What Seems Good To A Man

The Foibles of Human Opinion…

“A man cannot compete with his authorities, with his gods; they are by his own recognition above and over him.  If a man’s gods are of this world, and if they are man made and humanistic, they know only one realm to occupy, man’s realm.” Reverend R. J. Rushdoony

It happened quickly; almost suddenly. In a thirteen year period between 1774 and 1787 thirteen loosely knit American colonies, which had evolved over nearly two hundred years, joined in congressional meetings, drafted two Constitutions, fought and won a war with England, and declared their independence.

The First Continental Congress http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Continental_Congress met in 1774 in Philadelphia to protest British oppression.  In 1775 when King George ignored their plea the Second Continental Congress http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Continental_Congress met to adopt the Declaration of Independence, devise war methodology, appoint diplomats, make treaties, and direct strategy.  They appointed a committee of thirteen to draft a constitution; it produced the Articles of Confederation.

The ratification of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (Its proper name.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation and the Revolutionary War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War were concurrent.  At the same time the American Colonies were fighting for independence from England they were ratifying a Constitution designed to preserve their independence from centralized authority.

Contrary to what most of us learned in government schools, General George Washington and his rag tag troops did not single handedly win the Revolutionary War.  The foundation of the victory was in Europe.  Arrogant Americans love to bash the French.  It is true we helped defend France in two world wars but it is also true that we might never have become an independent nation without French assistance. It was France that provided financing, weapons, ammunition, and supplies and Spain that flushed the British from West Florida. Ultimately France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic declared war on the British.  This drain on British resources was a determining factor in the Colonial victory.

The Articles of Confederation provided the States with control over all federal functions not specifically relegated to the government.  It was a simple, uncomplicated document with thirteen general provisions providing for a basic union that could conduct foreign policy and fight a war.  It was well suited to the rural citizenry it represented.

Just as we in the Twenty First Century labor under an elite cabal the Eighteenth Century colonists labored under their own group of powerful elitists.  There were some serious functional problems with the Articles and a meeting was scheduled to address them. Before the meeting some participants met secretly to devise a new, radically different Constitution.  The document these conspiratorial participants sought would diametrically change the intentions of the Articles and result in the Constitutional Convention being held behind closed doors without popular participation.  In his book the “Roots of the Republic” Ralph Ketchum captures the genre of Anti-Federalist dissent, “They saw in Federalist hopes for commercial growth and international prestige only the lust of ambitious men for a “splendid empire” that, in the time honored way of empires would oppress the people with taxes, conscription, and military campaigns.  Uncertain that any government over so vast a domain as the United States could be controlled by the people Anti-Federalists saw in the enlarged powers of the general government only the familiar threats to the rights and liberties of the people…The Anti-Federalists looked to the classical idea of the small pastoral Republic where virtuous, self reliant citizens could manage their own affairs and shunned the power and glory of empire.  To them the victory in the American Revolution meant not so much the big chance to become a wealthy world power, but rather the opportunity to achieve a genuinely republican polity, far from the greed, lust for power, and tyranny that have generally characterized human society.”

The new Constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution was drafted in Philadelphia during the hot summer of 1787. There is no record that the participants discussed God’s Will or expressing gratitude for His salvation.  God was not praised for allowing the thirteen colonies to develop and prosper or for granting a victory over English oppression.  Instead, the glory was attributed to General George Washington and the character of colonial citizens.  God’s claim to dominion over His creation was ignored. No one seemed worried that considerations seemed to center on the humanistic documents of Empires or the enlightened concepts of Republics. Behind the closed doors of the Philadelphia State House (Independence Hall) there was no discussion of Biblical legal mandates.  For over four months an elite group of state representatives met and drafted a humanist document that would allow the victorious, newly independent nation to become a world power.  Even though it was crafted fraudulently in secret, citizens of the thirteen colonies were still proud of their victory over England and happy to support a nation bent on future vainglory.  “Splendid Empire” was popular and manifest destiny was soon to follow.

The product of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention provided a victory for an elite power structure over a smaller, less popular, meek, but wiser, group of De-centralizers.  Political division and belligerent pride has endured to the present day.  Too many citizens are still eager to ignore evil for the sweetness of victory.

Now, gentle reader, I will concede that the new nation was 98 percent Christian and that Federalist leaders like Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Adams, and Jay, were sympathetic to Christianity and held some sort of belief in a god.  I believe there was an effort made to provide checks and balances that would prevent malignant government power. I will also allow that there were reasonable secular arguments for not including a specific religious requirement in the Constitution.  However, conceding all that does not change the fact that a great sin was committed.  The Creator of the world and everything in it was ignored by the men who created the document that formed the new Nation.  Its stain was evident at the outset and it has spread like a cancer.

Make no mistake, the 1787 Constitution of the United States was written with the express intent of allowing federal government to exert power over the individual states.  It was no longer a confederation of individual states but was now a single autonomous nation.   Under The Articles of Confederation the States granted power to the Confederation but under the new Constitution the Federal Government would control state autonomy.

Peace results from obedience to God’s Commandments.  Conflicts, wars, and ultimately captivity result from disobedience.  War, often aggressive war, has plagued the entire history of the United States.

During the Civil War some 600 thousand Americans lost their lives over an enduring political argument that should have been reconciled in our founding documents.  Slavery became illegal but it was a peripheral issue.  The North pursued the war to enforce the Federal power encoded in the Constitution; “for commercial growth and international prestige”…for, “splendid empire”. The urban industrial power of the North was pitted against the anti-Federalist, rural society of the South.  President Lincoln was determined to solidify the totality of the nation by force; he did not originate the idea.  The inviolable nature of the Union was contested in the previous administration of President Andrew Jackson.  “Relations between President Jackson and Vice President Calhoun soon turned sour. The two argued over the important constitutional question of the nature of the Union. Calhoun strongly believed in a state’s doctrine of nullification, or the right of a state to undo any federal law that disagreed with the state’s views. Jackson strongly believed nullification was wrong and could weaken the Union. Calhoun wound up resigning before the end of his term. Andrew Jackson lost his Vice-President over the issue of nullification.” http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ho-Jo/Jackson-Andrew.html

The Federalists led by General George Washington set the stage for the bloodiest war in American history; a war that tarried only a few decades.  The Civil War settled the conflict between the Federalists and anti-Federalist that Ralph Ketchem so accurately described.  It imposed a tyrannical government on the Confederacy and centered messianic power in evil human hands.  When nations shun God and His Law two serious problems result:  One, power that belongs to God is appropriated by humans, and, two, the reconciliation of disagreements without the righteous standard of God’s Law always results in first strife and then despotism.

When power is centered in God and the entire nation, leaders and citizens, have vowed to obey His Commandments human opinions are overridden by Higher Authority and disagreements are ameliorated.  The Bible describes a de-centralized government.  Ketchem’s description of the anti-Federalists is very close to the Biblical model.  De-centralization provides a check on the compulsion of evil men to control their fellows by force and allows fathers to head their families under the authority of God’s Commandments with the sacrificial Spirit modeled by our Lord and Savior Jesus, The Christ.  Though God is sovereign and He can and often does predestine and control our lives, His heart’s desire is that we obey Him with an eager and willing spirit.  We choose to ignore Him.

United States of America has not been an agent for peace.  The power vested in the Federal Government by the 1787 Constitution has been used to win and secure new land areas, to imprison independent states, and to control vast portions of the world.  We have forsaken the Christian European culture that was our legitimate inheritance and, attracted by winsome human reason, have allowed it to be overcome by intellectual traitors.

Over two thousand years ago Jesus was thrown onto a crude wooden cross, His feet were nailed to the wood with one nail and each of His wrists the cross section. The cross was raised and dropped into a hole in the ground and He was left to die in agony.  It was a secular defeat for the One True God but an overwhelming victory for every Christian, there and now; for He rose from the grave and sits on the right hand of God the Father as ruler of the world.  In the latter days of the Twentieth Century and the early days of the Twenty First Century we have once again crucified Jesus in effigy.  While we have praised Him with our lips we have disobeyed His Commandments and allowed our world to fall under the power of evil men.  We have sanctioned and participated in a secular government that has been responsible for unspeakable sins that our fathers sanctioned before us.  We have not yet recognized our sins and are still cheering the illegitimate accomplishments of misplaced power and prestige.

I ran across these words written by Samuel Davies:

How great, how terrible that God,
Who shakes creation with his nod!
He frowns, and earth’s foundations quake,
And all the wheels of nature break!

Crushed under guilt’s oppressive weight,
This globe now totters to its fate:
Trembles beneath her guilty sons,
And for deliverance heaves and groans!

And see! the glorious, dreadful day,
That takes the enormous load away!
See skies, and stars, and earth, and seas,
Sink in one universal blaze!

Where, now–ah! where shall sinners seek
For shelter in the general wreck?
Can falling rocks conceal them now,
When rocks dissolve like melting snow?

In vain for pity now the cry,
In lakes of liquid fire they lie!
There on the burning billows tossed,
Forever, ever, ever, lost!

But saints, undaunted and serene,
Your eyes shall view the dreadful scene!
Your Savior lives, though worlds expire,
And earth and skies dissolve in fire!

JESUS! the helpless creature’s friend!
To you my all I dare commend:
You can preserve my feeble soul,
When lightnings blaze from pole to pole!