4.

-- TilE NATURE OF
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM, Thobum
Press, Fairfax, VA.
. .,--,FOUNDATIONSOF
SOCIAL ORDER, Thobum Press, Fairfax,
VA. .
6. DeMar, RULER OF TilE
NATIONS, Dominion Ft. Wor!1
1
TX.
7. Whitehead, John, THe STEALING OF
AMERICA, Crossway Books, Westchester,
IL
8. TilE SECOND
AMERICAN REVOU)TION, David C.
Cook Pub. Co., Elgin, IL. .
THESEPARATION
ILLUSION Matt Medi3, Milford MI.
10. RushdoonY.._RJ., CHRISTIANITY
AND THE STATE, Ross House Books,
Vallecito, CA.

III, No. 1.oSummer).,1976,_vallecitohC:A.
12. SKousen c., TnE OF
AMERICA, The National Center for
Constitutional Studies, Washmgtopl..PC
13. McDonald, Lam', WE HOLU THESE
TRUTHJ. 76 Seal Beaclt, CA.
14. wines, W.C., THE HEBREW
American Presbyterian Press,
Jo.!!,_n..k CHRISTIANITY
AND THE 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 ID'. Hamilton, TilE
FEDERALIST PAPERS, New Alnerican
Libr!).IY, NY.
18. Hei).IT, Mason, THE ANTI-
FEDERALIST PAPERS, New American
Gregg, A THEOLOGICAL
INTERPRETATION OF AMERICAN
HISTORY, Craig Press, Nutley, NJ. . 0
Continuing the series
of taped sermons on
The Revival
of the Church
by Joe Morecraft, III
The Revival of the Church
and the Glory of God, V
(Exodus 33)
The of the Church
and the Coming of Christ, I & II
(Is a. 62-64)
The Way to Revival, I
(ll 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 Law-in 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
America made 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 .... having 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. I
In 1644 a book was published in
England by Samuel Rutherford entitled
Robert Smith ls
a Presbyterian
layman who
lieads the
Christian Food
Mission In
Laurel,
Mlss1sslppi.
by Robert Smith
Lex Rex. In 1660 it was condemned
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_ollege, 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. Not
even the king is above it. Rutherford
used Romans 13 to show that all power
is from God who ordains and institutes
government. John Locke, who influ-
enced Jefferson, 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
teaching 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
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 sov-
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-
tal 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 . .
.. the 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 of church and 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,
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
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
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 Thee 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
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.
The 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
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-
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
study of the historical and
legal evidence for America's Christian
The Counsel of Cbalccdon, January, 1988 ---------------------------Page 9
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, add a volume of unofficial decla-
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 our .
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 of 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}:
L. Loane, Mtlker$ of
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, Tithing 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
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 information, contact Kenneth L. Gentry; Jr., .
124 Meadowbrook Dr., Mauldin, South Carolina 29662
Page 10 _.._ _______ ___. ____ ___. ______ _.._ ___ _.__The Coun5el of Cbaicedon, January, 1988