Soldier4Christ
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« Reply #2 on: November 24, 2006, 05:53:43 PM » |
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Noah Webster, who literally wrote the English dictionary claimed, "The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all civil Constitutions and laws."
Patrick Henry, a Christian patriot, golden tongued orator of the Revolutionary period, and the only U.S. Governor to be elected and reelected five times said in a celebrated speech before the Revolutionary War, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Henry also said, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospels of Jesus Christ."
One of the great slogans of the American Revolution was "No King but King Jesus!"
In 1799 the Supreme Court in Maryland ruled: "By our form of government the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon equal footing, and they are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty."
The founding fathers expected officeholders to be Christians.While denominational affiliation didn't matter, a belief in God and the Bible was paramount. Nine of the thirteen colonies had written constitutions. Many of them required officeholders to sign a declaration that amounted to a statement of faith. The Delaware Constitution of 1776 is a perfect example. Everyone appointed to public office had to say: "I do profess faith in God the Father, and in the Lord 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 Testaments to be given by divine inspiration."
Two historians at the University of Houston did a 10-year study of the ideas that shaped our republic. They started with 15,000 documents from the Colonial era, which were boiled down to 3,154 statements. The three most quoted individuals were French philosopher Montesquieu (8.3 percent), English jurist William Blackstone (7.9 percent) and English philosopher John Locke (2.9 percent). But Biblical citations dwarfed them all. Ninety-four percent of the founding fathers quotes were based on the Bible--34 percent directly from its pages and 60 percent from men who had used the Bible to arrive at their conclusions.
The Bible is the foundation upon which our nation was built. A hundred and nineteen of the first schools, including Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Yale, were established on the Word of God and dedicated to the Lordship of Christ and for the training of disciples of the Lord. As late as 1850 Christians ran virtually every newspaper in this country. The law and the federal and local judiciaries were either all Christians or Jewish.
The Continental Congress, in 1777, recommended and approved that the Committee of Commerce "import 20,000 Bibles from Holland, Scotland, or elsewhere," because of the great need of the American people and the great shortage caused by the interruption of trade with England by the Revolutionary War.
PRIORITIES OF OUR EARLY U.S. PRESIDENTS:
On April 30,1789, the first President of the United States, George Washington, took the oath of office with his hand on the Bible opened to Deuteronomy 6. In his first inaugural address, President Washington acknowledged God for the reason for America's birth: "It would be improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplication to that Almighty Being. . . . No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than people of the United States. . . . We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven cannot be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained." President Washington's inaugural address concluded with a church service at Saint Paul's Chapel, led by the chaplains of Congress.
President Washington professed his Christian faith publicly in many of his speeches and writings. "True religion offers to government its surest support," Washington said. "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." His personal prayer book, written in his own handwriting, declares: "O most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ my merciful loving Father, I acknowledge and confess my guilt, in the week and imperfect performance of the duties of this day." It is factual that President Washington knelt and prayed and read the Bible for one hour every day. John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court described Washington: "Without making ostentatious professions of religion, he was a sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man."
John Adams, our second president, said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government or any other."
Even Thomas Jefferson, third president, and one who certainly did not hold to all the traditional doctrines of Christianity, placed the Bible and Isaac Watt's Book of Psalms and Hymns in the District of Columbia's public schools. Jefferson declared religion: "Deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support."
James Madison, fourth president of the United States and referred to as the "Father of the Constitution," stated, "The belief in a God All Powerful, wise and good, is essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man."
John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States and "Chief Architect" of the Constitution said, "The highest glory of the American Revolution was it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."
Andrew Jackson, our seventh president claimed (referring to the Bible) "That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic stands."
A QUICK TOUR OF OUR CAPITOL REMINDS US THAT THIS NATION WAS BUILT UPON THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHRISTIAN BELIEF.
# The Supreme Court building portrays Moses holding the Ten Commandments through which the voice of God thunders "Thou shalt not murder."
# The Capitol Rotunda contains eight massive oil paintings, each depicting a major event in history. Four of these paintings portray Jesus Christ and the Bible: 1) Columbus landing on the shores of the New World, and holding high the cross of Jesus Christ, 2) a group of Dutch pilgrims gathered around a large, opened Bible, 3) a cross being planted in the soil, commemorating the discovery of the Mississippi River by the Explorer De Soto, and 4) the Christian baptism of the Indian convert Pocahontas.
# Statuary Hall contains life size statues of famous citizens that have been given by individual states. Medical missionary Marcus Whitman stands big as life, holding a Bible. Another statue is of missionary Junipero Serra, who founded the missions of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Montery and San Diego. Illinois sent a statue of Francis Willard, an associate of the evangelist Dwight L. Moody.
* Inscribed on the walls of the Library of Congress are quotes honoring the study of art, the wall is etched with "Nature is the art of God." A quote honoring Science says, "The heavens declare the glory of God." An inspiration honoring religion is Micah 6:8, "What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."
* On a wall in the Jefferson Memorial we read, "God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated without His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever."
* As you climb the steps inside the Washington Monument you will notice stones with inscriptions on them. Some of them are, "Search the Scriptures" – "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" – "The memory of the just is blessed" – "Holiness to the Lord" – and the top which says "Praise be to God!"
* Inscribed on the north wall of the Lincoln Memorial is the Presidents second inaugural address. Lincoln feared that God would not be satisfied until every drop of blood drawn by the lash is repaid by another drop of blood drawn by the sword.
Are these inscriptions just empty words, nostalgic sayings that no longer describe the ideals of our nation's government? Consider the message of another inscription, this one at the base of a large statute entitled "Heritage," which is outside the main entrance of the National Archives. It reads: "The heritage of the past is the seed that brings forth the harvest of the future."
No seed flourishes if it is not cultivated.
These facts of our national history, quotations, monuments, paintings, and inscriptions shout through the generations that the highest values of these United States are firmly founded in the God of truth and the Christian faith.
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