Today a reminder of the importance of reestablishing the preeminence of our foundational ideas, and recognizing that lacking them no civilization can long last.
Most people believe our form of government is what has made us exceptional, when in fact it is secondary to the ideas it was instituted to protect and promulgate. This is where the error lies when people claim our Declaration of Independence has no lasting authority as governing law. In fact the Declaration, as it’s name says, declares the ideas, these self evident truths of human interaction, we chose as our foundation, and the refusal to govern us in accord with these idea is what was presented as justification for our Independence. When we later instituted and codified our form of Government, at its core was protecting and continuing these ideas of civilization. And for those who don’t know, that is what governments are instituted for, to institutionalize ideas of civilization, and produce what our Constitution calls, “The General Welfare.”
If you read along here you know we often discuss these ideas beginning with the Declaration’s defining them as the state we are “entitled” to live in, “under the law of nature and nature’s God.” We know the laws of nature are those that are self-evident to all people of good will and sound conscience, and also found coinciding with God’s law. They include the basic ideas of property rights; protecting it from government and man, the right to earn, exchange, accumulate, gain deed over it by mutually agreed terms. It is also the idea of protection all person’s, life, liberty, property, and their pursuit of happiness (free from over regulation). These ideas are among others of like metaphysical and eternal value, and are the self-evident truths at our foundation.
Accepting and understanding them as such are what allows liberty to thrive, as people govern themselves by this comprehension as their well formed conscience. It is also what allows for and demands limited government.
The evidence to the contrary is found in our society, where we have discarded these ideas and their propagation. We as a nation incrementally lost our conscience, and abandoned the fundamental laws enabling us to live in peace with our neighbors. As this results in a systemic failure of all order, we are first astonished by the inevitable, next the same people having orchestrated the removal and abandonment of the ideas of self-restraint and self-governing, demand with never ending repetition laws and regulation to bring back into control the beast they have themselves released. And again, the blatant falsity is that once someone has been made lawless and thereby un-governed in/by conscience, external laws can be made to force them into becoming law abiding.
In this we see what the founder understood and undertook. They first and long-sufferingly attempted to enlighten their oppressors, as they themselves had been enlightened. Then, after a long train of abuses, determined as natural law and God’s law had taught them, their only remaining remedy was to separate themselves from those refusing to live under the rules of civilization. This is the course we must also chart, separating our ideas again from those of the willingly and incorrigibly lawless.
This is where we now stand as a nation. We must not forget these same ideas are what produced our prosperity and elevated us above all the nations of the world. If we think the opposite, our prosperity has created our ideas, or it has brought about some new “better” ideas, we begin with a premise that will prove itself once again the formula for quick decline as they are just as quickly forgotten. This nation has lasted because these ideas, even now in their most debased form, have sustained us. This is the providence of God. We must elevate and teach them, and allow them to again reign over us, over our national thinking, and in doing we will be prosperous and in peace for millennia to come – as one nation in this state under the law of nature and nature’s God.
Psalms 14
1 The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good.
2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that does good, no, not one.
4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.
5 There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous.
6 You have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the LORD is his refuge.
7 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the LORD brings back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.
“Under a system of popular government there will always be those who will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions. There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes. We do need a better understanding and comprehension of them and a better knowledge of the foundations of government in general. Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meetinghouse. They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or how much they had, as in how they were going to live. While scantily provided with other literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the Scriptures. Over a period as great as that which measures the existence of our independence they were subject to this discipline not only in their religious life and educational training, but also in their political thought. They were a people who came under the influence of a great spiritual development and acquired a great moral power.
No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.” President Calvin Coolidge, July 5, 1926
Psalms 119
166 LORD, I have hoped for your salvation, and done your commandments.
167 My soul has kept your testimonies; and I love them exceedingly.
168 I have kept your precepts and your testimonies: for all my ways are before you.
169 Let my cry come near before you, O LORD: give me understanding according to your word.
170 Let my supplication come before you: deliver me according to your word.
171 My lips shall utter praise, when you have taught me your statutes.
172 My tongue shall speak of your word: for all your commandments are righteousness.
173 Let your hand help me; for I have chosen your precepts.
174 I have longed for your salvation, O LORD; and your law is my delight.
175 Let my soul live, and it shall praise you; and let your judgments help me.
176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant; for I do not forget your commandments.
Deuteronomy 4
24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
25 When you shall beget children, and children’s children, and you shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD your God, to provoke him to anger:
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto you go over Jordan to possess it; you shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
27 And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and you shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.
28 And there you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29 But if from thence you shall seek the LORD your God, you shall find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
30 When you are in tribulation, and all these things are come upon you, even in the latter days, if you turn to the LORD your God, and shall be obedient unto his voice;
31 (For the LORD your God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake you, neither destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore unto them.
32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there has been any such thing as this great thing is, or has been heard like it?
33 Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live?
34 Or has God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
35 Unto you it was showed, that you might know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him.
36 Out of heaven he made you to hear his voice, that he might instruct you: and upon earth he showed you his great fire; and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.
37 And because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought you out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt;
38 To drive out nations from before you greater and mightier than you are, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.
39 Know therefore this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.
40 You shall keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you, and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days upon the earth, which the LORD your God gives you, for ever.
2 Peter 1
1 Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ:
2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our LORD,
3 According as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue:
4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our LORD Jesus Christ.
9 But he that lacks these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if you do these things, you shall never fall:
11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ.
12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them, and be established in the present truth.
13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our LORD Jesus Christ has showed me.
15 Moreover I will endeavor that you may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.
16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our LORD Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
17 For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto you do well that you take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
2 Peter 2
1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily [from their own imaginations] shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the LORD that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingers not, and their damnation slumbers not.
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
9 The LORD knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
10 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
11 Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the LORD.
12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
13 And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;
14 Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:
15 Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
16 But was rebuked for his iniquity: [by] the dumb [voiceless] donkey speaking with man’s voice forbid the madness of the [false] prophet.
17 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
18 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the LORD and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
2 Peter 3
1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
2 That you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the LORD and Savior:
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the LORD as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The LORD is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
10 But the day of the LORD will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our LORD is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him has written unto you;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
17 You therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
