A NATION FOUNDED FOR THE
GLORY OF GOD
CurryforAmerica.com
Having undertaken for the glory of God and the
advancement of the Christian faith … no people can
be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand
which conducts the affairs of men more than the
people of the United States.
The
United States of America is an exceptional nation.
From its birth and founding until today it has been
a beacon of liberty, freedom and hope, shining from
high on a hill for all the world to see. It is an
overshadowing example for all democracies to emulate
and to which all free men and free nations can
repair.
The
Pilgrims, who were among the first settlers to plant
their feet upon the soil of the North American
continent, drafted and signed aboard a ship named
the Mayflower, a self-governing legal document which
explained why they and their families had decided to
leave the Netherlands and to sail across the
Atlantic Ocean to America, to the new world.
They
arrived in November of 1620, and there was already a
winter sting in the air, but it was not cold enough
to offset the warmth and happiness in the hearts of
the forty-one men who signed this historic document
which they called, “The Mayflower Compact.” It was
to become a new experiment in living that would
forever alter the world and all who live on it.
“We
whose names are underwritten,” it began, “by the
grace of God … having undertaken, for the glory of
God, and advancement of the Christian faith … do by
these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence
of God and one of another, covenant and combine
ourselves together into a civil body politic.” That
is how America’s first instrument of civil
government came to be written.
But
why was it written, why was the United States of
America founded? Fortunately
the motives of those who founded our great nation
were meticulously recorded for our history and our
posterity. America was founded, declared the
Pilgrims, “For the glory of God, and the advancement
of the Christian faith.” That is why the Mayflower
Compact was drafted and adopted. Its stated founding
purpose was an effort to, “Combine ourselves
together into a civil body politick … by virtue
hereof to enacte, consolidate, and frame such just
and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and
offices.”
On
what guidance then did the Founders rely in
establishing a government for the new nation?
General George Washington, the nation’s first
president, answered that question for the historical
record in his first inaugural address given to the
government of the new nation on April 30, 1789, in
which he says, “It would be peculiarly improper to
omit, in this first official act, my fervent
supplication to that Almighty Being who rules over
the universe, who presides in the council of nations
… No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore
the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men
more than the people of the United States.”
President Washington believed that God had set down
divine rules for governing nations and that so long
as a nation followed God’s rules, it would prosper.
Washington put it this way, “We ought to be no less
persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can
never be expected on a nation that disregards the
eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself
has ordained.”
Most,
if not all of the Founders, believed that God had a
special dream for America.
Virginia’s
Thomas Jefferson, who became the nation’s third
president, described it this way, “The God, who gave
us life, gave us liberty at the same time.”
Jefferson believed that in America not just man’s
body should be free, but also his spirit. That is
why he proclaimed, “I have sworn upon the altar of
God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny
over the mind of man.”
About
two hundred and fifty years after the Pilgrims
signed the Mayflower Compact, President Abraham
Lincoln said on March 4, 1865 in his second
inaugural address, which he gave toward the end of
the Civil War, “The Almighty has his own purposes …
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see
the right, let us strive on to finish the work we
are in.”
As we
do, let us not forget that our Founders declared
that this nation was established for the glory of
God and the advancement of the Christian faith. “No
people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the
invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men
more than the people of the United States.”
And
so it still remains today. No matter how difficult
things are, nor how hopeless the future may seem nor
how risibly pathetic our national leadership may be,
the “Almighty has his own purposes.” President
Abraham Lincoln encouraged the nation’s warring
citizens to have, “… firmness in the right as God
gives us to see the right, let us strive on to
finish the work we are in.”
Today
that is still the leaders’ of our nation’s task, to
bind up the nation’s wounds and to ensure that this
nation of the people, by the people, and for the
people does not perish from the earth.