Book in the world, the most republican book in the world. Now, i have picked up my bible thousands of times over the course of my life, but ive got to be honest with you, ive never once picked it up and said now for some good republican reading. Right . Its not exactly what im thinking when i pick up the bible. But hes not alone. Hes not alone among his contemporaries in making this claim. I have some language here from john dickinson, a founder we should all be more familiar with, somewhat forgotten in our own time, but he was acclaimed in his own time as the penman of the revolution. On more than one occasion he makes almost precisely this same statement. Here i have him saying the bible is the most republican book that ever was written. Again, even these two are not alone among their contemporaries in making this statement. Now, the bible is many things to the christian. Its gods word, the whole counsel of god, its a guiding lamp, a divine handbook for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness. But is it republican . In what sense the bible republican . What are they talking about here . As ive already mentioned there were americans in the founding era who believed the hebrew republic which encompassed a half millennium from the exodus to the coronation of saul, they see in the hebrew commonwealth a form of government that they perceive to be republican in nature. Its a republican government well designed to promote political prosperity and political discourse and conventions, pamphlets of the founding era include numerous appeals to the hebrew republic as a model for their own political experiments. Let me give you an example, in an influential 1775 massachusetts election sermon, samuel lang don, at the time he gave the speech, the president of harvard college, and he later serves as a delegate to new hampshires constitution ratifying convention. He says this. The jewish government which was divine divinely established was a perfect republic, a perfect republic. The civil polity of israel is an excellent general model youre going to find many similar expressions from this period in American History where they are first describing that form of government they read in scripture as republican, and then suggesting, hey, folks, theres some things that we can learn about republicanism from this model as we embark in our own nation building. Now, let me state what i think is obvious, which is most of what the founders knew about the hebrew commonwealth, they learned from the bible. Now, they were well aware that ideas like republicanism found expression and traditions apart from the hebrew experience. Indeed, they studied these traditions, both ancient and modern, yes, they studied the roman republic, yes, they studied more modern theorists who wrote about republicanism. But the republic that was described in the hebrew scriptures reassured them. It reassured them that republicanism was a political system that enjoyed divine favor. This was reason enough for them to think more deeply about what role republicanism should play in their own form of government. For john adams, more important than the model of republicanism. The bible was an indispensable handbook for good republican citizenship, a handbook for republican citizenship. In particular, the bible more than any other source taught the civic virtues required of citizens in order to govern themselves in a republic. Now, historian james hudson at the library of congress has described the essential connections among religion, virtue and republican selfgovernment that refined in the political thought of the founding, he describes this as the founders the founding generations syllogism, the founding generations syllogism. It goes like this. Hudson is suggesting that this was a common view in the american founding, this syllogism. Virtue and morality are necessary for free republican government. Religion is necessary for virtue and morality. Therefore, religion is necessary for republican government. The political discourse of the founding era is replete with expressions of religions vital contributions to a republican regime. The idea is espoused by americans diverse, religious and intellectual dave ramsey, the first major historian of the American Revolution in his book on the American Revolution he says this. He says, remember that there can be no political happiness without liberty, that there can be no liberty without morality, and that there can be no morality without religion. Or listen to the words of benjamin rush. He says in 1786, the only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without religion there can be no virtue and without virtue there can be no liberty and the liberty is object and life of all republican governments. In other words, a selfgoverning people, a selfgoverning people had to be virtuious, and controlled from within by an internal moral compass. Because why . Because the Great American experiment is throwing off the external control of an authoritarian rulers whip and rod. Yes, authoritarian ruler can use the whip to compel people to behave in the order in which you want them. But clearly the whip and the rod is unacceptable for a free, selfgoverning people. Whats going to replace that whip . Its that internal moral compass. Nurtured by the as icivic virtu that are instilled in the language and the lessons of scripture. To why did john adams say why did john adams say the bible was the most republican book in the world . Well, i think we know. He tells us. He thinks its the most republican book in the world because he believed that without national morality, a republican government cannot be maintained. And because he believed that the bible contains the most perfect morality and the most refined policy ever conceived upon earth. What is he telling us . Its republican because this is a republican handbook for citizenship. It teaches citizens in a republic how to behave in an orderly, decent fashion, thereby giving citizens the capacity for selfgovernment and for a republican regime to succeed. So let me conclude with this question. Does it matter, does it matter whether we acknowledge the bibles contributions to the founding . And does it matter whether the bible is studied alongside other intellectual influences on the Founding Fathers . And again, we acknowledge that the founding generation is drawing on diverse intellectual, political traditions. But is it important for us to include the bible in our study of those diverse influences, that this generation of americans is studying . Yes, i think it does matter. I think it matters if one wants to understand the broad range of ideas that shaped the founders political thoughts, their actions and their deeds. An awareness of the bibles contributions to the founding provides insights to the identity of the American People and their experiment in republican selfgovernment. Indeed, the widespread biblical illiteracy of our own age inevitably distorts the conception americans have of themselves, their people, their history and their bold political experiment. The late political theorists William Wilson mcwilliams once la meanted, the publics increasing unfamiliarity with the bible makes it harder and harder for americans to understand their origins, and their mores, or to put words to their experiences, lacking knowledge of the bible americans are likely to be literally inarticulate, unable to relate themselves to American Life and culture as a whole. This danger alone should inspire americans to study the bible and its role in the life of the nation. The 19th century historian John Wingate Thornton described the bible as the great political texbook of the patriots. Not an uncommon sentiment we find in the histories of the 19th century. But heres an interesting statement, comes for a more modern source, some years ago in a cover story on the bible in america, news World Magazine reported, and i quote the bible exerted an unrivaled influence on american culture, politics and social life. Now historians are discovering the bible perhaps even more than the constitution is our founding document. Thats a stunning statement. We could have a very energetic debate about whether this provocative statement can be deaf defended or not. Clearly theres an acknowledgment the profound role the bible played in the culture, the political culture, the legal culture of the american founding era. From the puritan fathers to the Founding Fathers, americans looked to the bible for Guiding Principles on political order, civil authorities, civic virtue, responsible citizenship and other concepts. Absolutely essential to the formation of a wellordered polity. Yes, the framers drew on diverse political and legal traditions in crafting a new constitutional republic. And one of the most important, but least studied of influence on our political culture and traditional constitution is the bible. It contains in features and content designed fla to a biblereading people and we cannot understand adequately our constitutional tradition or the Historic Events that produced our great political experiment in republican selfgovernment without referencing the bible. So let me urge you to read the constitution, study the american founding principles, and to better understand the constitution and the founding project, read your bible. Thank you. American history tv is in prime time this week, friday night from our american artifacts series we visit the Herbert Hoover president ial library and museum the review the american president s life portraits exhibit, American History tv in primetime starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 3. And on cspan book tv features programs if our after words series. Shared speeches by his father in his book scalia speaks. Linda sarsor discusses her book together we rise. And kayla mcananey talks about her book, and scott kelly talks about his book endurance all at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on book tv. Sunday on cspans q a, Duke Divinity School assistant professor and prosperity gospel scholar kate boller, everything happens for a reason, talks about being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer at age 35. People pouring in, all the intense prayers. The second i got sick my whole Little Community got together in a chapel and played like marathon runners for me handing off throughout my whole surgery, part of it was them reflecting back to me love and also this sense that my hope is that as youre preparing to die, like i was having to make preparations, that someone or something meets you there. And i certainly felt that way. Q a sunday night 8 00 eastern on cspan. Sunday night on after words, author for a westover talks about growing up with survivalist parents in the idaho mountains. Shes interviewed by susan in a kahalen. People have taken to heart this idea to learn something you have to have a degree and a whole institution in place to teach it to you. Im grateful to my parents that i was not raised to think that. So when i decided i wanted to go to college when i was 16, it felt like something i could do, not because i had any formal education, but just, okay, i need to learn algebra. I will buy a book and learn it. I didnt do an amazing job. Barely got into the university, but i kept going with that and i think, yeah, my parents took it too far. I arrived at university really underprepared. I wasnt raised my hand in class and asked what the holocaust was. I had never heard of it before. So i wouldnt ideal education, i would not say that. Watch after words sunt night at 9 00 eastern on book tv on cspan 2. Our look at the bible and the founding of america continues. Next, Vanderbilt University divinity Professor James byrd talks about the bibles use by the Founding Fathers to defend their patriotic distinctions during the American Revolution. This event was hosted by the museum of the bible in washington, d. C. Earlier this month. Our Third Session today is the bible in the American Revolution with james byrd. In this presentation based on his latest book, james byrd shows that the bible was a key text of the American Revolution when war came to the colonies, preachers and patriots alike turned to the bible not only for solace, but for exhortations to fight. Such scripture helped amateur soldiers overcome their natural aversion to killing, conferred on those who died for the revolution, the halo of martyrdom, and he gave americans the sense of Divine Providence of their calls. In this session he will examine specific biblical texts in how they were used for making the patriotic calls for war. Case for war. James byrd is chair of the graduate department of religion and associate professor of american religious history at Vanderbilt University. His latest book is sacred scripture, sacred war, the bible and the American Revolution. Hes currently working on a book on the bible and the american civil war. So please join me in welcoming dr. Bird. Well, thank you. Im so pleased to be here and to be joining in this important conversation at the museum of the bible and im very honored to be sharing the podium with professors dreisbach and kidd, two scholars ive admired for years. And i especially thank the team here at the museum of the bible, kay pinninger, all of you for putting this together, im very honored to be participating. My focus, and my angle on this, specifically deals a little more with the war itself, and in doing this i have two topics that i try to bring together. One is the history of the bible in america and the history of war in america. So i do a little extensively with war and violence in the bible and how the bible has been part of our justifications for going to war and our protests against it. So i got interested in this a few years ago just curious, and all of our projects begin with a certain kind of curiosity, curious about how the bible was included in the American Revolution. Being kind of a computer geek myself, i decided that i would just design a database and try to pick out all the biblical texts, and then sort them and then i would have the answer. That may have been a mistake because it took me a few years to do this before i could even write the book. So i thought, okay, ill just ill get the database together then ill write the book based on the database, and thats what i did. But that involved going to a lot of texts, most of which are not in modern fonts, let me tell you, nor modern spelling, and going to each page and finding each little bible verse and many times they cite the bible verse, sometimes they dont. So it involved me kind of scanning through sometimes and trying to and i actually grew up learning the bible a bit. In sunday school we used to do the draw swords bible exercise. So general knowledge there. And just using the citations that i could find to put in the database. And then eend of it i just printed them all out and said i guess these are the big texts and i went through an analysis of these texts. Thats what the book turns out to be. I want to talk about some of these texts today and how they were represented, why they were important in revolutionary america, specifically dealing with the war. So the next book is on the civil war. It involves a lot more in terms of like the bible and how and a lot more texts to deal with. And this one is kind of a its involving a little more Computer Programming to get to. So okay, i want to start by talking about thomas payne. Tom paynes an interesting character, for all times, and one of the most interesting insights he brings us on the bible comes from common sense. Most of you have probably read common sense. It was the most probably the most read pamphlet in revolutionary america, common sense was written for a particular reason in 1776. It was written to argue that declaring independence, which they later did in 1776, was just common sense. So he was attempting to deal with arguments that everyone could agree on. He was attempting to just take the pulse of the society and to make a persuasive case for declaring independence. Because, let me say, that going to war against britain in one way was one thing. But declaring independence was something altogether different. For many people they didnt necessarily want to declare independence. They were hoping to get a better parliament, a better king, a better situation. But paynes arguing that its only common sense to declare independence. He uses scripture to do that. He uses specifically the Old Testament and one particular chapter, first samuel chapter 8 that i want to talk about a bit. You might remember first samuel chapter 8. The prophet samuel was getting a little old. The people start to think about new leadership. And in so doing they come to samuel and they say, hey, your sons arent all that impressive. How about you give us a king so that we can be like other nations . Now, just as an aside, if you read the hebrew bible, anytime people want to be like the other nations, thats not a good thing. So hes wrestling with this and he asks god and god says, all right, give him a king, but in so doing, know theyre not just rejecting you, theyre rejecting me as they have done since i led them out of egypt, you know. So god gave them a king, not because it was a good thing to do, but because they wanted it and they demanded it. But in so doing, samuel argues that the king is going to oppress you well, god tells samuel to tell them how a king is going to oppress them and be terrible to them and theyll be sorry they ever asked for a king. Well, thomas payne pulls this out and he uses it as an argument against the king, an argument for independence, to say that its not just that a new king will help, any king is bad. We need to turn against all kings, monarchy is not the way to go. And this draws on that tradition that professor dreisbach was talking about of hebraic republicanism. Payne quotes scripture immaculately in commons. Did he believe it . Later on in another publication age of reason payne says bad things about the hebrew bible, he says the Old Testament is more the word of a demon than the word of god, pretty bad. And yet he quotes scripture like billy graham here, he knows his bible. John adams when he encountered payne and had a conversation about drawing on the Old Testament and common sense, payne brushed it aside and said i got that from milton. This is an argument, though, against how the bible was influential in various ways regardless of whether or not the people quoting it actually believed that the bible was the revealed word of god in a specific way. This is a quote from gordon wood, one of the most imminent american religious not religious historians, but american historians specifically in the revolutionary era. He says it was a clergy who made the revolution most meaningful. For elderly gentlemen explanation of events, there were dozens of ordinary people who read the bible and looked to their ministers for an interpretation of what the revolution meant. So the bible was part of the language. It was part of the symbolism, part of the narratives that everyone knew. If anyone owned a book, and this is the case for the 19th century as well, in their families, it was probably if they only owned one book, it was probably the bible. So were talking about the bible as used to wage war, the bible as used by patriots. But in so doing, in using the bible to wage any war, they had to overcome certain obstacles. Because the bible wasnt just a militant, violent document. Theres a lot in the bible that speaks against violence. So obstacles. I want to mention a few. One is pacifist texts seem to exist in scripture. Theres the decalogue, thou shalt not kill. Theres the sermon on the mount, matthew chapters 5 through 7, where jesus says turn the other cheek. Love your neighbor as yourself, that kind of thing is later on. But so the idea that nonresistance to evil is part of scripture is true, too, so its not just the bible, its this militant text. Theres also an obstacle in the sense that a lot of christians because of their faith, because of their love for neighbor, resisted going to war. One of the most prominent civil war historians, drew gillman faust, has argued that killing or trying to get christians to kill for their country was harder than trying to get them to die for their country. The argument was that christians have all along typically had this sense of self sacrifice. Getting someone to take up arms and kill, that was the harder courage. That was the harder obstacle to overcome. For a lot of people in the civil war era. And thats the same case in the revolutionary war era. Same kind of situation. There was the fact that there were a lot of local ipss who knew how to quote scripture really, including those methodists. They knew scripture pretty well, and they were for the most part like john wesley, for the most part loyalists. They were english. So i want to talk about a couple frameworks or kinds of ways to frame the way people looked at the bible in the revolutionary period. Because as i argue, many colonists could not assess their wars without assessing scripture. Well talk about that a second. When they were coming to when people were dealing with going to war, dealing with a new kind of nation, they naturally appealed to scripture because scripture was not only the authority in all of life for many people, but it was also a consoling text. People went to scripture in all kinds of trial. The death of a loved one, any kind of crisis. It was natural that people who were going to war, thinking about war, would appeal to scripture. When they appealed to scripture, they could not comprehend scripture without referencing war. And by that i mean as they read scripture, they came to many of them were very, very proficient at scripture. They saw there was a lot of war in the bible. There was a lot of conflict in the bible. In various kinds of ways. Just outright wars. So a biblical Literate Society knew the bible was full of war, and they understood this. A couple of frameworks that they also took with them. One is republicanism. And we talked about this already a bit today, but republicanism is this kind of respect for ancient republics as like pivotal models for politics. So taking those models from the classic at world. Were in this great city, washington, d. C. When you look around at the architecture, do you notice a certain neoclassical influence . Its subtle, but you can see it. Well, this republican ideology, this idea that these ancient republics valued virtue and liberty, that virtue and liberty came together as we talked about, that without virtue, liberty just dies. It doesnt exist. And vice and tyranny go together. That governments, like people, are fallen and are prone to corruption, especially when you have too much power involved. So they found republican ideas throughout scripture. I mean, the Old Testament covenants. Think about in the Old Testament when a king comes forward, good kings and bad kings are fairly easy to identify. The good the kings that do good things usually prosper. The kings that do bad things usually dont prosper. And thats the case with other figures. So you can see how that would fit very well into a republican world view. Another idea, in addition to republicanism, is martyrdom. One of the most popular books that protestants read throughout history was foxs book of martyrs. Acts and monuments. Probably some of you have seen this or read it. Dont try to download it on the kindle because it will crash your system, it has so many images in it, i found out. Its a group of narratives of martyrdom. Specifically, martyrdom catholics have imposed on protestants earlier on in the reign of queen mary of the time. So it itself brings together this value that christianity is worth dying for. That this idea of sacrifice is something thats valued that they find throughout scripture. And pretty soon you see, i mean, one historian, susan juster, says colonial americans have a martyr complex, they see martyrdom everywhere. The idea comes across through the war when you see in washington soldiers in the continental army, preachers interpret their deaths as, their dying as martyrs for their country. We see this through the civil war. Wartime death is seen as martyrdom. So this idea of martyrdom is pretty critical. Now, this one i saw everywhere. Just everywhere. Saturated the documents. Saturated the sermons. And thats this concept of military and spiritual warfare. Now as i said, when people looked at the bible, they found war and conflict everywhere. The bible was a book of war. But it wasnt just a book of military warfare. They saw spirituality as a warfare. Do any of you remember seeing anything like this in scripture even in the new testament that spirituality is a war between good and evil, war in the soul, its a constant conflict within us, good versus evil going on. This kind of spiritual warfare and military warfare merged in some of these sermons especially where people saw that spirituality and military in military patriotism, military courage went hand in hand. Another aspect of this had to do with means. Means. The means of waging war. Now when declaring war if people believe god is on their side, in a war, there could be a tendency to kind of, well, do we really need to fight . Do we all really need to join . Do we really need to battle . If god is on our side, its all going to turn out. Preachers would preach against that saying you wouldnt say in your spiritual life, if god loves me i dont have to pray. We always have to use means. God gives us the means to wage warfare. God gives us the means to wage spiritual warfare like scripture against satan, god gives us the means to wage military warfare through the best of weaponry and courage. So we shouldnt depend on god to do it all, we should use the means that god provides us. In this spiritual and military warfare. Theres also a sense that especially ministers in the revolutionary period tend to think that some believe that christians again, some christians shouldnt go to war or if they do go to war they were not going to be the best soldiers. So there was a real argument that christians are the best soldiers. That if youre really a christian, youll be the best military soldier ever. So ive got a quote that might help with this. This is from a minister in massachusetts 1771 which is not yet the American Revolution. But still, you know, its kind of in the era. I would not intimate that every good christian is of consequence a good soldier, an accomplished man of war. But this i will venture to say there cannot be a good soldier, an accomplished man of war, destitute of the principle and practice of christianity. I want to specifically talk about a biblical character here that seemed to exemplify that, and thats david. David was just fascinating in so many different ways. I mean, think about the story of david. David had it all. What did he not have . He was handsome. He was strong. He was courageous. I mean, you know, as a child it was one of my favorite biblical texts where david slays goliath with a slingshot. I had a slingshot. So who could have any problem with david. He was amazing. He had it all going on. I mean, this is and heres a of many sermons that talk about david, heres one from the prerevolutionary period talking about david as a man after gods own heart. Which what is scripture often terms david as. David was a man after gods heart, yet he was a man of war. Skilled in the bloody art and furnished above the common standard with the qualifications of war. In this art, terrible as it is, he informs us that he was taught of god. So david was both spiritual and a courageous warrior. I mean, he could go write a psalm about spirituality and the depth of his relationship with god, and then go slay 100 philistines. He was just this fascinating hero of the scriptures. And he kind of brings together heroism and spirituality together. But david was also interesting in another way. Think again about the republican world view of the revolutionary era. Think again about the idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The need for balance of powers. And then lets think of the david story. Again, david had it all, david was mighty in faith and mighty with the sword, david was a military leader, a great king. I mean, if anyone could be the perfect king it would be david. And yet when david became king, what happened . There was the incident with bathsheba, the incident with uriah. He gets all this power and before you know it hes staying back from the war and committing adultery with bathsheba and having her husband murdered. Could you find a better republican argument that absolute power corrupts absolutely . I mean, being giving someone too much power will corrupt that person no matter who they are, even david was corruptible if given too much power. Now i want to talk about some specific biblical texts. And this is one, i must confess, that i do not know about growing up. This is a story that i did republican but just vaguely. Its a story in the book of judges specifically about a judge named deborah and the verse that gets quoted over and over again in various contexts in revivalistic contexts, preaching for revival, in war contexts, especially in war contexts, is the curse of moraz. Curse ye moraz, said the angel of the lord. Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof because they come not to the help of the lord against the mighty. Okay, lets break this down a little bit. First of all, where was moraz . I asked one of my colleagues at vanderbilt that happened to be writing a commentary on the book of judges. I asked him a few years ago, wheres moraz . He said, we have no idea. And they really didnt know that much in the revolutionary period. But they did know that the deborah issued this curse from god because the people of moraz, wherever they were, would not fight for god against the kanaanites. Would not join in the fight. But one person who did was jael. However you pronounce it. Some of you will remember her story. She was the one who fought for israel by slaying a sisera, an army general, for the canaanites. She kind of lured him into the tent. When he went to sleep, she took a tent peg and drove it through his skull. A good biblical text. And in doing so, she exemplified courage. This played fairly well in the revolutionary period. Preachers picked up on this and often connected deborah and jael as two women who would fight and who were mighty in battle. So this was this was the most based on what i could find, the curse of moraz was the mostcited biblical verse for over 100 years, from like the king philips war in 1675 through the American Revolution, over 100 years. And heres another one, by the way, that got a good bit of play. This is from jeremiah. Cursed be he that doeth the work of the lord deceitfully and curseth he who hold back from doing the work of the lord. If thats not a holy war text, it will do, i guess, right . I want to specifically talk about peter and paul a little bit. Among the various texts in wartime, there was a lot of Old Testament narrative and we can make that makes sense because theres a lot of war in the Old Testament. Theres a lot of battles, a lot of armies. And in so doing, people drew upon these texts over and over and over. They had something ripe for the pickings. But pacifists tended to point that out. And not only pacifists but those particularly opposed to a certain war and they would say, well, sure you can find a lot of war in the hebrew bible or the Old Testament, but what about the new testament . And this is the case in the civil war, i find. More and more arguing over testaments. How relevant is war for the new testament . So there were several ways in which people who wanted to argue against war could make that move, and one weve mentioned is the sermon on the mount where jesus says turn the other cheek. Someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other. Which is nonresistance. It seems to be nonresistance. Could be read as pacifism. That gets quoted over and over and because it gets quoted so much, its one of the top ten cited texts in the revolutionary era. So those who wanted to support war had a burden of proof to overcome, so they often cited that text to argue against it just as they cited thou shall not kill, and other texts. But it was most profitable for them who wanted to argue for war to show how the new testament also spoke about war. And they did this in a few different ways. One way had to do with the book of revelation. Now you probably knew i was going to mention the book of revelation. If youve read anything about the colonial era and war, oftentimes people speak of millennialism and apocalypticism. Many times millennial ideas come out of the book of revelation but not just the book of revelation. So many people see this millennial ideology because the book of revelation is fairly warlike. If youve read it lately, theres a lot of fighting there, theres a lot of evil beings to fight and a lot of symbolism that is quite violent throughout. So sometimes ministers would point to the book of revelation as a new testament text that endorses war. And specifically they would look at revelation chapter 19 where jesus rides in as a warlike figure. So even jesus goes to war in the book of revelation. So the book of revelation is a key text. But even more prominent were texts from peter and paul. Because the idea being, you know, would the apostles support war . What would they do about going to war . And specifically, were peter and paul, the great apostles, would they side with the loyalists or would they side with the patriots . And there was a lot of ink spilled over that question. So i want to read you a couple of texts, and well just read these texts, and lets just see which side they tend to fall down on. Loyalist or patriot . Lets start with peter. Peter, 1 peter chapter 2. 1317. This is a part of that. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the lords sake. As free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness but as servants of god honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear god, honor the king. Well, how might that go . Heres one from paul which is the mostcited text in the revolutionary era. Romans chapter 13. And let me say it gets a lot of play in the civil war as well. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of god. The powers that be are ordained of god. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of god and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation, for he is the minister of god to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is the minister of god, a revenger, a revenger to execute wrath on him that doeth evil. So obey the king, obey the higher powers, because they are ministers of god, they represent god. Some of the loyalists like these texts quite a bit. Among those were methodists like john wesley and John Fletcher and other anglican ministers like Charles Inglis before the revolution and during the revolution. You can see why. Peter is saying fear god under the king, to oppose the king is to oppose god. That god was a king, god put kings in power. That the king is the revenger of god. The king does the work of god. And going back specifically one more part of that text, i want to say that i want to use this as free it talks about freedom and liberty because one of the things that the loyalists were arguing was that patriots are using the terminology of liberty in the wrong way. And this specifically says, as free and not using the liberty for a cloak of maliciousness. Not taking your liberty too far. Not misunderstanding your liberty. That almost seems tailormade for the loyalists. Tail tailormade for that argument. So the loyalist argument is this, lets read these texts from the apostles and lets consider the political situation. The political situation was they were under the control of the roman empire and being under the control of the roman empire they had to deal with jews, they had to deal with their own churches, and they had to deal with the fact that the roman empire controlled everything. And as was typical in many cases, a lot of people tended to blame the jews. Theres a lot of antijewish rhetoric. And in the colonial period, some preachers, including some loyalists, were saying well, the problem was that the jews were stirring up a lot of problems, the jews were stirring up insurrections. And paul and peter were really worried that the christians would cause problems, too, that they would join in these insurrections and become these radicals in politics and just and start all these wars and all these things. So the problem was that christians were getting a bad reputation. People were thinking they were disloyal so peter and paul commanded them to obey the roman government. That they commanded them to be good citizens, join in the government anyway. Now lets thing about the roman government for a second. What would what was the roman government doing in regard to christians . They specifically were thinking about emperor nero and emperors who were persecuting christians. So they point out, some of these preachers say, well, look how tyrannical the roman government was. Much worse than king george iii. Say what you want about king george iii but hes not killing christians. You cant say as much for nero. Nero tormented, he executed christians. And yet even though they were living under a hostile roman government including roman emperors who were killing christians, persecuting christians, peter and paul say fear god, honor the king