Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Bill Federer: Franklin, Whitefield & Great Awakenings In America

Transcript

Bill Federer: Franklin, Whitefield & Great Awakenings In America · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

• 0:00
  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
• 0:10
  defending biblical Christianity, no topic, off limits.
• 0:16
  And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
• 0:19
  Well, America 250 continues as we celebrate this year and are thankful, so thankful for
• 0:25
  this country and where we are, but we've got a lot of praying to do when it comes to the
• 0:29
  church and repenting and getting back to our biblical roots, but I've got an excellent
• 0:33
  guest to talk about.
• 0:35
  Some things that I think are really interesting and that would be the great awakenings in
• 0:40
  our nation and two very important Georges, George Washington and George Whitfield.
• 0:45
  I've got Bill Federer, the website, Americanminute.com, Americanminute.com, tons of great books.
• 0:52
  And last time we had him, we talked about the one about Islam, about the Quran, but
• 0:57
  we're so thankful for his research and all the great work that he does.
• 1:00
  Bill, good to see you again, brother.
• 1:02
  Thanks for your time.
• 1:03
  Oh, it's great to do with you, David.
• 1:05
  It's always good to have you on.
• 1:07
  And we talk a lot about history and you're an expert in that field, and I learn a lot
• 1:11
  when I have you on.
• 1:12
  Our listeners do, too, and this is an important year for America.
• 1:15
  A lot of nations, in fact, most nations don't make it 250 years.
• 1:19
  So America in that respect is also an exception, right?
• 1:23
  Not only how we were founded, but how long we've lasted.
• 1:26
  And I want to comment on that before we talk about the Georges.
• 1:29
  Yeah, I did a book called Who Is the King in America?
• 1:32
  And I give a quick overview of all of recorded human history from the beginning of the
• 1:36
  invention of writing, and the most common form of government is gangs.
• 1:42
  And a gang leader with enough weapon, we call a king, or a pharaoh, Caesar, Kaiser, Salazar,
• 1:46
  but power concentration to the ends of one person.
• 1:50
  And if you are friends with him, you're more equal.
• 1:52
  And if you're not friends with him, you're less equal.
• 1:54
  And if you're his enemy, you're dead, called treason, or you're a slave.
• 1:58
  And as the centuries go on, the kingdoms get bigger because with the latest military advancement,
• 2:02
  kings can kill more people.
• 2:04
  So instead of king killing able with the rock, they can kill with a bronze weapon iron,
• 2:08
  weapon failing spear that the Greeks had, symmetry sword, the Muslims had, gunpowder
• 2:12
  that the Chinese invented.
• 2:13
  The weapon keeps improving, but instead, same fall in nature, king killing able.
• 2:17
  But by the time of America's founding, the king of England was the most powerful king
• 2:21
  on the planet.
• 2:22
  He was a globalist.
• 2:23
  The sun never set on the British Empire.
• 2:26
  And America's founders decided they didn't like globalists, and so they broke away and
• 2:29
  flipped it, made the people the king.
• 2:31
  And so a republic is where the people are king ruling through representatives.
• 2:37
  And so republics have citizens.
• 2:39
  The word citizen is from Latin, which comes from the Greek word, policies, which means
• 2:43
  co-ruler, co-sovereign, co-king.
• 2:46
  So republics have citizens, the word citizen means co-king.
• 2:50
  So America is an experiment of a polarity change in the flow of powers.
• 2:53
  Did it top down, ruled by a king through fear?
• 2:56
  It's bottom up, ruled by we, the people, government from the consent of the governed.
• 3:03
  Now I get into this quite a bit in some of my books, like science equals consent, but
• 3:07
  the founders got some ideas from the Enlightenment, from the Magna Carta, from the Roman Republic
• 3:12
  and the Athenian democracy.
• 3:13
  But ultimately, it was ancient Israel.
• 3:16
  The first 400 years out of Egypt before Israel got a king.
• 3:19
  It's called the Hebrew Republic.
• 3:21
  And the Puritan studied the Hebrew Republic so much that they were nicknamed Christian
• 3:26
  hebraists.
• 3:28
  And so they taught Hebrew at Yale and Harvard.
• 3:32
  James Madison graduated from Princeton and then he goes back for a year just to study Hebrew.
• 3:41
  And he wants to know about their political philosophy.
• 3:44
  And sure enough, James Madison is called the architect of our constitution.
• 3:48
  And so this pre-King saw part of the Bible.
• 3:52
  Everybody's taught the law and they have a 22 character alphabet, which is unique at
• 3:58
  the time.
• 3:59
  Egypt had 3,000 hieroglyphs and only 1% of Egypt could read.
• 4:05
  Moses comes down the mountain with the law of 22 character alphabet.
• 4:08
  So Israel is the first nation that is literate.
• 4:11
  So they have the law, they can read the law.
• 4:13
  It's the first nation with private property.
• 4:16
  Because wherever there's a king, you never really own the property.
• 4:19
  It's always conditional of you staying on the nice side of the king.
• 4:22
  But in ancient Israel, the land was permanently titled each family.
• 4:25
  If you own property, you can accumulate stuff, the Bible call that being blessed.
• 4:30
  And you can give away some of your stuff, the Bible call that charity.
• 4:33
  Every person left the gleanings of their field for the poor people to pick through.
• 4:38
  And everybody helped enforce the law.
• 4:40
  The verse we all have memorized is love your neighbor as yourself, Leviticus 1918.
• 4:45
  The verse right before it says confront your neighbor directly.
• 4:48
  So you will not be held guilty for their sin.
• 4:52
  Right?
• 4:53
  So you're loving your neighbor and you're correcting your neighbor.
• 4:55
  Because there's no king.
• 4:56
  There's no police to college, just the people.
• 4:58
  It's so like a parent.
• 4:59
  You love your kid.
• 5:00
  But every now and then you got to correct him.
• 5:02
  And so in ancient Israel, you love your neighbor, but every now and then you got to correct
• 5:05
  him.
• 5:06
  And then every man was in the militia armed with a sword upon their thigh and ready at
• 5:11
  a moment's notice to defend their family and their community.
• 5:15
  And so this Hebrew Republic was studied intently by the Puritans and it was an alternative
• 5:22
  to a king.
• 5:23
  And so it was a bottom up form of government where the people ruled themselves in a covenant
• 5:28
  versus a king ruling top down through fear and so the word federal is Latin for covenant.
• 5:35
  So we have a bottom up form of government that is drawn from originally ancient Israel.
• 5:42
  And so to this day, they have Hebrew characters on the coat of arms of Yale, it's truth
• 5:48
  in life.
• 5:49
  In 1685, part of the commencement address at Harvard wasn't the Hebrew language.
• 5:56
  They were studying Hebrew and anyway.
• 6:00
  So America is unique in that we get to rule ourselves bottom up and just like.
• 6:07
  And so in a sense, King Saul is the divider between England and America.
• 6:12
  You say, what?
• 6:13
  King Saul?
• 6:14
  Yeah, because the kings of England looked to the Bible for their authority, but they
• 6:17
  looked to the King Saul and after.
• 6:20
  And the Pilgrim from the Puritans that founded New England looked to the pre-King Saul
• 6:23
  part of it.
• 6:24
  Both of them were looking to the Bible.
• 6:26
  Once you look into the after King Saul, divine right of kings, I'm the anointed one.
• 6:30
  I'm the royal gang leader, do what I say or I'm going to cancel you.
• 6:34
  And the pilgrims looked to the before King Saul part of the Bible.
• 6:38
  Everybody taught the law, personally accountable to God to follow it.
• 6:42
  And fascinating, I appreciate you also connecting the verse about keeping your neighbor and
• 6:50
  check before it says, love your neighbor.
• 6:54
  I appreciate those two verses in context.
• 6:56
  That's really important too.
• 6:57
  But I want to jump ahead now.
• 6:59
  I want to go back, Lord willing, time wise, we'll talk about George Washington.
• 7:03
  Some of his close calls and the word providence, I looked up that definition, Webster is 1828,
• 7:08
  dictionary.
• 7:09
  It's fascinating.
• 7:10
  But I do want to talk to you, Bill, about the two great awakenings in the 1735 to 1743
• 7:16
  roughly and 1795 to 1830.
• 7:20
  But first of all, I'm assuming you saw the movie, A Great Awakening.
• 7:25
  And I would just love to hear your thoughts on that picture overall, because it was, in
• 7:28
  my opinion, one of the best films I have seen.
• 7:32
  Go ahead and share your thoughts, please, because we want to talk about George Whitfield.
• 7:35
  Yeah, I want to encourage everyone to go see the Great Awakening movie.
• 7:39
  It's tremendous.
• 7:40
  It does highlight the role of faith.
• 7:43
  You know, it's interesting.
• 7:46
  At George Whitfield and Ben Franklin and their relationship together.
• 7:51
  So for those not familiar, every colony was started by a different Christian denomination.
• 7:58
  Virginia was Anglican.
• 8:00
  Massachusetts was Puritan.
• 8:02
  Rhode Island was Baptist.
• 8:03
  New York was Dutcher Form.
• 8:05
  Connecticut, New Hampshire were Congregationalist, Delaware at New Jersey were originally Swedish
• 8:10
  Lutheran, then Dutch reform, then English, Maryland Catholic, and Pennsylvania Quaker.
• 8:17
  Then they didn't get along and they would turn feather each other and chase each other
• 8:21
  out of each other's college.
• 8:22
  But then the revolution starts and they all have to work together against the king.
• 8:26
  So this idea of working together really goes back to George Whitfield.
• 8:32
  The denominations would not get along.
• 8:36
  Matter of fact, in reading the history, if any one denomination thought they could have
• 8:42
  won the revolution on their own, they would have been tempted to make their denomination
• 8:47
  the national one.
• 8:50
  Because they needed each other, then after when they were writing the Constitution, their
• 8:55
  fear was that this new federal government would follow the example of every country in
• 8:59
  Europe and take one Christian denomination as the national one.
• 9:02
  So that's why they passed the First Amendment to tie the federal government's hand to leave
• 9:06
  religion under each individual state's jurisdiction.
• 9:10
  And so I read through all the state constitutions, and nine of the original 13, you had to be
• 9:15
  a Protestant Christian to whole state office, three just to plain Christian.
• 9:19
  But anyway, this idea of working together came from George Whitfield.
• 9:24
  So when he comes across, he is a new light where the Puritans are now nicknamed old lights.
• 9:34
  They had a good covenant plan, a government, because the Puritans pioneered a covenant
• 9:38
  plan, a government.
• 9:39
  But after a century, it got dry.
• 9:41
  It was just a plan.
• 9:43
  And they taught it academically at Yale and Harvard.
• 9:46
  And some said, God has it so planned out that in his infinite wisdom, he already knows
• 9:50
  who's going to wind up in heaven.
• 9:52
  So don't even bother preaching the gospel, whoever's supposed to get saved will get saved.
• 9:56
  And that's why they get nicknamed old lights.
• 9:58
  And so when George Whitfield comes over, he's the new lights, he's like, no, it's more than
• 10:03
  a plan.
• 10:04
  He benefits a good covenant plan.
• 10:05
  You have to have an experience with Jesus.
• 10:06
  And when you do your life will change and you won't do worldly things anymore, like bars
• 10:10
  and brothels and government.
• 10:13
  So the devil won't leave any movement alone.
• 10:16
  He says to some, it's so personal, it's only personal.
• 10:18
  So that's where you eventually have the idea that churches have today is we're spiritual
• 10:23
  because we're not involved in politics.
• 10:25
  That came as a byproduct out of the first great awakening.
• 10:28
  But as far as working together, George Whitfield would give speeches and Ben Franklin
• 10:33
  records them.
• 10:35
  And he would stand on the courthouse steps and say, there's not an Anglican Presbyterian
• 10:40
  Methodist in Baptist in heaven.
• 10:42
  And everybody would say, what did you say?
• 10:44
  And then he would finish the sentence and say that upon entering those gates, we don't
• 10:50
  lay aside our badges of schism and join together in worshiping our Savior Jesus.
• 10:55
  And they're like, oh, I get it.
• 10:57
  So we all have Jesus in common and that help unite the colonies.
• 11:04
  And even Jefferson made a quote at this similar time where he says, I allow the professors
• 11:12
  of religion to choose whatever route to heaven they think is the most direct no matter which
• 11:16
  Christian denomination it is.
• 11:19
  So it's like, okay, it's not all roads lead to heaven.
• 11:21
  It was the Christian roads lead to heaven, but Ben Franklin, he is an interesting person.
• 11:30
  He was the 15th of 18 children born in Massachusetts.
• 11:36
  He writes about growing up and reading his dad's books in the library that they had at
• 11:42
  house and their house.
• 11:44
  And he said, most of the books were polemics, which means a written argument over doctrine.
• 11:51
  They were arguing over the Puritan doctrine and all the predestination stuff.
• 11:56
  And he said he found the predestination doctrine unintelligible that, you know, if God has
• 12:01
  it all planned out, then he would be unjust to condemn somebody to hell because, you know,
• 12:05
  and so anyway, but he's going to a Presbyterian church in Philadelphia.
• 12:10
  No, I'm skipping ahead of myself.
• 12:13
  Sure.
• 12:14
  He's still there in Massachusetts when he's young and he's working for his older brother
• 12:20
  James's printing shop.
• 12:23
  His brother James started the Hellfire Club and he published articles against the Massachusetts
• 12:29
  governor and he gets jailed for four weeks.
• 12:32
  And so Ben is just a teenager and he keeps the little print shop going.
• 12:37
  And he writes editorials and he uses a pseudonym, a fake name, Mrs. Silence Do Good.
• 12:45
  And so these were really, really good articles written by this Mrs. Silence Do Good and he
• 12:51
  print them.
• 12:52
  And of course, his brother is like, finally gets out of jail and he's like, wow, these
• 12:56
  are really good.
• 12:57
  And then when he finds out that his little, you know, teenage, you know, brother's been
• 13:02
  writing him.
• 13:03
  He gets, they get to an argument and Ben decides to run away at the age of 17, which is
• 13:10
  illegal because he's been apprenticed to an employer evidently.
• 13:15
  That's a contract and you can't just leave.
• 13:18
  And so to break the contract, he has to leave the entire state of Massachusetts.
• 13:23
  So he goes to Philadelphia.
• 13:26
  He meets Deborah, read, they fall in love, but he's a penniless young guy.
• 13:31
  And so the mom refuses to let him get married.
• 13:34
  The mom then has the daughter, Mary, some near-do-well guy who's got money, but he basically
• 13:41
  takes the inheritance and then wanders off and then dies.
• 13:44
  But nobody really knows that he dies.
• 13:47
  And so, and his name is John Rogers and he had another wife in London.
• 13:53
  And anyway, he runs away to the West Indies and gets killed in a fight.
• 13:57
  But since there's no record of his death, she can't get illegal, you know, a divorce
• 14:02
  or whatever.
• 14:03
  And so young Franklin says, well, he goes to England for a while and works over there in
• 14:12
  a print shop.
• 14:13
  But then he comes back and they can't legally get married, but they live together.
• 14:17
  And so that's Ben Franklin's wife, Deborah.
• 14:21
  At the age of 23, he starts publishing his Pennsylvania Gazette and he publishes the first
• 14:25
  political cartoons.
• 14:27
  He publishes poor Richards Almanac, which sold 10,000 copies a year.
• 14:32
  And he invents the rocking chair, the Franklin stove, the bifocal glasses, swim fins.
• 14:38
  When you, you know, scoop it out and put those, that's a catheter, an odometer, a glass
• 14:43
  armonica, which was like, you know, glass balls that were tuned and a long reaching device
• 14:51
  sort of like with the clamps on the ends.
• 14:53
  And then he invented a lightning rod because the steeples of churches would hit with lightning.
• 14:57
  But he found if you put a metal rod up higher and then run a metal cable to the ground.
• 15:03
  And so for that, he got honorary degrees at Yale and Harvard.
• 15:07
  He founded the first postal system, first fire department, first insurance company, a
• 15:12
  hospital lending library, and the University of Pennsylvania.
• 15:16
  So George Whitfield preached in Pennsylvania and Ben Franklin raised money to build an
• 15:22
  auditorium for him to preach in because he had been preaching outdoors because those
• 15:26
  old light churches wouldn't let him in.
• 15:29
  They thought he was too emotional.
• 15:31
  And so they were the stodgy, you know, Puritans.
• 15:36
  And so he's preaching outdoors while Ben Franklin helps to fund this building of the University
• 15:40
  of Pennsylvania.
• 15:41
  And then, well, it's this largest auditorium in Philadelphia.
• 15:45
  And then later it becomes the one of the early buildings of the University of Pennsylvania.
• 15:50
  Years ago, I went there and they had a statue of George Whitfield pointing to heaven and
• 15:56
  with his Bible.
• 15:57
  But during the woke period, I think they took that statue and hit it somewhere, started
• 16:01
  to sad.
• 16:02
  It is sad, oh my goodness.
• 16:06
  But Ben Franklin printed George Whitfield's sermons and distributed them up and down the colonies.
• 16:12
  And this helped spread the great awakening revival.
• 16:16
  You know, a little about Franklin at the Presbyterian Church.
• 16:20
  There was a new light preacher, sort of like George Whitfield.
• 16:24
  His name was Samuel Hemphill.
• 16:26
  And he delivered really good biblical sermons and the old light clergy did not like him.
• 16:34
  And so it was church politics.
• 16:37
  And Ben Franklin writes in his autobiography.
• 16:40
  The Presbyterians, Orthodox Presbyter, disapproved his doctrine.
• 16:44
  And he says, I became his cellist partisan and contributed all I could to raise a party
• 16:49
  in his favor.
• 16:50
  And we combatted him for a while with some hopes of success.
• 16:54
  There was much scribbling pro and con.
• 16:56
  And they said he was an elegant preacher but a poor writer.
• 16:59
  So I lent him my pen and wrote for him two or three pamphlets and published them in the
• 17:04
  Pennsylvania Gazette.
• 17:06
  And so these were really scriptural ones.
• 17:09
  A vindication of the reverend dialogue between two Presbyterians and then he prints ones
• 17:16
  where it says, Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity
• 17:21
  and purify to himself, a particular people, zealous for good works.
• 17:27
  One should acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the Messiah promised by the prophets, the son
• 17:31
  of God.
• 17:32
  So here's Franklin writing these things that are very scriptural.
• 17:36
  And then when the Samuel Helpel gets voted out, he drops out at church.
• 17:43
  And he ceased attending, though he continued to financially support the first Presbyterian
• 17:48
  church there.
• 17:50
  So he said in his Pennsylvania Gazette, being frequently censored and condemned by different
• 17:57
  persons for printing things which they said ought not to be printed.
• 18:00
  I have sometimes thought it might be necessary to make a standing apology for myself in
• 18:04
  published once a year.
• 18:05
  And so he said, I've been educated a Presbyterian.
• 18:09
  And though some of the dogmas at that persuasion, such as eternal decrees of God, election,
• 18:14
  retro-rate, retro-patient, appeared to be unintelligible to me.
• 18:17
  I nearly absented, I early absented myself from public assemblies.
• 18:22
  And then he said that the new pastor came and visited him and talked him into going back.
• 18:27
  And he said, I did five weeks in a row.
• 18:31
  And five Sundays, successively, had he been, in my opinion, a good preacher, perhaps I
• 18:36
  might have continued, but his discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments or explanations
• 18:41
  of the peculiar doctrines of our sect.
• 18:44
  And were all to me very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying.
• 18:48
  And I attended his preaching no more.
• 18:51
  My conduct might be blameable, but I leave it without attempting further to excuse it.
• 18:58
  So here's Franklin, John Adams said, the Catholics thought him almost Catholic.
• 19:03
  The Church of England claimed him as one of them.
• 19:05
  The Presbyterians thought him half Presbyterian, the friends believed him to be a baker.
• 19:11
  And so there was the, during the first great awakening is the period of the French and Indian
• 19:18
  war.
• 19:20
  And then Ben Franklin raises a militia, which was a big deal because since Pennsylvania
• 19:26
  was quaker, they were non-violent.
• 19:28
  And they realized, well, we couldn't force people to join the militia.
• 19:31
  And so he made it a voluntary militia and 10,000 guys volunteer.
• 19:37
  And this catapults him to a statewide fame, so to speak.
• 19:42
  And then, believe it or not, he proposes a general fast.
• 19:47
  And he publishes it in the Pennsylvania Gazette.
• 19:49
  And it gets passed by the legislature December 12, 1747.
• 19:54
  We have thought fit to appoint a day of fasting and prayer, exhorting all both ministers
• 19:59
  and people to join in fervent supplications, that Almighty God would mercifully interpose
• 20:03
  and still the rage of war and put a stop to the effusion of Christian blood.
• 20:09
  He publishes other famous conservative authors like Reverend Alexander Craig Hill, and
• 20:15
  then, oh, lots of other ones, but the ones with George Whitfield are the dearest.
• 20:24
  So he talks about attending his meetings, counts as best he could, an estimated 25,000 in attendance.
• 20:31
  He writes in his autobiography of Whitfield's revival.
• 20:34
  It was wonderful to see the change made in the manners of our inhabitants from being
• 20:39
  thoughtless and indifferent about religion.
• 20:41
  It seems as if the whole world were growing religious.
• 20:44
  So one could not walk through the streets of town in every evening without hearing
• 20:47
  Psalms sung in different families of every street.
• 20:51
  And Franklin writes to George Whitfield, 1752, my dear doctor, I find that you grow more
• 20:56
  and more famous in the learned world.
• 20:59
  And then Franklin writes to, no, that was Whitfield writing to Franklin, saying, dear
• 21:04
  doctor, Franklin, I found you growing more famous.
• 21:07
  And then Franklin writes to Whitfield and says, I sometimes wish you and I were jointly
• 21:12
  employed by the crown to settle a colony on the Ohio, a strong body of religious and
• 21:18
  industrious people might hit not greatly facilitate the introduction of pure religion
• 21:24
  among the heathen.
• 21:26
  If we could, by such a colony, show them a better sample of Christians than they commonly
• 21:31
  see in our Indian traders, because the people that would trade with the Indians would
• 21:35
  shyest them all the time.
• 21:37
  But here's Franklin writing to arguably the Billy Graham of the day, saying, it would
• 21:42
  be great if you and I could start it.
• 21:44
  Then we could really show these Indians what Christians are like.
• 21:47
  Franklin writes in 1764 to Whitfield, saying, your frequent repeated wishes and prayers
• 21:57
  for my eternal as well as temporal happiness are very obliging.
• 22:02
  I can only thank you for them and offer you mine in return.
• 22:06
  So sure enough, Whitfield's witnessing to them in his letters.
• 22:11
  Whitfield's last surviving letter to Franklin, he shared his desire for both he and Franklin
• 22:18
  would quote, be in that happy number of those who in the midst of a tremendous final blaze
• 22:26
  shall cry amen.
• 22:30
  And then Franklin writes his proposals relating to the education of youth in Pennsylvania.
• 22:36
  Henry will afford the frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion.
• 22:42
  From its usefulness to the public, the advantage of a religious character among private persons
• 22:48
  and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient and modern.
• 22:55
  So but he go ahead.
• 23:00
  That's interesting to hear that what you're sharing, some of these quotes, I'm thinking
• 23:05
  about the movie, I'm thinking about what my past understanding of Ben Franklin was and it just
• 23:10
  seems like he was more religious, more pro-Christian biblical worldview than I've heard in the past or
• 23:19
  even was depicted in the movie a great awakening.
• 23:23
  Yeah, yeah, he would, you know, he really got turned off by the religious arguments between
• 23:30
  denominations and he didn't like just preaching on doctrine without good works, without people
• 23:36
  going out and living like a Christian and helping the poor because he was always into starting,
• 23:41
  you know, hospitals and things like that, that our religion needs to be more than, here's one,
• 23:49
  this is what Franklin writes to Joseph Huey, June 6th, 1753, the worship of God is a duty.
• 23:57
  The hearing and reading of sermons may be useful, but if men rest in hearing and praying
• 24:04
  as too many do, it is as if a tree should value itself on being watered and putting forth
• 24:12
  leaves, though it never produces any fruit. So if you just go to church and hear sermons,
• 24:18
  but you don't like live as a Christian and so that what would turn them off.
• 24:23
  Well, when he laid the cornerstone of the Pennsylvania hospital, which was one of the,
• 24:28
  considered the first hospital in America, he composed the cornerstone text in the year of Christ,
• 24:34
  1755, this building by the bounty of the government and of many private persons was
• 24:39
  piously founded for the relief of the sick and miserable may the God of mercies bless the undertaking.
• 24:47
  And then he writes a pamphlet to people in England who are thinking about coming to America,
• 24:54
  it's called information to those who would remove to America, 1754, saying in America,
• 25:00
  atheism is unknown there, infidelity, rare and secret, so that persons may live to a great
• 25:07
  age in this country without having their piety shocked by meeting either an atheist or an
• 25:13
  infidel. And the divine being seems pleased to favor the whole country.
• 25:19
  And then as you mentioned, he called for prayer at the Constitutional Convention.
• 25:26
  One of the interesting things that people may not be aware of is he's the first governor
• 25:30
  of the state of Pennsylvania. And he introduces into the constitution
• 25:38
  a section 10, this is September 28th of 1776. In each member before he takes a seat,
• 25:46
  she'll make the following declaration. I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the
• 25:51
  universe, the reward are the good, the punisher, the wicked, and I do acknowledge the scriptures
• 25:56
  of the old and new testament to be given by divine inspiration. And no further or other religious
• 26:02
  tests she'll ever hear after be required of any civil officer. But I mean here, but if you look
• 26:08
  at it by saying all you got to do is believe in God and the scripture is being inspired,
• 26:13
  you could be a Catholic or Protestant and say, yeah, I believe the scriptures are inspired.
• 26:17
  I believe that there's a God. And so that was very where many of the other states,
• 26:24
  you know, like South Carolina said, you had to be a Protestant Christian. South Carolina's
• 26:29
  original state constitution said the Christian Protestant religion is here by deemed the
• 26:36
  established religion of this state. People say, well, if America was Christian, why didn't
• 26:41
  they establish a Christian? Well, South Carolina did. Yeah, right. Other different states did
• 26:45
  because religion was under state jurisdiction. And many of them, you couldn't even hold office
• 26:50
  unless you were Christian, but it was the state that said delegates to compose the federal
• 26:55
  constitution. Bill, we need to have you back sometime and talk about the the second biggest lie
• 27:01
  in America, the separation of church and state. We need to do a podcast about that because we've
• 27:07
  come so far as far as the church and our lack of understanding of our influence and our role and
• 27:13
  responsibility in this country and this nation. But thank you so much for all you do. Again,
• 27:19
  I want to give the website Americanminute.com. Lord willing, we will have you back soon,
• 27:23
  Bill, and talk about some of these other things as well. We appreciate your time, brother.
• 27:27
  Well, thank you. One last trivia. Franklin signed the treat repairs, which ended the Revolutionary
• 27:32
  War, which starred off in the name of the most holy and indivited Trinity. Get that 1783.
• 27:37
  But thank you for having me on. It's tremendous honor, David. You're most welcome. God bless you,
• 27:41
  brother. All right, friends. Thanks. Share this one. A lot of history, a lot of great quotes shared.
• 27:46
  And we appreciate you guys praying for us as well. God bless you. And as always,
• 27:50
  keep speaking the truth about things that matter. See you next time.