FREEDOM TO BE UNEQUAL

William Andrew Dillard
Parson to Person
The founding documents of the United States of America would have us to believe all men are created equal. Rather than take issue with equality in creation, let the reader consider that the very moment one comes into this world he/she is both equal and unequal. One’s parental status, environment, socio-economic level, and I.Q. does not provide for equality but for inequality.
Though flawed as all governmental systems of men are, that inequality has, with the help of God, produced the greatest nation on earth. Capitalism’s principles are based on the Judeo/Christian ethic of theology, morals, and individual initiatives. It is a nation that evil works relentlessly to undo.
Now, there are those who labor to enrich themselves by pandering to those who will not work, will not pursue an education, but will demand in violent destructiveness that those who do have initiative, and who do work should support them. Government folks in high places push this agenda for their own obvious purpose of staying in power through “votes by pandering,” and seem determined to deprive the nation of capitalistic enterprise. One wonders: do they believe the government printing presses can keep the economy afloat forever?
As an aside, many years ago, this writer was placed on a legislative ad hoc committee to draft childcare legislation. In some of the discussions with more liberal committee members over the issue of assurance of preventing failure, it was my premise then as now, if there is not freedom to fail, there is no freedom: if there is not freedom for all, then there is no freedom at all.
Obviously, it was the Creator’s holy will that men have free moral agency: the freedom to win; the freedom to lose, the freedom to live; the freedom to die. Men who reject God and pursue the premise of evolution are determined to change that, but it is a determination destined to fail. Still, there is a sense in which all men are equal: all are sinners, and all are condemned by virtue of sin. The good news is that God provides for all men the freedom to partake of His marvelous grace, and thereby escape the destiny of sin while gaining the wealth and joys of heaven. But that freedom exercised makes men unequal.
Thus does 2 Cor. 6:14 admonish believers to not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Let there be rejoicing in heaven and earth that the lovely Lord Jesus: the Creator/Christ, has by His own blood purchased for all who love Him the freedom to be unequal.

George Washington’s gratitude and faith in God

American Minute with Bill Federer

OCTOBER 3, 1789, from the U.S. Capitol in New York City, President George Washington issued the first Proclamation of a National Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to Almighty God.

Why?

Just one week earlier the first session of the U.S. Congress successfully approved the Bill of Rights, which put ten limitations on the power of the new Federal Government.

The States were concerned the Federal Government would get too powerful.

The Preamble to the Bill of Rights explained:

“The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added…as amendments to the Constitution of the United States.”

The First of the Ten Amendments restricting the Federal Government’s abuse of its powers began:

“CONGRESS shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,

OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF;

or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;

or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,

and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

President George Washington thanked God for the “Constitutions of government…particularly the national one now lately instituted,” stating in his Proclamation, OCTOBER 3, 1789:

“Whereas it is the DUTY of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of ALMIGHTY GOD, to obey His will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and

Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me

‘to recommend to the People of the United States A DAY OF PUBLIC THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of ALMIGHTY GOD,

especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to ESTABLISH A FORM OF GOVERNMENT for their safety and happiness;’

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the twenty-sixth day of November next, to be devoted by the People of these United States to the service of that GREAT AND GLORIOUS BEING, who is the BENEFICENT AUTHOR of all the good that was, that is, or that will be;

That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks,

for His kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation;

for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of HIS PROVIDENCE, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war;

for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed,

for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to ESTABLISH CONSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT for our safety and happiness, and PARTICULARLY THE NATIONAL ONE NOW LATELY INSTITUTED,

for the CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;

and in general for all the great and various favors which He hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to THE GREAT LORD AND RULER OF NATIONS, and beseech Him

to pardon our national and other transgressions,

to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually;

to render OUR NATIONAL GOVERNMENT a blessing to all the People, by constantly being A GOVERNMENT OF WISE, JUST AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAWS, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed;

to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord;

TO PROMOTE THE KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE OF TRUE RELIGION AND VIRTUE, and the increase of science among them and us;

and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3rd of October, IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine. -George Washington.”

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The Moral Liberal contributing editor, William J. Federer, is the bestselling author of “Backfired: A Nation Born for Religious Tolerance no Longer Tolerates Religion,” and numerous other books. A frequent radio and television guest, his daily American Minute is broadcast nationally via radio, television, and Internet. Check out all of Bill’s books here.

John Marshall – Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

American Minute with Bill Federer

“The power to tax is the power to destroy,” wrote John Marshall, 4th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, who was born SEPTEMBER 24, 1755.

No one had a greater impact on Constitutional Law than John Marshall.

Home schooled as a youth, he served with the Culpeper Minutemen at the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

Marshall joined the Continental Army and served as a captain in Virginia Regiment under General George Washington, enduring the freezing winter at Valley Forge.

John Marshall later described George Washington:

“Without making ostentatious professions of religion, he was a sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man.”

John Marshall then studied law under Chancellor George Wythe at the College of William and Mary.

He as a U.S. Congressman from Virginia, and became Secretary of State under President John Adams, who then nominated him to the Supreme Court.

John Marshall swore in as Chief Justice on February 4, 1801, and served 34 years.

Every Supreme Court session opens with the invocation:

“God save the United States and this Honorable Court.”

John Marshall helped write over 1,000 decisions, usually favoring the Federal Government, which put him at odds with President Thomas Jefferson who championed State Governments.

John Marshall decided in favor of the Cherokee Indian nation to stay in Georgia against the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which was hurriedly pushed through Congress by Democrat President Andrew Jackson.

Ignoring John Marshall’s decision, the Federal Government removed over 46,000 Native Americans from their homes and relocated them west, leaving vacant 25 million acres open to the expansion of slavery.

Chief Justice John Marshall commented May 9, 1833, on the pamphlet The Relation of Christianity to Civil Government in the United States written by Rev. Jasper Adams, President of the College of Charleston, South Carolina (The Papers of John Marshall, ed. Charles Hobson, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006, p, 278):

“No person, I believe, questions the importance of religion to the
happiness of man even during his existence in this world…

The American population is entirely Christian, and with us, Christianity and religion are identified.

It would be strange, indeed, if with such a people, our institutions did not presuppose Christianity, and did not often refer to it, and express relations with it.”

According to tradition, the Liberty Bell cracked while tolling at John Marshall’s funeral, July 8, 1835.

A hundred years after John Marshall’s death, the Supreme Court Building was completed in 1935, with Herman A. MacNeil’s marble relief above the east portico featuring Moses with two stone tablets.

Inside the Supreme Court chamber are Adolph A. Weinman’s marble friezes depicting lawgivers throughout history, including Moses holding the Ten Commandments, and John Marshall.

A story was originally published in the Winchester Republican newspaper, and recounted in Henry Howe’s Historical Collections of Virginia (Charleston, South Carolina, 1845, p. 275-276; Albert J. Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall, Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919, Vol. 4, The Building of the Nation, 1815-1835):

“There is, too, a legend about an astonishing flash of eloquence from Marshall – ‘a streak of vivid lightning’ – at a tavern, on the subject of religion.

The impression said to have been made by Marshall on this occasion was heightened by his appearance when he arrived at the inn.

The shafts of his ancient gig were broken and ‘held together by switches formed from the bark of a hickory sapling’; he was negligently dressed, his knee buckles loosened.

In the tavern a discussion arose among some young men concerning ‘the merits of the Christian religion.’

The debate grew warm and lasted ‘from six o’clock until eleven.’

No one knew Marshall, who sat quietly listening.

Finally one of the youthful combatants turned to him and said:

‘Well, my old gentleman, what think you of these things?’

Marshall responded with a ‘most eloquent and unanswerable appeal.’

He talked for an hour, answering ‘every argument urged against the teachings of Jesus.’

‘In the whole lecture, there was so much simplicity and energy, pathos and sublimity, that not another word was uttered.’

The listeners wondered who the old man could be.

Some thought him a preacher; and great was their surprise when they learned afterwards that he was the Chief Justice of the United States.”

John Marshall’s daughter said her father read Alexander Keith’s “Evidence of the Truth of the Christian Religion derived from the Literal Fulfillment of Prophecy” (Edinburgh: Waugh & Innes, 1826, 2nd ed.).

The Life of John Marshall by Albert J. Beveridge (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919, Vol. IV, p. 70), stated:

“John Marshall’s daughter makes this statement regarding her father’s religious views:

‘He told me that he believed in the truth of the Christian
Revelation…during the last months of his life he read Alexander Keith on Prophecy, where our Saviour’s divinity is incidentally treated, and was convinced by this work, and the fuller investigation to which it led, of the supreme divinity of our Saviour.

He determined to apply to the communion of our Church, objecting to communion in private, because he thought it his duty to make a public confession of the Saviour.’”

Albert J. Beveridge continued in The Life of John Marshall (referencing Bishop William Meade’s Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, 2 Vols., Richmond, 1910, Vol. 2, p. 221-222):

“He attended (Episcopal) services. Bishop William Meade informs us, not only because ‘he was a sincere friend of religion,’ but also because he wished ‘to set an example.’

The Bishop bears this testimony: ‘I can never forget how he would prostrate his tall form before the rude low benches, without backs, at Coolspring Meeting-House (Leeds Parish, near Oakhill, Fauquier County) in the midst of his children and grandchildren and his old neighbors.’

When in Richmond, Marshall attended the Monumental Church where, says Bishop Meade, ‘he was much incommoded by the narrowness of the pews…

Not finding room enough for his whole body within the pew, he used to take his seat nearest the door of the pew, and, throwing it open, let his legs stretch a little into the aisle.’”

John F. Dillon wrote in John Marshall-Life, Character and Judicial Services-As Portrayed in the Centenary and Memorial Addresses and Proceedings Throughout the United States on John Marshall Day, 1901 (Chicago: Callaghan & Company, 1903):

“John Marshall Day, February 4, 1901, was appropriately observed by exercises held in the hall of the House of Representatives, and attended by the President, the members of the Cabinet, the Justices of the Supreme and District courts, the Senate and House of Representatives, and the members of the Bar of the District of
Columbia…

The program, prepared by a Congressional committee acting in conjunction with committees of the American Bar Association and the Bar Association of this District, was characterized by a dignity and simplicity befitting the life of the great Chief Justice…”

After an invocation delivered by John Marshall’s great-grandson, Rev. Dr. William Strother Jones of Trenton, N.J., Chief Justice Fuller made introductory remarks:

“The August Term of the year of our Lord eighteen hundred of the Supreme Court of the United States had adjourned at Philadelphia… However, it was not until Wednesday, February 4th, when John Marshall…took his seat upon the Bench…”

U.S. Attorney General Wayne MacVeagh then stated:

“The centennial anniversary of the entrance by John Marshall into the office of Chief Justice of the United States…

Under his forming hand, instead of becoming a dissoluble confederacy of discordant States, became a great and indissoluble nation, endowed with…the divine purpose for the education of the world…securing to the whole American continent ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people’…

Venerating the Constitution…as ‘a sacred instrument’…we have lived to see…such generous measures of political equality, of social freedom, and of physical comfort and well-being as were never dreamed of on the earth before…

Let us, on this day of all days…acknowledge that nations cannot live by bread alone…

We have heretofore cherished, the Christian ideal of true national greatness; and our fidelity to that ideal, however imperfect it has been, entitled us in some measure to the divine blessing, for having offered an example to the world for more than an entire generation of how a nation could marvelously increase in wealth and strength and all material prosperity while living in peace with all mankind…

We all believe that the true glory of America and her true mission in the new century…is what a great prelate of the Catholic Church has recently declared it to be: to stand fast by Christ and his Gospel; to cultivate not the Moslem virtues of war, of slaughter, of rapine, and of conquest, but the Christian virtues of self-denial and kindness and brotherly love…

Then we may some day hear the benediction: ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me’…

The true mission of nations as of men is to promote righteousness on earth…

and taking abundant care that every human creature beneath her starry flag, of every color and condition, is as secure of liberty, of justice and of peace as in the Republic of God.

In cherishing these aspirations…we are wholly in the spirit of the great Chief Justice; and…so effectually honor his memory.” (Dillon, Vol. 1, p. 7-42)

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray gave an address the same day in Virginia:

“Gentlemen of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and of the City of Richmond: One hundred years ago today, the Supreme Court of the United States, after sitting for a few years in Philadelphia, met for the first time in Washington, the permanent capital of the Nation; and John Marshall, a citizen of Virginia, having his home in Richmond, and a member of this bar, took his seat as Chief Justice of the United States…

Chief Justice Marshall was a steadfast believer in the truth of Christianity as revealed in the Bible. He was brought up in the Episcopal Church; and Bishop Meade, who knew him well, tells us that he was a constant and reverent worshipper in that church, and contributed liberally to its support, although he never became a communicant.

All else that we know of his personal religion is derived from the statements (as handed down by the good bishop) of a daughter of the Chief Justice, who was much with him during the last months of his life.

She said that her father told her he never went to bed without concluding his prayer by repeating the Lord’s Prayer and the verse beginning, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,’ which his mother had taught him when he was a child;

and that the reason why he had never been a communicant was that it was but recently that he had become fully convinced of the divinity of Christ, and he then ‘determined to apply for admission to the communion of our church objected to commune in private, because he thought it his duty to make a public confession of the Saviour and, while waiting for improved health to enable him to go to the church for that purpose, he grew worse and died, without ever communing.’” (Dillon, Vol. 1, p. 42, 47, 88)

New Hampshire Supreme Court Judge Jeremiah Smith gave an address:

“And this brings us to what is…the great distinguishing feature in Marshall s life; the real secret of his extraordinary success…that is his high personal character…

John Marshall was pre-eminently single minded. His whole life was pervaded by an overpowering sense of duty and by strong religious principle. A firm believer in the Christian religion, his life was in accord with his belief.” (Dillon, Vol. 1, p. 162)

Charles E. Perkins, nephew of Harriet Beecher Stowe and President of the Connecticut Bar Association stated:

“As a man, Marshall appears to have been as near perfection in disposition, habits, and conduct as it is possible for a mortal man to be…He had no vices and, I may almost say, no weaknesses.

In spite of his eminent talents, his high positions, and his great reputation, there was no tinge of conceit…

His charities were constant and great. He bore no malice toward those who offended or injured him.

He was a sincere Christian and believed in and obeyed the commands of the Bible.” (Dillon, Vol. 1, p. 330)

U.S. Rep. William Bourke Cockran addressed the Erie County Bar Association, Buffalo, New York:

“Aside from the establishment of Christianity, the foundation of this republic was the most memorable event in the history of man…

And if the foundation of this government be the most momentous human achievement of all the centuries, then clearly the appointment of John Marshall to the Chief Justiceship of the United States was the first event of the last century no less in the magnitude of its importance than in the order of its occurrence.” (Dillon, Vol. 1, p. 404-405)

U.S. Senator and former Maryland Governor William Pinkney Whyte stated:

“Would you not call a man religious who said the Lord’s Prayer every day? And the prayer he learned at his mother’s knee went down with him to the grave.

He was a constant and liberal contributor to the support of the Episcopal Church.

He never doubted the fact of the Christian revelation, but he was not convinced of the fact of the divinity of Christ till late in life.

Then, after refusing privately to commune, he expressed a desire to do so publicly, and was ready and willing to do so when opportunity should be had. The circumstances of his death only forbade it…

He was never professedly Unitarian, and he had no place in his heart for either an ancient or a modern agnosticism.” (Dillon, Vol. 2, p. 2-3)

U.S. Rep. Horace Binney of Pennsylvania stated that Marshall:

“…was a Christian, believed in the gospel, and practiced its tenets.” (Dillon, Vol. 3, p. 325)

Nathan Sargent, former Commissioner of Customs, wrote in Public Men and Events from 1817 to 1853 (Philadelphia, 1875, Vol. 1, p. 299), that Marshall’s “name has become a household word with the American people implying greatness, purity, honesty, and all the Christian virtues.”

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The Moral Liberal contributing editor, William J. Federer, is the bestselling author of “Backfired: A Nation Born for Religious Tolerance no Longer Tolerates Religion,” and numerous other books. A frequent radio and television guest, his daily American Minute is broadcast nationally via radio, television, and Internet. Check out all of Bill’s books here.

Alexis de Tocqueville on America

American Minute with Bill Federer

Alexis de Tocqueville was born JULY 29, 1805.

A French social scientist, he traveled the United States in 1831, and wrote a two-part work, Democracy in America (1835, 1840), which has been described as:

“the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the relationship between character and society in America that has ever been written.”

In it, de Tocqueville wrote:

“Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things, to which I was unaccustomed.

In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country…”

De Tocqueville continued:

“They brought with them…a form of Christianity, which I cannot better describe, than by styling it a democratic and republican religion…

From the earliest settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved.”

De Tocqueville wrote:

“Religion in America…must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it…This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or a party, but it belongs to the whole nation.”

De Tocqueville observed:

“The sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God…

Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same.”

De Tocqueville added:

“In the United States the sovereign authority is religious…There is no country in the whole world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence than in America…

America is still the place where the Christian religion has kept the greatest real power over men’s souls; and nothing better demonstrates how useful and natural it is to man, since the country where it now has the widest sway is both the most enlightened and the freest.”

De Tocqueville continued:

“In the United States the influence of religion is not confined to the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people…Christianity, therefore reigns without obstacle, by universal consent…”

De Tocqueville continued:

“The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.”

In Book Two of Democracy in America, de Tocqueville wrote:

“Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind in America…In the United States…Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it.”

In August of 1831, while traveling through Chester County, New York, Alexis de Tocqueville observed a court case:

“While I was in America, a witness, who happened to be called at the assizes of the county of Chester, declared that he did not believe in the existence of God or in the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to admit his evidence, on the ground that the witness had destroyed beforehand all confidence of the court in what he was about to say. The newspapers related the fact without any further comment.

The New York Spectator of August 23d, 1831, relates the fact in the following terms:

‘The court of common pleas of Chester county (New York), a few days since rejected a witness who declared his disbelief in the existence of God.

The presiding judge remarked, that he had not before been aware that there was a man living who did not believe in the existence of God; that this belief constituted the sanction of all testimony in a court of justice: and that he knew of no case in a Christian country, where a witness had been permitted to testify without such belief.’”

In Democracy in American, Vol. II, (1840), Book 1, Chapter V), Alexis de Tocqueville wrote:

“Mohammed brought down from heaven and put into the Koran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories.

The Gospels, on the other hand, deal only with the general relations between man and God and between man and man. Beyond that, they teach nothing and do not oblidge people to believe anything.

That alone, among a thousand reasons, is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power long in an age of enlightenment and democracy, while Christianity is destined to reign in such age, as in all others.”

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote to Arthur de Gobineau, October 22, 1843 (Tocqueville Reader, p. 229):

“I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Mohammed.

So far as I can see, it is the principle cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.”

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The Moral Liberal contributing editor, William J. Federer, is the bestselling author of “Backfired: A Nation Born for Religious Tolerance no Longer Tolerates Religion,” and numerous other books. A frequent radio and television guest, his daily American Minute is broadcast nationally via radio, television, and Internet. Check out all of Bill’s bookshere.

120 — April 29 – This Day in Baptist History Past

A Call for the Ongoing of the Gospel
The mission’s magazine that was used to stir Judson

Pastors Samuel Stillman of Boston’s First Baptist Church and Thomas Baldwin of Boston’s Second Baptist Church were the prime movers behind the establishing of the mission, and the two churches issued a call to the other Baptist churches in the state to unite for the purpose of the ongoing of the gospel. The appeal was dated April 29, 1802, and the meeting was held in the First Baptist Church.  “The object of this Society shall be to furnish occasional preaching, and to promote the knowledge of evangelistic truth in the new settlements within these United States; or further if circumstance should render it proper.”  “At once they sent out their first missionaries: John Tripp, Isaac Case and Joseph Cornell. . . . The three were to find their own horses, but they were to have a weekly salary of five dollars plus expenses.  They were to keep clear of politics, to keep an exact journal, and primarily to evangelize and encourage those people so sadly deprived, by distance and isolation, of church ministries.
In 1803 the society established The Massachusetts Missionary Magazine. It was the September of 1809 issue of this magazine that Adoniram Judson was stirred so as to offer himself for missionary service to India.
Dr. Dale R. Hart: Adapted from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I: Cummins Thompson /, pp. 174
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