Salt and Light

David Jeffers

I will be linking to this in tomorrow’s devotional but I wanted to give some of you who do not get my devotional a chance to read this. If you are prone to prayer, please as you read each sentence and clause, look up the bible verse and pray God’s Word of our nation’s founding document by reading the portion of the Declaration and then the scriptural passage.

The Declaration of Independence and the Bible Study Guide

In Congress, July 4, 1776 (John 19:30)

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America (Matthew 10:1)

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another… (Exodus 5)

…and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them… (Joshua 1)

…a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. (2 Timothy 4:2)

We hold these truths to be self-evident… (John 8:32)

…that all men are created equal… (Romans 1:20-21; Galatians 3:28)

…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights… (Romans 8:35-39)

…that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Luke 4:16-21; John 10:10)

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed… (Jeremiah 18:7-10)

— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government… (Exodus 6:1-6)

…laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. (Deuteronomy 17:18-20)

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes… (Titus 3:1-2)

…and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable… (Colossians 3:12-17)

…than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. (Colossians 4:5-6)

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations… (Psalm 35:11-17)

…pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism… (Exodus 1:14)

…it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government… (Psalm 107:13-15)

…and to provide new guards for their future security… (Galatians 5:1)

— Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies… (1 Peter 4:12-19)

…and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. (2 Corinthians 5:16-21)

— The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. (Job 20:27)

To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. (Jeremiah 16:17)

NOTE: the following is the list of 27 grievances the colonies set before the King, the British Parliament, and the Court of World Opinion in justifying their claim to independence. This list would indict, try, and convict any despot today in any court of law. It is part of the magnificence of our Declaration of Independence. I have numbered them so as to delineate them from the rest of the Declaration.

1. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

2. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

3. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

4. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

5. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

6. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

7. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

8. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

9. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

10. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their substance.

11. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

12. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

13. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

14. For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

15. For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

16. For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

17. For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

18. For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

19. For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences:

20. For abolishing the free system of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

21. For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our Governments:

22. For suspending our own Legislature, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

23. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

24. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

25. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

26. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

27. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms… (Psalm 25:9)

…Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. (Psalm 74:10-12)

A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. (1 Kings 12:1-20)

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our Brittish brethren. (1 Corinthians 5:9-12; Revelation 2:4, 14, 20; 3:1, 14-22)

NOTE: below are the five charges against the British subjects that the colonies reminded them that they had tried to get them to come to their aid. Their refusal means they are enemies of the colonies, but if they join the United States in liberty, they shall become friends of America.

1. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.

2. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.

3. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

4. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.

5. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

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… (Job 36:11; Proverbs 16:7; Isaiah 1:19)

…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… (John 8:36)

…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… (Galatians 4:7)

…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. (Exodus 19:7-8; 24:3-7; Deuteronomy 29:10-15)

And for the support of this Declaration… (Job 22:28)

…with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence… (Psalm 127:1; Proverbs 2:8; 2 Thessalonians 3:3)

…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. (Romans 12:5, 10, 16; 15:5, 7; 1 Corinthians 12:24-26; Galatians 5:13; 6:2; Ephesians 4:1-3, 32; 1 Thessalonians 4:9; 5:11; Hebrews 3:12-14; 10:23-25; 1 Peter 3:8; 4:8-10; 5:5; 1 John 1:7; 3:11; 4:6-12

John Hancock
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richard Stockton
Jonathan Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
Matthew Thornton