Jimmyeatworld said:
Outil?
Jimmyeatworld said:
Well, it's been different, but I'm tired of it. You've proven yourself to be nothing more than the average far left wing nut, revisionist historian.
What history did I revise?
Jimmyeatworld said:
Cherry picking history, taking things out of context, showing your ignorance when it comes to state and federal government.
What cherry picking? What out of context?
Jimmyeatworld said:
Just a note: Before I headed to work on Monday, I stopped by a friends house. Their 8 year old son was there and I asked him, "If the President came on TV after something bad happened, like the hurricane in New Orleans, and at the end of his speech he said 'Keep the people of New Orleans in your prayers'... Would you think that was a command from the President, or just something he recommends?" He looked at me funny and said, "Just something he recommends." An eight year old knows the difference.
If he prays because the President asked him to, his prayers go to the Devil. Christian pray according to the dictates of Christ. Those who pray according to the dictates of the government are not Christians.
Here is something you find of interest. Samuel Stillman was one of the men who gave legal effect to the U. S. Constitution as one of the delegates to the Massachusetts Ratification Convention of 1788. Judging from this excerpt from an essay he wrote in 1779 he was in favor of a strict separation of church and state .
TO ATTEMPT TO DRAW THE LINE BETWEEN THE THINGS THAT BELONG TO CAESAR, AND THOSE THINGS THAT BELONG TO GOD by Samuel Stillman
To this inquiry I am naturally led by the text: ---
Render, therefore, to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. It is most evident in this passage, that there are some things which Caesar, or the magistrate, cannot of right demand, nor the people yield. The address has its limits. To determine what these are, was never more necessary to the people of these United States than it is at present. We are engaged in a most important contest; not for power, but freedom. We mean not to change our masters, but to secure to ourselves, and to generations yet unborn, the perpetual enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, in their fullest extent.
It becomes us, therefore, to settle this most weighty matter in our different forms of government, in such a manner, that no occasion may be left in future for the violation of the all-important rights of conscience.
"I esteem it," says the justly-celebrated Mr. Locke, "above all things, necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion, and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other. If this be not done, there can be no end put to the controversies that will be always arising between those that have, or at least pretend to have, on the one side a concernment for the interest of men's souls, and on the other side a care of the commonwealth.
"The commonwealth seems to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests
"Civil interests I call life, liberty, and health, and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like.
"Now, that t
he whole jurisdiction of the magistrate reaches only to these civil concernments, and that all civil power, right and dominion, are bounded and confined to the only care of promoting these things; and that it neither can nor ought in any manner to be extended to the salvation of souls, these following considerations seem to me abundantly to demonstrate:
"First, because the care of souls is not committed to the civil magistrate any more than to other men. It is not committed to him, I say, by God; because it appears not that God has ever given any such authority to one man over another, as to compel any one to his religion. Nor can any such power be invested in the magistrate by the consent of the people; because no man can so far abandon the care of his own salvation, as blindly to leave it to the choice of any other, whether prince or subject, to prescribe to him what faith or worship he shall embrace. For no man can, if he would, conform his faith to the dictates of another. All the life and power of true religion consist in the inward and full persuasion of the mind; and faith is not faith without believing.
"In the second place. The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God. And such is the nature of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled to any thing by outward force.
"In the third place, the care of the salvation of men's souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because, though the rigor of laws and the force of penalties were capable to convince and change men's minds, yet would not that help at all to the salvation of their souls; for, there being but one truth, one way to heaven, what hope is there that more men would be led into it if they had no other rule to follow but the religion of the court, and were put under the necessity to quit the light of their own reason, to oppose the dictates of their own consciences, and blindly resign up themselves to the will of their governors, and to the religion which either ignorance, ambition, or superstition had chanced to establish in the countries where they were born? In the variety and contradiction of opinions in religion, wherein the princes of the world are as much divided as in their secular interests, the narrow way would be much straitened, one country alone would be in the right, and all the rest of the world put under an obligation of following their princes in the ways that lead to destruction. And what heightens the absurdity, and very ill suits the notion of a Deity, men would owe their eternal happiness or misery to the places of their nativity.
"These considerations, to omit many others that might have been urged to the same purpose, seem to me sufficient to conclude that all the power of civil government relates only to men's civil interests, is confined to the care of the things of this world, and hath nothing to do with the world to come."
These sentiments, I humbly conceive, do honor to their author, and discover a true greatness and liberality of mind, and are calculated properly to limit the power of civil rulers, and to secure to every man the inestimable right of private judgment.
They are also perfectly agreeable to a fundamental principle of government, which we universally admit. We say, That the power of the civil magistrate is derived from the people. If so, it follows, that he can neither have more, nor any other kind of power, than they had to give.
The power which the people commit into the hands of the magistrate is wholly confined to the things of this world. Other power than this they have not. They have not the least authority over the consciences of one another, nor over their own consciences so as to alienate them or subject them to the control of the civil magistrate in matters of religion, in which every man ought to be fully persuaded in his own mind, and to follow its dictates at all hazards, because he is to account for himself at the judgment-seat of Christ.
Seeing, then, that the people have no power that they can commit into the hands of the magistrate but that which relates to the good of civil society, it follows that the magistrate can have no other, because he derives his authority from the people. Such as the power of the people is, such must be the power of the magistrate.
To these observations I beg leave to add, that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world. By his kingdom we mean his church, which is altogether spiritual. Its origin, government and preservation are entirely of Him who hath upon his vesture and upon his thigh written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF
LORDS.
The doctrines that we are to believe, the duties that we are to perform, the officers who are to serve in this kingdom, and the laws by which all its subjects are to be governed, we become acquainted with by the oracles of God, which are the Christian's infallible directory; to which he is bound to yield obedience, at the risk of his reputation and life.
They who enter into this kingdom do it voluntarily, with a design of promoting their spiritual interests. Civil affairs they resign to the care of the magistrate, but the salvation of their souls they seek in the kingdom of Christ.
This kingdom does not in any respect interfere with civil government, but rather tends to promote its peace and happiness; because its subjects are taught to obey the magistracy, and to lead peaceable and quiet lives in all godliness and honesty.
The subjects of the kingdom of Christ claim no exemption from the just authority of the magistrate, by virtue of their relation to it. Rather they yield a ready and cheerful obedience, not only for wrath but also for conscience sake. And should any of them violate the laws of the state, they are to be punished as other men.
They exercise no secular power, they inflict no temporal penalties upon the persons of one another. All their punishments are spiritual. Their weapons are not carnal, but mighty through God. They use no other force than that of reason and argument, to reclaim delinquents; nor are such persons to be punished for continuing incorrigible, in any other way than by rebuke, or exclusion.
They pretend not to exercise their spiritual authority over any persons, who have not joined themselves to them of their own accord. "What have I to do," says Paul, "to judge them also who are without? do ye not judge them who are within?"
The subjects of this kingdom are bound by no laws in matters of religion, but such as they receive from Christ, who is the only lawgiver and head of his church. All human laws in this respect are inadmissible, as being unnecessary, and as implying a gross reflection on our Lord Jesus Christ, as though he was either unable, or unwilling to provide for his own interest in the world. Nor will he stand by, an idle spectator, of the many encroachments that have been made on his sacred prerogative by the powers of the world.
Should the most dignified civil ruler become a member of his church, or a subject of his spiritual kingdom, he cannot carry the least degree of his civil power into it. In the church he is, as any other member of it, entitled to the same spiritual privileges, and bound by the same laws. The authority he has derived from the state, can by no means be extended to the kingdom of Christ, because Christ is the only source of that power, that is to be exercised in it.
It may be said, that religion is of importance to the good of civil society; therefore the magistrate ought to encourage it under this idea.
It is readily acknowledged that the intrinsic excellence and beneficial effects of true religion are such that every man who is favored with the Christian revelation ought to befriend it. It has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. And there are many ways in which the civil magistrate may encourage religion, in a perfect agreement with the nature of the kingdom of Christ, and the rights of conscience.
As a man, he is personally interested in it. His everlasting salvation is at stake. Therefore he should search the Scriptures for himself, and follow them wherever they lead him. This right he hath in common with every other citizen.
As the head of a family, he should act as a priest in his own house, by endeavoring to bring up his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
As a magistrate, he should be as a nursing father to the church of Christ, by protecting all the peaceable members of it from injury on account of religion; and by securing to them the uninterrupted enjoyment of equal religious liberty. The authority by which he acts he derives alike from all the people; consequently he should exercise that authority equally for the benefit of all, without any respect to their different religious principles. They have an undoubted right to demand it.
Union in the state is of absolute necessity to its happiness. This the magistrate will study to promote. And this he may reasonably expect upon the plan proposed, of a just and equal treatment of all the citizens.
For though Christians may contend amongst themselves about their religious differences, they will all unite to promote the good of the community, because it is their interest, so long as they enjoy the blessings of a free and equal administration of government.
On the other hand, if the magistrate destroys the equality of the subjects of the state on account of religion, he violates a fundamental principle of a free government, establishes separate interests in it, and lays a foundation for disaffection to rulers and endless quarrels among the people.
Happy are the inhabitants of that commonwealth, in which every man sits under his vine and fig-tree, having none to make him afraid; in which all are protected but none established. Permit me, on this occasion, to introduce the words of the Rev. Dr. Chauncey, whose age and experience add weight to his sentiments. "We are," says this gentleman, "in principle against all civil establishments in religion.
We desire not, and suppose we have no right to desire, the interposition of the state to establish our sentiments in religion, or the manner in which we would express them. It does not, indeed, appear to us, that God has intrusted the state with a right to make religious establishments." And after observing that if one state has this right, all states have the same right, he adds: "And as they must severally be supposed to exert this authority in establishments conformable to their own sentiments in religion, what can the consequence be, but infinite damage to the cause of God and true religion? And such, in fact, has been the consequence of these establishments in all ages and in all places. What absurdities in sentiment, and ridiculous follies, not to say gross immoralities in practice, have not been established by the civil power, in some or other of the nations of the world?"
http://www.belcherfoundation.org/duty_of_magistrates.htm
