Reflections on the Formation of These United States by Bruce Duncil 07/24/16 Free to Share Author requests article critique
This month we celebrate the birth of
our nation marked by adoption of our Declaration of Independence. In that
celebration, we must reflect on what this document is, what it communicates,
and what it represents. Our continuance as a nation depends upon the accuracy
and fidelity of our reflection, not to our imaginations, nor to what has been
falsely taught us, but to its inherent truths.
Our Declaration accomplished three objectives. First, it communicated our Founders' political separation from the rule of Great Britain. It listed the unresolved grievances of the American colonists against the Crown's tyrannies infringing their rights as British subjects. Lastly, it announced the birth of thirteen independent sovereign States as well as the basis for their formation and the principles for their survival.
If facts and reason be informers of opinion, these objectives were magnificently exceeded. They and we, their posterity, have been blessed with a personal liberty previously unknown in human history. Our freedom resulted in our becoming the most prosperous nation ever to have existed. Liberty in self-government became the birthright and blessing they passed on.
The generation which seceded from British rule was formed by the Great Awakening. This revival, a move of the Holy Spirit across the colonies, and in New England in particular, led to countless thousands of conversions to Christ. These revivals during the latter first half of the 18th century saw many parents and relatives of the Founders, and subsequently the majority of some 250 individuals recognized as our Founders, become born-again Christians.
Our Declaration accomplished three objectives. First, it communicated our Founders' political separation from the rule of Great Britain. It listed the unresolved grievances of the American colonists against the Crown's tyrannies infringing their rights as British subjects. Lastly, it announced the birth of thirteen independent sovereign States as well as the basis for their formation and the principles for their survival.
If facts and reason be informers of opinion, these objectives were magnificently exceeded. They and we, their posterity, have been blessed with a personal liberty previously unknown in human history. Our freedom resulted in our becoming the most prosperous nation ever to have existed. Liberty in self-government became the birthright and blessing they passed on.
The generation which seceded from British rule was formed by the Great Awakening. This revival, a move of the Holy Spirit across the colonies, and in New England in particular, led to countless thousands of conversions to Christ. These revivals during the latter first half of the 18th century saw many parents and relatives of the Founders, and subsequently the majority of some 250 individuals recognized as our Founders, become born-again Christians.
The criticality of this impact
cannot be overstated. First, only moral men and women, those who fear God and
choose to lead Godly moral lives, are capable of true self-governance. The
reason for this is simple: laws cannot make one righteous; they can only
identify the wrongdoer for punishment. Only a people holding an inherent sense
of justice and righteousness can abide it without the imposition of external
constraint. Second, their clarity of thought and conscience served as
prerequisite for identifying, shunning, and escaping like political and
religious tyranny which had perpetually enveloped their Old World forbearers.
They understood that religious liberty was impossible without civil liberty.
And thirdly, it was only to this one true God in Whom they had first believed
that they turned again to uphold their cause.
This Document reads: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The Founders first recognized God as Creator, a role the Apostle Paul wrote the Romans that He guards zealously, holding every individual accountable for acknowledging. Paul warns that God subjects those who fail to acknowledge His Creatorship to futile thinking; that is, darkened minds. This recognition was more than our Founders simply proclaiming a 'worldview'. They knew that acknowledgement of this truth would set in order all that they built upon it, whereas denial of God as Creator would swiftly lead them into deadly error.
In this they recognized that all men were and are created equals in rights and in their vesting. This was no equality of conditions nor any guarantee of outcomes, but of inherent equality: every human life sacrosanct. There could thus be no distinction between those trusted with exercising civil authority and those upon and for whom it would be exercised. All men, therefore, were and are equal under law.
The Founders confessed that God, not civil government, was and is the sole source of our endowment because these rights preexist every human government. Being God-given, then, our rights to life, liberty and happiness, which is private ownership of property, were and are inalienable, never subject to capricious suspension or elimination by legitimate human authority. They understood that whatever Man's government bestowed upon itself the authority to grant, would likewise empower itself upon its whim to take away. Such usurpation would be tantamount to that same tyranny they'd previously fled and would constitute nothing less than Man's elevation of his government above God, which is blasphemy.
This Document continues: "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America ... appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States ...."
Our Founders looked to God, as Supreme Judge of all men, for the rightness of their intentions. They recognized God as the righteous and just Judge of every man, the One who has promised to give to each of us according to our deeds. This Document therefore stands unique in the history of the world, a history littered with the rubble of one kingdom after another which ruled by Might. They understood that every tyranny seeks its self-justification, holding itself self-righteous though its every act be an embodiment of evil. In contrast, our Founders acted on the truth that Right makes Might. It was therefore God to whom they submitted for personal accountability in clear conscience. Only this type of government they knew could be capable of operating on the consent of the governed.
This Document concludes: " ... for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
The Founders sought Divine protection in forming our nation on three bases. First, they'd not resisted directly, but fled, many personally, the political tyranny and its handmaiden, religious persecution, at the hands of their governments as well as State-sponsored religious hierarchies. Second, they had ceaselessly pursued every lawful means to peaceably resolve Britain's increasingly egregious violations of their Subjects' rights. Lastly, their political secession was a diplomatic, not a military action. As a result, their subsequent battle for independence was a defensive, never an offensive, set of engagements.
Now at no time did the colonists object to British rule or seek its overthrow. Nor did they ever challenge Britain's right to rule its empire in accordance with its legal principles. What they would not accept, however, was the unequivocal infringement upon and ultimate termination of their rights as British Subjects at the hands of what had become in effect a foreign military occupation force. As a result, the States and the newly formed Continental Congress were forced to take on additional duties of self-governance. They did so knowing full well the moral caliber and character of the men to whom they entrusted the service of governance. Therefore, if 'revolution' had occurred at all, it was within Britain's government, its monarchy having been transformed into a totalitarian oligarchy with the King a figurehead. Such a government was no longer lawful, but rather lawless, and therefore held no rightful claim on the loyalty of free men. Having deemed liberty and clarity of conscience more valuable than life itself, the Founders chose to extricate themselves from British jurisdiction. Hence their Declaration was no act of rebellion; rather it was a final step in transition back to a legitimate government. During the war years, miracle upon miracle was experienced, each crucial for Washington's militia army to defeat in battle the most powerful military force the world had yet known. In complete reliance upon God's provision and protection, He then moved to confirm and establish their act of faith.
In years following, these thirteen sovereign States and those that joined them unified under a contract, our US Constitution, to form a central government. To that central authority, the States ceded seventeen specific and enumerated powers, and these alone, retaining all other powers to themselves and to the People. These powers were additionally circumscribed in our citizen's Bill of Rights included within this Constitution's first ten Amendments. The form of this government was established a democratic republic - never a democracy - but a democratically representative form of governance administered under law, the Constitution being its Highest Law. It is to the loyalty of upholding and enforcing this Constitution and all constitutional laws thereby derived that every servant must swear their oath upon entering the entrusted office. And so this Constitution became the bodily implementation of our Declaration.
This Document reads: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The Founders first recognized God as Creator, a role the Apostle Paul wrote the Romans that He guards zealously, holding every individual accountable for acknowledging. Paul warns that God subjects those who fail to acknowledge His Creatorship to futile thinking; that is, darkened minds. This recognition was more than our Founders simply proclaiming a 'worldview'. They knew that acknowledgement of this truth would set in order all that they built upon it, whereas denial of God as Creator would swiftly lead them into deadly error.
In this they recognized that all men were and are created equals in rights and in their vesting. This was no equality of conditions nor any guarantee of outcomes, but of inherent equality: every human life sacrosanct. There could thus be no distinction between those trusted with exercising civil authority and those upon and for whom it would be exercised. All men, therefore, were and are equal under law.
The Founders confessed that God, not civil government, was and is the sole source of our endowment because these rights preexist every human government. Being God-given, then, our rights to life, liberty and happiness, which is private ownership of property, were and are inalienable, never subject to capricious suspension or elimination by legitimate human authority. They understood that whatever Man's government bestowed upon itself the authority to grant, would likewise empower itself upon its whim to take away. Such usurpation would be tantamount to that same tyranny they'd previously fled and would constitute nothing less than Man's elevation of his government above God, which is blasphemy.
This Document continues: "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America ... appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States ...."
Our Founders looked to God, as Supreme Judge of all men, for the rightness of their intentions. They recognized God as the righteous and just Judge of every man, the One who has promised to give to each of us according to our deeds. This Document therefore stands unique in the history of the world, a history littered with the rubble of one kingdom after another which ruled by Might. They understood that every tyranny seeks its self-justification, holding itself self-righteous though its every act be an embodiment of evil. In contrast, our Founders acted on the truth that Right makes Might. It was therefore God to whom they submitted for personal accountability in clear conscience. Only this type of government they knew could be capable of operating on the consent of the governed.
This Document concludes: " ... for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
The Founders sought Divine protection in forming our nation on three bases. First, they'd not resisted directly, but fled, many personally, the political tyranny and its handmaiden, religious persecution, at the hands of their governments as well as State-sponsored religious hierarchies. Second, they had ceaselessly pursued every lawful means to peaceably resolve Britain's increasingly egregious violations of their Subjects' rights. Lastly, their political secession was a diplomatic, not a military action. As a result, their subsequent battle for independence was a defensive, never an offensive, set of engagements.
Now at no time did the colonists object to British rule or seek its overthrow. Nor did they ever challenge Britain's right to rule its empire in accordance with its legal principles. What they would not accept, however, was the unequivocal infringement upon and ultimate termination of their rights as British Subjects at the hands of what had become in effect a foreign military occupation force. As a result, the States and the newly formed Continental Congress were forced to take on additional duties of self-governance. They did so knowing full well the moral caliber and character of the men to whom they entrusted the service of governance. Therefore, if 'revolution' had occurred at all, it was within Britain's government, its monarchy having been transformed into a totalitarian oligarchy with the King a figurehead. Such a government was no longer lawful, but rather lawless, and therefore held no rightful claim on the loyalty of free men. Having deemed liberty and clarity of conscience more valuable than life itself, the Founders chose to extricate themselves from British jurisdiction. Hence their Declaration was no act of rebellion; rather it was a final step in transition back to a legitimate government. During the war years, miracle upon miracle was experienced, each crucial for Washington's militia army to defeat in battle the most powerful military force the world had yet known. In complete reliance upon God's provision and protection, He then moved to confirm and establish their act of faith.
In years following, these thirteen sovereign States and those that joined them unified under a contract, our US Constitution, to form a central government. To that central authority, the States ceded seventeen specific and enumerated powers, and these alone, retaining all other powers to themselves and to the People. These powers were additionally circumscribed in our citizen's Bill of Rights included within this Constitution's first ten Amendments. The form of this government was established a democratic republic - never a democracy - but a democratically representative form of governance administered under law, the Constitution being its Highest Law. It is to the loyalty of upholding and enforcing this Constitution and all constitutional laws thereby derived that every servant must swear their oath upon entering the entrusted office. And so this Constitution became the bodily implementation of our Declaration.
http://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=185024
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