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8/12/2019 1988 Issue 1 - God's Law in America - Counsel of Chalcedon
1/3
4. --
TilE
NATURE
OF
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM, Thobum
Press, Fairfax, VA.
.,--,FOUNDATIONSOF
SOCIAL ORDER, Thobum Press, Fairfax,
VA. .
6.
DeMar,
G ~ .
RULER OF
TilE
NATIONS, Dominion
P r e s ~
Ft. Wor 1
1
TX.
7. Whitehead, John, THe STEALING OF
AMERICA, Crossway Books, Westchester,
L
8.
TilE
SECOND
AMERICAN REVOU)TION, David C.
Cook Pub. Co., Elgin,
IL. .
9 . ~
THESEPARATION
ILLUSION Mat t Medi3, Milford MI.
10.
RushdoonY.._RJ., CHRISTIANITY
AND THE STATE, Ross House Books,
Vallecito,
CA.
c J J i M ~ ~
0
~ t ~ N B W J 8 H ~ A L v ~ f
III,
No. 1.oSummer).,1976,_vallecitohC:A.
12. SKousen
c.,
TnE
M A K u ~ G OF
AMERICA, The National Center for
Constitutional Studies, Washmgtopl..PC
13. McDonald, Lam', WE HOLU THESE
TRUTHJ.76 r e ~ ~
Seal Beaclt, CA.
14.
wines, W.C.,
THE
HEBREW
R E P U B L I ~
American Presbyterian
Press,
x r ~ d g ~ i d s ~ ~ ~ Jo. ,_n..k
CHRISTIANITY
AND THE
C 1 ~ S T I 1
u uON,
Baker Book
House, Grand Rapids, MI. .
16.
Walton, Rus, BIBLICAL PRINCI-
PLES, Pl}'I louth Rock Foundation,
Marlborc>Ugli, NH.
17.
M"adison J
D .
Hamilton, TilE
FEDERALIST PAPERS, New Alnerican
Libr ).IY,
NY.
18. Hei).IT, Mason, THE
ANTI
-
FEDERALIST PAPERS, New American
l i b { f Y s ~ r
Gregg, A THEOLOGICAL
INTERPRETATION OF AMERICAN
HISTORY, Craig
Press,
Nutley, NJ. .
0
Continuing the series
of taped sermons on
The Revival
o the Church
by
Joe Morecraft, III
The Revival
of he Church
and
the lory ofGod V
(Exodus
33)
The R ~ v i v a l of he Church
and the Coming of Christ I
II
(Is
a.
62-64)
The Way to Revival
I
l l
Chron. 7)
$4.00 per tape (cassette)
$14.00 for set
of
four
Order from:
Specialty Media Services .
P.O. Box
28357
Atlanta, GA 30358
God s Lawin America
According
to
Christopher Columbus'
diary from his 1492 voyage to America,
one over-riding compulsion which
drove
him
on
the
risky adventure was
his wish to expand the gospel of Christ
to the "isles at the ends of the earth."
This evangelical concern stands out
boldly in his diary. Later, the earliest
immigrants from Europe, those who
shaped America:s culture, law, tradition,
and ethics, were those who came
from
England.
Our
early forefathers were
Pil
grims
and Puritans - men and women of
devout Christian faith. (In fact, as late
as 1776 when the people declared in
dependence, Puritanism provided
the
moral and
religious background
of
fully
75 of the
population.)
The
earliest
English charters of
the
settlements in
Americamade unequivocal references to
their intent of spreading the Christian
religion in the New World. The frrst
charter of Virginia in 1606, the charter
of Maryland in 1732,
the
.charter of
Massachusetts in 1729 are a few ex
amples . The famous Mayflower Corn
pact
of
1620, which has been called the
"foundation stone
of
democracy in
America," states, "In the
name
of God,
Amen.
We
aving undertaken for
the glory of God, and advancement of
the Cluistian faith, and
honor of
our
king and country, a voyage to plant the
fust colony on the northern part of
Virginia." The Massachusetts Civil Bay
Code
of
1640
made
repeated references
to Biblical law by direct citation and
Scriptural annotation.
In 1644 a book was published in
England by Samuel Rutherford entitled
Robert Smith ls
a Presbyterian
layman who
lieads the
Christian
Food
Miss
ion
In
Laurel,
Mlss1sslppi.
by Robert Smith
Lex Rex.
In
1660
i t
was
co
ndemned
as a treasonable writing by the Com
mittee of Estates. On October 16, Lex
Rex was burned at the Cross
of
Edin
burgh and a few days later in
St.
Andrews. Rutherford, a Presbyterian
minister, was deposed from the min
istry, dismissed from his Chair of
Divinity at St. Mary's C_llege, placed
under house arrest and sent to be tried
before Parliament
on
March 29, 1661.
What was the center of this book which
caused
a
stonn of controversy to erupt
in
the streets
of
London? Lex Rex
means law is king." Previously it had
been unchallenged:
Rex
Lex, "the king
is
law." Lex Rex attacked the seven-.
teenth century political concept of the
Divine Right of Kings. Rutherford said
that civil government and law should be
based on God's law as revealed in the
Bible. All are under God's law. No t
even the king is above it. Rutherford
used Romans 13 to show that all power
is from God who ordains and insti
tu
tes
government. John Locke, who influ
enced
Jeffer
son, and
John
Witherspoon,
a signer
of
the Declaration
of
Indepen
dence, were influenced by Rutherford's
arguments
in
his book. James Madison
was later influenced by Witherspoon's
teach
ing
at the College
of
New Jersey
(Princeton) where he was president.
Madison was referred
to
as the "Father
of the Constitution."2
Our founding fathers established the
United States aS a
constitutional repub-
lic
not
as
a
democracy. In fact, they
wished to guard against the' rise of
democracy. The earthly magistrate was
considered to hold his position and
exercise power by a divine decree.
He
was looked upon as a minister of God
under common grace for the execution
of the laws of God among the people at
large, for the maintenance of law and
order, and
for
so ruling the state that it
would provide an atmosphere favorable
for the
preaching
of
the gospel.
In
Puri-
Page 8 The
Counsel of
Chalcedon, January, 1988
8/12/2019 1988 Issue 1 - God's Law in America - Counsel of Chalcedon
2/3
tan
political theory the magistrate de
rived his power from God and not from
the people. The voters and the magis
trates were to look to the Scriptures as
a guide for the general conduct
of
their
government. The rulers and the people
were thus subject to the will
of
God,
and the rule
of
the people could never
take precedence over the divinely or
dained powers and functions
of
human
government. The democratic philoso
phy, with its emphasis on the
v-
ereignty of the people, laid a fundamen
tal contradiction to the Biblical doctrine
of
the sovereignty of God. Noticeably
absent from the Constitutional Conven
tion of 1787 were the more outspoken
promoters
of
democracy: Thomas Jeffer
son, John Adams, Richard Henry Lee,
and Thomas Paine. Madison, Hamilton,
and other leaders at the 1787 gathering
detested the democratic form of govern
ment. It was not the wish of the found
ing fathers to have the opinion of the
day reflected but to have God's laws up
held through the Constitution for fur
ther generations.3
James Madison is called
the
father of
the constitution since
he
was instrumen
t l
in working out a blueprint for the
document and a basic agenda for the
convention. He arrived
in
Philadelphia
eleven days early for that purpose.4
Benjamin Franklin, during one
of
the
more heated moments
of
debate, elo
quently called for deliberation
to
cease
as
the conventioneers paused to pray for
God's guidance. In regard to the wording
of
the Constitution, this extraordinary
document came to a close with Article
VII as the words done in Convention .
he Seventh Day
of
September in the
year of our Lord one thousand seven
hundred and eighty seven and were
carefully penned by Gouverneur Morris.
Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitu
tion, in explaining the Executive
branch's role
in
the passage
of
a bill,
gives the President 10 days in which to
accept
or
reject a bill. Sundays are ex
cepted, recognized as days
of
religious
observance.
The Constitution
does not call for a
separation o church nd state
The first
amendment states, Congress shall
make no law respecting an establish-
ment of religion,
or
prohibiting the
free
exercise thereof This was simply
to
guard against the establishment of a
national
or
state religion. Thomas
Jefferson
did
hold that the Constitution
built a wall of separation between the
church and state, but, once again,
e f ~
ferson was not present
at
the Consti
tutional Convention. He
was
in
France
at the time
of
the 1787 meeting and
had
no input. There
is
a government that
uses the separation of church and state
language in its Constitution.
It
is found
in the wording
of
the Soviet
o n ~
stitution which says, In order to ensure
the citizens' freedom
of
conscience, the
church
of
the USSR is separated from
the state, and the school from
the
church.
Jefferson himself allowed the Bible
and
a hymnal to be used in teaching
students to read when he headed
the
District of Columbia school board.
James Madison issued prayer proclama
tions when he was President and
sat
on
a committee that recommended c h a p ~
lains for Congress. The Supreme Court
has, astonishingly, outlawed prayer in
the public schools as well as a
moment of silence, while sessions of
Congress are routinely oJ)ened with
prayer. The Congress has in fact estab
lished the position for a fulltime paid
chaplain
who
lifts up such prayers
to
God.
The
Supreme Court has, also re
markably, decreed the Ten Command
ments cannot be posted in the public
schools. This is indeed an astonishing
ruling for this body to make, since in
plain view, a plaque hangs
on
the wall
above and behind the Supreme Court's
Chief Justice in the main chambers,
on
which is written the Ten Command
ments. The 83rd Congress went so far
as to provide a prayer room or chamber
for meditation. There is a stained glass
window in the prayer
room
depicting
George Washington kneeling in prayer;
something he often did with the men
under his command. Around Washing
ton are the words Preserve Me 0
God
For In hee Do
I
Put My
Trust.
Beneath his kneeling figure is
the
reference for this
quote-
Psalm 16:1.
The Constitution also calls for protec
tion
of
life, liberty, and
property
When
~ r i c
was colonized,
the
settlers
in
every colony made Biblical law their
basic law. There was
no
tax on pro
perty; this was basic to Biblical liberty.
he
inscription
on
the Liberty Bell is
taken from the Biblical land law pro
claiming liberty throughout all the land
and unto all the inhabitants thereof'
(Leviticus 25:10). In the frrst Constitu
tional Congress in 1774, Congress
denied that Parliament could tax real
property. In spite
of
this, the property
tax was introduced very slowly, frrst
appearing in New England, coinciding
with the spread of Deism and Unitaria
nism, as well as atheism. The South
was the last area to accept the property
tax..S Progressives felt that the seizing
of property during the emergency of
World War I had given the idea of the
sacredness
of
private property a blow
from which it would never recover.6
I have
in my
possession a letter from
Mrs . Bethany Claunch written in 1977
to President Jimmy Carter. She decries
the death of the little town of Holcut,
Mississippi, located in Tishomingo
County, where she and her husband
lived
at
the time.
Under
the power of
eminent domain, the Army Corps of
Engineers was allowed
to
force the
Claunches and the other residents
of
Holcut
to
sell their land and
h o m ~
against their will
to
the Federal
Government. Mrs. Claunch, in
her
let
ter,
is
openly upset over
the
deaths of
several of the elderly who were trauma
~ e d by
the
forced relocation. The town
of
Holcut
no
longer exists. The land
owners' property was procured to estab
lish a park, along the Tennes
see/Tombigbee Waterway, in a county
where there are already two parks:
Tishomingo State Park and J.P. Cole
man State 'Park. This
is
a prime ex
ample of the extremes to which society
can move when
God s laws
are dis
carded.
As late as 1892, the Supreme Court
determined in the case of the Church of
the Holy Trinity vs. United States that
America was a Christian nation from
its earliest days. The Court opinion
de-
livered by Justice Josiah Brewer, was an
~ x h a u s t i v e
study
of
the historical and
legal evidence for America's Christian
The Counsel of Cbalccdon, January, 1988 Pag e
8/12/2019 1988 Issue 1 - God's Law in America - Counsel of Chalcedon
3/3
Heritage. After examining hundreds of
court cases, state constitutions, and
other historical documents, the court
came to the following conclusion:
Our laws and our institutions must
necessarily be based upon and embody
the
teachings of the Redeemer of.
mtinkind.
It
is
impossible that
it
;should
be otherwise and in
the
sense and to
the extent our civilization
and
our
institutions
ate
emphatically Christian.
. .
.this is a religious people. This is
historically true. From the discovery of
the continent to the present hour there
is a single voice making this a/firma-.
tion.
. .
We
find
everywhere a clear
recognition of the same truth. . . These
and many other matters which might be
noticed adda volume
of
unofficialdecla
rations to the mass of organic utter.
ances that this is a Christian nation.1
As America has moved from
the
foundation on which our forefathers
built this mighty nation, as America
has
become
increasingly disobedient to
God's laws, as America continues to
depart front Biblical principles, the
entire country suffers. The symptoms
of incorrigibility toward God can be
viewed across this land by the sharp rise ,
in
crime, increased alcoholism and
drug
abuse, high levels of child abuse, climb-
ing illiteracy rates, the advent of AIDS,
distressing suicide trends, high rates
of
marital separation and dissolution,
alanning growth in emotional
and
mental disorders, etc. Probably the,
most blatant example, at present, of
failure in replacing God's laws with
those of man is
in
the battle over
poverty. As man has devised one
scheme after another to alleviate pover
ty
and
increased expenditures into the
billions, the problem has
only
.wor
sened. There are thousands of homeless
people roaming
the
streets, especially
in the larger cities. People are losing
their homes, jobs,
and
property in.great
numbers. Soup kitchens and public
shelters across the land are stretched to
the
limit
and beyond by the increasing
numbers of clients who tramp to thefr
doors daily. Tent cities are springing up
here and there alntost overnight. The
number
of welfare recipients
has
con
tinued
to
increase markedly over the
years. It is tinie to say enough is
enough as we make a call for ou r .
nation to return to God's law and Bib
lical charity.
[Editor's note Mr; Smith wrote
this article for his newsletter, Biblical
Charity which is part of his Christian
Food
Mission ministry. This explains
his emphasis on the question o poverty
in the last
paragraph of the article.]
.
ENDNOTES
. lKenneth L Gentry, Jr., The U S
Constitution: A
Christian Document
The
Couns.el of Chalcedon (December,
198,
6}: 1 5 ~ 1 7 .
M ~ u s L Loane, Mtlker o
ReligiouS
F'reedom
in
the
Seventeenth
Century
(Grand
Rapids:
Wtn. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
1961 .
3c. Gregg Singer, A
Theola
gical
Interpretation
of
American History
(Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and
Reformed Publishing Co.,
1981 .
4Time July
6,
1987.
5R.J. Rushdoony,
Ti
th
ing and
Dominion
(Vallecito, CA: Ross .House
Books, 1979),
p
2 .
6singer, p. 215
7Gary DeMar,
George
Washington
and the Treaty of Tripoli The Biblical
WQridYiew
_{July, .
1.987 :
.
7 D
Seminar
on
ilie
IBook
of
R e v e l i ~ t i o o
by
the Rev.Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
The Postmillennial and preterist approach to the Book of Revelation is
gaining an ever-increasing hearing in conservative Christian circles today.
Those interested in the viewpoint will be interested
to
know that the Rev.
Kenneth
L
Gentry, Jr. has organized a four hour seminar on Revelation
from
this
perspective.
The
seminar covers important introductory questions
to Revelation, elucidates the fundamental principles for its proper interpretation;
and surveys the major figures and
movements in it, in
an
easily iinderstandable
and convincing fashion. Seminar costs include $300.00 honorarium, travel
expenses, and small printing cost for seminar syllabus (which inay
be
printed in
your own office for
free).
For o r e information, contact Kenneth L Gentry; Jr., .
124 Meadowbrook Dr., Mauldin, South Carolina 29662
Page 10
_ _
__. __. .._ __The Coun5el of Cbaicedon, January, 1988