Posted on 07/08/2002 6:25:36 AM PDT by truthandlife
During this week when America observed her 226th birthday, our nation is at a crucial crossroads. We are at war with bloodthirsty terrorists. We are hearing the voices of ungodly jurists who tell us that the term "under God" is no longer appropriate for this nation that was founded in reverence for and adoration of Almighty God. Abortion is the law of the land. Pornography fills the airwaves. God, for many, is an afterthought, if thought of at all. And few of our leaders seem willing to engage the culture from a Judeo-Christian platform
Yes, we are a nation at a crossroads.
That is why I am praying that a man – or men – like Patrick Henry will arrive on the scene to intrepidly call America back to God and to the patriotic spirit of our Forefathers.
Patrick Henry (1736-99) was my beloved Virginia's first governor after the commonwealth declared independence from Great Britain. He was, in fact, "the Voice of the Revolution." He was a man of unquestioned character and leadership, and a man who could mesmerize audiences with his oration.
Thomas Jefferson said of him: "He appeared to me to speak as Homer wrote."
Following the passage of the unjust Stamp Act in 1765, Patrick Henry – only nine days into his service in the Virginia House of Burgesses – boldly pressed a succession of resolutions defining the rights of the colony and pronouncing the Stamp Act subversive of liberty. To that point, no man had had the audacity to lead such an insurrection against powerful Britain. However, four of Henry's resolutions passed, while all seven were widely discussed throughout the colonies.
At the Second Virginia Convention (1775), Henry lead the effort for Virginia to form a standing army, concluding the call to arms with his moving words: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
In that glorious speech, he noted "the holy cause of liberty."
That cause remains holy today!
Patrick Henry was God's prophet. Whenever God has a great task to be performed, He raises up a man of equal greatness for that task. When this nation was being founded, there were strong voices calling for America to remain as colonies joined to Great Britain. But there were voices on the other side calling for independence. These voices called for revolution, and the leading voice was that of Patrick Henry.
Ezekiel 22:30 tells us: "And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none."
Henry was God's man to stand in the gap, rallying this nation to become a separate republic. He understood the need for God to remain the focal point. The modern concept that "religion and politics don't mix" was completely foreign to Patrick Henry and our Founders.
Henry said, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faith have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here."
In his speeches against tyranny, Henry said he believed God governed the affairs of men and would intervene on behalf of the colonies. He advocated a federal government with internal checks and balances with a written Bill of Rights that would protect the freedom of each man before God.
Henry believed in absolute morality. He taught "the eternal difference between right and wrong does not fluctuate." (Needless to say, Bill Clinton is the antithesis of Patrick Henry.)
Patrick Henry believed in the authority of the Bible. He held that "eternal law was reflected in nature and written in the Bible" as the surest foundation of social and political life. He also believed, as does President Bush, that authority comes from God.
We do not have Patrick Henrys leading us today because Christians have been careless. Even though we say "God Bless America" with our lips, we often reject God by our actions. We have elected men and women who have ousted prayer from our schools. We have elected men and women who adhere to the "right" to abort unborn babies. We have elected men and women who uphold homosexual lifestyles that God calls abomination.
We must become prudent with our votes, supporting only candidates who – like Patrick Henry – adhere to biblical values. It's time to get serious. We must pray that God will again send us leaders like Patrick Henry who will fearlessly hold God's hand while leading this nation. And we must be willing to wholeheartedly support them.
God Bless America!
--Patrick Henry (1736-1799),"The War Inevitable" speech to the Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775
As much as I deplore slavery, I see that prudence forbids its abolition. I deny that the general government ought to set them free, because a decided majority of the states have not the ties of sympathy and fellow-feeling for those whose interest would be affected by their emancipation. The majority of Congress is to the north, and the slaves are to the south.In this situation, I see a great deal of the property of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquility gone. I repeat it again, that it would rejoice my very soul that every one of my fellow-beings was emancipated. As we ought with gratitude to admire that decree of Heaven which has numbered us among the free, we ought to lament and deplore the necessity of holding our fellowmen in bondage. But is it practicable, by any human means, to liberate them without producing the most dreadful and ruinous consequences? We ought to possess them in the manner we inherited them from our ancestors, as their manumission is incompatible with the felicity of our country. But we ought to soften, as much as possible, the rigor of their unhappy fate.
--Patrick Henry, arguing against the proposed US Constitution June 24, 1788.
We do not have Patrick Henrys leading us today because Christians have been careless. Even though we say "God Bless America" with our lips, we often reject God by our actions.
More of Falwell's sanctimonious slop, in the same vein as 9/11 being caused not by the bad guys, but because God lifted His "protective veil".
Operative word being me. Henry wrote in a letter to Robert Pleasants,18 Jan. 1773:
Would any one believe that I am Master of Slaves of my own purchase! I am drawn along by ye. general inconvenience of living without them, I will not, I cannot justify it.
Henry talked a good game. It is still hard to understand how someone like Henry, or Jefferson, or Washington could own slaves. It doesn't invalidate what they accomplished. I am not trying to tar anyone. But it is difficult to understand. We talk about how the Founders sacrificed "their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor" etc. But in this regard they didn't. Henry was not about to give up the plantation life. He could have worked another profession. He could have freed his slaves. He praises the abolitionist Quakers, but personally does nothing about slavery. Hard to understand.
I think you make an error that is all too common these days and that is you are transposing a 21st century morality on 18th century men.
Please bear in mind that the cultural differences between blacks and whites in the 18th cen were vast. That men such as Wash., Jeff, et al were beginning to contemplate the inhumanness of chattel slavery puts them in the forefront of cultural evolution. Chattel slavery, as an institution had existing for all time up until their own, indeed white Christians were still being sold in the slave markets of N. Africa at that time.
This is a battle between good & evil....and it is a spiritual battle. The Lord puts people in power and also removes them. It is our duty to pray to the Lord to raise up strong leaders, support them, and pray for them.
I would not disagree. Falwell's obscene suggestion about the fault of 9/11 being anyone's but the bad guys, though, disqualifies him, in my mind, as anyone to listen to in this matter.
I don't think that's the issue here. Henry, by his own words, understood slavery to be morally wrong:
It is not a little surprising that Christianity, whose chief excellence consists in softning the human heart, in cherishing & improving its finer Feelings, should encourage a Practice so totally repugnant to the first Impression of right & wrong. What adds to the wonder is that this Abominable Practice has been introduced in ye. most enlightened Ages, Times that seem to have pretentions to boast of high Improvements in the Arts, Sciences, & refined Morality, h[ave] brought into general use, & guarded by many Laws, a Species of Violence & Tyranny, which our more rude & barbarous, but more honest Ancestors detested. --Patrick Henry to Robert Pleasants 18 Jan. 1773
There were already Anti-Slavery leagues during Henry's life; Ben Franklin was a member of one of the first such organizations. No, whatever the problem was, it wasn't moral ignorance.
Well, he was a dangerous extremist, wasn't he?
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