The 5000 Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World
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"... but as He is also a Being of infinite wisdom. He has laid down only such laws as were founded in those relations of justice, that existed in the nature of things ... These are the eternal, immutable laws of good and evil, to which the Creator Himself in all His dispensations conforms; and which He has enabled human reason to discover, so far as they are necessary for the conduct of human actions. Such, among others, are these principles: that we should live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render to everyone his due." 132
Sound Principles of Law All Based on God's Law
Divine Law Endows Mankind with Unalienable Duties as Well as Unalienable Rights
Examples of Public and Private Duties
The Creator's Superior Law of Criminal Justice
Should Taxpayers Compensate Victims of Crimes?
God's Law the Supreme Law of the Land
Natural Law Constitutes Eternal Principles
Sound Principles of Law All Based on God's Law
Blackstone also said it was necessary for God to disclose these laws to man by direct revelation:
"The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man's felicity." 133
An analysis of the essential elements of God's code of divine law reveals that it is designed to promote, preserve, and protect man's unalienable rights.
This divine pattern of law for human happiness requires a recognition of God's supremacy over all things; that man is specifically forbidden to attribute God's power to false gods; that the name of God is to be held in reverence, and every oath taken in the name of God is to be carried out with the utmost fidelity, otherwise the name of God would be taken in vain; that there is also a requirement that one day each week be set aside for the study of God's law; that it is also to be a day of worship and the personal renewing of one's commitment to obey God's law for happy living; that there are also requirements to strengthen family ties by children honoring parents and parents maintaining the sanctity of their marriage and not committing adultery after marriage; that human life is also to be kept sacred; that he who willfully and wantonly takes the life of another must forfeit his own; that a person shall not lie; that a person shall not steal; that every person must be willing to work for the things he desires from life and not covet and scheme to get the things which belong to his neighbor.
These principles will be immediately recognized as the famous Ten Commandments. There are many additional laws set forth in the Bible which clarify and define these principles. 134
Divine Law Endows Mankind with Unalienable Duties
as Well as Unalienable Rights
In recent years the universal emphasis on "rights" has seriously obscured the unalienable duties which are imposed upon mankind by divine law. As Thomas Jefferson said, man "has no natural right in opposition to his social duties." 135
There are two kinds of duties -- public and private. Public duties relate to public morality and are usually supported by local or state ordinances which can be enforced by the police power of the state. Private duties are those which exist between the individual and his Creator. These are called principles of private morality. The only enforcement agency is the self-discipline of the individual himself. William Blackstone was referring to public and private morality when he said:
Let a man therefore be ever so abandoned in his principles, or vicious in his practice, provided he keeps his wickedness to himself, and does not offend against the rules of public decency, he is out of the reach of human laws. But if he makes his vices public, though they be such as seem principally to affect himself (as drunkenness, or the like), they then become by the bad example they set, of pernicious effects to society; and therefore it is then the business of human laws to correct them.... Public sobriety is a relative duty [relative to other people], and therefore enjoined by our laws; private sobriety is an absolute duty, which, whether it be performed or not, human tribunals can never know; and therefore they can never enforce it by any civil sanction. 136
In a sense we could say that our unalienable duties, both public and private, are an inherent part of Natural Law. They constitute a responsibility imposed on each individual to respect the absolute rights or unalienable rights of others.
Examples of Public and Private Duties
Here are some of the more important responsibilities which the Creator has imposed on every human being of normal mental capacity:
1. The duty to honor the supremacy of the Creator and his laws. (As Blackstone states, the Creator's law is the supreme law of the world: "This law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this...." 137)
2. The duty not to take the life of another except in self-defense.
3. The duty not to steal or destroy the property of another.
4. The duty to be honest in all transactions with others.
5. The duty of children to honor and obey their parents and elders.
6. The duty of parents and elders to protect, teach, feed, clothe, and provide shelter for children.
7. The duty to support law and order and keep the peace.
8. The duty not to contrive through a covetous heart to despoil another.
9. The duty to provide insofar as possible for the needs of the helpless -- the sick, the crippled, the injured, the poverty-stricken.
10. The duty to honorably perform contracts and covenants both with God and man.
11. The duty to be temperate.
12. The duty to become economically self-sufficient.
13. The duty not to trespass on the property or privacy of another.
14. The duty to maintain the integrity of the family structure.
15. The duty to perpetuate the race.
16. The duty not to promote or participate in the vices which destroy personal and community life.
17. The duty to perform civic responsibilities -- vote, assist public officials, serve in official capacities when called upon, stay informed on public issues, volunteer where needed.
18. The duty not to aid or abet those involved in criminal or anti-social activities.
19. The duty to support personal and public standards of common decency.
20. The duty to follow rules of moral rectitude.
The Creator's Superior Law of Criminal Justice
The Creator revealed a divine law of criminal justice which is far superior to any kind being generally followed in the world today. This is a most important element of God's revealed law, and let us therefore emphasize it again even though we discussed it earlier.
It will be recalled that God's revealed law provided true "justice" by requiring the criminal to completely restore the property he had stolen or to otherwise pay the damages for losses he had caused. It was the law of "reparation" -- repairing the damage. In addition, the criminal had to pay his victim punitive damages for all the trouble he had caused. This was also to remind him not to do it again.
This system of justice through reparation was practiced by the ancient Israelites and also the Anglo-Saxons. In recent years a number of states have begun to adopt the "reparation" system. This requires the judge to call in the victim and consult with him or her before passing sentence. This discussion includes the possibility of the criminal's working to pay back the damages he caused his victim.
If the criminal is too irresponsible to be trusted to get a job and repay his victim, then he is given a heavy prison term with the provision that he cannot be considered for parole until he will guarantee full cooperation in repayment to his victim.
The State of Utah recently adopted such a law. Judges are required to have offenders indemnify their victims for damages wher
ever possible. A copy of this law may be obtained from the Secretary of State, Utah Capitol Building, Salt Lake City, Utah 84104.
Should Taxpayers Compensate Victims of Crimes?
In some states, the victims of criminal activities may apply to the state for damages. This most unfortunate policy is a counter-productive procedure which encourages crime rather than deters it. It encourages a bandit to say to his victim, "Don't worry, mister. You'll get it all back from the state."
Now we must respond to one final question concerning God's revealed laws of "true justice": What if a law is passed by Congress or some legislature which is contrary to God's law? What then?
God's Law the Supreme Law of the Land
Among the Anglo-Saxons and the ancient Israelites, the law enunciated by God was looked upon as sacred and not subject to change by human legislative bodies. In an authoritative text entitled England Constitutional and Legal History, Dr. Colin Rhys Lovell of the University of Southern California writes this concerning the Anglo-Saxons:
"To most Anglo-Saxons the law was either divinely inspired or the won of their ancestors, [being] of such antiquity that it was unthinkable that it should be changed. Alfred the Great ... was one of the few rulers of the period who issued new laws, but he too regarded the body of traditional Anglo-Saxon law as sacred and God-given." 138
Dr. Lovell explains the attitude of the Anglo-Saxon race toward their divine code of law. He says they considered it:
"... immutable [emphasis in the original]. Even the all-powerful tribal assembly had no legislative power, and this theory of legislative impotence endured for a long time in the development of the English constitution and disappeared only very gradually; even many centuries later the fiction that specific legislation was not making new law but reinforcing ancient customs was preserved. Most of the great steps forward in the development of the English constitution have been taken with loud assertions that nothing new was being contemplated, only the old was being restored." 139
Natural Law Constitutes Eternal Principles
Even when it was finally acknowledged that Parliament was writing new statutes and dealing with problems not mentioned in the law of ancient times, it was still required that none of the new laws contradict the provisions of divine law. John Locke set forth the principle which carried over into the thinking of the American Founders when he wrote:
"The law of Nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for man's actions must ... be conformable to the law of Nature -- i.e., to the will of God." 140
Sir William Blackstone, contemporary of the Founders, wrote:
"Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator.... This will of his Maker is called the law of nature.... This law of nature, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God, Himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this." 141
But who will decide? When it comes to lawmaking, the nations of most of the world throughout history have been subject to the whims and arbitral despotism of kings, emperors, rulers, and magistrates. How can the people be protected from the autocratic authority of their rulers? Where does the source of sovereign authority lie?
The Founders had strong convictions on this point.
Tenth Principle: The God-given right to govern is vested in
the sovereign authority of the whole people.
During the 1600's, the royal families of England did everything in their power to establish the doctrine that they governed the people by "divine right of kings." In other words, it was declared a "God-given right."
Algernon Sidney Is Beheaded
John Locke on the Source of Political Power
View of the American Founders
Alexander Hamilton
James Madison
Algernon Sidney Is Beheaded
King Charles II beheaded Algernon Sidney in 1683 for saying that there is no divine right of kings to rule over the people. Sidney insisted that the right to rule is actually in the people and therefore no person can rightfully rule the people without their consent.
In responding to the question, "Whether the supreme power be ... in the people," he replied:
"I say, that they [including himself] who place the power [to govern] in a multitude, understand a multitude composed of freemen, who think it for their convenience to join together, and to establish such laws and rules as they oblige themselves to observe." 142
John Locke on the Source of Political Power
The very year Algernon Sidney was beheaded, John Locke fled from England to Holland where he could say the same thing Sidney did, but from a safer distance. After the "Glorious Revolution" which he helped in plotting, Locke returned from Holland on the same boat as the new Queen (Mary). In 1890 he published his two famous essays on The Original Extent and End of Civil Government. In the second essay he wrote:
"In all lawful governments, the designation of the persons who are to bear rule being as natural and necessary a part as the form of the government itself, and that which had its establishment originally from the people ... all commonwealths, therefore, with the form of government established, have rules also of appointing and conveying the right to those who are to have any share in the public authority; and whoever gets into the exercise of any part of the power by other ways than what the laws of the community have prescribed hath no right to be obeyed, though the form of the commonwealth be still preserved, since he is not the person the laws have appointed, and, consequently, not the person the people have consented to. Nor can such an usurper, or any deriving from him, ever have a title till the people are both [page 143] at liberty to consent, and have actually consented, to allow and confirm in him the power he hath till then usurped." 143
View of the American Founders
There was no place for the idea of a divine right of kings in the thinking of the American Founders. They subscribed to the concept that rulers are servants of the people and all sovereign authority to appoint or remove a ruler rests with the people. They pointed out how this had been so with the Anglo-Saxons from the beginning.
Dr. Lovell describes how the tribal council, consisting of the entire body of freemen, would meet each month to discuss their problems and seek a solution through consensus. The chief or king (taken from the Anglo-Saxon word cyning--chief of the kinsmen) was only one among equals:
"The chief owed his office to the tribal assembly, which selected and could also depose him. His authority was limited at every turn, and though he no doubt commanded respect, his opinion carried no more weight in the debates of the assembly than that of any freeman." 144
Alexander Hamilton
In this same spirit, Alexander Hamilton declared:
"The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority." 145
The divine right of the people to govern themselves and exercise exclusive power of sovereignty in their official affairs was expressed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in its Proclamation of January 23, 1776:
"It is a maxim that in every government, there must exist, somewhere, a supreme, sovereign, absolute, and uncontrollable power; but this power resides always in the body of the people; and it never was, or can be, delegated to one man, or a few; the great Creator has never given to men a right to vest others with authority over them, unlimited either in duration or degree." 146
James Madison
James Madison discovered many people frightened by the Constitution when it was presented for ratification because they felt a federal government was being given autocratic authority. Madison declared:
"The adversaries of the Constitution seem to have lost sight of the people altogether in their reasonings on this subject; and
to have viewed these different establishments not only as mutual rivals and enemies, but as uncontrolled by any common superior in their efforts to usurp the authorities of each other. These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error. They must be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone." 147
But even if it is acknowledged that the people are divinely endowed with the sovereign power to govern, what happens if elected or appointed officials usurp the authority of the people to impose a dictatorship or some form of abusive government on them?
This brings us to the fundamental principle on which the Founders based their famous Declaration of Independence.
Eleventh Principle: The majority of the people may alter or
abolish a government which has become tyrannical.
Philadelphia, 1776
The Founders were well acquainted with the vexations resulting from an abusive, autocratic government which had imposed injuries on the American colonists for thirteen years in violation of the English constitution. Thomas Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence therefore emphasized the feelings of the American people when he wrote: