http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=7&article=5330
God, the Founders, and the Purpose of Human Government
The
American people have been experiencing a significant level of confusion
regarding the purpose of civil government. Perhaps the prevailing
sentiment of the population is that the core purpose of government is to
collect money from citizens (via the IRS) so that elected politicians
can make decisions regarding the distribution and dispersal of those
funds. This serious misconception has led to a plethora of errors and
harmful societal circumstances: a bloated, insatiable federal government
that is in the throes of unprecedented, debilitating debt, a
corresponding failure of elected officials to focus on their
true
purpose, a host of citizens who think the government exists to
redistribute monetary assistance to them, and the list goes on.
Meanwhile, the
central purpose of government—the very
reason the Founders established a federal government—is being neglected
to the extent that citizens are encountering increasing danger to their
lives. Perhaps even more tragic, the very government intended to be “of
the people, by the people, and for the people” has assumed an
adversarial role in which it persecutes those who hesitate to go along
with its oppressive socialistic, anti-Christian, “politically correct”
agenda.
What’s more, many Americans have been indoctrinated in the public
school system with the idea that “separation of church and state” is
true, that the government should have nothing to do with religion—except
to suppress it in government, school, and public life.
1 This
indoctrination is so thorough and pervasive that few consider the fact
that God has expressed His view on the subject. Indeed, the sole source
of infallibly correct thinking—the Bible—addresses these concerns,
articulating very precisely the divine purpose of civil government. What
does the inspired Word of God say regarding the purpose of human
government?
The Bible
Perhaps before answering that question, we should ask the prior
question: “Did God intend for humans to form a government?” Yes, He did.
The Bible states definitively: “Let every soul be subject to the
governing authorities. For
there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God”
(Romans 13:1, emp. added). Another inspired apostle stated: “Therefore
submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether
to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by
him” (1 Peter 2:13-14). Jesus, Himself, had previously expressed what
His apostles later wrote. He implied the validity of human government
when He declared: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to
God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). Nebuchadnezzar’s dream
included the realization “that the living may know that the Most High
rules in the kingdom of men, gives it to whomever He will, and sets over
it the lowest of men” (Daniel 4:17). So, yes, human government is
authorized and ordained by God and fully in keeping with His principle
of authority that pervades all of life.
2
What, then, does the Bible say about the
purpose of
the divinely authorized entity of human government? The Bible states
explicitly that the central purpose and role of government is
to
maintain order, peace, protection, safety, and stability in society
which, in turn, enables citizens to live their lives in freedom.
Consider, for example, Paul’s lengthy discussion of civil government in
his admonitions to Christians in the capital city—the heart—of the
Roman Empire:
For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil.
Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you
will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for
good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in
vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil (Romans 13:3-4, emp. added).
Observe: “a terror to evil works” (vs. 3) and “an
avenger to execute wrath on him who does evil” (vs. 4). Peter expressed
these same thoughts when he also addressed the subject:
Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s
sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who
are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good (1 Peter 2:13-14, emp. added).
Observe:“for the punishment of evildoers” and “praise
of those who do good” (vs. 14). Commenting on this passage, Guy N. Woods
remarked: “the design, incidentally, of all civil authority—was (a) to
punish the wicked, and (b) encourage good works by protecting those
engaged therein.”
3 In his remarks to Timothy, Paul again noted this same purpose:
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and
all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence (1 Timothy 2:1-2, emp. added).
Observe again: “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable
life” (i.e., protected from those who would disturb that peace). Even
the pagan attorney Tertullus, who acted on behalf of the high priest in
bringing formal charges against Paul before the Roman governor Felix,
noted in passing the purpose of civil government:
And when he was called upon, Tertullus began his accusation, saying: “Seeing that through you we enjoy great peace, and prosperity is being brought to this nation by your foresight, we accept it always and in all places, most noble Felix, with all thankfulness” (Acts 24:2-3, emp. added).
Observe: through the civil magistrate, i.e., the
government, “we enjoy great peace, and prosperity,” i.e., we are
protected from those who would disrupt the peace, enabling us freely to
exercise our right to pursue our vocations and the prosperity such
brings. The government does not guarantee, let alone provide,
prosperity; it simply ensures a peaceful atmosphere in which citizens
can pursue their vocations and earn their living unhampered by thugs,
thieves, and other criminals.
Hence, while not discounting subsidiary functions, the Bible states
very succinctly that the essential thrust of human government—its core
function—is to maintain order, peace, protection, safety, and stability
in society so that citizens may be permitted to live their own lives and
have the freedom to make their own decisions. This arrangement is God’s
will. However, recall again Paul’s words to Timothy:
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and
all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence (1 Timothy 2:1-2, emp. added).
Why should we pray for the government? So that our lives might be
“quiet and peaceable”—the objective and purpose of the government as
intended by God. But what is the purpose of having a peaceful,
undisturbed, unmolested life? So that we might live life “in all
godliness and reverence.” God wants people to make wise, spiritual
decisions as they live their lives in anticipation of eternity. That is
their purpose for existence (Ecclesiastes 12:13). But whether they do or
don’t, civil government is divinely designed to create an environment
where citizens are not molested by internal or external assailants.
america’s founders
Every American ought to be grateful to live in a country where its
Founding Fathers understood God’s view of human government and,
consequently, implemented that same view in their efforts to establish
the Republic. They were very forthright in their expression of the
purpose of government and what they envisioned were the enumerated
sub-purposes. Hear them:
Though not an American Founder, the British empiricist philosopher and
physician John Locke (1632-1704), widely regarded as one of the most
influential of Enlightenment thinkers, exerted a considerable influence
on the thinking of the Founders. They certainly agreed with his
assessment of the purpose of human government: “The great and chief end,
therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves
under government, is
the preservation of their property,” with “property” defined as “their
lives, Liberties and estates.”
4
Another Englishman with whom the Founders agreed on this point was
British jurist, judge, and politician of the Founding Era Sir William
Blackstone (1723-1780), most noted for his
Commentaries on the Laws of England which profoundly influenced the Founders and the formation of American law.
5 He explained: “For the principal aim of society is
to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which are vested in them by the immutable laws of nature.”
6
Apart from these weighty influences, the Founders themselves expressed
pointed views of the purpose of government. In a sermon preached in
Cambridge before the Massachusetts House of Representatives on May 30,
1770, prominent New England preacher Samuel Cooke pinpointed the true
intention of government: “Civil government…the sole end and design of
which is…the public benefit, the good of the people;
that they may be protected in their persons,
and secured in the enjoyment of all their rights, and to be enabled to
lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty.”
7
Five years later, on May 31, 1775, a month after the commencement of
the Revolutionary War, Harvard College President Samuel Langdon
delivered a sermon to the Massachusetts Congress titled “Government
Corrupted by Vice, and Recovered by Righteousness.” Distinguished
scholar, theologian, and charter member of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, and delegate to the New Hampshire convention that adopted
the
U.S. Constitution, he, too, understood the central role of government:
Thanks be to God that he has given us, as men, natural rights, independent of all human laws whatever…. By the law of nature,
any body of people, destitute of order and government, may form
themselves into a civil society, according to their best prudence, and
so provide for their common safety and advantage.8
On July 6, 1775, one year before declaring independence, the
Continental Congress issued a declaration articulating precisely why
they felt compelled to take up arms against their mother country.
Obviously, they felt the government had gone awry (notice the extent to
which they connect the purpose of government with God’s will on the
matter):
If it was possible for men, who exercise their reason, to believe,
that the Divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human
race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over
others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects
of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and
oppressive, the Inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require
from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful
authority over them, has been granted to that body. But a reverence for
our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common
sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end.9
In our own native land, in defence of the freedom that is our
birth-right, and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it—for the protection of our property,
acquired solely by the honest industry of our fore-fathers and
ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms.10
The Founding Fathers,
en masse, believed that the role of government was to protect its citizens.
| John Jay |
 |
John Jay was a brilliant Founder with a long and distinguished career
in the formation and shaping of American civilization from the
beginning. He not only was a member of the Continental Congress from
1774-1776, serving as its President from 1778-1779, he also helped to
frame the New York State Constitution and then served as the Chief
Justice of the New York State Supreme Court. He co-authored the
Federalist Papers,
was appointed as the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by
George Washington, served as Governor of New York, and was the
vice-president of the American Bible Society from 1816 to 1821. Here was
his description of the purpose of government:
[W]ickedness rendered human government necessary to restrain the violence and injustice
resulting from it. To facilitate the establishment and administration
of government, the human race became, in the course of Providence,
divided into separate and distinct nations. Every nation instituted a
government, with authority and power to protect it against domestic and foreign aggressions. Each government provided for the internal peace and security of the nation,
by laws for punishing their offending subjects. The law of all the
nations prescribed the conduct which they were to observe towards each
other, and allowed war to be waged by an innocent against an offending
nation, when rendered just and necessary by unprovoked, atrocious, and
unredressed injuries.11
Jay insightfully observed that God instituted human government in order
to enact a restraining influence on the propensity of human beings to
harm each other.
Alexander Hamilton was another prominent Founder, serving as an
artillery Captain and Lieutenant-Colonel/Aide-de-camp to General
Washington in the Revolutionary War. He was a member of the Continental
Congress, a signer of the
U.S. Constitution, co-author of the
Federalist Papers, and Secretary of the Treasury under President Washington. In
The Federalist,
No. 15, dated December 1, 1787, Hamilton asked: “Why has government
been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to
the dictates of reason and justice
without constraint.”
12 Government is intended to constrain lawbreakers.
Another patriot preacher of the Founding era was Samuel West, who
served as a chaplain during the Revolutionary War and was an influential
member of the Convention that formed the
Constitution of the State of Massachusetts, and also of the Convention for the adoption of the
Constitution of the United States.
In an election-day sermon preached before the Massachusetts House of
Representatives on May 29, 1776, sometimes titled “On the Right to Rebel
against Governors,” West noted the role of government:
Men of unbridled lusts, were they not restrained by the power of the civil magistrate,
would spread horror and desolation all around them. This makes it
absolutely necessary that societies should form themselves into politic
bodies, that they may enact laws for the public safety,
and appoint particular penalties for the violation of their laws, and
invest a suitable number of persons with authority to put in execution
and enforce the laws of the state, in order that wicked men may be restrained from
doing mischief to their fellow-creatures, that the injured may have
their rights restored to them, that the virtuous may be encouraged in
doing good, and that every member of society may be protected
and secured in the peaceable, quiet possession and enjoyment of all
those liberties and privileges which the Deity has bestowed upon him,
i.e., that he may safely enjoy and pursue whatever he chooses, that is
consistent with the public good. This shows that the end and design of
civil government cannot be to deprive man of their liberty or take away
their freedom; but, on the contrary, the true design of civil government is to protect men in the enjoyment of liberty.13
Constitution signer, co-author of the
Federalist Papers,
and fourth U.S. President, James Madison, in a speech at the Virginia
Convention in 1829, stated: “It is sufficiently obvious, that persons
and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act;
and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the
objects,
for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated.”
14
Quintessential Founder Thomas Jefferson pinpointed this same function
of government in his second presidential inaugural address, likewise
linking God and religion to its purpose:
Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and
Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative
government.… entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of
our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and
confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from
our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion,
professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them
inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man;
acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its
dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and
his greater happiness hereafter—with all these blessings, what more is
necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing
more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another,
shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of
industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the
bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.15
Declaration
signer Samuel Adams, considered the “Firebrand of the Revolution” and
“The Father of the American Revolution,” was vociferous in his
pronouncements of the proper role of the government. In his monumental
“Rights of the Colonists,” he explained:
Government was instituted for the purposes of common defence…. [T]he grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property.16
Writing in the
Boston-Gazette on Monday, December 19, 1768
under the pseudonym “Vindex,” Adams expounded that “the only true basis
of all government [are] the laws of God and nature. For government is an
ordinance of Heaven, design’d by the all-benevolent Creator, for the
general happiness of his rational creature, man.”
17 Alluding to the “fundamental principle of nature and the constitution, that what is a man’s own, is
absolutely his own, and that no man
can have a right to take it from him without his consent,” Adams maintained:
It is against the plain and obvious rule of equity, whereby the
industrious man is intitled [sic] to the fruits of his industry: It
weakens the best cement of society, as it renders all property
precarious: And it destroys the very end for which alone men can be supposed to submit to civil government;
which is not for the sake of exalting one man, or a few men, above
their equals, that they may be maintained in splendor and greatness; but
that each individual, under the joint protection of the whole community, may be the Lord of his own possession, and sit securely under his own vine.18
So to Adams, the purpose for a community of people to form a government
is to create “joint protection” for all citizens as each exerts his own
efforts to prosper. Adams’ allusion to each person being enabled to sit
under his own vine is taken from the Old Testament prophet Micah (4:4).
That same year, in a letter sent by the Massachusetts House of
Representatives to their agent in London, Dennis DeBerdt, the purpose of
government is identified in the words: “
The security of right and property is the great end of government.”
19
As tensions increased between the Americans and Britain, the First
Provincial Congress of Massachusetts issued a letter to newly appointed
British military Governor Lieutenant General Thomas Gage, appealing to
him to cease and desist from the hostile preparations being made, which
included the construction of military fortifications at the entrance to
Boston. The letter, dated Thursday, October 13, 1774, contains a
reminder of the proper purpose of government:
Your excellency must be sensible that the sole end of government is the protection and security of the people.
Whenever, therefore, that power, which was originally instituted to
effect these important and valuable purposes, is employed to harass,
distress, or enslave the people, in this case it becomes a curse rather
than a blessing.20
In “A Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments,” Thomas Jefferson
offered a further description of the purpose of human government:
Whereas, it frequently happens that wicked and dissolute men,
resigning themselves to the dominion of inordinate passions, commit
violations on the lives, liberties, and property of others, and, the
secure enjoyment of these having principally induced men to enter into
society, government would be defective in its principal purpose, were it not to restrain such criminal acts, by inflicting due punishments on those who perpetrate them.21
Prominent Founder John Adams stated the purpose succinctly in these words: “Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.”
22
The state constitution of Massachusetts, believed to be largely the
work of Adams, provides a more extensive definition of the purpose of
government in its Preamble:
The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of government, is to
secure the existence of the body politic, to protect it, and to furnish
the individuals who compose it with the power of enjoying in safety and
tranquility their natural rights, and the blessings of life:
and whenever these great objects are not obtained, the people have a
right to alter the government, and to take measures necessary for their
safety, prosperity and happiness.23
Though Thomas Paine fell into disrepute in the 1790s all across America when he published
The Age of Reason,
nevertheless, he was a significant Founder at the beginning. His
wording of the purpose of government was given in his treatise
The Rights of Man for the Use and Benefit of All Mankind:
Government is nothing more than a national association; and the object
of this association is, the good of all, as well individually, as
collectively. Every man wishes to pursue his occupation, and to enjoy
the fruits of his labours, and the produce of his property, in peace and safety,
and with the least possible expence. When these things are
accomplished, all the objects for which government ought to be
established, are answered.24
Another Founding era preacher, Dan Foster of Connecticut, articulated
the same sentiment in his “A Short Essay on Civil Government:”
For ‘tis for the good of the state and people, that every one and the whole community, may enjoy their persons and properties free of all molestations, invasions, rapines and invasions whatsoever,
that civil government is erected; and these great ends must be kept in
sight and direct…. Our proposition asserts that the people have a
natural and inherent right to appoint and constitute a [government] over
them, for their civil good, liberty, protection, peace and
safety…. to defend and secure to the people the quiet and peaceable
enjoyment of their persons and properties.25
Harvard graduate and Founding era preacher from Duxbury, Massachusetts,
Charles Turner, delivered an election sermon before the
Massachusetts-Bay government in 1773, declaring:
God would have His civil ministers to prove, a terror to evil works; to punish evil doers—by salutary laws, honestly and honorably executed, to
save the state from foreign injurious invaders…and to prevent the
peoples suffering, from one another, as to life, property, or any of
their rights.26
These citations could be multiplied extensively. They may be summarized in the words of the
Declaration of Independence which the Founders crafted to articulate clearly the infringements of the British government under which they lived:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is
the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.27
conclusion
It’s as if rank and file Americans at the inception of the nation were
widely educated in the principles of government and were attuned to the
essentiality of government fulfilling its God-assigned responsibilities.
Make no mistake: the freedom which they believed was endangered by the
usurpations of the British government was not the 1960s “do your own
thing” “freedom” which promoted the overthrow of the prevailing social
mores in America. Far from it. They would have viewed such “freedom” to
be licentiousness and immoral. Rather, they envisioned the freedom that
they considered inherent in the creation of human beings by God—the
unalienable right to live on the Earth in order to make one’s own
choices in anticipation of eternity.
When the government loses sight of the function for which it was
created, citizens are hampered in their efforts to achieve the purpose
for which they were created: to obey God. Tragically, more than ever
before in its 230 year history, America is experiencing severe
convulsion due to the distortion of the role of government that prevails
on virtually every level—local, state, and federal. Government has
assumed a measure of control over the lives of its citizens that it has
no right to exert, exceeding the limits envisioned by both God and the
Founders. Citizens are being threatened, bullied, harassed, and
intimidated by government to accept a redefinition of marriage and to
embrace gender confusion as normal. They are being pressured to ignore
the threat to national security posed by the blanket acceptance of
foreigners who disdain the religion of Christ and the values upon which
the Republic was built.
28 The government has placed Americans under severe, nonconsensual financial burdens.
29
It is bad enough that the government has ventured into illicit areas of
activity. But, in the meantime, it has neglected, if not forsaken, its
central purpose of providing adequate security for its law-abiding
citizens. Is it coincidental that prisons are full while the government
wages war on religious expression? Ask yourself these questions: Do I
feel safer or less safe than at any other time in my life? Do I feel
that my life and my property (i.e., home and possessions) are more
secure or less secure? In my attempt to live a peaceful, serene,
undisturbed lifestyle, do I feel the government is a friend and ally, or
is it hostile and part of the problem?
The time has come for the nation to return to its moorings. The time
has come for a massive spiritual and moral awakening, lest God say to
America what He said to Israel of old: “‘Shall I not punish them for
these things?’ says the LORD. ‘And shall I not avenge Myself on such a
nation as this?’” (Jeremiah 5:9,29; 9:9).
Endnotes
1 See the DVD
Separation of Church and State? available at:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/store/Product.aspx?pid=106.
2 For a discussion of the crucial principle of authority, see Dave Miller (2012),
Surrendering to His Lordship (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).
3 Guy N. Woods (1962),
A Commentary on the New Testament Epistles of Peter, John, and Jude (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate), p. 72.
4 John Locke (1821),
Two Treatises of Government (London: Whitmore & Fenn), Book II, Chapter IX, p. 295.
5 Thomas Jefferson noted that the standing sentiment of
American lawyers was that “Blackstone is to us what the Alcoran is to
the Mahometans”—“Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, May 26, 1810,” The
Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress,”
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib020310.
6 Sir William Blackstone (1765),
Commentaries on the Laws of England (Oxford: Clarendon Press), Book I, Chapter I, 1:120, emp. added.
7 Samuel Cooke (1770),
The True Principles of Civil
Government, A Sermon Preached at Cambridge, in the Audience of His Honor
Thomas Hutchinson, Esq; Lieutenant-Governor and Commander in Chief; The
Honorable His Majesty’s Council, and the Honorable House of
Representatives, of the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay in
New-England, May 30th, 1770 (Boston, MA: Edes and Gill), p. 159,
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N09097.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext.
8 Samuel Langdon (1775),
Government Corrupted by Vice, and Recovered by Righteousness (Watertown, MA: Benjamin Edes), p. 23, italics in orig., emp. added.
9 Continental Congress (1775),
A Declaration by the
Representatives of the United Colonies of North America, Now Met in
General Congress at Philadelphia, Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity
of Their Taking Up Arms, Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, 2:140,156, emp. added, http://goo.gl/OrJ371.
10 Ibid., emp. added.
11 William Jay (1833),
The Life of John Jay (New York: J.&J. Harper), 2:393-394, emp. added.
12 Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison (1911),
The Federalist or the New Constitution (New York: E.P. Dutton), pp. 71-72, emp. added.
13 Samuel West (1776),
A Sermon Preached Before the
Honorable Council, and the Honorable House of Representatives, of the
Colony of the Massachusetts-Bay, in New-England.
May 29, 1776. Being the Anniversary for the Election of the Honorable Council for the Colony (Boston, MA: John Gill), pp. 13-14, emp. added.
14 Ritchie and Cook, eds. (1830),
Proceedings and Debates of the Virginia State Convention of 1829-30 (Richmond, VA: Samuel Shepherd), p. 537, emp. added.
15 Thomas Jefferson (1801), “First Inaugural Address,” The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, emp. added,
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau1.asp.
16 William Wells (1866),
The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, & Co.), 1:504, emp. added.
17 The Boston-Gazette, and Country Journal (1768), No. 716, Monday, December 19, 1768, p. 1.
18 Ibid., italics in orig., emp. added.
19 The Boston-Gazette, and Country Journal (1768), No. 679, Monday, April 4, p. 1, emp. added.
20 William Lincoln, ed. (1838),
The Journals of each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775, and of the Committee of Safety (Boston, MA: Dutton and Wentworth), p. 17.
21 Thomas Jefferson (1853), “A Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments,” in
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. H.A. Washington (Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Maury), 1:147, emp. added.
22 John Adams (1805),
Discourses on Davila (Boston, MA: Russell and Cutler), p. 92.
23 Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, “Preamble,” emp. added,
https://malegislature.gov/laws/constitution.
24 Thomas Paine (1795),
The Rights of Man for the Use and Benefit of All Mankind (London: Daniel Isaac Eaton), p. 97, emp. added.
25 Dan Foster (1775),
A Short Essay on Civil Government (Hartford, CT: Ebenezer Watson), pp. 14,27, emp. added.
26 Charles Turner (1773),
A Sermon Preached Before His
Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq; Governor: The Honorable His Majesty’s
Council, and the Honorable House of Representatives, of the Province of
the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England, May 26th. 1773 (Boston, MA: Richard Draper), pp. 10-11, italics in orig., emp. added.
27 Declaration of Independence (1776), Library of Congress, emp. added,
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/pe.76546.
28 See Dave Miller (2016), “Should Christians Favor Accepting Syrian Refugees?”
Reason & Revelation, 36[4]:45-47.
29 Writing ca. 1817, James Madison noted: “The people of the
U. S. owe their Independence & their liberty, to the wisdom of
descrying in the minute tax of 3 pence on tea, the magnitude of the evil
comprized [sic] in the precedent. Let them exert the same wisdom, in
watching against every evil lurking under plausible disguises, and
growing up from small beginnings.” If the Founders were outraged over
the violation of the principle underlying a three cent tax, they would
be incredulous at the extent to which Americans tolerate oppressive
governmental taxation without their knowledge—let alone consent (e.g.,
the tax on cell phone bills that funds free phone giveaways). See
“Detached Memoranda,”
The Founders’ Constitution, ed. Philip
Kurland and Ralph Lerner (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press),
Volume 5, Amendment I (Religion), Document 64,
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions64.html.
It has become popular in recent years to consider the divine nature of Christ as simply a doctrine invented by Christians long after Jesus’ death. In his blockbuster book The Da Vinci Code,
Dan Brown alleged that Jesus’ deity was concocted 300 years after His
crucifixion (2003, pp. 233-234). Jehovah’s Witnesses also frequently
distribute literature espousing that Christ’s divine nature is a
trumped-up teaching of men, rather than an actual doctrine of God (see
“What Does...,” 1989, pp. 12-16). Although many New Testament passages
could be consulted to demonstrate the deity of Christ (e.g., John
1:1-5,14; 20:28; Philippians 2:6; Hebrews 1:5-13; etc.), of particular
interest is the fact that long before Jesus appeared on Earth in the form of man in the first century, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah foretold His Godhood.
