{"id":5395,"date":"2020-02-28T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regnersmorningcoffee.com\/blogger\/?p=5395"},"modified":"2020-01-13T11:44:35","modified_gmt":"2020-01-13T11:44:35","slug":"another-coffee-break-our-forefathers-covenants-part-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regnersmorningcoffee.com\/blogger\/another-coffee-break-our-forefathers-covenants-part-11\/","title":{"rendered":"ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: OUR FOREFATHERS\u2019 COVENANTS, Part 11"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n

OUR FOREFATHERS\u2019\nCOVENANTS<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n\n

Part 11<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n\n

February 28, 2020<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n\n

We left off last week\ntalking about Thomas Jefferson\u2019s letter to the Danbury Baptist Church.\u00a0 <\/span>That letter has become so distorted and\nmis-used since the FDR Supreme Court ruled that \u201cFreedom of Religion\u201d and\n\u201cSeparation of Church and State\u201d meant that no state-run agency of facility\ncould promote the name of Jesus Christ under the guise that it infringed on the\nrights of other religions.\u00a0 <\/span>What a\nfarce!\u00a0 <\/span>What a fraud! <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Let\u2019s dig down deeper\ninto this discussion today as we pick up where we left off last week.\u00a0 <\/span>Understand that, as we do so, we are now\ndiscussing issues that became part of the foundational understanding that\neventually formed our Constitution.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

We\nbegin today with a quote from James Hutson, Chief of the Manuscript Division at\nthe Library of Congress.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\"In gutting his draft was Jefferson playing the hypocrite,\nsacrificing his principles to political expediency, as his Federalist opponents\nnever tired of charging?\u00a0 By no means, for the Danbury Baptist letter was\nnever conceived by Jefferson to be a statement of fundamental principles; it\nwas meant to be a political manifesto, nothing more.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\"Withholding from the public the rationale for his policy\non thanksgivings and fasts did not solve Jefferson's problem, for his refusal\nto proclaim them would not escape the attention of the Federalists and would\ncreate a continuing vulnerability to accusations of irreligion. Jefferson found\na solution to this problem even as he wrestled with the wording of the Danbury\nBaptist letter, a solution in the person of the famous Baptist preacher John\nLeland, who appeared at the White House on Jan. 1, 1802, to give the president\na mammoth, 1,235-pound cheese, produced by Leland's parishioners in Cheshire,\nMass.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\"One of the nation's best known advocates of religious\nliberty, Leland had accepted an invitation to preach in the House of\nRepresentatives on Sunday, Jan. 3, and Jefferson evidently concluded that, if\nLeland found nothing objectionable about officiating at worship on public\nproperty, he could not be criticized for attending a service at which his\nfriend was preaching. Consequently, \"contrary to all former\npractice,\" Jefferson appeared at church services in the House on Sunday,\nJan. 3, two days after recommending in his reply to the Danbury Baptists\n\"a wall of separation between church and state\"; during the remainder\nof his two administrations he attended these services \"constantly.\"<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

However,\nwe are getting ahead of ourselves in this discussion about the Danbury\nletter.\u00a0 Let's back up and begin taking a look at those individuals who\nput their lives, their fortunes, and all that they had on the line as they\nprepared the documents that became the foundation of our nation's birth as a\nsingle, cohesive people.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

James\nMadison, who became the fourth President of the United States, was educated by\nPresbyterian clergymen, and attended Princeton Theological Seminary (1769 -\n1772) in preparation for his own ordination as a minister of the Gospel of\nJesus Christ.\u00a0 In a letter to a college friend, dated in 1773, Madison\nproposed that \"the rising stars of his\ngeneration renounce their secular prospects and \"publicly . . . declare\ntheir unsatisfactoriness<\/span> by becoming fervent\nadvocates in the cause of Christ.\"<\/i><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Whatever\nled to the decision, two months after he wrote those comments, he enrolled in\nLaw School; and a year later entered the political arena, serving on the Orange\nCounty Committee of Safety.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Reverend\nAlexander Balmaine<\/a>, the husband of one of James Madison's\nfavorite cousins, and the Episcopal priest who officiated at Madison's marriage\nto Dolly Paine Todd, recorded the substance of some of his conversations\nconcerning Christianity in some of his own memoirs.\u00a0 Balmaine wrote that\nMadison's opponents suggested that \"he was better suited to the pulpit\nthan to the legislative hall.\"<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

While\nMadison succeeded in keeping his doctrinal views private for the most part, he\nwas -- as noted in Library of Congress documents -- quite opposed to\n\"Calvinistic views.\"\u00a0 Whatever his personal convictions, as\nManuscript Division Chief, James Hutson writes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\"Madison's passion for the separation of church and state\nwas kindled by exposure as a young man to the sufferings of neighbors enduring\nreligious persecution; like Moses witnessing the beating of the Hebrew slave by\nthe Egyptian taskmaster, Madison was moved by this experience toward a lifelong\ncommitment to relieve his countrymen from spiritual oppression. The events that\naroused what Madison later called his \"very early and strong\nimpressions\" in favor of religious liberty were a series of imprisonments\nof Baptist ministers in 1773-1774 in Culpeper County for preaching without\nlicenses in violation of the toleration acts then in force in Virginia. By this\ntime Baptists were thickly settled in Orange County, so much so that in 1771\n5000 attended an open air meeting at Blue Run Church near Montpelier. Young\nMadison informed himself of his neighbors' beliefs and, looking beyond their\nemotional forms of worship, satisfied himself that they were \"in the main\nvery orthodox.\" He was, therefore, indignant when they suffered from the\n\"diabolical Hell conceived principle of persecution\" in adjacent\nCulpeper County. The plight of the Baptists prompted Madison,\ncharacteristically, to reflect on their situation and derive general principles\nfrom their misfortunes. The source of all the trouble, it was obvious to him,\nwas the laws establishing the Church of England as the official religion of the\ncommonwealth of Virginia. Establishments of religion, Madison concluded, had\nbroad, deleterious effects on society at large that extended well beyond the\nviolation of individual rights. They had a tendency to produce a mentality\nsusceptible to political \"slavery and Subjection\" and were unfriendly\nto \"genius,\" enterprise and economic growth.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Madison actively tried to help the Baptists. On January 24,\n1774, he wrote a friend that he had \"squabbled and scolded abused and\nridiculed\" their adversaries. The recipients of his invective are unknown.\nHe may have confronted them as a character witness in judicial proceedings, for\nthere is a tradition that he \"repeatedly appeared in the court of his own\ncounty to defend the Baptist nonconformists.\" If so, he was unsuccessful.\nBut the next time Madison appeared in a public forum, he achieved an historic\nvictory for religious liberty.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

The occasion of Madison's triumph was the Virginia Revolutionary\nConvention, May 6-July 5, 1776, which instructed its delegates at the\nContinental Congress to declare independence, drafted a constitution for the\ncommonwealth, and adopted George Mason's famous Declaration of Rights. The\nstory has been told often and well of how the modest young Madison amended\nMason's Declaration, transforming the latter's grant of the \"fullest\nToleration in the Exercise of Religion\" to a guarantee that \"all men\nare equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the\ndictates of conscience.\" Brant's estimate of the importance of Madison's\namendment is certainly correct: it \"asserted, for the first time in any\nbody of fundamental law, a natural right which had not previously been\nrecognized as such by political bodies in the Christian world.\"<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

There\nhas been much disagreement and debate between historians over James Madison's\nactual role in the \"separation of church and state, with some historians\ntaking the current liberal view that Madison wanted no input at all into\ngovernment from religion or religion institutions, and others taking a far more\nbenevolent view of Madison's labors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Quoting\nagain from various historical documents reposing in the Library of Congress,\nand James Hutson's analysis, we read,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\"In Whig eyes Madison and his supporters deserve to be\nexplained and extolled because they are the pioneers of what is currently\nregarded as the \"progressive\" doctrine of strict separation of church\nand state. No time need be wasted on their opponents, as an offhand remark by\nIrving Brant, a prime example of Butterfield's Whig historian, indicates. Brant\nnoted that Henry's 1784 speech, advocating \"religious assessments,\"\nhad not survived but that this was not a matter of regret, since it would have\ncontained nothing worth reading; \"a plea to unite church and state is\nnot,\" wrote Brant, \"of the sort on which libertarian fame is\nbuilt.\" Ignoring the case for general religious assessments does not alter\nthe reality that in post-1776 large numbers of Americans, great and small,\napproved them. We need to know why they did, if we would fully understand\nMadison's opposition to the state support of religion.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Advocates for assessment endorsed the distinction Virginia's\nPresbyterian leadership made in 1784 between supporting religion as a\n\"Spiritual system\" and \"in a civil way.\" No one wanted to\nturn the clock back to an era in which the state supported a system of\nreligious beliefs because it purported to offer the one, true path to spiritual\nbliss. What many Virginians wanted, in common with citizens in other states,\nwas to avail themselves of what petitioners to the General Assembly repeatedly\ncalled the \"Public utility\" of religion, by which they meant its\ncapacity to promote the general welfare of society. Not only in Virginia but in\nCongress and throughout the nation religion was repeatedly acclaimed in the\n1780s for its ability to promote happiness, prosperity, peace, order, security\nand safety. Summarizing the case for the public utility of religion, a\nPresbyterian minister observed that \"if we consider the end of civil\nsociety and the evils it was designed to remedy, we will be convinced that from\nits very nature, that it [government] cannot reach that end, nor guard against those\nevils, without the aid of religion. Let it suffice to observe that the security\nof life, liberty and property\" is impossible without religion. It is no\nexaggeration to assert that many, troubled by the unsettled social conditions\nof the 1780s, and the apparent disintegration of popular morality, regarded\nreligion as the only hope for society's secular salvation.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Religion was expected to come to the rescue by creating a\npopulation of law abiding, good neighbors. It would, the citizens of Amherst\nCounty confidently predicted, \"dispose Men to mutual acts of benevolence\nand render them dutiful subjects to the state.\" Why was this so? Because\nreligion was considered to be a uniquely effective incubator of virtue and\nmorality. \"The Doctrines of Christianity,\" asserted Virginia's\nEpiscopal clergy in 1776, \" have a greater Tendency to produce Virtue\namongst Men than any human Laws or Institutions.\" \"Good morals,\"\nadded Madison's cousin, Bishop James Madison, \"can spring only from the\nbosom of religion.\" Religious faith, a \"Social Christian\"\ndeclared in the Virginia Gazette<\/u>, Sept. 18, 1779, \"made men more\nquiet, better members of society.\" \"More than any single thing,\"\nit created, \"good order, good morals, and happiness public and private. It\nmakes good men and good men must be good citizens.\" <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

According\nto Bishop Madison, religion did more; it produced \"the perfection of\ncitizens.\" Religion had tools that the secularists lacked: first love, the\nlove of Christ, which was expressed in obedience to his commandments and, if\nthis failed, the \"system of future rewards and punishments\" derided\nas bribes and terror by opponents, but effective nonetheless in guaranteeing\nvirtuous behavior. It was a truism of the age that virtue was a prerequisite\nfor republican government. In producing virtue religion enabled the state to\nachieve its preeminent revolutionary goal: the perpetuation of republicanism.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

That\nthe state should concern itself with the character of its citizens was an old\nidea, stretching back to classical antiquity. That it could use religion to\nshape civic consciousness was an equally venerable strategy of statecraft which\npersisted, Madison noted, in the Europe of his day. (No less an authority than\nDavid Hume, described by some scholars as Madison's mentor in political\nphilosophy, advocated an established church as a way to endow government with\n\"security and stability.\") Madison himself pointed out that the\nstate's use of religion for civic purposes was a favorite project of earlier\ngenerations of British statesmen. Other Virginians reminded their fellow\ncitizens that the wisdom of this policy had been acknowledged \"at every\nPeriod of time and in every Corner of the Globe.\" \"The wisest\nLegislators of Antiquity,\" they claimed, were \"expressive of their\nveneration for religion, at least as an assistant to civil Government.\"\nPlutarch, for example, had asserted \"a City might be as well built in the\nair, without any earth to stand upon, as a Commonwealth can be either\nconstituted or preserved without the support of religion.\"<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

As\nwe continue to look back at these documents, and the letters, the writings, the\ncommentary of the day that surrounded our nation's founders, and the\ncorrespondence and notes between them, it becomes increasingly clear that faith\nin God and a relationship with Jesus Christ was considered an absolute\nnecessity -- doctrinal disagreements and variances aside -- to erecting,\nmaintaining and preserving a government and a society in which the nation could\nprosper and forge a future.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Let\u2019s\ntake a look at John Jay, who became our nation's first Chief Justice of the\nSupreme Court, and was one of the authors of The Federalist Papers<\/b> using\nthe pseudonym, Publius<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

It\nwas December 12, 1745 that John Jay was born to a prominent and wealthy family\nin the Province of New York. His grandfather, Augustus Jay, had fled France as\na Protestant Christian when the rights of Christians were abolished with the\nrevocation of the Edict of Nantes, bringing his family to America and\neventually settling in New York.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0Obviously\ngifted by the Lord at birth, he was sent to an exclusive boarding school at age\neight where his genius was noted and encouraged.\u00a0 At age 14, John Jay went\non to King's College (now Columbia University).\u00a0 He graduated with the\nhighest honors at 19 years of age, going on to study law under Benjamin Kissam<\/span>.\u00a0 Admitted to the New York Bar four years\nlater, he quickly rose to prominence as a member of the New York Committee of\nCorrespondence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

At\nage 28, he was the second youngest member of the First Continental Congress.\u00a0\nHis own faith and personal convictions caused him to initially argue against\nAmerica's independence from Great Britain, and his treatise, An Address to\nthe People of Great Britain<\/i>, was written as a plea for\nreconciliation.\u00a0 Thomas Jefferson took issue with him when Jay refused to\nsign the Declaration of Independence and resigned from the Congress.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Once\nindependence had been declared, however, John Jay became both an ardent\nspokesman and negotiator for the independent rights of American citizens.\u00a0\nDuring his first stint in Congress, (he returned to Congress after independence\nwas declared and served as the President of the Continental Congress in\n1778-1779) he became a friend of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, and in\n1787 they began jointly publishing a series of articles in New York newspapers\ntitled, The Federalist Papers<\/i>.\u00a0 Writing alternately under the\npseudonym, Publius<\/i>, the three argued the tenets of Federalism<\/i> in\na way that not only affected statehood for many of the newly forming states,\nbut formed many of the arguments that led to the creation of our U.S.\nConstitution.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

That\nwork also led to the creation of a federal judiciary, and on September 24,\n1789, George Washington signed the Judiciary Act into law and appointed John\nJay the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

My\nsharing of all these details (and I've left out a whole lot!) isn't meant to\nbore you with history, but to lay a foundation that will help you in\nunderstanding how our laws were formed, how the Supreme Court came into being,\nand how the founders of our Constitution saw the creation of this nation within\nthe framework of a relationship with Jesus Christ.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

John\nJay, our nation's first Chief Justice, was a man of faith and trust in God; and\nhis relationship with Jesus Christ formed the basis for his arguments for\nAmerica's establishment as a Christian nation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n

Next\nweek, we will look at some of John Jay\u2019s commentary on the Word and its\nrelationship to our nation\u2019s existence and its foundations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

We\nstill have a ways to go in looking at our nation\u2019s founding fathers and their\nunderstanding of our Covenatn<\/span> with the Lord Jesus\nChrist.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n

In case you are missing out on real fellowship in an environment\nof Ekklesia, our Sunday worship gatherings are available by conference call \u2013 usually\nat about 10:30AM Pacific.\u00a0 <\/span>That\nconference number is <\/span><\/b>(712) 770-4160<\/span><\/b>, and\nthe access code is <\/span><\/b>308640#.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0 <\/span>We are now making these gatherings available on\nvideo using ZOOM.\u00a0 <\/span>If you wish to\nparticipate by video on ZOOM, our login ID is 835-926-513.\u00a0 <\/span>If you miss the live voice-only call, you can\ndial <\/span><\/b>(712) 770-4169<\/span><\/b>, enter the same access code\nand listen in later.\u00a0 <\/span>The video call, of\ncourse, is not recorded \u2013 not yet, anyway.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Blessings on you!<\/o:p><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n\n

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\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n\n

Regner A. Capener<\/span><\/b>
\nCAPENER MINISTRIES<\/b><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n

RIVER WORSHIP CENTER<\/span>
\nTemple, Texas 76504<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n

Email Contact: <\/span>CapenerMinistries@protonmail.com<\/span><\/u><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n

All Coffee Break articles are\ncopyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting,\ncopying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted \u2013provided proper attribution\nand this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are available .<\/span><\/u> Coffee Break articles are normally published\nweekly.
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\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n

CAPENER MINISTRIES<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to\nparticipate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact\nus at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit:\u00a0<\/span>http:\/\/www.RiverWorshipCenter.org<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We left off last week talking about Thomas Jefferson\u2019s letter to the Danbury Baptist Church. That letter has become so distorted and mis-used since the FDR Supreme Court ruled that \u201cFreedom of Religion\u201d and \u201cSeparation of Church and State\u201d meant that no state-run agency of facility could promote the name of Jesus Christ under the guise that it infringed on the rights of other religions. What a farce! What a fraud! <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s dig down deeper into this discussion today as we pick up where we left off last week. Understand that, as we do so, we are now discussing issues that became part of the foundational understanding that eventually formed our Constitution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,1],"tags":[205,65,132],"class_list":["post-5395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-204","category-another-coffee-break","tag-205","tag-another-coffee-break","tag-february"],"yoast_head":"\nANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: OUR FOREFATHERS\u2019 COVENANTS, Part 11 - Regners Morning Coffee<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/regnersmorningcoffee.com\/blogger\/another-coffee-break-our-forefathers-covenants-part-11\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: OUR FOREFATHERS\u2019 COVENANTS, Part 11 - Regners Morning Coffee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We left off last week talking about Thomas Jefferson\u2019s letter to the Danbury Baptist Church. That letter has become so distorted and mis-used since the FDR Supreme Court ruled that \u201cFreedom of Religion\u201d and \u201cSeparation of Church and State\u201d meant that no state-run agency of facility could promote the name of Jesus Christ under the guise that it infringed on the rights of other religions. What a farce! What a fraud! Let\u2019s dig down deeper into this discussion today as we pick up where we left off last week. 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