Filed under: law

Part I: Government/Chapter 2, P 38-40

The Process Toward Independence

From Authoritarian Rule To a New Government

 

Objections by the original colonies regarding the rule of the British king began when he imposed a series of unjust laws that violated the colonists' rights as British citizens.  The colonists objected most vehemently to taxation without representation.

 

The December 16, 1773, Tea Party:  The Colonists were refusing to pay taxes required by the British Parliament because their representatives had not been allowed to participate in tax enforcement decisions.  If Americans paid the duty tax on the imported tea they would be acknowledging Parliament's right to tax them.  On December 16, 1773, when three shipments of tea were in the Boston harbor the crisis came to a head.  The Colonists liked their tea, but in the early evening about 200 descended upon the three ships and dumped the expensive shipments of tea into the harbor waters.  This act was monumental and there could no longer be any misunderstanding about the political will of Americans.

 

In 1774, on September 5, the First Continental Congress came together in Philadelphia with hopes of reaching an agreement with the British king.  Alexander Hamilton expressed the colonists' concern in a published pamphlet:  "The only distinction between freedom and slavery consists of this: in the former state, man is governed by laws to which he has given his consent, either in person or, by his representative.  In the latter he is governed by the will of another.*

 

In 1775, the Second Continental Congress convened May 10.  The goal of the colonies was justice, not independence.  On July 5, 1775, the Continental Congress approved the Olive Branch Petition and appealed "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty, Most Gracious Sovereign" for reconciliation.  The English Parliament responded to this appeal on December 22, 1775, with the American Prohibitory Act--a declaration of unrestricted war against the colonists, claiming the right to confiscate their property.  Freedom for Americans at that point becomes a matter of self-defense and necessitated a new republican (republic) government.

http://www.founding.com/timeline/pageID.2462/default.asp

 

*Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum:  The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (Lawrence, KS:  University of Kansas Press, 1985), 160.

 

 

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Part I: Government/Chapter 2, P 35, 36

The Sovereignty Of Man

Under the Impartial God Of Creation Over Government

 

 

In this chapter we can see the rich orthodoxy that brought the universal principles of the Declaration to the American mind.  That the nation was founded upon the principles of God's Word is well documented by the founding compacts, covenants and constitutions.

 

In 1620, the Pilgrims drafted our nation's first self-governing document, the Mayflower Compact: "We . . . having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, do . . . solemnly and mutually in ye presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politic . . .. And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience."

http://www.pilgrimhallmuseum.org/mayflower_compact_text.htm

 

The King of England left the colonists alone for 150 years.  Without the albatross of paternalistic authoritarianism, the colonists experienced the benefits of personal responsibility and hard work.  People would come together with their pastor or a prominent student of the Bible as moderator and search the Scriptures for principles of government that would uphold civility in their community.

 

In 1630, the famous sermon by John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, reflected the great sense of purpose that has prevailed since the arrival of the Pilgrims.  Later quoted repeatedly by Ronald Reagan, Winthrop declared: "We are to be 'a City upon a hill,' a beacon of light for the world to follow."  He continued, "The eyes of all people are upon us.  So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world."*

 

In 1638, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut stated: "[We] enter into a combination and confederation together to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which we now profess."

http://www.constitution.org/bcp/fo_1639.htm

 

*Robert C. Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity," discourse written aboard the Arbella during the voyage to Massachusetts, 1630, In Life and Letters of John Winthrop, 1867, 19.

 

 

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Part I: Government

Conclusion (Part II)

 

Immortal Principles Central To Liberty and American Greatness

 

 

The tragic support for radical teacher privilege can be traced to changes in what many law students are being taught.  In the 1870s, Christopher C. Langdell, Dean of the Harvard Law School, discarded the foundational basis for law upon which greatness has been achieved in America: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…"

 

Langdell's fellow travelers are themselves victims of bad education.  According to them, no lasting absolutes upon which laws can be framed exist.  Instruction that fortifies the enemies of William Blackstone's Commentaries on Common Law is BAD education.  Blackstone's Commentaries were used by law students up through Abraham Lincoln's time.  It took several decades for the secularized instruction in law schools to compromise American jurisprudence.  The Commission on Excellence in Education emphasizes what is happening, "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."  The report laments, "the de-construct of the moral and spiritual strengths which knit together the very fabric of our society" (A Nation At Risk, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, April 26, 1983).

 

"Human history records the ongoing effort by men to substitute man-made law for the [unrelenting] laws of God and creation's nature."  Laws contrived by men end in disaster because they reject the existence of moral absolutes.  The consequences of this are clearly apparent today in America.  Quoting Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who documented the extermination of tens of millions of innocent victims in order to create a socialistic utopia in his homeland, "man has forgotten God" (quotes in this paragraph are from Understanding the Times, an exceptional resource, by David A. Noebel, Harvest House Publishers).

 

Enslavement by authoritarians' regulations and excessive taxation could not occur if Americans were being taught American history.  Renewed exposure to the God-honoring principles of the American Declaration of Independence is our most powerful weapon.  The light of truth fortifies the minds of men and women, boys and girls.  We believe these principles because they reflect the unrelenting power of creation's God.

 

We serve God.  The most significant change that came from the American war for independence is that the people were recognized by law to be sovereigns under God, over government.  Citizen self-rule replaced self-anointed authoritarians.  Government officials were recognized for what they are--servants of the people.

 

The Spiritual Awakening of 1740 through 1780 drove the selfless dedication that brought the American Revolution to a successful conclusion.  We have this promise, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14).

 

 

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Part I: Government

Conclusion (Part I)

 

Immortal Principles Central To Liberty and American Greatness

 

 

"Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal" (Dr. Benjamin Rush, Essay, 1786).

 

Our families and nation are at risk.  Where moral law ends, tyranny begins.  Some sixty years ago, public schools were still circulating the A Golden Treasury From The BIBLE pamphlet full of wholesome character-building Bible verses.  The God-rejecting secular worldview imposed upon education by control of just a few militant teachers, protected by union contract negotiators, has undoubtedly put our nation "conceived in liberty" to the ultimate test.

 

The tactics of a small group of tenured teachers have forcibly elevated sexual promiscuity, infanticide and other practices devastating to students and society to the status of education legitimacy.  Because of the tactics of secular militants, good teachers, students and even the taxpayers who pay the teachers' salaries, are afraid to object.  These few radicals have the power to totally disrupt the education process.  School administrators know this.  Teacher tenure laws, approved by current state laws, force administrators to leave bad teachers in control of the God-rejecting anti-Christian education climate.

 

This is not a strictly religious matter.  The consequences of rejecting the life-enhancing Laws of Nature are easily seen in daily experience.  Even though some parents do not give creation's God credit for life-enhancing standards, they take their children out of government public schools to avoid exposing them to evil suggestiveness.

 

What do we mean by LIBERTY?  We do not need new principles to solve our problems.  We need America; meaning, we need to advance again and apply the civic values of the American Judeo-Christian heritage.  The Preamble (purpose) for the Constitution reads to "… secure the BLESSINGS of LIBERTY to ourselves and our posterity…"  If we do not succeed in alerting our young people, our friends and others, to what the enemies of American liberty are accomplishing, there will no longer be the kind of liberty that inspires the "BLESSINGS of LIBERTY for our posterity [descendants]."  The purpose of the Constitution includes "… establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare…" (meaning common needs that do not conflict with or hamper the development of the work ethic and citizen self-reliance).  If we do not succeed in alerting others, ill-advised politicians will, at the expense of taxpayers, justify benefits for voters from birth to grave.

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Fifteen 

 

The Benevolent Provision and Heart Of God For Mankind

Are Recognized By Our Founding Fathers

 

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

It is the deeply felt expression of faith in the God who gave us life and the respect for unchanging laws of creation's nature that reversed the historic tide of oppression by government officials.

 

Our duty is to be public about the fact that reliable standards for law come with knowledge of the non-sectarian Creator-based meaning of the Declaration of Independence and the First Amendment.  In 1835, the significance of this connection was observed by Alexis de Tocqueville, "… in America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom…"

 

We must be honest.  There is an imperative need to restore American law that upheld the impartial life-enhancing morality, known then as Common Law and will always be known as the Laws of Nature.  The Declaration of Independence reads "… the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind…"  This is not only the basis for our nation's charters, it is also the unifier of our immigrant nation for the greatness that has been achieved.  

 

The wisdom of leaders who drafted the American charters is illustrated by the recommendation made for the American Seal.  Originally Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams proposed that the Seal pay tribute to the benevolent provision and heart of God for mankind.  Their design depicted the Old Testament journey of the Israelites who were guided by God through the wilderness.  The other side displayed Anglo-Saxons from Germanic tribes who descended to England and influenced the making of laws.  The Anglo-Saxons introduced morality for law comparable to the values of right and wrong identified by the human conscience at birth.  Undoubtedly, the most significant guide for law chosen by Americans was the Ten Commandments presented by God to Moses at Mount Sinai.

 

Secular authoritarians who abuse citizen sovereignty in practice and the Constitutional concept of unalienable God-given human rights have always menaced society.  "I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations" (James Madison, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 16, 1788).  The quest for power is reflected in their tax and spend authoritarian militancy.  While claiming patriotism, they promote fear and employ every conceivable means to remove any knowledge of America's Judeo-Christian heritage and the principles of the Declaration of Independence that gave birth to the United States of America.

 

The Declaration of Independence concludes: "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.  And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor" (the final paragraph from the Declaration of Independence unanimously adopted by the thirteen United States of America, CONGRESS, July 4, 1776).

 

The Constitution concludes: "Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present on the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the independence [Declaration of Independence] of the United States of America the Twelfth [adopted earlier] In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our names."

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Eleven (Part I)

 

Government and Union Monopolies Involving Education

Or Religion Are Prohibited--For Liberty's Sake


"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a 'redress of grievances.'"

First Amendment, Constitution of the United States

 

 

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention were concerned about the use of government power by what Thomas Jefferson called "Tyrants of the Mind."  Instead of government being the servant of the people, tyrants override the people's authority and gradually take control of what schools teach.  The family and the teaching of American history become early victims.  Students are dumbed down.  Secular open-minded morality and class envy divide families and communities.  Fellow travelers in the judiciary reject the historical application of First Amendment law.  In later chapters we document the inroads of harmful law.

 

Government-sanctioned teacher tenure guarantees are a violation of the First Amendment.  Privileged government teachers lead toward the same devastating consequences as the government-sanctioned church imposed on medieval Europe.  Experience with tyrants of the mind is the reason for the First Amendment.

 

Tyrants of the mind are bullies.  The creation of fear enables the few to overpower school administrators hired by the people to run schools in the public interest.  The weapons used include bad-mouthing and the ruin of the reputations of good administrators and teachers who dare to challenge leftist "politically correct" militants.

 

Editors of the book Speeches That Changed the World started with the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) and Christ's Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).  These editors recognized the good that believers have contributed to society and the superior quality of the Bible as literature.  Speeches That Changed the World included speeches by two Darwinian evolutionists, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.  Their leadership did influence the world.  The murder of millions of innocent people demonstrates the depths to which the open-mindedness of Darwin's God-rejecting Origin of the Species dogma can take men.

 

As always happens, those who reject the envelope of the life-enhancing "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" eventually self-destruct.  The problem now in America is the damage being done to the minds of millions of our youth who will soon be leaders.

 

"Educators have recognized the processes by which thought and behavioral patterns acquired in youth become the basis for adult motivation.  In modern times thoughtful observers have become progressively aware that moral, social, and political concepts implanted during the time of mental immaturity not only participate in the conduct of later life, but, once acquired, such concepts become dominant and often unalterable in the adult" (Grand Jury study of problems in higher education for the Eleventh Judicial District of Iowa, chaired by David A. Norris).

 

"The first national study of four common sexually transmitted diseases among girls and young women has found that one in four [is] infected with at least one of the diseases, U.S. health officials reported Tuesday" (Lawrence K. Altman, New York Times, March 11, 2008).  One in four U.S. teenage girls have STDs.  The diseases, which are infections caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites, can produce acute symptoms… and potentially fatal pregnancy… and cervical cancer.  The two most common sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs, among all the participants tested were HPB at 18 percent, and chlamydia at 4 percent, according to the analysis portion of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

 

An honest evolutionist: "Evolution is unproved and unprovable.  We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable" (Sir Arthur Keith, citation in Wallie A. Criswell's Did Man Just Happen?, Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1973).

 

Education worthy of the name will emphasize that the president, congress and the judiciary are servants of, by and for the people who are the sovereigns under creation's God.

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Ten

 

Government Must Be Decentralized

 

"… repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny [British King] over these States."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

Officials who bypass the principles of limited government are suppressing the supreme right of the people to rule.  Such officials have violated their duties as trustees and are in effect usurpers, oppressors and tyrants.

 

The American system is "a Republic--a federation, or combination, of central and state republics--under which: the different governments will control each other…  Within each republic there are two safeguarding features: (a) a division of powers, as well as (b) a system of checks and balances between separate departments: hence a double security arises [essential] to the rights of the people" (The Federalist No. 51, by James Madison).

 

Regarding the federal government usurping essential citizen rights, "True barriers [for] of our liberty are our State governments" (President Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, 1801).

 

"The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes.  To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them" (President George Washington's Farewell Address, 1796).

 

"Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possesses their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression" (President Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, 1801).

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Nine

 

Authoritarians In Government Are

a Parasitic and Ever-Present Danger

 

"Taking away our charters, Abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments [constitutions]."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

"They know from experience… beset as they continually are by the wiles of parasites and sycophants [self-seeking] by the snares of the ambitious, the avaricious [greed for money], the desperate; by the artifices of men, who possess their confidence more than they deserve it, and of those who seek to possess, rather than to deserve it" (The Federalist No. 71, by Alexander Hamilton).

 

Two notable efforts by power-hungry authoritarians occurred near the end of the war for independence.  First, army officers were conspiring to take control of Congress; second was an effort to make George Washington king.  Washington squashed both of them abruptly.  After all, Americans had just been through a bloody war with England to get rid of rule by authoritarians, religious and secular.

 

An axiom for detecting the corrupt and evil use of power is to follow the flow of money to politicians in and outside of government.  Chief among tactics for overriding the will of the people is fraudulent election finance law.  The importation of millions of campaign dollars from homosexual and abortion rights advocates from outside a region to be represented, given to those who would make the laws, is destructive of representative government.  The people and representative governments must be protected from the importation of campaign funds from outside the region served by an elected government official.  This is not a violation of free speech.  Failure to do so is a crime against republican (not political party) government.  Such violations call for severe punishment.

 

"For it is a truth which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger, when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion" (The Federalist No. 25, by Alexander Hamilton).

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Eight

 

The Overriding Concern When Writing the Constitution

Was Imposing a Check On Man's Sin-Prone Behavior

 

"He has combined with others to subject us jurisdiction [control] foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

A high priority when framing the Constitution was to expose government officials who persist in rejecting the message of their own conscience for the short-lived benefits of dishonesty and immoral conduct.

 

Upholding the responsibilities of civility is the necessary predicate for a liberty-friendly Constitution; liberty being the absence of authoritarian oppression.  This dictates the values that must be upheld by legislators, judges and administrators.  These values include sacredness of the family - one man and one woman in marriage; upholding the right to life and liberty, meaning citizen self-rule; equal treatment by law for all, leaders and non-leaders; protecting the labors of citizens' property rights, meaning to keep thieves out of the corn crib and taxes low; respect for God-honoring leaders.  And absolutely no government involvement in education and church except supporting unfettered competition among education and religion providers.  This protects the people's right as sovereigns to choose.  The people can be trusted (historic "rule of law"); government officials cannot be trusted (historic "rule of man").  The clear lesson from history is that government-established education, church authorities, and sanctioned monopoly unions empower tyrants who confuse, exploit and enslave.

 

The testimony of the Constitutional Fathers reminds us that government must be continually restored to the control of law-abiding citizens.

 

"But there is a Degree of Watchfulness over all Men possessed of Power or influence upon which the liberties of mankind much depend.  It is necessary to guard against the Infirmities of the best as well as the Wickedness of the worst of Men.  Such is the Weakness of human Nature that Tyranny has oftener sprang from than any other Source.  It is this that unravels the Mystery of Millions being enslaved by a few" (Samuel Adams, Letter to Elbridge Gerry, 1784, emphasis by Adams, Samuel Adams was a Delegate to the First Continental Congress, 1774; signed the Declaration of Independence, 1776: member of Massachusetts State Constitutional Convention, 1781).

 

"Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty!  I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt" (Patrick Henry, Virginia Convention for accepting or rejecting the Federal Constitution, 1788).

 

James Madison wrote, "The only distinction between freedom and slavery consists of this: in the former state, man is governed by laws to which he has given his consent, either in person or, by his representative.  In the latter he is governed by the will of another…  If men were angels, no government would be necessary" (cited by Forrest McDonald, The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution, Lawrence, Kansas, University of Kansas Press, 1985, 160 and 205 respectively).

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Seven (Part I)

 

The Moral Duties Of Civility Are Also a Predicate

For Interpreting Constitutional Meaning

 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident ..."

Declaration of Independence

 

"Tis substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.  Who that is a sincere friend to it, can look with Indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?"

George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

 

 

"Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"* morality fits into the behavioral envelope that supports life, truthfulness and the Golden Rule, meaning treating others in ways that one would like to be treated and would like loved ones to be treated.  Immorality includes those traits called sin that fall outside the envelope of life.

 

Together, morality and work ethic is the engine that liberates mankind from the tyranny of aggressive government employees.  Liberty from intrusive government makes it possible for the people to market their skills to own property essential for maintaining independence and happiness.

 

"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites.  Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere… men of intemperate minds cannot be free.  Their passions forget their fetters" (Edmund Burke, British supporter of the American Revolution, November 3, 1774, speech to the electors of Bristol, England, quoted by HIllsdale College, Imprimis, Vol. 20, No. 9).

 

The atheistic-secular philosophy for law identifies with what Solon of Athens described as "government by incalculable and changeable decrees" (Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol. II, The Life of Greece, Simon and Schuster, 1939, 118).  Secularism is an evil repudiation of the solid basis for prosperity and citizen self-government intended by Constitutional law.

 

Government potential for power as well as the lucrative public treasury attract politicians who are intent on self-aggrandizement and conquest.  Expressed by President Ronald Reagan: "Government is not the solution to our problems, it is the problem" (Inaugural Address, 1981).  "A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.  The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes.  To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them" (George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796).

 

*The phrase "Nature's God" used in the Declaration of Independence did not originate with Americans.  The Laws of Nature's God include the Biblical standards of morality.  When the bond between God and man was broken in the Garden of Eden, the forces of evil that seek to defy creation's nature were unleashed.  "The law of nature was a common term used by historic legal writers such as Grotius, Burlamaqui, Blackstone and others.  The law of nature's God, a lesser used term, was more commonly called the divine law, or the revealed law" (Lonang Historical Reference Works).

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