America's Christian Heritage
The United States a Biblical Government?
The American Union Modeled After Ancient Israel
“Our family of states, so many sovereignties governing themselves, yet consenting to be governed, like constellations each with its own order and laws, but all obeying one great rule, suggesting, as organized communities, more than any other nation, the divine pattern of the tribes in the Hebrew commonwealth.”
-Nehemiah Adams Pastor Harvard graduate 1855
“The national government was headed by Moses, and there was a national legislature composed of a council of seventy elders, or what we would call senators [exodus 19.7 24.1 Numbers 11 16-17] Each of the twelve “states” [tribes] had its own Governor and legislature, or council of ruling elders [senators.]”
-David Barton Natural Born President
“Gods model for governments purpose and administration was set forth in his establishment of the nation of Israel whose form of government operated by rule of righteousness within twelve separate limited jurisdictions [tribes] and consequently was a federation.”
--Timothy and Chuck Baldwin Romans 13 the True Meaning of Submission 2011
While not perfect, the United states was originally a union of states, a federation of states as originally created by the founders most resembled of any nation on earth that of Gods original model for government. And I believe received Gods blessing more than any other nation for it. The original plan for Israel from God was of a decentralized tribal union/nation with its foundation being the laws of God that connected the loosely held tribes into the nation of Israel. In Gods laws he had given unalienable rights and a republican form of government with elected officials. Much how the united states was a union of states under a constitution [derived from laws/principles of gods law] in a republican form of government.
“One of the most important modes for war and for politics in general was old testament isreal.”
-James P Byrd Sacred Scripture Sacred war the bible and the American Revolution Oxford u Press 2013
“Israel, being a most prefect resemblance of these American colonies.”
-Cyprion Strong of Chatham Connecticut 1777
“Hebraic republicanism...could serve not only to tear down monarchy, it could also build up a constitutional government.”
-James P Byrd Sacred Scripture Sacred war the bible and the American Revolution Oxford u Press 2013
To the early Israelite the law of God was the government. Kings, Judges, elders were all under the authority of the law as in the United states where elected officials are servants under the constitution
16 When they have a difficulty, they come to me, and I judge between one and another; and I make known the statutes of God and His laws.”
-Exodus 18.16
43 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. 44 And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all.
-Mark 10 43-44
Besides being held accountable by the constitution and “we the people” who could elect our officials out of office, one way our elected officials acknowledged the higher authority was through prayer proclamations. Between 1622 and 1815 1,500 proclamations of prayer or fasting were given in the united states. 300 were given by the church, 1,200 by the local, state or federal government. John Adams the second U.S president gave this one in 1798
By the President of the United States of America A PROCLAMATION -
“As the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and blessing of Almighty God; and the national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him, but a duty whose natural influence is favorable to the promotion of that morality and piety, without which social happiness cannot exist....”
John Hancock called for state prayer Oct 15 1791 as the Governor of Massachusetts-
“And above all, not only to continue to us the enjoyment of our civil Rights and Liberties; but the great and most important Blessing, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I do earnestly recommend, that we may join the penitent confession of our Sins, and implore the further continuance of the Divine Protection, and Blessings of Heaven upon this People; especially that He would be graciously pleased to direct, and prosper the Administration of the Federal Government, and of this, and the other States in the Union that all may bow to the Scepter of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, and the whole Earth be filled with his Glory.”
Samuel Adams Governor of Massachusetts in 1795 proclamation of prayer and fasting-
“we may unitedly implore the forgiveness of our Sins, through the merits of Jesus Christ, and humbly supplicate our Heavenly Father, to grant us the aids of his Grace, for the amendment of our Hearts and Lives.”
“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity… From the day of the Declaration…they were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.” - John Quincy Adams 1821
Our Biblical Constitution
“…the religion which has introduced civil liberty, is the religion of Christ and His apostles…This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free constitutions of government…the moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all of our civil constitutions and laws.”
-Noah Webster 1833
Political science professors from the university of Houston did a study on 15,000 writings from the founding era that had impact on the formation of the Constitution. They identified 3,154 quotes by the founders on where there ideas came form to form the Constitution. Their work was published as “The origins of American Constitutionalism.” they found 34% of the quotes came directly from bible as the main source, 8.3% came from Montesquieu, 7.9% from Blackstone, and next was John Locke at 6.9%. Yet Montesquieu, Blackstone and Locke all often quoted the bible in their works for proper government. So the actual impact from the bible is far greater. For example in Locks most influential work a 400 page “2 Trinities on Government” he referred to the bible 1,500 times.
“Of all the nations in the world . . . most justly called a Christian nation...has so largely shaped and molded it."
-Supreme Court Justice David Brewer 1837-1910
Everything in the declaration of Independence such as all men created equal, the consent of the governed, etc was already preached widely by pastors before 1776 for proper biblical government. Likewise what the British were doing such as taxation without representation and the stamp act were shown to be forms of tyranny in the bible. These were the topics of many sermons in America that incited people towards the revolution. The reverend John Wise who preached these sermons was credited with the ideas that formed the declaration of independence. When John Adams was asked who was most responsible for the revolution he named the Rev Samuel Cooper, the rev John Mayhew, the Rev George Witfeild, and the Rev Charles Chauncy.
Republicanism
“[O]ur citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.
-Noah Webster, History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), p. 6.
"The Bible contains the most profound philosophy, the most perfect morality and the most refined policy that ever was conceived upon earth. It is the most republican book in the world, and therefore I will still revere it,"
-John Adams
Article 4 section 4 of the constitution gives Americans a republican form of government. The idea of elected official comes from Exodus 18.21 which was radical thinking at the time as no other country Americans came from had a republic. They elected christian leaders from among them over local, county, state, and federal levels or “tens” “fifties” “hundreds” and “thousands”.
"Furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain; and you shall place these over them as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens.
-Exodus 18.21
Some of the state constitutions were as follows.
1776 Delawares
“Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house must say “I do profess faith in god the father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ, his only son, and in the holy spirit, one God and blessed forevermore, and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the old and new testaments to be given by divine inspiration.”
Pennsylvania/Vermont
“Each member of the legislation before he takes a seat shall make and subscribe the following I do believe in one god the creator and Governor of the universe the rewarded of the good and punisher of the wicked.”
Tennessee 1796
“No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this State.”
A republican government is not a democracy [a form of government the founders hated and was seen as tyrannical]. In a republic majority does not rule, the law is the ultimate authority. All people are held under the law. If private property is protected in a republican form of government, it matters not if 51% say they now want to steal your land to use for their own purposes. In a republic built on gods law, murder will always be murder even if the majority one day decide its ok to murder.
“I have always considered Christianity as the strong ground of republicanism.”
-Benjamin Rush, letter to Thomas Jefferson on August 22, 1800
[the bible] “That book, Sir, is the Rock upon which our republic rests.”
-Andrew Jackson
Our Biblical Laws
“The fundamental basis of this Nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally wind up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the state.”
-Harry Truman
Most of our laws and principles that led to the declaration and constitution derive from the bible. Early American law books had our laws with the bible versus for justification of why they were there. Blackstones 1766 “commentaries on the law” became the final word in courts and was a primary legal source. Throughout his work he sited the bible as justification for the laws. Charles Finney studied law and became a christian by reading Blackstones work. There was so much scripture in the law textbook that he converted and became a christian. He than went on to become a famous Evangelist in the second great awakening. Blackstone also said “No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this...the holy scriptures.”
“The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.”
-1929 President Calvin Coolidge
Separation of powers comes from Jeremiah 17.9. The idea of three branches of government comes from Isaiah 33.22. Tax exemption for churches Ezra 7.24. Article 1 section 8 of the constitution on uniform immigration laws see Leviticus 19.34. Article 2 section 1 paragraph 5 see Deuteronomy 17.15. article 3 section 3 see Deuteronomy 17.6. Provision against attainder see Ezekiel 18.20. The right to jury for serious crimes comes from Numbers 35 24-26. The right to a defendant in court and to know the charges against you comes from John 7.51 and Proverbs 18.17. Cannot be convicted but by the testimony of two witnesses Deuteronomy 19.15. That you must have an accuser in court comes form Jesus and the woman found in adultery when he said “Where are your accusers? When Jesus did not open his mouth to accuse himself at his trial gives the right of not self incriminating, the fifth amendment. The first welfare reform in America was because of Timothy 5.8 and 2 Thessalonians 3.10 Ideas such as private property and the free enterprise system comes from the bible. Article 1 section 1 of the constitution comes from Ezekiel. In Numbers chapter 1 gods economy for the military was armed citizenry not a standing army. This is why the United States had a very small national army and each state had militias the strongest units in the land. And many more.
“T]he Christian religion… is the basis, or rather the source, of all genuine freedom in government… I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of Christianity have not a controlling influence.”
-Noah Webster
Our laws were so closely aligned with Christianity that in 1811 in the court case of Peoples vs Ruggles a man was handing out anti-Jesus, anti-god, anti-bible papers, so he was charged with 3 months in jail and fined $500 dollars for a attack on the country. The judge said an attack on Jesus was a attack on Christianity, and an attack on Christianity was a attack on the foundation of the country.
"This is a Christian nation. . . . [T]he calling of this republic a Christian nation is not a mere pretence, but a recognition of an historical, legal, and social truth"
-Justice David Brewer (1837-1910), appointed to the Court by President Benjamin Harrison
“Human law must rest its authority ultimately, upon the authority of that law, which is divine.”
-James Wilson Signer of the declaration Supreme Court Justice
Biblical Education
Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.
-Proverbs 22.6
[T]he only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government is the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible.
-Benjamin Rush
In 1782 as an act of congress they published an official bible for use in schools. Our education system included the bible and teaching Christianity as a God reveled system. The Bible was the basic textbook and used far more often in school [sometimes as only textbook often due to availability] than any other source. Patrick Henry said the bible should be read in our schools in preference to any other or all combined. The first federal law on education came from the northwest ordinance article 3 signed by Washington in 1789. In it, it said, if schools want to be a part of united states they must teach religion, morality, and than education. Benjamin Rush the “Father of public schools under the constitution” in 1790 wrote “The mode of education proper in a republic” and said the three primary responsibilities of schools was, first of all, to love and serve God. Second, love of country. Third love of family. The new England primer was the first textbook published in America, it was the primary source outside the bible used until 1930. This text was interwoven with the bible, for example kids were taught
“In colonial times, the Bible was the primary tool in the educational process. In fact, according to Columbia University Professor Dr. Lawrence A. Cremin, the Bible was “the single most primary source for the intellectual history of colonial America.” From their knowledge of the Bible, a highly literate, creative people emerged.”
- Swanson, M.-E. 1983. Teaching Children the Bible. Mayflower Institute Journal. 1: 5.
This so ingrained the bible into the minds of its citizens that a European observer said in America you were as likely to here a deep theological debate in a bar, as you were in a seminary. Because of this upbringing americans viewed the bible as the authority on all subjects, not just salvation.
“The bible was accepted as the ultimate authority on economics and politics no less than on religion and morals.”
-Christopher Hill Historian
However twice in America before 1900 schools tried to teach education without Christianity. In 1844 a school in Philadelphia said they were going to teach morality but not Christianity. It went to the supreme court Svidal vs Girard 1844. the supreme Court said to the school
“why may not the bible and especially the new testament be read and taught as divine revaluation in school? its general precepts expounded and its glorious principles of morality communicated where can the purist principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the new testament.”
They ruled Christianity should be taught. Later in 1892 the US supreme court case church of holy trinity vs united states. when a public school tried to get Christianity out the court said
“No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation state or national because this is a religious people... this is a Christian nation.”
They sited 87 court precedents from the founding fathers, acts of state governments, acts of congress etc to prove we were a Christian nation. The court said many more could be quoted but surely 87 was enough.
“Over 300 court cases in the past two centuries have said that America is a christian nation.”
-David Barton American heritage Series
Washington D.C
"In the United States, Christianity is the original, spontaneous, and national religion"
-Constitutional law professor Edward Mansfield (1801-1880)
Our capital building was authorized by congress for use as a church. By 1867 it was one of the largest in the country. Members of congress studied the bible in the white house during secession. The first time the founders met in congress on sep 17 1774 they opened with prayer and than studied four chapters of the bible. The Washington monument has multiple bible verses inscribed on it, such as Proverbs 10.7 John 5.39 and others. Below are just a few of the biblical inscriptions that can be found in D.C for dozens more see
https://shop.wallbuilders.com/the-am...-dvd-boxed-set
For statues of
-Moses holding ten commandments Over Supreme Court
-Inside the Supreme Court Room Display of the 10 commandments
-Ten Commandments in the floor of the National Archives
-Moses National Statuary Hall
-“proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” -Leviticus 25.10 Liberty Bell Inscription
-Micah 6.8 Inscribed on the walls at the library on congress Also inscribed are Psalm 19.1 Proverbs 4.7 and John 1.5
-Gutenberg Bible Library of Congress
-Room in the capital just off the rotunda reserved for prayer for members of congress. George Washington knelling in prayer Psalm 16.1 inscribed
-Inside the rotunda the pilgrims led in prayer by chaplain Brewster with open bible that reads the new testament according to our Lord and savior Jesus Christ
see here
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...cal-Government
Quotes
"Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one sect [denomination]. Any attempt to level and discard all religion would have been viewed with universal indignation. . . . In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity; that, in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions"
-HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE 1852-1853
“The only foundation for...a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object of all republican governments.”
-Benjamin Rush, founding father
“The great Conservative element in our system the thing witch holds our system together is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and their Divine truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
-House Judiciary Committee 1855
[T]he Christian religion – its general principles – must ever be regarded among us as the foundation of civil society
Danial webster
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” -John Adams
"This is a Christian Nation"
Harry Truman
“It is unnecessary for us, however, to consider what would be the legal effect of a devise in Pennsylvania for the establishment of a school or college for the propagation of Judaism, or Deism, or any other form of infidelity. Such a case is not to be presumed to exist in a Christian country.”
-Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, 43 U. S. 127, 198 (1844)
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: "We are Christians, not because the law demands it, not to gain exclusive benefits or to avoid legal disabilities, but from choice and education; and in a land thus universally Christian, what is to be expected, what desired, but that we shall pay a due regard to Christianity?"
"[T]he teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally….impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teaching were removed."
-Teddy Roosevelt
"One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law. . . . There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundations. . . . I verily believe Christianity necessary to the support of civil society. In [our] republic, there would seem to be a peculiar propriety in viewing the Christian religion as the great basis on which it must rest for its support and permanence"
-Justice Joseph Story (1779-1845) was appointed to the Court by President James Madison.
Has [government] any solid foundation? Any chief cornerstone?... I think it has an everlasting foundation in the unchangeable will of God… The sum of my argument is that civil government is of God.
-James otis
religion and virtue are the only foundations not only of republicanism and of all free government but of social felicity under all governments and in all combinations of human society.
-John Adams
“America was born to exemplify the devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the Holy Scriptures.”
-Woodrow Wilson 1913
“The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our prevalent notions of the character of God, the great moral governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free institutions.”
-William McGuffey “McGuffey's Reader” for Schools 1836
“I’ve 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. If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that “except the Lord build the House they labor in vain who build it.” 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.”
-Benjamin Franklin 1787
“In regard to this Great Book (The Bible), I have but to say, it is the best gift God had given to man. All the good The Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we would not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.”
-Abraham Lincoln
“The American nation had been founded by intellectuals who had accepted a world view that was based upon Biblical authority.”
-historian Gilman Ostrander Ostrander, G. M. 1971. The Evolutionary Outlook, 1875- 1900. Clio, MI: Marston Press, 1.
“…(my) great joy and glory that, in occupying an exalted position in the nation, I am enabled, to preach the practical moralities of The Bible to my fellow-countrymen and to hold up Christ as the hope and Savior of the world.”
-Theodore Roosevelt 1909
"America was born a Christian nation – America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture"
-Woodrow Wilson
"For many years, my hope for the perpetuity of our institutions has rested upon Bible morality and the general dissemination of Christian principles. This is an element which did not exist in the ancient republics. It is a basis on which free governments may be maintained through all time. . . . Free government is not a self-moving machine. . . . Our mission of freedom is not carried out by brute force, by canon law, or any other law except the moral law and those Christian principles which are found in the Scriptures"
-Justice John McLean (1785-1861) was appointed to the Court by President Andrew Jackson.
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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
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