After “completing” the Preamble, for a future generation of our posterity to perhaps use as a guide for doing it right(eous) the next time, I wasn’t necessarily intending to immediately proceed to articles for a future constitution. However, in addition to encouragement from others, this seems to be where the Lord is leading.
I proceed with some trepidation and feelings of inadequacy. However, the idea here is not perfection, but rather something that might be used to assist our nation (or, more likely, local communities) in looking to Yahweh1 as their God and King, as did our true 17th-century Christian American forbears. For example, McGuffey’s Eclectic Reader, America’s most popular school book in the 1800s, testified to America’s early form of theocratic government:
Their form of government was as strictly theocratical insomuch that it would be difficult to say where there was any civil authority among them distinct from ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Whenever a few of them settled a town, they immediately gathered themselves into a church; and their elders were magistrates, and their code of laws was the Pentateuch…. God was their King; and they regarded him as truly and literally so….2
William McGuffey was undoubtedly influenced by the writings of renowned early American preachers such as John Cotton:
The famous John Cotton, the first minister of Boston … earnestly pleaded “that the government might be considered as a theocracy, wherein the Lord was judge, lawgiver and king; that the laws which He gave Israel might be adopted….” At the desire of the court, he compiled a system of laws founded chiefly on the laws of Moses….3
I’m often confronted by others with the impossibility of establishing society upon God’s law. In view of America’s present deplorable state, I will be the first to admit the task is daunting to the say the least. However, let’s not forget that if the task is of Yahweh, it is anything but impossible for Him.
Behold, I am YHWH, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me? (Jeremiah 32:27)
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. (Matthew 19:26)
Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. (Mark 9:23)
If this task is ordained of God, anyone withstanding it will be judged for his opposition to His will:
…if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.” (Acts 5:38-39)
We should also take heart in the fact that a Biblical society was already essentially accomplished (albeit not without mistakes) right here in America in the 1600s. With God’s favor, it will be done again.
Let’s Write a Biblical Article 1
As with the Preamble, I’ll submit my proposal in a week or two. In the meantime, I am requesting Article 1 proposals from our readers: If you were asked to be a delegate to a constitutional convention for the purpose of establishing a Biblical government, how might you write Article 1, concerning legislation for its constitution?
You can either submit your proposal below in response to this post, or email it to me at tweiland@vistabeam.com. I look forward to your submissions.
Related posts:
The Preamble: How Would You Write It?
Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective
End Notes:
1. YHWH, the English transliteration of the Tetragrammaton, is most often pronounced Yahweh. It is the principal Hebrew name of the God of the Bible and was inspired to appear nearly 7,000 times in the Old Testament. In obedience to the Third Commandment and in honor of His memorial name (Exodus 3:15), and the multitudes of Scriptures that charge us to proclaim, swear by, praise, extol, call upon, bless, glorify, and hold fast to His name, I have chosen to use His name throughout this blog. For a more thorough explanation concerning important reasons for using the sacred name of God, see “The Third Commandment.”
2. William Holmes McGuffey, McGuffey’s Sixth Eclectic Reader (New York, NY: American Book Company, 1879) p. 225.
3. Jeremy Belknap, John Farmer, The History of New-Hampshire (Dover, NH: George Wadleigh, 1862) pp. 42-43.
We don’t need a “Constitution” what we need is a YHWH Centered Society and Government instituting his Laws, Statutes and Judgements and to quit trying to improve on them such as the US Constitution did and failed.
Ultimately, we won’t even need a “government” because each person will control and govern themselves according to the Law of God. There will be no need for someone to give orders, directives, or guidelines for everyone else to live by, since the prevailing, overwhelming lifestyle of the day will be to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Constitutions, legislation, and Congresses are for those who refuse to self-govern under God’s Law. Unfortunately, for now, this is the system we have to live with.
Michael, thank you for your comment. I appreciate your concern and sentiments.
If you haven’t already, you might want to go and read the Preamble I submitted in the previous blog article and I think you’ll see that what you have suggested is precisely what we’re aiming at, something similar to the following:
The Portsmouth, Rhode Island, Compact, 1638
We whose names are underwritten do hereby solemnly in the presence of Jehovah
incorporate ourselves into a Bodie Politick and as He shall help, will submit
our persons, lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings,
and Lord of Lords, and to all those perfect and most absolute laws of His given
in His Holy Word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby.
Fundamental Agreement of the Colony of New Haven,
Connecticut, 1639
Agreement; We all agree that the scriptures hold forth a perfect rule for the
direction and government of all men in duties which they are to perform to God
and to man, as well in families and commonwealth as in matters of the church;
so likewise in all public officers which concern civil order, as choice of
magistrates and officers, making and repealing laws, dividing allotments of
inheritance, and all things of like nature, we will, all of us, be ordered by
the rules which the scripture holds forth; and we agree that such persons may
be entrusted with such matters of government as are described in Exodus 18:21
and Deuteronomy 1:13 with Deuteronomy 17:15 and 1 Corinthians 6:1, 6 & 7….
Without such agreements/constitutions, a community has no agreed-upon consensus by which to function as a unit.
I’m certainly NOT talking about anything by which we would add to or take away from Yahweh’s perfect law and altogether righteous judgments (Psalm 19:7-11).
Ted, I know/believe that is not your talking about you wanting to add or take away anything.
But, we have seen how over time ideals such as you list above get twisted, and bent till they no longer even resemble their meaning.
I agree. However, the problem then exists with those who added or took away from what was originally a Scriptural document and in those who let them get away with doing so.
Such agreements are not without Biblical precedent:
I don’t think anyone would argue against a verbal assent to Yahweh and His law such as found in Deuteronomy 27. Would it have been wicked for them to have instead put their “amens” in writing (of course, we don’t know that they didn’t), or to have expanded upon their “amens,” or even signed their names to their “amens”?
In Exodus 19:1-8, had Moses written out what Yahweh wanted him to convey to the Israelites and/or when the people responded “we will do,” was that adding to the covenant or merely agreeing to it? Had they put it in writing or expanded upon those three words explaining exactly what they intended to do in response to Yahweh’s marriage proposal, would that have been adding to or taking away for the covenant? I’m confident you would agree it would not have been any such thing.
The same with Nehemiah 10:28-29.
Provided such an agreement (compact, covenant) comports with Yahweh’s law, it not only specifically spells out the Biblical parameters and thereby what’s Scripturally expected (which the average person needs), it provides extra and, most likely, a longer lasting incentive for loyalty to the Yahweh and His law. Without such, it becomes too easy for every man to do what’s right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25)
Any man, of the Christian race, who is no longer a stranger from the covenants of promise, who is no longer far off, but made nigh by the blood of Christ, who wishes to join the Remnant, may join a group of up to nine other men of this same description, and be part of the resulting ten-man group of the larger civil body politic.
Each man shall nominate one man from his ten-man group, an able man, who fears Yahweh, is a man of truth and hates covetousness, to be the ruler of the group. Each man of the ten-man group may then disqualify any nominee. If there is/are one or more still-qualified nominees, after the disqualification process, lots shall be cast to determine which one shall be the group’s ruler.
The ruler of this ten-man group may join four other rulers of other ten-man groups and choose a ruler, from among these five rulers, to rule over the resulting fifty-man group, by the same method that first-line rulers are chosen. The ten-man group, from which the ruler of fifty is chosen, shall choose another ruler from among themselves to fill the vacancy.
In like fashion, rulers of hundreds, rulers of thousands, and a ruler over all, shall be chosen. These rulers shall take heed what they do. They shall judge not for man, but for Yahweh, who is with them in judgment. They shall fear Yahweh, for there is no iniquity with Him, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts.
Each ruler shall swear to uphold Biblical law. Any ruler who fails to uphold Biblical law shall be removed from office, either by his peer rulers or his superior rulers.
David, thanks for your submission.