The Constitution's Christian Preamble?

   I am still amazed both those people who attempt to deny that America has a Christian heritage, who assert that her political founders were virtually irreligious and had seemingly no favorable dispositions towards Christianity (let alone a passionate faith in Christ), who proclaim that all that makes America great can be boiled down to a few creedal statements which are the results of logic and reasoning and not the outgrowth of an historic Christian moral tradition.  Inevitably they drag out Franklin and Jefferson and misrepresent much of their works regarding the matter, or they overly-promote Thomas Paine’s influence as though he single-handedly engineered our break with Great Britain (in fact, Paine’s anti-Christian, radical egalitarian views were so far outside the mainstream that Washington passed him up for an appointment to his administration).  It seems as though every person that they utilize to support their proposition was either never an orthodox Christian or strayed from the orthodox faith later in life, as in the case of John Adams.  They almost never cite passages within their context or supplement their assertions by producing supporting documentation, such as quotes from other members of the Constitutional convention, for example.  Let me provide just one sample that reveals to us some of the inner-workings of what happened in the discussions and debates surrounding the adoption of our Constitution.

   William Williams was a signer of the Declaration of Independence as well as a member of the Hartford convention that approved the Constitution.  After the debates had ended, there were some who had objected to the elimination of “religious tests” for prospective office holders under the new Constitution.  Here Williams addresses their concerns and sheds light on how the Connecticut delegates might have preferred the preamble to look:

“When the clause in the 6th article, which provides that "no religious test should ever be required as a qualification to any office or trust, &c." came under consideration, I observed I should have chose that sentence and anything relating to a religious test, had been totally omitted rather than stand as it did, but still more wished something of the kind should have been inserted, but with a reverse sense, so far as to require an explicit acknowledgment of the being of a God, his perfections and his providence, and to have been prefixed to, and stand as, the first introductory words of the Constitution, in the following or similar terms, viz. We the people of the United States, in a firm belief of the being and perfections of the one living and true God, the creator and supreme Governour of the world, in his universal providence and the authority of his laws; that he will require of all moral agents an account of their conduct; that all rightful powers among men are ordained of, and mediately derived from God; therefore in a dependence on his blessing and acknowledgment of his efficient protection in establishing our Independence, whereby it is become necessary to agree upon and settle a Constitution of federal government for ourselves, and in order to form a more perfect union &c., as it is expressed in the present introduction, do ordain &c., and instead of none, that no other religious test should ever be required &c., and that supposing, but not granting, this would be no security at all, that it would make hypocrites, &c. yet this would not be a sufficient reason against it; as it would be a public declaration against, and disapprobation of men, who did not, even with sincerity, make such a profession, and they must be left to the searcher of hearts; that it would however, be the voice of the great body of the people, and an acknowledgment proper and highly becoming them to express on this great and only occasion, and according to the course of Providence, one mean of obtaining blessings from the most high.

But that since it was not, and so difficult and dubious to get inserted, I would not wish to make it a capital objection; that I had no more idea of a religious test, which should restrain offices to any particular sect, class, or denomination of men or Christians in the long list of diversity, than to regulate their bestowments by the stature or dress of the candidate, nor did I believe one sensible catholic man in the state wished for such a limitation; and that therefore the News-Paper observations, and reasonings (I named no author) against a test, in favour of any one denomination of Christians, and the sacrilegious injunctions of the test laws of England &c., combatted objections which did not exist, and was building up a man of straw and knocking him down again. These are the same and only ideas and sentiments I endeavoured to communicate on that subject, tho' perhaps not precisely in the same terms; as I had not written, nor preconceived them, except the proposed test, and whether there is any reason in them or not, I submit to the public.

I freely confess such a test and acknowledgment would have given me great additional satisfaction; and I conceive the arguments against it, on the score of hypocrisy, would apply with equal force against requiring an oath from any officer of the united or individual states; and with little abatement, to any oath in any case whatever; but divine and human wisdom, with universal experience, have approved and established them as useful, and a security to mankind.”¹

   Secular society, huh?  It would appear that at least there were some men in Hartford during that convention who rightly thought the national charter should at least acknowledge its dependence on God.  How much better would our country be if our political leaders and our communities at large lived as though Williams’ proposed preamble were reality?  Father, may we your people live our lives in the firm belief of those words!

Christ, not man, is King!

Dale

            1) “William Williams to the Printer”, The Debate on the Constitution, Pt. II (New York, NY: Library Classics of the United States , 1993), p. 193-95.

Don't mess with "Old Tom!"

I thought this story was so remarkable, even though it's from the early 19th century, I just had to share it.  Father, give us such men, and women, again!!!

“The following well authenticated account of the adventures of a ranger is so graphically described in Brown's History of Illinois, that we give it in the words of the writer:

"Thomas Higgins, a native Kentuckian, was, in the summer of 1814, stationed in a block-house eight miles south of Greenville, in what is now Bond County, Illinois. On the evening of the 30th of August, 1814, a small party of Indians having been seen prowling about the station, Lieutenant Journay, with all his men, twelve only in number, sallied forth the next morning, just before daybreak, in pursuit of them. They had not proceeded far on the border of the prairie, before they were in an ambuscade of seventy or eighty savages. At the first fire, the lieutenant and three of his men were killed. Six fled to the fort under cover of the smoke, for the morning was sultry, and the air being damp, the smoke from the guns hung like a cloud over the scene. But Higgins remained behind to have 'one more pull at the enemy,' and to avenge the death of his companions.

"He sprang behind a small elm scarcely sufficient to protect his body, when, the smoke partly rising, discovered to him a number of Indians, upon whom he fired, and shot down the foremost one. Concealed still by the smoke, Higgins reloaded, mounted his horse, and turned to fly, when a voice, apparently from the grass, hailed him with: Tom, you won't leave me, will you?

"He turned immediately around, and seeing a fellow soldier by the name of Burgess lying on the ground, wounded and gasping for breath, replied, 'No, I will not leave you; come along.' 'I can't come,' said Burgess, 'my leg is all smashed to pieces.'

"Higgins dismounted, and taking up his friend, whose ankle had been broken, was about to lift him on his horse, when the animal, taking fright, darted off in an instant and left them both behind. 'This is too bad,' said Higgins, 'but don't fear. You hop off on your three legs and I will stay behind between you and the Indians and keep them off. Get into the tallest grass and creep as near the ground as possible.' Burgess did so and escaped.

"The smoke which had hitherto concealed Higgins now cleared away, and he resolved, if possible, to retreat. To follow the track of Burgess was most expedient. It would, however, endanger his friend. He determined, therefore, to venture boldly forward and, if discovered, to secure his own safety by the rapidity of his flight. On leaving a small thicket in which he had sought refuge, he discovered a tall, portly savage near by, and two others in the direction between him and the fort.

"He started, therefore, for a little rivulet near, but found one of his limbs failing him, it having been struck by a ball in the first encounter, of which, till now, he was scarcely conscious. The largest Indian pressed close upon him, and Higgins turned round two or three times in order to fire. The Indian halted and danced about to prevent his taking aim. He saw that it was unsafe to fire at random, and perceiving two others approaching, knew that he must be overpowered unless he could dispose of the forward Indian first. He resolved, therefore, to halt and receive his fire.

"The Indian raised his rifle, and Higgins, watching his eye, turned suddenly as his finger pressed the trigger, and received the ball in his thigh. He fell, but rose immediately and ran. The foremost Indian, now certain of his prey, loaded again, and with the other two pressed on. They overtook him. He fell again, and as he rose the whole three fired, and he received all their balls. He now fell and rose a third time, and the Indians, throwing away their guns, advanced upon him with spears and knives. As he presented his gun at one or another, each fell back. At last the largest Indian, supposing his gun to be empty, from his fire having been thus reserved, advanced boldly to the charge. Higgins fired and the savage fell.

"He had now four bullets in his body, an empty gun in his hand, two Indians unharmed as yet before him, and a whole tribe but a few yards distant. Any other man would have despaired. Not so with him. He had slain the most dangerous of the three, and having but little to fear from the others, began to load his rifle. They raised a savage whoop and rushed to the encounter. A bloody conflict now ensued. The Indians stabbed him in several places. Their spears, however, were but thin poles, hastily prepared, and which bent whenever they struck a rib or a muscle. The wounds they made were not therefore deep, though numerous.

"At last one of them threw his tomahawk. It struck him upon the cheek, severed his ear, laid bare his skull to the back of his head, and stretched him upon the prairie. The Indians again rushed on, but Higgins, recovering his self-possession, kept them off with his feet and hands. Grasping at length one of their spears, the Indian, in attempting to pull it from him, raised Higgins up, who, taking his rifle, dashed out the brains of the nearest savage. In doing this, however, it broke, the barrel only remaining in his hand. The other Indian, who had heretofore fought with caution, came now manfully into the battle. His character as a warrior was in jeopardy. To have fled from a man thus wounded and disarmed, or to have suffered his victim to escape, would have tarnished his fame for ever. Uttering, therefore, a terrific yell, he rushed on and attempted to stab the exhausted ranger. But the latter warded off his blow with one hand and brandished his rifle barrel with the other. The Indian was as yet unharmed, and, under existing circumstances, by far the most powerful man. Higgins' courage, however, was unexhausted and inexhaustible.

"The savage at last began to retreat from the glare of his untamed eye to the spot where he had dropped his rifle. Higgins knew that if he recovered that, his own case was desperate. Throwing, therefore, his rifle barrel aside, and drawing his hunting knife he rushed upon his foe. A desperate strife ensued—deep gashes were inflicted on both sides. Higgins, fatigued and exhausted by the loss of blood, was no longer a match for the savage. The latter succeeded in throwing his adversary from him, and went immediately in pursuit of his rifle. Higgins at the same time rose and sought for the gun of the other Indian. Both, therefore, bleeding and out of breath, were in search of arms to renew the combat.

"The smoke had now passed away, and a large number of Indians were in view. Nothing, it would seem, could now save the gallant ranger. There was, however, an eye to pity and an arm to save, and that arm was a woman's. The little garrison had witnessed the whole combat. It consisted of but six men and one woman; that woman, however, was a host—a Mrs. Pursley. When she saw Higgins contending single-handed with a whole tribe of savages, she urged the rangers to attempt his rescue. The rangers objected, as the Indians were ten to one. Mrs. Pursley, therefore, snatched a rifle from her husband's hand, and declaring that 'so fine a fellow as Tom Higgins should not be lost for want of help,' mounted a horse and sallied forth to his rescue.

"The men, unwilling to be outdone by a woman, followed at full gallop, reached the spot where Higgins had fainted and fell, before the Indians came up, and while the savage with whom he had been engaged was looking for his rifle, his friends lifted the wounded ranger up and throwing him across a horse before one of the party, reached the fort in safety.

"Higgins was insensible for several days, and his life was preserved by continued care. His friends extracted two of the balls from his thigh. Two, however, yet remained, one of which gave him a good deal of pain. Hearing afterwards that a physician had settled within a day's ride of him, he determined to go and see him. The physician asked him fifty dollars for the operation. This Higgins flatly refused, saying that it was more than half a year's pension. On reaching home he found that the exercise of riding had made the ball discernable; he requested his wife, therefore, to hand him his razor. With her assistance he laid open his thigh until the edge of the razor touched the bullet, then, inserting his two thumbs into the gash, 'he flirted it out,' as he used to say, 'without it costing him a cent.'

"The other ball yet remained. It gave him, however, but little pain, and he carried it with him to the grave. Higgins died in Fayette County, Illinois, a few years ago. He was the most perfect specimen of a frontier man in his day, and was once assistant door-keeper of the House of Representatives in Illinois. The facts above stated are familiar to many to whom Higgins was personally known, and there is no doubt of their correctness."

Excerpted from Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky by John S.C. Abbott (New York, NY: Dodd & Mead, 1874), pp. 182-88

Christ, not man, is King!

Dale

Give 'em Watts!

"The zeal of Presbyterians during the war exposed them to special cruelties at the hands of the British soldiery. Among the foremost patriots of that day was the Rev. James Caldwell, pastor of the Presbyterian church of Elizabethtown, N. J.

'Descended from the Huguenots,' writes the Rev. Dr. Sprague in his Annals, 'and imbibing the spirit of the Scotch Covenanters, he may be said to have inherited a feeling of opposition to tyrants. Connected with his congregation were the Daytons, the Ogdens, Francis Barber, William Crane, Oliver Spencer, Elias Boudinot, William Livingston, Abram Clark, and others who became eminent for their wisdom, piety, valor and patriotism.'

When the news of the passage of the Declaration of Independence reached the New Jersey brigade, of which he was chaplain, the men were called together, and Parson Caldwell gave this toast: 'Harmony, honor and all prosperity to the free and independent United States of America; wise legislators, brave and victorious armies, both by sea and land, to the United States of America.'  His church was given up to be used as a hospital for the sick. Its bell sounded the alarm on the approach of the foe.

In an attack upon Springfield, when the wadding [strips of paper or cloth necessary for the proper loading of a musket] of the patriots gave out, Caldwell ran to the Presbyterian church; and returning with his arms and pockets filled with Watts Psalms and Hymns, he scattered them among the soldiers, exclaiming, 'Now, boys, give them Watts!'

In vexation at his patriotism, British officers offered large rewards for his capture. Failing in this, the British soldiery set fire to his church and shot his wife through the window of her own room in the midst of her nine children, dragged her bleeding corpse into the street and laid the house and other surrounding buildings in ashes. The following poem by Bret Harte tells the story:

'Here’s the spot. Look around you. Above on the height

Lay the Hessians encamped. By that church on the right

Stood the gaunt Jersey farmers. And here ran a wall.

You may dig anywhere, and you’ll turn up a ball.

Nothing more. Grasses spring, waters run, flowers blow

Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago.

'Nothing more did I say? Stay one moment; you’ve heard

Of Caldwell, the parson, who once preached the word

Down at Springfield? What, no? Come, that’s bad! Why,

he had

All the Jerseys aflame. And they gave him the name

Of the rebel high priest. He stuck in their gorge,

For he loved the Lord God, and he hated King George.

'He had cause, you may say. When the Hessians that day

Marched up with Knyphusen, they stopped on the way

At the Farms, where his wife, with a child in her arms,

Sat alone in the house. How it happened none knew

But God and that one of the hireling crew

Who fired the shot. Enough! there she lay,

And Caldwell the chaplain, her husband, away.

'Did he preach? did he pray? Think of him as you stand

By the old church to-day; think of him and that band

Of militant ploughboys. See the smoke and the heat

Of that reckless advance, of that straggling retreat!

Keep the ghost of that wife, foully slain, in your view,

And what could you, what should you, what would you do?

'Why, just what he did. They were left in the lurch

For the want of more wadding. He ran to the church,

Broke the door, stripped the pews, and dashed out in the

road

With his arms full of hymn-books, and threw down his load

At their feet. Then above all the shouting and shots

Rang his voice: Put Watts into ‘em! boys, give ‘em Watts!

'And they did. That is all. Grasses spring, flowers blow

Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago.

You may dig anywhere, and you’ll turn up a ball,

But not always a hero like this; and that’s all.'" ¹

Christ, not man, is King!

Dale

1)  W.P. Breed, Presbyterians and the Revolution (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1876), pp. 79-82

Bartram's Travels

       The following selection is from the introduction to William Bartram’s Travels which was first published in 1791.  It is an account of his travels through the southeastern American colonies during the years 1773-78.  A botanist, and the son of a botanist, Bartram certainly knows that of which he speaks, and what he speaks of in his journals is the benevolent hand of God forming and fashioning the diverse animal and plant life he observed.  To me, there are echoes of Psalm 19 and Romans 1 in Bartram’s words.

“THE animal creation also, excites our admiration, and equally manifests the almighty power, wisdom and beneficence of the Supreme Creator and Sovereign Lord of the universe; some in their vast size and strength, as the mamoth, the elephant, the whale, the lion and alligator; others in agility; others in their beauty and elegance of colour, plumage and rapidity of flight, have the faculty of moving and living in the air; others for their immediate and indispensable use and convenience to man, in furnishing means for our clothing and sustenance, and administering to our help in the toils and labours through life; how wonderful is the mechanism of these finely formed, self-moving beings, how complicated their system, yet what unerring uniformity prevails through every tribe and particular species! the effect we see and contemplate, the cause is invisible, incomprehensible, how can it be otherwise? when we cannot see the end or origin of a nerve or vein, while the divisibility of mater or fluid, is infinite. We admire the mechanism of a watch, and the fabric of a piece of brocade, as being the production of art; these merit our admiration, and must excite our esteem for the ingenious artist or modifier, but nature is the work of God omnipotent: and an elephant, even this world is comparatively but a very minute part of his works. If then the visible, the mechanical part of the animal creation, the mere material part is so admirably beautiful, harmonious and incomprehensible, what must be the intellectual system? that inexpressibly more essential principle, which secretly operates within? that which animates the inimitable machines, which gives them motion, impowers them to act speak and perform, this must be divine and immortal?”

            William Bartram, Travels of William Bartram (New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1955), pp. 20-1.

Christ, not man, is King!

Dale

Coming To Grips With Jefferson's "Theology"

Every once in a while, it’s always good to take a step back and evaluate those people we tend to place on pedestals.  Perhaps it is human nature, but we seem to overly venerate some men and overlook or even deny their faults.  For me, I must confess, the Founding Fathers fall into that category.  Maybe it’s that the overwhelming majority of elected officials today subvert the constitution and denigrate the lives and memories of those men, and that raises my ire.  Maybe I just have a misplaced affection for the “good ol’ days” (whatever that may mean).  Whatever may be its foundation, it’s always a good thing to take an objective, honest look at our historic leaders just as we should objectively look at our own hearts.

One of my most favorite Founders is Thomas Jefferson.  I suppose it may be because his expressed political sentiments most closely reflect my own.  While he is most often referred to as a “deist,” which I believe is a misnomer, it is certainly true that he was not an orthodox Christian by any serious standard.  Take for example Jefferson’s April 11, 1823 letter to John Adams; there is some I can agree with wholeheartedly and some where he’s just flat wrong.  Let’s take a look…

Dear Sir, — The wishes expressed, in your last favor, that I may continue in life and health until I become a Calvinist, at least in his exclamation of `mon Dieu! jusque à quand'! would make me immortal. I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Dæmonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. The being described in his 5. points is not the God whom you and I acknowledge and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor of the world; but a dæmon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no god at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin. Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a god. Now one sixth of mankind only are supposed to be Christians: the other five sixths then, who do not believe in the Jewish and Christian revelation, are without a knowledge of the existence of a god!

Aside from his harsh criticism of John Calvin (with which I would vehemently disagree), I think Jefferson makes an error in his supposition that without revelation (I believe here he is referring to special revelation, i.e. the Bible) there is insufficient proof of the being of God.  The Christian church has never held such a view; in fact, the Apostle Paul lays out exactly the contrary in his epistle to the Roman church:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.  For since the creation of the world His invisible  attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Professing to be wise, they became fools…” Rom. 1:18-22 (NKJV)

Notice Paul says that mankind is “without excuse;” that is, no man can say that he has not been given sufficient revelation to believe in God.  The problem is not that God has failed to reveal Himself.  The problem is that man suppresses that revelation because of the wickedness of his heart.  The existence of the various religions and cults is only a further demonstration of this truth:  men know there is a God to Whom they must give an account.  While general revelation can show us that there is a God, we need special revelation to show us the full range of his dealings with men and what His will is, and the ultimate expression of God’s revelation is in his Son Jesus Christ.  What separates true religion from the false is that false religions worship a god of their own making and the true Christian religion worships the God Who made them.  I believe Jefferson’s assertion of this “general dogma” is patently false.

“This gives completely a gain de cause to the disciples of Ocellus, Timaeus, Spinosa, Diderot and D'Holbach. The argument which they rest on as triumphant and unanswerable is that, in every hypothesis of Cosmogony you must admit an eternal pre-existence of something; and according to the rule of sound philosophy, you are never to employ two principles to solve a difficulty when one will suffice. They say then that it is more simple to believe at once in the eternal pre-existence of the world, as it is now going on, and may for ever go on by the principle of reproduction which we see and witness, than to believe in the eternal pre-existence of an ulterior cause, or Creator of the world, a being whom we see not, and know not, of whose form substance and mode or place of existence, or of action no sense informs us, no power of the mind enables us to delineate or comprehend. On the contrary I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in it's parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of it's composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with it's distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles, insects mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth, the mineral substances, their generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their preserver and regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regenerator into new and other forms. We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power to maintain the Universe in it's course and order. Stars, well known, have disappeared, new ones have come into view, comets, in their incalculable courses, may run foul of suns and planets and require renovation under other laws; certain races of animals are become extinct; and, were there no restoring power, all existences might extinguish successively, one by one, until all should be reduced to a shapeless chaos. So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed thro' all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to Unit, in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of a self-existent Universe.”

Here I agree with Jefferson because I agree with Paul.  Even without appealing to special revelation, there is still enough revealed about God through His creation that we can understand the necessity of His superintending of all things. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.  Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge.  There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.” (Ps. 19:1-3 NKJV)

“Of the nature of this being we know nothing. Jesus tells us that `God is a spirit.' 4. John 24. but without defining what a spirit is pneuma a theos. Down to the 3d. century we know that it was still deemed material; but of a lighter subtler matter than our gross bodies. So says Origen. `Deus igitur, cui anima similis est, juxta Originem, reapte corporalis est; sed graviorum tantum ratione corporum incorporeus.' These are the words of Huet in his commentary on Origen. Origen himself says `appelatio asomaton apud nostros scriptores est inusitata et incognita.' So also Tertullian `quis autem negabit Deum esse corpus, etsi deus spiritus? Spiritus etiam corporis sui generis, in sua effigie.' Tertullian. These two fathers were of the 3d. century. Calvin's character of this supreme being seems chiefly copied from that of the Jews. But the reformation of these blasphemous attributes, and substitution of those more worthy, pure and sublime, seems to have been the chief object of Jesus in his discourses to the Jews: and his doctrine of the Cosmogony of the world is very clearly laid down in the 3 first verses of the 1st. chapter of John, in these words:

Which truly translated means `in the beginning God existed, and reason (or mind) was with God, and that mind was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were created by it, and without it was made not one thing which was made'. Yet this text, so plainly declaring the doctrine of Jesus that the world was created by the supreme, intelligent being, has been perverted by modern Christians to build up a second person of their tritheism by a mistranslation of the word logos. One of it's legitimate meanings indeed is `a word.' But, in that sense, it makes an unmeaning jargon: while the other meaning `reason', equally legitimate, explains rationally the eternal preexistence of God, and his creation of the world. Knowing how incomprehensible it was that `a word,' the mere action or articulation of the voice and organs of speech could create a world, they undertake to make of this articulation a second preexisting being, and ascribe to him, and not to God, the creation of the universe. The Atheist here plumes himself on the uselessness of such a God, and the simpler hypothesis of a self-existent universe. The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors.”

It is shocking to me that a man as intelligent as Jefferson could miss what is so obvious.  I have to believe that Jefferson had access to the full text of John’s gospel, and yet he failed to quote to whole text.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.  He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’” And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.  For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”  John 1:1-18 (NKJV)

Now I’m not a trained theologian, but I believe the text is plain enough to teach us a few things.  First, we see that John clearly differentiates between the Word and God.  The Word was with God, the Word was in the beginning with God, the Word became flesh, etc.  It is clear that John is referring to two, distinct persons here.  Secondly, Jefferson’s assertion that “logos” means an impersonal “reason” just doesn’t fit.  Did impersonal “reason” become flesh and dwell among the apostles?  Of course not.  Thirdly, it is clear by a simple reading of the context that John is defining “the Word” and “the Light” as being one and the same person, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ is here defined as being with the Father from the beginning, making all things, being the source of life, the giver of light, bearer of God’s glory, giver of grace and truth.  What mere man could be said to be “in the bosom of the Father?”  Christians are not “tritheists” but monotheists.  We worship 1 God in 3 distinct Persons not 3 separate Gods.  We do so because that is how God is revealed in Holy Scripture, and especially by passages like John 1.  Certainly Jefferson understood enough Christian theology to understand that.  Now, we could take up Jefferson’s assertion that the virgin birth of Christ is a “fable” but I think that is a topic for another day.  This is just another reason why we must take everything proposed by man back to the Scriptures to see how it measures up.

Semper Reformata

Dale