Kevin Stilley

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America’s Christian Heritage

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were … the general principles of Christianity…. Now I will avow, that I then believed, and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.
~ John Adams, in The Works of John Adams: Second President of the United States, vol. 10 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1856), page 43.

Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
~ John Adams, in a message on October 11, 1798, to the officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts

The first and almost the only book deserving of universal attention is the Bible.
~ John Quincy Adams

Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age, by impressing the minds of men, with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity… in short, of leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system.
~ Samuel Adams, in a letter to John Adams, 1790. In Four Letters: Being an Interesting Correspondence Between Those Eminently Distinguished Characters, John Adams, Late President of the United States; and Samuel Adams, Late Governor of Massachusetts. On the Important Subject of Government. (Boston: Adams and Roads, 1802), pages 90

Let us not trust to human effort alone, but humbly acknowledge the power and goodness of Almighty God who presides over the destiny of nations, and who has at all times been revealed in our country’s history, let us invoke His aid and His blessings upon our labors.
~ Grover Cleveland, 22nd President of the United States

The strength of a country is the strength of its religious convictions.
~ Calvin Coolidge

We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.
~ Justice William O. Douglas, in a Supreme Court decision, March 1952

When England grew corrupt, God brought over a number of pious persons and planted them in New England, and this land was planted with a noble vine.
~ Jonathan Edwards, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1.

The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth–that God governs in the Affairs of Men.
~ Benjamin Franklin, addressing the Constitutional Convention on June 28, 1787

In the year of Chist, 1755, This building was piously founded,
for the relief of the sick and miserable.
May the God of mercies bless the undertaking.
Whoever shall introduce into public affairs the principles of Primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.
~ Benjamin Franklin, composed for a cornerstone inscription for the Pennsylvania Hospital, 1751

The Bible is the anchor of our liberties.
~ Ulysses S. Grant

The Bible is the cornerstone of American liberty. A student’s perusal of this sacred volume will make them a better citizen.
~ Thomas Jefferson. According to Daniel Webster, Jefferson said this to him in regard to why the Bible was foundational in the educational plan he helped program for the school system in Washington D.C. Daniel Webster to Professor Peace, June 15, 1852 in The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, edited by Edward Everett, (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 1903).

Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.
~ Thomas Jefferson

Almighty God … hath diffused the glorious light of the Gospel, whereby, through the merits of our gracious Redeemer, we may become the heirs of His eternal glory.
~ Thomas Jefferson, November 11, 1779, in a Day of Prayer proclamation while Governor of Virginia. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 3, 18 June 1779 – 30 September 1780. ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), pages 177-179

Let us look forward tot he time when we can take the flag of our country, and nail it below the Cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times, and let us gather around it and inscribe for our motto, “Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever,” and exclaim, Christ first, our country next!
~ Andrew Johnson, America’s 17th President

The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed.
~ Patrick Henry

The general diffusion of Christian knowledge hath a natural tendency to correct the morals of men, restrain their vices, and preserve the peace of society.
~ Patrick Henry

It is announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.
~ Abraham Lincoln, March 30, 1863, in his Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day. In the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln.

We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, int he deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace too proud to pray to the God that made us.
~ Abraham Lincoln, proclaiming a National Day of Prayer, March 30, 1863.

We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government. Far from it. We have staked the future on the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, control ourselves, and to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.
~ James Madison

The Bible is the Constitution of Christian civilization.
~ Gordon Palmer, in By Freedom’s Holy Light (NY: Devin-Adair Co., 1964), page 4

Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.
~ William Penn,

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just. And this be our motto – “In God is our Trust.”
~ The Star Spangled Banner

I believe that no one can read the history of our country, without realizing the Good Book, and the Spirit of the Savior, which have, from the beginning, been our guiding genius. Whether we look at the first Charter of Virginia, or the Charter of New England, or the Charter of Massachusetts Bay, or the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the same objective is present, a Christian land governed by Christian principles. I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible and a belief in it. Freedom of Belief, of expression, of assembly, of petition, the dignity of the individual, the sanctity of the home, equal justice under the law, and the reservation of the people, I would like to believe that we are living today in the Spirit of Christian religion. I would also like to believe long as we do, no great harm can come to our country.
~ Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. In an interview with Time Magazine, February 14, 1954.

I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion. But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of public institutions.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville

Whatever makes a person a good Christian makes him a good citizen.
~ Daniel Webster

If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we or our prosperity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.
~ Daniel Webster

Let us not forget the religious character of our origin.
~ Daniel Webster

The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles…to this we ow our free constitutions of government. The Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed. No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.
~ Noah Webster, in the preface to Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828

America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scriptures.
~ Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, on May 7, 1911 in a speech delivered in Denver, Colorado

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Christian Involvement In Politics

church and state

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The Christian’s goal is not power, but justice. We are to seek to make the institutions of power just, without being corrupted by the process necessary to do this.
~ Charles Colson

The strength of a country is the strength of its religious convictions.
~ Calvin Coolidge

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 people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievance.
~ Constitution of the United States, Amendment I

We the people of the State of North Carolina, grateful to Almighty God, the Sovereign Ruler of Nations, for the preservation of the American Union and the existence of our civil, political, and religious liberties, and acknowledging our dependence upon Him for the continuance of those blessings to us and our posterity; do for the more certain security thereof and for the better government of this State, ordain and establish this Constitution.
~ Preamble to the North Carolina State Constitution, 1868

We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.
~ Justice William O. Douglas, in a Supreme Court decision, March 1952

One of the painful indictments of our savorlessness is that according to voting records, there are enough unregistered Christians to swing any election.
~ Bill Gothard

God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?
~ Thomas Jefferson

Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe. And if a member of Civil Society, who enters into any subordinate association, he must always do it with a reservation of his duty to the General Authority; much more must every man who becomes a member of any particular Civil Society, do it with a saving of his final allegiance to the Universal Sovereign.
~ James Madison, in Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785

We have staked the whole future of American civilization, no upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capability of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.
~ James Madison

The Bible is the Constitution of Christian civilization.
~ Gordon Palmer, in By Freedom’s Holy Light (NY: Devin-Adair Co., 1964), page 4

Jesus said that we are to render to God the things that are God’s and to Caesar those that are Caesar’s. Our Caesar is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. In order for us to render to Caesar the things that are due him, we should indeed participate in our government. Our Lord would have it so.
~ Adrian Rogers

I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion. But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensible to the maintenance of public institutions.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville

There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men, than in America.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America (NY: Harper & Rowe, 1966. pages 303-304

It is impossible rightly to govern the world without God and the Bible.
~ George Washington

It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits and humbly implore His protection and favor.
~ George Washington, his his Thanksgiving proclamation of October 3, 1789

While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.
~ George Washington

If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution which was framed in our convention, where I had the honor of presiding, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly, I would never have placed my signature upon it.
~ George Washington, inauguration speech

I have often expressed my sentiment, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, out to be protected in worshiping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.
~ George Washington, in a letter to the United Baptist Churches of Virginia, May 10, 1789

Whatever makes a person a good Christian makes him a good citizen.
~ Daniel Webster

If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we or our prosperity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.
~ Daniel Webster

Let us not forget the religious character of our origin.
~ Daniel Webster

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Quotes – Master List

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Henry Ward Beecher – select quotes

The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government.
~ in Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1867

Ignorance is the womb of monsters.
~ in Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1867

A traitor is good fruit to hang from the boughs of the tree of liberty.

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.

Remember God’s bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light! Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude!

The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.

The strength and the happiness of a man consists in finding out the way in which God is going and going in that way, too.

Troubles are the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

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Faith and Reason – select quotes

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Reason is a light that God has kindled in the soul.
~ Aristotle

No one indeed believes anything unless he has first thought that it it to be believed.
~ Augustine of Hippo

God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. If you understand you have failed.
~ Augustine of Hippo

Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith; they keep faith alive and moving.
~ Frederick Buechner

A comprehended God is no God.
~ Dio Chrysostom

If reason be a gift of Heaven, and we can say as much of faith, Heaven has certainly made us two gifts not only incompatible, but in direct contradiction to each other. In order to solve the difficulty, we are compelled to say either that faith is a chimera or that reason is useless.
~ Denis Diderot, in A Philosophical Conversation

Reason is our Soules left hand, Faith is her right, …
~ John Donne

Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of awesome mystical power. We know this because hey manage to be invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions; the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can’t see them.
~ Steve Eley

The majority of mankind is lazy-minded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith.
~ T.S. Eliot, in his Introduction to Pascal’s Pensees

I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use.
~ Galileo Galilei

Proof is only applicable to very rarefied areas of philosophy and mathematics…. For the most part we are driven to acting on good evidence, without the luxury of proof. There is good evidence of the link between cause and effect. There is good evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow. There is good reason to believe my mother loves me and is not just fattening me up for the moment when she will pop arsenic into my tea. And there is good reason to believe in God. Very good reason. Not conclusive proof, but very good reason just the same…. I believe it is much harder to reject the existence of a supreme being than accept it.
~ Michael Green, in Faith for the Non-religious

Some things have to be believed to be seen.
~ Ralph Hodgson

A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.
~ David Hume, in An Enquiry Concerning Human Concerning Human Understanding

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
~ Robert Jastrow, in God and the Astronomer

The more we know of God, the more unreservedly we will trust Him; the greater our progress in theology, the simpler and more childlike will be our faith.
~ J. Gresham Machen

Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration—courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth.
~ H. L. Menken

The faith that does not come from reason is to be doubted, and the reason that does not lead to faith is to be feared,
~ G. Campbell Morgan

Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.
~ Blaise Pascal

Faith is reason at rest in God.
~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

God cannot be understood by logical reasoning but only by submission.
~ Leo Tolstoy, in Wise Thoughts for Every Day

It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being. Religion is as necessary to reason, as reason is to religion.
~ George Washington

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Evangelism – select quotes

The hardest people to reach with the love of God are not the bad people. They know they are bad. They have no defense. The hardest ones to win for God are the self-righteous people.
~ Charles L. Allen

A theology of response does not need to be Pelagian; it need only be a theology in which the reality of the human is taken seriously.
~ Gary Badcock in The Way of Life

Evandalism. n. Using spray paint to write “John 3:16” on public structures.
~ Pete Briscoe, in Belief Matters: Grappling With the Essentials of the Christian Faith, page 117.

Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning.
~ Frederick W. Faber

We’ve drifted away from being fishers of men to being keepers of the aquarium.
~ Paul Harvey

If every person in the world had adequate food, housing, income; if all men were equal and every possible social evil and injustice were done away with, men would still need one thing: Jesus Christ!
~ J. W. Hyde

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Thomas Jefferson – select quotes

Thomas Jefferson Quotes

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The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three-headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three-headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites.
~ in a letter to his nephew Peter Carr

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than no to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.
~ in a letter to Abigail Adams, 1787)

I hold it, that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
~ in a letter to James Madison after Shay’s rebellion

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is their natural manure.
~ in a letter to Col. William S. Smith, 1787

No man can bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.
~ in a letter to Rutledge, 1795

I have said and always will say, that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.
~ Quoted by A.W. Pink in What Follows from Divine Inspiration

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. (in reference to slavery)

God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

No man can bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it. ( in a letter to Rutledge, 1795)

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

All, too, will 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 possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned — this is the sum of good government.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

Determine never to be idle. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

Delay is preferable to error.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

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Fearing God

“There are three forms of fear: some fear  God because they are afraid they will lose life and property; some fear the Lord because they are afraid to lose their share in the World-to-Come.  These two forms are imperfect.  The perfect form is to fear the Lord because he is the Master and the Ruler, and deserves obedience.”  (Talmud, Tikkune Zohar, Hakdamah, 11b)

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