I dont' believe that God wants us to sit back silently, as I beleive very strongly that we live in the Kingdom of God, as a Preterist, however I also believe it is our duty as Christians to support freedom in ways that are neither violent or zealous beyond Biblical reason and the life of Christ within us.
I found it of interest that the belief system of the days of our forefathers in this country, that people thought very differently other than the Quakers who think more like myself. I make no oath to no one, no institution or nation, but to serve it in Christ, however, even Paul and Peter once it got down to obedience towards God or men, chose God- and thus when commanded to cease from preaching Jesus Christ or proclaiming Ceasar a god, they did rebel against authority and did what they were told not to do anyway. They never lifted a weapon or fought back ,they simply followed their King Jesus in the same manner He did, they suffered and died at the hands of their persecutors. They practiced civil disobedience not for the affairs of men but for God. Even as Paul said, he was compelled to preach Christ.
Though I do not agree with what follows it is a large part of American History and bears repeating as a reminder, to those that always seek to power over others, there will be others who rebel many times it will be the religious and lead by the religious.
Though the following is an outline of just such a man who was both a preacher and a statesman, it is to remind us, that it is easy to be caught up in the moment of resistance against oppression, to often turn to religious justifications as this sermon delivered by John Witherspoon on May 17, 1776 just a month before the Declaration of Independence was signed in July 1776 and finally completed in it's signing in August of 1776. Here is a little background into the Scottish preacher John Witherspoon and then I have presented his sermon as preached in May 1776, that gave great religious fervor to the Revolution in 1776.
John Witherspoon (1723–1794). Born in Scotland and educated at Edinburgh, Witherspoon came to America in 1768 to be president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton), a position he held until 1792, when blindness forced his retirement. He had led the Popular Party among Scottish Presbyterians before his emigration, and he was prominent among ecclesiastical leaders in America. In the pre-Revolutionary years, the college at Princeton prospered under Witherspoon; with the Scotch-Irish influx into America, the Presbyterian church enjoyed great popularity and prosperity in the country, especially in the middle Atlantic colonies and on the frontier, where by 1776 there were many ministers who had been Witherspoon’s students. He closed the schism among the Presbyterians, and he made alliance with Ezra Stiles (president of Yale) to forge strong ties with the Congregationalists of New England as the Revolution bore down on the country. With Stiles he shared a distaste for the New Divinity and revivalism generally. He introduced into American thought the Scottish Common Sense philosophy of Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart, which dominated the young nation’s thought for a century.
Because Witherspoon had been captured and imprisoned in Scotland during the Highlander uprising in 1745–46, his critics called him a Jacobite. Witherspoon eschewed politics in America until 1774, but after that he steadily participated, directly and indirectly, in the leading events of the day. In 1776 he was elected to the Continental Congress in time to urge adoption of the Declaration of Independence and to be the only clergyman to sign it. To the assertion that America was not ripe for independence he retorted: “In my judgment, sir, we are not only ripe, but rotting.”
Witherspoon served intermittently in Congress until 1782 and was a member of over a hundred legislative committees, including two vital standing committees, the Board of War and the Committee on Foreign Affairs. In the latter role, he took a leading part in drawing up the instructions for the American peace commissioners who concluded the Treaty of Paris, which ended the war in September 1783. He later served in the New Jersey legislature and was a member of that state’s ratifying convention for the Constitution in 1787.
Witherspoon has been called the most influential professor in American history, not only because of his powerful writing and speaking style—and he was carefully attended to on all subjects, both here and abroad—but also because of his long tenure at Princeton. His teaching and the reforms he made there radiated his influence across the country. He trained not only a substantial segment of the leadership among Presbyterians but a number of political leaders as well. Nine of the fifty-five participants in the Federal Convention in 1787 were Princeton graduates, chief among them James Madison (who, among other things, spent an extra year studying Hebrew and philosophy with Witherspoon after his graduation in 1771). Moreover, his pupils included a president and a vice-president of the United States, twenty-one senators, twenty-nine representatives, fifty-six state legislators, and thirty-three judges, three of whom were appointed to the Supreme Court. During the Revolution, his pupils were everywhere in positions of command in the American forces.
Witherspoon’s The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men caused a great stir when it was first preached in Princeton and published in Philadelphia in 1776, about a month before he was elected to the Continental Congress on June 22. He reminds his auditors that the sermon is his first address on political matters from the pulpit: ministers of the Gospel have more important business to attend to than secular crises, but, of course, liberty is more than a merely secular matter.
Surely the Wrath of Man shall praise thee; the remainder of Wrath shalt thou restrain.
(How the final statement of his can fit into what both Jesus and Paul taught is beyond me, but religious men believed it and fought the war under it's religious justifications to formulate this country which we live in now) - Dr. J.
Here is the sermon as he preached it back then in May 1776
The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men
John Witherspoon
May 17, 1775
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In the first place, I would take the opportunity on this occasion, and from this subject, to press every hearer to a sincere concern for his own soul’s salvation. There are times when the mind may be expected to be more awake to divine truth, and the conscience more open to the arrows of conviction than at others. A season of public judgment is of this kind. Can you have a clearer view of the sinfulness of your nature, than when the rod of the oppressor is lifted up, and when you see men putting on the habit of the warrior, and collecting on every hand the weapons of hostility and instruments of death? I do not blame your ardour in preparing for the resolute defense of your temporal rights; but consider, I beseech you, the truly infinite importance of the salvation of your souls. Is it of much moment whether you and your children shall be rich or poor, at liberty or in bonds? Is it of much moment whether this beautiful country shall increase in fruitfulness from year to year, being cultivated by active industry, and possessed by independent freemen, or the scanty produce of the neglected fields shall be eaten up by hungry publicans, while the timid owner trembles at the tax-gatherer’s approach? And is it of less moment, my brethren, whether you shall be the heirs of glory, or the heirs of hell? Is your state on earth for a few fleeting years, of so much moment? And is it of less moment what shall be your state through endless ages? Have you assembled together willingly to hear what shall be said on public affairs, and to join in imploring the blessing of God on the counsels and arms of the United Colonies, and can you be unconcerned what shall become of you for ever, when all the monuments of human greatness shall be laid in ashes, for "the earth itself, and all the works that are therein shall be burnt up."
Wherefore, my beloved hearers, as the ministry of reconciliation is committed to me, I beseech you in the most earnest manner, to attend to "the things that belong to your peace, before they are hid from your eyes". How soon, and in what manner a seal shall be set upon the character and state of every person here present, it is impossible to know. But you may rest assured, that there is no time more suitable, and there is none so safe as that which is present, since it is wholy uncertain whether any other shall be yours. Those who shall first fall in battle, have not many more warnings to receive. There are some few daring and hardened sinners, who despise eternity itself, and set their Maker at defiance; but the far greater number, by staving off their convictions to a more convenient season, have been taken unprepared, and thus eternally lost. I would therefore earnestly press the apostle’s exhortation, 2 Cor 6: 1-2... "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."
Suffer me to beseech you, or rather to give you warning, not to rest satisfied with a form of godliness, denying the power thereof. There can be no true religion, till there be a discovery of your lost state by nature and practice, and an unfeigned acceptance of Christ Jesus, as he is offered in the gospel. Unhappy are they who either despise his mercy, or are ashamed of his cross. Believe it, "There is no salvation in any other." "There is no other name under heaven given amongst men by which we must be saved." Unless you are united to him by a lively faith, not the resentment of a haughty monarch, the sword of divine justice hangs over you, and the fulness of divine vengeance shall speedily overtake you. I do not speak this only to the heaven-daring profligate or grovelling sensualist, but to every insensible, secure sinner; to all those, however decent and orderly in their civil deportment, who live to themselves, and have their part and portion in this life; in fine, to all who are yet in a state of nature, for "except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God". The fear of man may make you hide your profanity; prudence and experience may make you abhor intemperance and riot; as you advance in life one vice may supplant another and hold its place; but nothing less than the sovereign grace of God can produce a saving change of heart and temper, or fit you for his immediate presence.
While we give praise to God, the supreme Disposer of all events, for his interposition in our behalf, let us guard against the dangerous error of trusting in, or boasting of an arm of flesh. I could earnestly wish, that while our arms are crowned with success, we might content ourselves with a modest ascription of it to the power of the Highest. It has given me great uneasiness to read some ostentatious, vaunting expressions in our newspapers, though happily, I think, much restrained of late. Let us not return to them again. If I am not mistaken, not only the Holy Scriptures in general, and the truths of the glorious gospel in particular, but the whole course of providence, seem intended to abase the pride of man, and lay the vain-glorious in the dust.
From what has been said you may learn what encouragement you have to put your trust in God, and hope for his assistance in the present important conflict. He is the Lord of hosts, great in might, and strong in battle. Whoever hath his countenance and approbation, shall have the best at last. I do not mean to speak prophetically, but agreeably to the analogy of faith, and the principles of God’s moral government. I leave this as a matter rather of conjecture than certainty, but observe, that if your conduct is prudent, you need not fear the multitude of opposing hosts.
If your cause is just, you may look with confidence to the Lord, and intreat him to plead it as his own. You are all my witnesses, that this is the first time of my introducing any political subject into the pulpit. At this season, however, it is not only lawful but necessary, and I willingly embrace the opportunity of declaring my opinion without any hesitation, that the cause in which America is now in arms, is the cause of justice, of liberty, and of human nature. So far as we have hitherto proceeded, I am satisfied that the confederacy of the colonies has not been the effect of pride, resentment, or sedition, but of a deep and general conviction that our civil and religious liberties, and consequently in a great measure the temporal and eternal happiness of us and our posterity, depended on the issue. The knowledge of God and his truths have from the beginning of the world been chiefly, if not entirely confined to those parts of the earth where some degree of liberty and political justice were to be seen, and great were the difficulties with which they had to struggle, from the imperfection of human society, and the unjust decisions of unsurped authority. There is not a single instance in history, in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage.
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Comment: I can only say when men take scripture and things that are meant clearly to be spiritual in context then revert them to the carnal affairs of men, it is easy to see how in the religious mind, all kinds of justifications are found for all kinds of acts that any man can find solace in his action, though totally unscriptural and anti-biblical just as those who turn our Lord Jesus into G.I. Jesus, or like the anti-abortionist who seek to kill those who perform abortions. They have left the context of scripture, which Jesus reminds us, that life can't be found in it, neither is it a book of rules whereby we live our carnal lives, they are that which speak of Him, Jesus Christ who is KING OVER ALL THE AFFAIRS OF MEN, for it was He who said, "All Authority has been given unto me, in heaven and on earth". The affairs of government, and others lives, are not our affair but His, and His alone, and it is He who is judge, and will judge others, not we ourselves. How we forget so easily that Christ didnt come to establish an earthly kingdom of government among all people but an inward one in the hearts of His people who are here on earth being prepared for heaven, where there is no war, no death, no sin or men and their governments which will rise and fall always. Rome fell, and yes, sad to say as an American we are seeing the last vestiges of freedom in our country coming to a close as well. Is a revolution in store, probably and perhaps but should Christians lead it, my answer and I having the Spirit of Christ believe the answer for us is still, "No". Leave the affairs of men to men, there will be governments arise that are for individual freedom as history reveals, and there will be governments fall of despotism, like Rome and now America. Yes, we have a heritage but it is not our heritage of Americans that we need recall, it is our heritage and first most of being subjects, and not just subjects of the King but brothers to Christ, and Son's of the Father which must always guard our hearts against the idea's of any sort of justified violence against any of the kingdoms of this world. They will always be there, and they will always oppose God and the freedoms of Christ people, as they did Him, but our answer should remain...."Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord", and not ours, even at cost of our own individual lives under the oppression and hands of the persecutor, whoever that may be, another government or our own. We are to remain at peace with the Prince of peace..
Dr. J.
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