so much from the bank itself, which closely followed the procedures established by its predecessor, the Bank of North America. Rather, the innovation came from the way in which the bank, the very same Bank of New York that still graces Wall Street, found legal life. The New York legislature was against his idea, so he by-passed them and started it himself; the most essential advantages of his idea: joint-stock form, negotiable shares, status as a legal entity, and limited liability. So the Bank of New York formed and began business anyway, under private "articles of association" instead of a special legislative act. Hamilton used the same technique again with the Merchants' Bank in the early nineteenth century.
Hamilton presented several monumental state papers that, when combined with the entrepreneurial talents and self-interested desires of thousands of Americans, forged a national financial system: The Report on Public Credit (January 9, 1790), The Report on the Bank (December 13, 1790), The Establishment of a Mint (January 28, 1791), and The Report on Manufactures (December 5, 1791). Taken together, Hamilton's reports were nothing short of a strategic outline for the establishment of a thriving economy rooted solidly in the bedrock of sound fiscal management, a stable monetary system, extensive short-term commercial credit, and long-term development capital. On the grandest scale, the secretary's policies helped to solidify the new government by creating incentives for wealthy individuals to invest in it, directly through ownership of its bonds and indirectly through ownership of shares in the Bank of the United States. He surmised, correctly as it turned out, that the financial system would be "the powerful cement of our Union."
His ideas on the National Bank Jefferson and Madison despised, making Virginia pay the debts of other states, as well as a threat to Republican Government. Hamilton had no loyalty to any state, but to the Constitution. Hamilton saw paying the debt a blessing rather than a burden, in addition to aligning the interests of the wealthy with those of the government, his funding plan would increase the nation's credit overseas, making it cheaper and easier for both the government and private enterprises to obtain foreign financing. Finally, funding would create a form of liquid capital that would help the economy to allocate resources more efficiently.
Madison's solution on paying the debt was insufficient, and discriminatory; Madison wanted to group the original debt holders at the expense of current debt holders; Hamilton eventually crushed the discrimination argument with his usual barrage of logic and first principles. The debt instruments were simply a species of property, the value of which fluctuated with the government's fortunes and interest rates. They were, moreover, fully negotiable instruments. In other words, exchanging them was perfectly legal. The original holders had not been coerced into selling and had received a valuable consideration for the ownership of the obligations. Only the current owners of the bonds, Hamilton concluded, could be compensated. For those who could not follow his reasoning, Hamilton offered the Continental Congressional resolution of April 26, 1783, authored ironically enough by Madison, that solemnly pledged that there would be no discrimination against those who obtained government debt in the secondary market.
Thinking through the matter of the Bank being owned and operated by the government, or being privitized, in Hamilton's view, independent managers would prevent abuse by the government and provide a necessary check against its possible perfidy, much like judicial review did for courts and legislatures. The private status of the Bank would ensure that the government could never use it as a tool of oppression. As Hamilton noted, governments were never "blessed with a constant succession of upright and wise Administrators." But the Bank, as a private institution, would have a "magnetic sense" of its "own interest ... the prosperity of the institution" and thereby prevent the government from succumbing to "the temptations of momentary exigencies."
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/910687.html
Today's corruption, and greed of man is a totally different animal compared to 18th century America. It seems the longer the nation exists, the more wicked it becomes, throwing off the Biblical fundamentals the Founding Fathers grew up with. Of Hamilton,
Chancellor James Kent called him, a lawyer that had no superior. (emphasis added)
Politically, if he would have been more sympathetic, and understanding, the Federalists would not have lost the Presidency of 1800. If he could have united the Federalists, rather than splitting them up, Adams would have beaten Jefferson in 1800; even with Hamilton's death, the Federalists would still have been the most powerful party. But Hamilton had enemies, and helped divide the party.
In the end, Hamilton fell mortally wounded on the dueling grounds at Weehawken, the financial system was thriving. Joint-stock banks were rapidly multiplying, as were other types of joint-stock companies, not all of which, thanks to Hamilton's insight, needed formal incorporation to begin operations. The credit of the U.S. was among the best in the world; U.S. bonds and stock in the Bank of the United States regularly traded in London as well as in the active securities markets of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston. The nation's credit was so good that it easily borrowed to purchase Louisiana and to fight wars. The first Bank helped to keep the macroeconomy on an even keel by checking the note issue of state banks. The entire nation had a single unit of account, the U.S. dollar, that was firmly defined in terms of gold and silver. Fire and marine insurance was almost fully formed; life insurance lay just over the horizon, as did trust companies, savings banks, and building-and-loans. Great leaps in manufacturing—ultimately funded by banks and capital markets—began just a few years after Hamilton's death. Most importantly, economic growth, increases in real per capita output, was picking up steam, soon literally as well as figuratively.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/910687.html
Alexander Hamilton was the creator of the U.S. financial system, the engine of America's remarkable nineteenth-century economic and political transformations. Wall Street, and our modern banking system, was designed by him. His legacy will always be with us. I consider him one of the great geniuses the United States has produced.
"I consider Napoleon, Fox, and Hamilton the three greatest men of our epoch, and if I were forced to decide between the three, I would give without hesitation the first place to Hamilton. He divined Europe." --Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
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?
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.
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
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.
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:
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.
Friday, September 7, 2007
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.
"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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)