Did the framers of the document employ the principles found in the Holy Bible in the formation of the United States Constitution?
“The Bible was the Great Political Text Book of the patriots.” It was only natural that the Founding Fathers drew upon their knowledge of eternal truths when the construction of a new form of government.
Property os both internal and external. Through the Gospel of Christ, the concept of Property was transformed from a mere external possession of thing to what a man internally. External property includes one’s “lands, merchandiese, or money.” The most important the internal property of man, is found in “his opinions and the free use of his faculties, and, the free choice ofthe objects on which to employ them… Conscience is the most sacred of all property.”
The Constitution of the United States enshrines the kind and degree of individual liberty found only in the Word of God; Representation, self-government, property, and union- these are among basic Biblical principles which found expression in the document.
The Principle of Representation: Turning to the Old Testament, we find the principles of representative Moses was instructed by God. “Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you… captians over thousands, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribe. [Deu. 1:13.15]
The first written constitution in America was adopted on Jan. 14, 1639, in Hartford, Connecticut, leadership of the Reverend Thomas Hooker. His political concepts as abserved in the following outline of the sermon on May 31, 1638; not only laid the way for the “Fundamental Orders of Connecticut” but also initiated in America the development of the political principle of representative government. The text was Deu. 1:13.
I. “That the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God’s own allowance.”
II. “The privilege of election which belongs unto the people, therefore, must not be exercised according to their humors, but according to the blessed will and law God.”
III. “They who have power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is their power, also, to set the bounds of the power and place unto which they all them.”
“Eight months later, the fundamental law embodying these principles for the first time in human history, were sentenced, ordered, and decreed. It is impossible not to recognize the Master hand,”, so stated George Leon Walker in 1884 in his work, History of the First Church in Hartford- 1633 to 1883.” The Republicanism of Christianity” is the theme of the following interesting excerpt from Edward Hall’s the Puritans and their Principles, 1846:
“It is remarable how men of comprehensive views, and free sectarian bias, have agreed with regard to THE REPUBLICANISM OF CHRISTIANITY.” ‘Christianity’, says Montequieu, is a stranger to despotic power.’ The religion, says De Tecqueville,’ which declares that all are equal in the sight of God, will not refuse to acknowledge that all citizens are equal in the eye of the law. Religion is the companion of liberty in all its battles and all its conflcts;…Abee de la Mennais, acknowledge as one of the most powerful minds in Europe, little as he regards Christianity as revelation from God, familiarly speaks of its Author as ‘THE GREAT RUPLICAN! our own De Witt Clinton said,”Christianity, in its essence, its doctrines, and its forms, is republican.”
The tendency of the true Gospel principles is to bring the most absolute despotism under the limits of law, …establish every where the spirit and the reality, if not the very forms of a republic.”
Principles of Self-Government; Precepts of Christian self-government are found in both Old and New Testaments.
“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” [Proverbs 16:32]
“For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” [I Timothy 3:5]
These principles was made operative with the Gospel of Christ and the redemption of the individual [an inner change within the heart of man resulting in obedience to the laws of God]. This is government in which external law [the outward control over the individual] is superseded by the internal law ["Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty."]
Our republican form of self-government dates back to churches of the New Testament. Leonard Bacon’s Genesis of the law New England Churches, 1874:
“…there are indications that in very place the society of beleivers in Christ was a little republic…The Churches instituted by the opostles were institutions only…Each local church was complete in itself, and was hold responsible to Christ for its own character, and the character of those whom it retained in its fellowhsip…Such were the churches at the date of the New Testament Scriptures.”
The Principle of Property; “We are God’s workmanchip” and “property is in his own person” are the themes discussed by John Locke, 17 century Christian philosopher whose writtings were studied extensively by the Founding Fathers.
“For men being all the workmanship of one Ominipotent, and infinitely wise Maker: All the servants of one Sovereign Master, sent into the world by His order, and about His business, they are His property, whose workmanship they are…”
“Though the Earth, and inferior creatures be common to all men, and yet every Man has a Property in his own Person; This nobody has any right to but himself. The Labor of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are property his…”
Property Rights-the rights of Life and Liberty- are given by God and not by government. It is the responsibility of the structure of government to secure these rights, not to provide them. It was the original intent of the Fathers of the Constitution to establish a form of government which would secure these God given rights to be preserved as part of the Secured Property of man. Liberty is not mans invention. It’s God’s gift !
The Principles of Union; The foundation stone of Christian Unity is the “Rock”, Jesus Christ.
The origin of the Christian idea of Union is to be found inthe story the Plymouth Pilgrims, recorded by William Bradford in 1647, is the account of truth from the days of our history. When they began the settlement, “they shook off this yoke of antichristian bondage, and as ye Lords free people, joined themselves [by a covenant fo the Lord] into a church estate in ye fellowship of ye gospel, to walk i all His ways, make known or to be made known unto them, according to their best endeavors, whatsoever it should cost them the Lord assisting them.”
Psalms 11:13; “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The Republican form of our government is established upon the principles contained in the Word of God. Our foundation are Christian, and in order to maintain the Republicanism of Christianity we must be a God fearing, Christ- honoring nation. The warnings has been sounded:
“The government of the United States is acknowledged by the wise and good of other nations, to be the most free, impartial, and righteous government of the world, but all agree, that for such a government to be sustained many years, the principle of truth and righteousness, taught in the Holy Scriptures, must be practiced. The rulers must govern in the fear of God, and the people obey the laws.” —Emma Willard, 1835
“A general Dissoultion of Principles and Manners will more surely overthrow the Liberties of America than the whole Force of the common enemy. While the People are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their Liberties to the first external or internal invader…” —Samuel Adams, 1779
“…all efforts made to destroy the foundation of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness. Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican form of government, and the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.” —Dr. Jedidiah Morse, Election Sermon, 1799
The Founding Fathers pray for Guidance; in the mist of turbulence and confusion of the day, let us look back through the pages of our history to the days of Constitutional Convention when our Founding Fathers were struggling over this new form of government. The day was June 17, 1787, when Benjamin Franklin rose to his feet in Independence Hall and addressed George Wahsington:
“In this situation of this Assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark, to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when it is presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hithero once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings? …That God governs in the affairs of men! And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable than an empire can rise without His aid? …and I also believe, that without His concurring aid, we shall suceed in this political building no better than the building of Babel: …That henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business.”
Our forefathers did turn to God for guidance, and the result was the Constitution, recognized by the world’s outstanding authority on common law, William Gladstone, as “the greatest document ever struck off by the hand and mind of man,”. Guided by Divine Providence, the Framers of our Constitution gave to us the greatest free government the world has ever known.
