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The American Paradigm - Under God Chapter 6 · Passing On The Faith

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: General blessings are promised for those who are characterized by humility and the fear of God.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: These characteristics are quite the opposite of the qualities preferred by modern rulers and their constituents, such as pride, self-confidence, foul language, populist ideas, and boastfulness.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: But when the more righteous qualities of humility and the fear of God are reflected in the people, they invite God's blessings upon their respective faces.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: You're listening to Passing Unfection Generations.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Every week we bring you from university.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Audiobooks, typical foundation for your family.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: This week's episode is a chapter from our audiobook.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Entitled The American Paradigm.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Written by Kevin Smith.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter 6: The American Paradigm.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: The United States of America stands out as a rare and impressive exception to tyrannical governments, oppressive empires, and various idolatrous nations and the annals of world history, which brings up the question in the minds of all contemporary Christians.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: What influence might Christ bear upon the nations of this world if committed Christians were given another opportunity to populate a nation and contribute to its foundations and governance?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: America was the recipient of a strong Christian heritage, to some great extent consisting of persecuted Christians from England, Scotland, France, the Netherlands, and elsewhere.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: America formed out of people fleeing from big government inquisitions, bloody persecutions, and tyrannical kings looking to control the Christian church.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Generally, these persecuted people made for more committed Christians, and when given a chance, they provided a more solid Christian heritage for America.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: By no means was this nation a paradigm of perfection.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Every person, every church, and every civil leader is flawed.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Faith retrograde is to be expected.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Within three generations, for example, Puritanism was dead in America.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Evangelical revivals could retain about forty years of spiritual life.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But if there was ever a nation formed by a preponderance of people who took God's word seriously, it would have to be this country.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: God blessed America.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: If God's hands is still upon nations, then we must conclude that a divine blessing attended these people in the early centuries of its founding.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: While his hand of judgment upon the nation was evident at points in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, his mercies were just as present and not to be missed.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: America became the most prosperous nation on earth in eighteen ninety, surpassing all other nations by gross domestic product.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: To this day, the United States remains the most generous nation on earth.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: America contributes five hundred and ninety-three billion dollars in private charitable contributions each year.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: The UK contributes twenty two billion dollars per year, and Germany contributes five to six billion annually.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Other nations' charitable contributions are negligible.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: As late as the mid-1990s, America was rated in the top three to four most free nations on earth from an economic perspective.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: has the highest number of Protestant Christians in the world by a significant margin, one hundred and sixty million compared to Nigeria's sixty million and Brazil's forty-one million.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: South Africa, Brazil, and the United States are the only major countries in the world with a concerted percentage of the population holding to a supernaturalist view of creation versus evolution.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Education freedom hardly exists anywhere in the world because almost every national government monopolizes the funding and control of education.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yet a very small slice of American families have carved out a little freedom here.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: About six percent of American children are homeschooled.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: That compares to one to two percent of the school aged population in Canada, the UK, and Australia registered as homeschooled.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: The United States still retains double the church attendance numbers as its closest neighbor, Canada, and almost ten times the percentage that attend church in the UK on any given Sunday.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: All that to say, America has retained a Christian heritage to this day that far exceeds that of any other nation in the world.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: For at least a century now, the post Christian world has worked hard to jettison the heritage and the foundations of this nation.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is almost gone now.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yet the heritage still holds for us some wisdom and hope for rebuilding a free and prosperous nation somewhere in the world, sometime in the future.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Foundations.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: The early colonials specified their purposes for coming to the New World.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: For example, the New England colonies of Massachusetts, New Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven created a joint statement in 1643, agreeing that we all came into these parts of America with the same end and aim, namely to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberties of the gospel in purity with peace, and for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the gospel.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: The pilgrims likewise recorded their objectives in the Mayflower Compact as having undertaken for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our king and country.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: The first actions taken by the Virginia House of Burgesses, the first legislative assembly in America, enacted fines for Sabbath breaking and swearing, while, of course, men were required by law to bring their pieces, swords, powder, and shot to church with them.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: The Puritan colony in Massachusetts attempted a body of laws in sixteen thirty five in resemblance of the Magna Carta.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: A year later, a committee came up with a legal code based largely on John Cotton's Moses his judicials.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: This first attempt was almost a word-for-word copy of God's law contained in the Mosaic Code.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: The colony governor, John Withrup, was initially hesitant to encode these laws, insisting rather that each magistrate search the scriptures for the proper rule in each case.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: The New England jurisprudence was finally settled in 1648 with the support of John Withrop.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Massachusetts Laws and Liberties document was issued with a full preface authored by the Puritan pastor John Cotton.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: A portion of this historical document is contained below.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Massachusetts Laws and Liberties 1648.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is ordered by this court and authorities thereof that there shall never be any bond slavery, villainage, or captivity amongst us, unless it be lawful captives taken in just wars and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are sold to us, and such shall have the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God established in Israel concerning such persons doth morally require, provided this exempts none from servitude who shall be judged thereto by authority.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: 1641.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: If any person shall commit any willful murder, which is manslaughter, committed upon premeditate malice, hatred or cruelty not in a man's necessary and just defense, nor by mere casualty against his will, he shall be put to death.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter twenty one verses twelve through thirteen and Numbers chapter thirty five verse thirty-one.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: The early American colonies included a Trinitarian oath for those who would serve in government.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Their political leaders were required to acknowledge and testify their own allegiance to the true and living God.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: For example, the Pennsylvania legislature enacted a law in 1704 requiring that members of their government profess to believe in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, and profess faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ his eternal Son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God blessed forevermore.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the fundamental constitutions for the province of New Jersey required that no man shall be admitted a member of the great or common council or any other place of public trust who shall not profess faith in Christ Jesus.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Delaware's Constitution of seventeen seventy seven likewise required this confession of their civil leaders.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: I, given their name, do profess faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed forevermore, and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Members of the Vermont House of Representatives were also required to confess that I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge the scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration and own and profess the Protestant religion.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: This Christian commitment was all but gone by 1789 after Article V of the U.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: S.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution banned religious tests.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thereafter, political leaders for this country were no longer bound to acknowledge faith and fealty to the true and living God.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: However, George Washington began the tradition to take the presidential oath with a hand on the Bible, and he added the words so help me God.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Enlightenment and the Humanist Revolution.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: The founding of the nation, however, was caught up in a seismic worldview shift in the West that would yield a profound effect upon every level of human thought and action.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: These new ideas were at first introduced by the misguided Enlightenment philosophies of Francis Bacon, Renee Descartes, and Thomas Hobbes, political philosophers of the early seventeenth century.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: These philosophical errors exploded into deism, Unitarianism, and various other species of Christian apostasy.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: David Hume, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire followed with their political theories from the sixteen sixties to the seventeen seventies, whereas the right wing philosophers were more sympathetic to the Christian faith.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: The left wing French philosophers were unabashedly and virulently antagonistic and more consistently humanist in their writings.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: The Enlightenment came on like a tidal wave and just about killed the Christian influence on Western institutions, especially that influence in civil government.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: By the mercies of God, America was temporarily salvaged by the Great Awakening of the seventeen thirties and seventeen forties.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: All the while power was shifting from the Pope to the prince and from the prince to the people.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Reformation transferred power from the Pope to the King, and for a short time the king pretended to be the voice of God.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: King James I loudly proclaimed Rex Lex, or the King is law, to which Puritan Samuel Rutherford responded with his treatise Lex Rex, the law is king, under which the king had better submit or face the judgment of God.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Following the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, all that changed.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Box Populi, Box Dei, or the voice of the people is the voice of God was the cry of this new democracy.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: A humanist democracy would replace the humanist monarchy, and all submission to God and his law was put to the side.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: This would also mark the rise of the worst tyrannies the world had ever seen.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: A brief interruption in the flow of humanism.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Great Awakening was nothing less than a rude interruption in the midst of the Enlightenment, just in time to place a check on an irreligious European influence in the American colonies.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: The movement toward the nation's independence began in 1765, led by two committed Christians, Patrick Henry of Virginia and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick Henry was, at least for a time, raised on the sermons of the Presbyterian preacher Samuel Davies, while Samuel Adams had ready access to George Whitfield's sermons in his early years.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Lapsed Christians would eventually dominate American culture and governance, but emphatically, not in 1765 and not in 1775.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Scholars have estimated that fifty to seventy five percent of the founding fathers advocating independence from the mother country in the 1770s were Bible believing Christians of the Reformed persuasion.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Among the eight most questionable of the founding fathers, Franklin, Washington, J.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Allen, and Payne, George Washington was the most likely to have been a Christian.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: None of America's founders were card-carrying deist.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: They were mostly Christians with a few Unitarians like John Adams in the mix.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: James Madison, for example, was educated by the Scottish Presbyterian pastor Donald Robertson, Thomas Martin, a graduate of the Presbyterian College of New Jersey, and the Presbyterian pastor John Witherspoon.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Witherspoon's school educated five delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 49 U.S.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: representatives, twenty eight U.S.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: senators, three Supreme Court justices, one president, one vice president, three attorneys general, and two foreign ministers.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: By the seventeen seventies, however, the university had largely absorbed the Enlightenment philosophies circulating at that time.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Besides the Bible, the source quoted by America's founding fathers more often than all others was the French philosopher, with quite a few names to his moniker, Charles Louis de Second, Baron de Le Bred E de Montesquieu.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Protestant Huguenot by background, Montesquieu was part Calvinist and part Enlightenment philosopher.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Montesquieu's political philosophy argued for liberty from tyrants, but not necessarily on the basis of God's laws.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: The colonists justified the war on the basis of English constitutional government and the doctrine of interposition, argued by such reformed luminaries as John Calvin, Samuel Rutherford, and Philip de Mornay.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: The doctrine of interposition put all kings and magistrates under the laws of God.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Defining tyranny by God's law, these men held that the lower magistrates had responsibilities to protect their citizens from the unlawful actions of tyrants, in the case that there might be magistrates in office who still subscribe to God's laws.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: These could legitimately resist tyrants to the point of force.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Moreover, kings are also subject to constitutional government and written covenants.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: According to the thinking of America's founding fathers, the British Parliament was guilty of having taken unlawful actions against the colonists to include taxation without representation.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Since the higher magistrate had violated the rights of these citizens as guaranteed by constitutional documents such as the Magna Carta and the Colonial Charters, the lower magistrates within the colonies had every right to protest by taking up arms.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Christian underpinnings of the U.S.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then Jehada made a covenant between the Lord, the King, and the people, that they should be the Lord's people and also between the King and the people.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: As already established here by scriptural backing, only God legitimizes civil government, its jurisdiction, and authority to rule.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: As long as this is recognized, communicated, and submitted to by the leaders of a nation, the people of that nation will enjoy liberty and political stability.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, nations will too quickly tip into tyranny, anarchy, or both.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: The more that authority, power, and position are seen as deriving from man, even in a democracy, the more likely that power will turn tyrannical.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: When power is taken as derived from a dictator's whim or the people's desires or some other arbitrary source, there is little hope for the survival of liberty.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Granted, no earthly civil government in this fallen world will rule with perfect equity and justice.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, the Christian covenantal view of government is the best and most sustainable form of a civil government.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: While some governments may form out of a military dictatorship headed up by a successful general who subjugates people by force, such rule cannot survive for long.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: The general dies, his progeny's leadership turns weak and ineffective, and the nation collapses.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Godless humanists attempt their governments where the democracy or the people draw up a covenant among themselves without any due recognition of God's authority and rule.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because that constitution is then subjected to the whim of the people, these states also fail to produce a stable and sustainable government.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: This lends to perpetual revolution from one generation to the next.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: The strongest form of covenant that would assure a stable, sustainable, and free government is that constitutional government covenanted in the recognized presence and under the authority of God.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: The Christian covenant is made by the people with the true and living God, in the presence of God and recognition of God, and with a covenantal commitment to God.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because authority, power, and law can only originate from the ultimate sovereign, the ruler of the universe, all governments established in revolt against him are, to some extent, illegitimate.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: The better this principle is understood by the people of a nation and their rulers, the more their governments will turn out to be sustainable, stable, and free.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: This was the heritage of the Western world during the Christian era, dating as far back as the Magna Carta in AD twelve fifteen.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: National covenants were signed and sealed under God and in submission to his law.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: The Magna Carta began with in the sight of God and for the honor of God.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: The Swiss Pact of Brunin AD thirteen fifteen signed off with in the name of the Lord amen.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: The Scottish Declaration of Arbroth referenced the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, and appealed to the Supreme King and Judge of the earth.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: The English pilgrims prefaced the Mayflower Compact with In the Name of God amen.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: The Dutch Act of Adjuration declared that authority to rule was constituted by God.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Signed and posted on july fourth, seventeen seventy six, the U.S.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Declaration of Independence acknowledged the people's unalienable rights as endowed by their creator, and ended with an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the World.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Just twelve years later, the U.S.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution began with the words we the people, no mention of God, the creator, the judge, or the sovereign king of the universe.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Although the U.S.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution made a single reference to the year of our Lord, such side mentions do not qualify as a covenant made with God.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution took God out of the picture.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: The agreement was made with and for we the people, moving God out of the picture and constituting a humanist covenant.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: The Enlightenment philosophy had steamrolled across continents.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Connecticut's delegate to the Constitutional Convention, William Williams, was concerned about this deliberate omission.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: He proposed a change in addition to the preamble as stated.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: We the people of the United States, in a firm belief of the being and perfections of the one living and true God, the creator and supreme governor of the world, and his universal providence and authority of his laws, that he will require of all moral agents an account of their conduct, that all rightful powers among men are ordained of immediately derived from God.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Unquestionably, Williams' suggested language reflects something of that which remained of the nation's strong Christian heritage.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sadly, the Federalist opposed the language change and Williams lost his case.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: During the subsequent constitutional debates taking place in the various states, the Federalist and the Anti Federalist disagreed on these matters.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: The Federalist considered the United States a nation formed in covenant with every citizen residing in all thirteen colonies.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, the Anti Federalist preferred an agreement and covenant among the respective states, not directly with the people themselves.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Virginia's Patrick Henry argued against the Constitution on the floor of the Virginia Convention, concerned the nation would give in to the empire impulse.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: He preferred the preface We the States over We the People.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: He insisted strongly against converting this country into a powerful and mighty empire.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick Henry was deeply concerned that Americans would be transformed from respectable independent citizens to abject dependent subjects or slaves.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: He warned that the Constitution should not give the federal government the power to tax because then he predicted rich, snug, fine, fat federal officers, the collectors of taxes and excises, will outnumber anything from the states.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was concerned about the possibility of direct taxation and income tax and enforcement departments, such as an Internal Revenue Service, that would take upon itself unlimited powers of harassing the community, what he called the visionary projects of modern politicians.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: These were prophetic and prescient words indeed.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: If the covenant had been made among the states, the nation would have sustained a more decentralized form of government.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: The first explicit portrayal of a secularized America comes by a Jeffersonian atheist, Joel Barlow, 1754 through 1812, the author of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Barlow wrote these words, oft quoted by those who argue against the Christian foundations of the nation.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: An ardent supporter of the French Revolution, Barlow became a French citizen.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: The Christian educator of early America, Noah Webster, referred to him as striking proof of the effective atheism and licentious examples on the civility and good manners of a well bred man.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: A Boston newspaper described him as an example of the accursed demoralizing powers of that modern French philosophy.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: As it turned out, Barlow and his ilk set the course for the nation toward the secular revolutionary philosophy of the French.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: The tug of war between the Christian faith and French enlightenment ideas was quickly advancing in the direction of a humanist secularism around the turn of the nineteenth century.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: God's law recognized as bearing moral authority in legislatures and courts.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Early American jurisprudence was primarily informed and influenced by the works of William Blackstone, seventeen twenty three to seventeen eighty, an English jurist, a committed Christian, and a dedicated father who raised his seven children with a Christian education.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Blackstone is best known for systematizing and encoding English common law.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: These laws were based on almost a thousand years of legal traditions based in biblical law.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: He much preferred the Christian kings Alfred and Edward to the Roman kings, Theodius and Justinian, for their commitment to biblical law.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Alfred's dooms in Old English statutes or judgments actually contained references to the Mosaic Law.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Blackstone's Oxford lectures were turned into a series of books entitled Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in 1767.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: These commentaries were especially influential in the colonies among the founders of this nation.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: American judges and lawyers were almost universally trained in Blackstone.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: He was frequently cited in the courts.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: The themes of liberty, separation of powers, and the role of government introduced in America's founding documents may be traced to Blackstone.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: The main thrust of his commentaries was to organize English common law.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: He makes occasional reference to the ancient Romans and Greeks, but not as having binding authority.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Most importantly, Blackstone held to scripture as validating the moral foundations of the common law contained in his commentaries.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: In the introduction to the seminal work, Blackstone acknowledged the necessity of divine law conveyed by special revelation in holy scripture.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: This law of nature, dictated by God himself, is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if our reason were always as in our first ancestor Adam, before his transgression clear and perfect, unruffled by passions, unclouded by prejudice, unimpaired by disease or intemperance, the task would be pleasant and easy.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: But every man now finds the contrary in his own experience, that his reason is corrupt and his understanding full of ignorance and error.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: This has given manifold occasion for the benign interposition of divine providence, which in the blindness of human reason hath been pleased to discover and enforce its laws by an immediate and direct revelation.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Blackstone, for example, identified premeditated murder as especially deserving of the death penalty on scriptural grounds.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: We are next to consider the crime of deliberate and willful murder, a crime at which human nature starts and which is, I believe, punished almost universally throughout the world with death.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: The words of the Mosaic law over and above the general precept to Noah that whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, are very emphatic in prohibiting the pardon of murderers.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Moreover, ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death, for the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis chapter nine, verse six, Numbers chapter thirty five, verse thirty-one.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore our English law has provided one course of prosecution, that by appeal of which hereafter werein the king himself is excluded the power of pardoning murder.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Blackstone also cited Leviticus chapter twenty verses thirteen through fifteen in his treatment of crimes against nature.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: He writes that the voice of nature and of reason and the express law of God determined to be capital long before the Jewish dispensation, as witnessed in the destruction of two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, by fire from heaven, so that this is an universal, not merely a provincial precept.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Continental Congress was predominantly Christian, constituted by men who feared God and submitted to his law.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: For example, the Congress approved the printing of 10,000 Bibles in 1777, and then the Pennsylvania legislature provided an interest-free loan for Robert Aitken to complete the project.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Continental Congress also rejected a proposal that would have allowed military discipline to exceed biblical limits due to principles laid down by Levitical law strongly urged by Roger Sherman.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: This was testified to in a communication from John Sullivan to General George Washington.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, that the judge will cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence, according to his guilt, with a certain number of blows.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Forty blows he may give him and no more, lest he should exceed this and beat him with many blows above these, and your brother be humiliated in your sight.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: There is no question that the deism of the Englishman John Toland, sixteen seventy through seventeen twenty two, Anthony Collins sixteen seventy six to seventeen twenty nine, and Henry Saint John sixteen seventy eight to seventeen fifty one was gaining steam in the seventeen hundreds.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: This heretical doctrine held that God created the world but was now uninvolved in the present affairs of nations, and therefore individuals and nations were exempt from his judgments.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Nonetheless, there is no credence to the myth that America's founders were mainly deist.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: George Washington, John Adams, Patrick Henry, and others were constantly referring to God's providential hand upon the world, the nation, and the people in it.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: The Declaration of Independence left the outcome of the case upon a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Among the founders only Ethan Allen and Thomas Paine were committed deist, amounting to only about three percent of America's fathers.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Benjamin Franklin, occasionally placed as a deist by modern historians, famously suggested prayer at the Constitutional Convention with these words I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: During the war, the Continental Congress called for no less than nine days of prayer, fasting, and humiliation, and five days of thanksgiving and praise over a course of eight years.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: One thing is for certain, these men truly believed God ruled over the destiny of nations.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: The proclamation delivered on march sixteenth, seventeen seventy six specifically mentions the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: In Congress march sixteenth, seventeen seventy six, whereas it hath pleased the righteous governor of the world for the punishment of our manifold offenses to permit the sword of war to distress the land which we once enjoyed in peace, and whereas, during the progress of this war, it hath pleased him to support us in our struggles and to crown our arms with remarkable success.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: It has therefore become the indispensable duty of these United Colonies with true penitence of heart and the most reverent devotion publicly to acknowledge the overruling providence of God, to confess and deplore our offenses against him, and to supplicate his interposition for averting the threatened destruction which our sins have deserved, and for restoring to us the blessings of peace and liberty, resolved that it be recommended to the inhabitants of these colonies in general that Thursday, the seventeenth day of May next, be observed as 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 appease his righteous displeasure, and through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ obtain his pardon and forgiveness, humbly imploring him to frustrate the counsels of our enemies, and to bless our civil rulers and the representatives of the people in their several assemblies, that he would graciously be pleased to prosper the means of education and spread the light of Christian knowledge through the remotest corners of the earth.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Toward the beginning of the war, Benjamin Rush asked John Adams if they might win the conflict against the mighty empire, and Adams responded with If we fear God and repent of sins.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: John Adams was not a deist, though neither was he an evangelical Christian.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: As the war progressed, General George Washington ascribed all successes in the war to the interpositions of divine providence, at one time writing that the hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Through the years of his presidency, Washington referred to divine providence or a similar designation no less than two hundred and seventy times in his speeches, letters, and proclamations.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: The question, of course, is whether nations are blessed by the virtues of humility, by the fear of God, by righteous rulers, or by the encouragement to repent of gross sins.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: Does God bless individuals or will he bless nations as well?
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: The surrounding pagan nations were impressed by the blessings that attended ancient Israel, as may be noted from this passage in Deuteronomy chapter four.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, be careful to observe these commandments, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people?
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: For what great nation is there that has God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon him?
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day?
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: General blessings are promised for those who are characterized by humility and the fear of God.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: These characteristics are quite the opposite of the qualities preferred by modern rulers and their constituents, such as pride, self confidence, foul language, populist ideas and boastfulness.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: But when the more righteous qualities of humility and the fear of God are reflected in a people, they invite God's blessings upon their respective nations.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs twenty two, verse four.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Support of a national church.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Prior to the founding of the American Republic, Christian Europe had intermixed the distinct jurisdictions of church and state over the prior centuries.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: England, Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain, and Portugal established national churches financially supported by the state.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: Regrettably, such a mixture of church and state submitted the control of the church to the state.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: There is no biblical basis for this.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: Before the War for Independence, the Church of England was supported by colonial taxation in the southern states of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Court cases like the Parsons Cause of 1763, in which the Anglican clergy of Virginia were seeking more tax support from farmers who were dealing with years of bad harvest, did not help the cause of tax funded churches in the South.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick Henry defended the farmers and effectively won the case.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: The legislature of Georgia attempted the establishment of multiple denominations, paid for by tax monies in 1785, but the measure never got off the ground.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: This shift led to the First Amendment of the U.S.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution, disallowing the establishment and tax support of any church denomination in the United States.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: A biblical view of the nature of man.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: There is none who understands.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: There is none who seeks after God.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: They have all turned aside.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: They have together become unprofitable.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: There is none who does good, no, not one.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Their feet are swift to shed blood.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: There is no fear of God before their eyes.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter three verses ten through twelve and verses fifteen through eighteen.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: How one views the nature of man is quite important in shaping a civil government.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Has mankind fallen into sin or not?
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: Can government policy contribute to the moral perfection of man in his fallen estate?
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible teaches a rather pessimistic view of natural man.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: America's founders almost universally held to a biblical view of the nature of man, as evidenced by their writings.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: The scriptures teach that man's heart is corrupt and desperately wicked.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 9.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thus, human governments can only make the best out of a bad situation.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: Democracies are not to be trusted.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: John Adams, not exactly an Orthodox Christian by any sense of the term, was still convinced of this.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: In view of the French Revolution, he commented, Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: Whether Christian or not, the primary fathers held to the same position.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thomas Jefferson In questions of power, then let no one be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: Kentucky Resolutions seventeen ninety eight.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: Must never be trusted without a check.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Letter to Thomas Jefferson, february second, eighteen sixteen.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: James Madison.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Federalist No.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: forty seven seventeen eighty eight.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick Henry I have reason to suspect ambitious grasps at power.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: I see the awful immensity of the dangers with which it is pregnant.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: June fifth, seventeen eighty eight, Virginia Convention.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: This view of human nature drove the founders to advocate a rule by law and national constitution, balance of powers, and a bill of rights.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: This balance of powers only hedges bets against tyrants by securing as much liberty for the people as possible through constitutional provisions.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: The messianic view of the state would have to wait until the arrival of Marxism and socialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Montague's political theories weighed heavily on the minds of the nation's founders at the organization of the United States government.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: The French philosopher held true to his Calvinist roots and his estimation of the nature of man when he wrote Constant Experien shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it and to carry his authority as far as it will go.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: To prevent this abuse, it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: More than anything, this is what precipitated the carefully designed American system of government with its multifaceted balance of powers.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: There are at least seven facets to this balance of powers hardwired into U.S.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: governance as designed and implemented in America's founding documents.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, a balance of upper house and lower house in Congress.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: Dating back to the development of the Magna Carta AD twelve fifteen, Western governments established a helpful balance of powers between the wise and experienced persons in society, business leaders, property owners, lords, aristocracy, and lower magistrates, and the wider populace?
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: Shall all rule and authority be placed with the majority?
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: What if the majority is given a revolution and the redistribution of the nation's wealth?
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do Proverbs chapter thirty verses twenty one through twenty two offer any wisdom on this matter?
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: For three things the earth is perturbed.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, for four it cannot bear up, for a servant when he reigns, a fool when he is filled with food.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs chapter thirty verses twenty one through twenty two.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: America avoided a pure democracy because of the tendency of the mob to one, take an unwise course, two, be manipulated by the oligarchy of media, three, give opportunity for the poorer fifty one percent to vote a redistribution of the wealth, and four, be blown around constantly from this popular opinion to another popular opinion and thereby destabilize the society.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thus, initially members of the upper chamber of the U.S.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: Congress, senators, were appointed by the wisdom of state governments, not subject to democratic election.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: This changed with the Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in nineteen thirteen as America edged toward a more consistent democracy.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, a balance of federal government and state government powers.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: During the constitutional debates at the state assemblies, the Anti Federalist were particularly concerned about the centralization of power in the hands of a few.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: These were successful in securing the Tenth Amendment to the U.S.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution, stating that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: Although the amendment has been almost entirely abandoned by the provision of billions of dollars in federal subsidies, this provision restrained the empire impulse slightly for a couple of centuries.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: The county sheriffs have also contributed some restraint upon tyrant wannabes in America.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: This was made obvious more recently during the COVID nineteen crisis in which a few counties were far less tyrannical than others when it came to enforcing state and federal restrictions on businesses, churches, and families.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: The Electoral College was also designed by America's founding fathers in order to balance out powers between the large and small states for the presidential election.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: If a candidate wins the majority of a state in the presidential election, all the electoral votes go to that candidate except for two states, Maine and Nebraska.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: The candidate is therefore intent on winning the most states in order to capture the seat.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the electoral votes are of higher value than the popular vote in the presidential election.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: Historically, Americans would vote for electors in the presidential election, who, in turn, would choose the candidate they preferred.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: The founders intended this to add a layer of thoughtful deliberation among wise leaders in each state and thereby protect against electing popular demagogues.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: Four, a balance of constitutional law, common law, and legislative law.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution itself offers a balance of powers and that judges, legislatures, and executives are held accountable to it.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: Violation of constitutional law could result in removal from office.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: When taking the oath of office, the president himself must swear that he will, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: This written covenant with its amendments is still respected as the highest law of the land, regulating the actions taken by all present and future leaders of the nation.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: To this day, common law is still respected in U.S.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: courts.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: To a greater or lesser extent, members of the U.S.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: Supreme Court will abide by stare decisis, holding to the wisdom and precedent of previous court decisions.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is especially applicable to common law applications for civil suits and torts.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: All power to establish law, therefore, does not reside with the nation's legislatures.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: Congress also is bound by the Constitution, and common law must still inform the courts.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: five, a balance of legislative, judicial, and executive powers.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution also provides a carefully spelled out list of delegated powers for each branch of the federal government.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: The president may be impeached.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: Congress may override a presidential veto by a two-thirds majority vote.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: Congress must approve the presidential budgets.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: The Supreme Court may also strike down a presidential action, and although this has been largely ignored, only Congress may declare war, raise and support armies, and call a militia to suppress insurrections and riots.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: The judicial branch can only hear certain cases.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: The judges cannot enforce their decisions.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: Congress can create and abolish lower courts and impeach judges on certain grounds.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: Constitutional amendments may also supersede court decisions.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: Congressional limitations are largely held back by the Tenth Amendment.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: six, a balance of judge and jury within judicial powers.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution also retained a right of trial by a jury of peers, thus distributing power from a single judge to a panel of citizens.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: Also included in the American system of jurisprudence is jury nullification.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: The Bushels case of sixteen seventy and Zinger trial of seventeen thirty five established the right in American law.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: These cases cleared the way for a jury returning a not guilty verdict by nullifying the law itself and the determination that the law is unjust or unjustly applied as judged by the law of God.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: This practice has been suppressed in American courts, beginning with the court decision SPARF v.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: United States 1895, where the Supreme Court ruled that judges are not required to inform juries of their power to nullify.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_00: In light of this Supreme Court decision, jury nullification is technically legal but discouraged.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: Courts can remove jurors who openly state an intent to nullify, which has resulted in individuals exercising the right without disclosure.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, number seven, the auxiliary branches of government.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: Although typically not included in the list of powers, the free press of newspapers, television news, radio news, and internet programming also balances out American governance.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: The administrative state constitutes one more branch or accumulator of power, given that these federal bureaucracies control at least a quarter of the gross national income.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: This turns into an extremely powerful force and government at the present.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: The same principle applies to the administrative arms of state and local governments, at least one hundred agencies operating in any given state.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: Unless the bureaucracy is lazy, incompetent, and inefficient, sustained administrative regulation and enforcement conducted by unelected bureaucrats without term limits labors the economy with onerous controls and increases draconian oppression upon the people year by year, generation upon generation.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_00: Ideally, the elected legislature and executives should offer some balance to the ever expanding powers of the bureaucracy.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: The larger and more powerful the bureaucracy, the more likely the elections will be biased by a conflict of interest on account of those who benefit most by the election of politicians that are likely to grow the bureaucracy.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: The stated need for religion per America's founding fathers.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because of the transgression of a land, many are its princes, but by a man of understanding and knowledge, right will be prolonged.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs chapter twenty eight verse two.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: The nation's founders understood clearly the limitations of government, the bane of tyranny, and the preferred form of government for free people.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yet the quality of government for any people would always rely upon the moral condition of the people themselves.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: Governments are always only as good as the people they serve.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_00: For this reason, the fathers of the country encouraged religion, a word very differently understood then as it is now.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: Noah Webster defined religion as a belief in the being and perfections of God and the revelation of his will to man, and man's obligation to obey his commands in a state of reward and punishment and in man's accountableness to God and also true godliness or piety of life.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: Lampsed Christians like John Adams understood morality as some vague virtue based more in natural law than biblical law.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_00: Achieving this virtue was not dependent upon the work of Christ and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit and the hearts of men, yet the principle behind Proverbs chapter twenty eight verse two was clearly understood by these men as indicated by these familiar quotes.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: William Penn let men be good and the government cannot be bad.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_00: If it be ill they will cure it.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: But if men be bad, let the government be never so good they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: William Penn Frame of Government of Pennsylvania sixteen eighty two John Adams Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other Letter to the officers of the first brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, october eleventh, seventeen ninety eight.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_00: Benjamin Franklin Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: Letter to Misters Abbe Charneux and Arnault, april seventeenth, seventeen eighty seven.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick Henry It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains attributed but widely circulated during his time.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: Noah Webster The moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_00: History of the United States, eighteen thirty two.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_00: James Madison Belief in a God all powerful, wise, and good is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: Letter to Frederick Beasley, november twentieth, eighteen twenty five.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Bill of Rights James Madison and the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia chose not to include an enumeration of rights for Americans in the first edition of the Constitution that was released in September of 1787.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_00: The battle would have to play out at the Virginia Convention in June 1788.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: Against James Madison's protest, George Mason, the author of Virginia's Bill of Rights, rose to propose a fundamental statement of rights for all Americans to be included in the U.S.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick Henry's substitute motion on the floor to require the inclusion of a Bill of Rights before moving ahead to ratify the Constitution failed by a vote of eighty to eighty eight.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: Edmund Randolph offered a slightly modified motion that used softer language, but still underscored the need for stated rights, and the motion passed.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_00: Subsequently, the ratifying convention formed a committee to suggest a list of amendments of rights for the first meeting of the U.S.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_00: Congress.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: Just before the convention convened, Patrick Henry had already drafted his own list, most of which the committee incorporated into its final proposal.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_00: Massachusetts joined in with a similar request.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks to motions proposed by Samuel Adams and John Hancock, the United States Congress complied with Virginia's request for a Bill of Rights, giving us the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the U.S.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution was procedural, organizational, and largely unfit for holding back tyrants and restraining the ever expanding grasp of the federal government, but that one-page document appended to the U.S.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution, advocated by Patrick Henry, George Mason, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock proved to be invaluable to the defense and maintenance of individual freedoms.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: Bill of Rights has protected liberty for millions over the course of thousands of court battles in the last two centuries.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: These rights have protected many innocent people, journalists, pastors, and evangelists who wish to preach the gospel.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: This has served as a good restraint for many power hungry tyrants who would have persecuted innocent citizens, created a police state, and violated God's laws at the highest level of governance in this free country, the United States of America.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: At the founding of the nation, Americans were legitimately concerned for the rising tyranny of monarchies and democracies alike.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_00: The amendments they insisted on aligned with the structure of biblical law as follows First Amendment.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_00: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: A.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible offers no justification for the state regulating the church, appointing pastors or priests, or controlling the teaching in the church.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_00: B.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: David did not prosecute Shimei for criticizing his rule.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_00: Every king is concerned about any fomenting of revolution against the established order.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: Numbers chapter sixteen verses one through fourteen and first Kings two verses thirty six through forty six.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this may have to be put down by violence, yet verbal criticism of a king's actions or character should never constitute a civil crime.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter thirteen, verse thirty two, second Samuel chapter twelve, verse seven, first Kings chapter twenty one, verse nineteen.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: Second Amendment.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_00: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: A.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus clearly allowed for the ownership and bearing of swords and defensive weaponry.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 22, verse 36.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: B.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: Biblical law allows for the defense of a home to the point of killing a thief if he breaks in by night.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 22, verse 2.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_00: Third Amendment.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_00: No soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: A.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_00: The confiscation of a home or any private property by governing authorities is not permitted in Scripture.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 27, verse 17.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_00: Hosea chapter 5, verse 10.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: B.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: Abigail prevented what would have been David's unjust attempt to confiscate food and provision from Nabal's home.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Samuel chapter 25, verses 18 through 35.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth Amendment.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_00: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_00: A.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible forbids the trespassing into the fields of the fatherless.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 23, verse 10.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_00: B.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible severely warns against rumors or acting on anything without solid witness.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 17 verses 2 through 7, chapter 19, verse 15, and Numbers chapter 35, verse 30, 2 Corinthians 13, verse 1.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth Amendment, no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when an actual service in time of war or public danger.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_00: A Elijah soundly rebuked Ahab for confiscating Naboth's vineyard, 1 Kings chapter 21.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_00: B.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_00: The original owners of property in Israel were to receive the Back their lands on the fiftieth year if somehow it had transferred into the hands of others.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus chapter 25.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: C.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah rebuked the Jewish nobles for seizing lands and homes of the poor.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah chapter 5 verses 1 through 11.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_00: D.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_00: The scriptures speak negatively of all seizure of property of others without a trial and just sentence.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hoseah chapter 5, verse 10, and Micah 2 verses 1 through 2.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_00: E.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Biblical law requires two or three witnesses and court trials, which does not necessarily include the accused.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 17, verse 6, and chapter 19, verse 15.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sixth Amendment.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_00: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_00: A.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_00: The wisdom literature points out that slowly administered justice will only increase the anarchy and lawlessness of the people.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes chapter eight verse eleven.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is also frustrating for those who seek that justice.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 18 verses 1 through 8.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_00: B.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_00: The accused has a right to receive direct and honest testimony how he has sinned against the victim, whether in person or in a court of law.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_00: See Matthew chapter 18 verses 15 through 17.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_00: C.
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Witnesses and the accused stand together before the Lord in Deuteronomy, chapter 19, verses 16 through 17.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And D, all sides have a right to be heard in a court of law, and the widow shall have some person to advocate for her.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 1, verse 16.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah chapter 1 verse 17.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Seventh Amendment.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_00: In suits at common law where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_00: A.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Juries are local judges, or referred to in Scripture as rulers over tens.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 18, verses 19 through 22.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_00: These had more to do with civil trials and controversies.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Eighth Amendment.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_00: A.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Biblical law does not allow unjust fines or cruel and unusual torture exceeding forty stripes.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter twenty five, verse three.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_00: B.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Biblical law does not allow disproportionate punishments for the crime.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter twenty one verse twenty four.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Ninth Amendment The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_00: C.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible condemns the oppression of the poor and advocates for their defense from tyranny.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs twenty eight verses fifteen through sixteen.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes chapter five verse eight.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Tenth Amendment The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible recommends decisions be handled by lower courts and lower magistrates first.
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter eighteen verses nineteen through twenty two.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_00: B The Bible discourages the multiplication of princes, which typically represent the king's bureaucracy.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs twenty eight verse two.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_00: C The Bible cautions against bureaucracies that tyrannize the people.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel chapter twenty two verses twenty seven through twenty nine.
• 1:14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Zephaniah chapter three verse three.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_00: The United States of America, a Christian nation.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_00: In all of human history, the United States of America serves as the best example of a nation formed on Christian foundations laid down by sincere, biblically grounded Christians, the sons and daughters of the Reformation.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Later, during the Great Awakening, evangelists like George Whitfield prepared the spiritual soil for grounding liberty in God's law and Christ's work.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_00: The Google Engram usage metric detects very little use of the English word liberty in the 1710s and 1720s.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thereafter, the Great Awakening reintroduced the word into common parlance, and by 1770, a love for real and substantial liberty was beating vigorously in the hearts of the American people.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_00: By the grace of God, that rich Christian heritage continued to contribute concrete and rebar to the nation's foundations throughout the 1770s and seventeen eighties.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Spiritual decline into deism, atheism, and unitarianism continued unabated until 1800, at which time the Second Great Awakening stemmed the apostasy just slightly.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Influence from the right wing and left wing Enlightenment was pushed aside just enough to retain some Christian moorings in those early years.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Assigning ratios to it, America's leaders were 60% committed to a biblical worldview and forty percent compromised to the Enlightenment philosophies by 1763.
• 1:16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Twenty years later, this ratio had reversed to a worldview mix of forty percent Christian and sixty percent Enlightenment.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_00: America was a Christian nation until 1783, if that be defined as any human society led by Christians.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_00: The preponderance of American leaders in the Continental Congress during the 1770s adhered to a Christian view of man, anthropology, a Christian view of law as derived from Scripture, a Christian view of God's providential rule over nations, an acknowledgement of Jesus Christ as Lord of all, and a fear of the true and living God.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly this was true of the men who issued calls for days of fasting and repentance in seventeen seventy nine and seventeen eighty, but of course that all changed by the last decade of the eighteenth century.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Nonetheless, despite all the powers of hell via France and elsewhere opposing it, this nation was established on a substantially Christian foundation.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Though battered and shattered by a thousand explosive charges, some remnants of that heritage remain after two hundred and fifty years.
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_00: In spite of its many failings, severe moral compromises, and an abandonment of the Christian faith, this country has served as a refuge, a beacon, an inspiration, and a positive influence to one extent or another upon every nation on earth.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Will Christians ever find another opportunity to bless the whole world in this way again sometime in the future?
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly, but only by the grace of God.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_00: He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he has chosen as his own inheritance.
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm chapter 33, verses 10 and 12.
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a production of the Generations Media Network.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_01: For more information, go to generations.org slash media.