By W. Cleon Skousen

The Thomas Jefferson Center for Education

Behind the Scenes… At Home and Abroad

Volume 1:1

February 1999

I think it is particularly appropriate at this perilous time in our nation’s history to look across this broad land of ours  and  ask  the  question,  “America, quo vadis?” America, where goest thou?

During some of the earlier years of our republic, there were two kinds of prophecies concerning our future. The first type were warnings of what might happen, the others were prophecies of what it would be like if it did happen.

In this report, I would like to share with you a sampling of these prophecies because the great men of America who preceded us knew that if we did not stay within the parameters of the Constitution we would arrive exactly where we now are. Our nation is beset with many serious problems that could have been avoided, and the Founders gave ample warning of what would happen if their warnings were not heeded.

What If the Bible Were Our Only Law Book?

But before talking about where we now are, perhaps it would lift our spirits to first set forth the vision of America as one of the Founders hoped it would become. The following quotation is from the writings of John Adams, the man who was trained to be a Congregational minister, but who felt compelled to make his contribution by turning to what he called the “divine science of law and good government.” He wrote:

“Suppose a nation [and he was thinking of our nation] … should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member [or citizen] should regulate his conduct to the precepts there exhibited. Every member [or citizen] would be obliged in conscience to temperance and frugality and industry, to justice and kindness and charity toward his fellow men, and to piety and love, and reverence towards almighty God. In this commonwealth, no man would impair his health by gluttony, drunkenness, or lust – no man would sacrifice his most precious time to… any… trifling amusement [and become a couch potato] – no man would steal or lie or in any way defraud his neighbour, but would live in peace and good will with all men – no man would blaspheme his Maker or profane his worship, but a rational and manly, a sincere, and unaffected piety and devotion would reign in all hearts… What a paradise would this region be!”1

Why the Founders Were Very Familiar With the Bible

Today most politicians know very little about the Bible, but that was not true of the Founders. Practically every one of the Founders except Benjamin Franklin and Roger Sherman had graduated from ministerial colleges. This is true because every college or university in the Thirteen Colonies was sponsored by some denomination to train ministers. This meant that those who attended were expected to read the New Testament in Greek, the Old Testament in Latin and many of the Founders could read it in Hebrew. In fact every Baccalaureate sermon at Harvard was given in Hebrew up until 1817.

When it came to the Bible, the Founding Fathers were scholars – real scholars.

Now what most Americans in our day have not been taught is the fact that the Bible and its moral requirements once dominated the lives of the American people just about the way John Adams described it. This pleasant interlude of congenial righteousness was called “the New Awakening” and it occurred about the time the Founders were coming into their maturity. It began about 1720 and extended in a series of waves right up to the time of the Revolutionary War.

The principal leaders in the New Awakening were Jonathan Edwards – a Congregational minister from Massachusetts, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement who came from England to Georgia, and George Whitefield (pronounced WHIT-field) who was converted by Wesley in England and then came to this country seven different times to stir up the American people.

How Jonathan Edwards Knew God’s Zion of the Latter Days was America

To help us understand what the New Awakening did to the thinking of the Founding Fathers as well as many Americans, let me begin with Jonathan Edwards. In addition to his principal emphasis on repentance he reminded Americans that God’s great Zion of the latter days is America, and he said Americans must prepare themselves for their manifest destiny.

He pointed out that Isaiah who lived around 700 B.C. identified the Zion of the latter days as being in a distant land beyond the rivers of Ethiopia or Africa, and inhabited by a people who were… “scattered and peeled.”2 Isaiah said this land would have to be reached by boats. From this land an ensign would be lifted upon the mountains and when God’s trumpet was sounded from this place all nations should listen.3 Isaiah then said this land occupied by the people who were scattered and peeled was actually “the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount Zion.”4 Zephaniah went on to say that these people who were “scattered and peeled” were actually the children of the dispersed tribes of Israel and that they would eventually bring a “present” to the Lord.5

Jonathan Edwards was not the first scholar of the Bible to conclude that these prophecies pointed to America. The Puritans recognized it and that is why they called American the “new Israel.” Bishop George Berkeley of Ireland wrote a beautiful poem about America as the site for the latter day kingdom of God seen by Daniel. In fact, Professor Conrad Cherry wrote a whole book about God’s New Israel which was published by Prentice-Hall of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, in 1971.

Jonathan Edwards believed America was the land of Joseph that would feed and save the world in the latter days.6 He said it would be from America that the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Church of God would be restored in America and “true religion” would go from America to the rest of the world.7

Jonathan Edwards also felt the prophecies concerning the “wilderness” that would become a fruitful field and blossom as a rose was referring to America in the latter days. He even thought the Second Coming of Christ would be in America.8

Many people had thought these prophecies referred to Jerusalem and the land of Israel, but there are 34 passages of scripture which clearly delineate the new Zion as being separate from the old Zion or old Jerusalem. Jonathan Edwards was not only convinced that these words from the Bible applied to America, but he said:

“We cannot reasonably think otherwise than that the beginning of this great work of God must be near. And there are many things that make it probable that his work will begin in America.”9

John Wesley

Now this was about the time John Wesley came to Georgia to tell the people how to become “methodical students of the scriptures and live methodical Christian lives.” Wesley was a member of the Episcopal Church all his life but he started the Methodist movement. He also had a strong message of repentance and told Americans to rise and shine for the glory of God.

George Whitefield

Finally we come to George Whitefield who had been converted by Wesley in England and who came to America to help Wesley and carry on the Methodist movement. Whitefield was the greatest preacher of them all.

Benjamin Franklin was amazed at the capacity of this man to stir the hearts of the people and change the spiritual temperature of thousands in a single sermon.

Franklin said this man was blessed with a voice like a trumpet. When Whitefield came to Philadelphia in 1739 he was refused a pulpit by the local churches and so he spoke in the parks or open fields. Someone told Franklin he could be heard by 25,000 people at one time, but Franklin doubted it. He therefore went to an open air meeting to see for himself. As an experiment he walked backwards away from the speaker’s platform as long as he could hear plainly and then calculated that Whitefield’s voice could be readily heard by even more than 25,000.

Franklin described what this man’s message did to Philadelphia. He wrote: “The multitudes of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous… It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street.”10

Franklin also describes what happened to him the first time he heard George Whitefield preach. He said:

“I happened… to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he would get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and [I] determined… to give the silver. And he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector’s dish, gold and all.”11

The New Awakening Helps Prepare America for Independence

The surge of the New Awakening we have just described was a critical factor as the Thirteen Colonies approached the time when they felt compelled to declare their independence. Their one fear was that they were not good enough to govern themselves. Three of the Founders even approached the brother of Frederick the Great to see if he would come over and be king of America. It was a good thing he did not accept because it turned out that he was one of the most debauched homosexuals in Europe. But it illustrated how insecure the people felt as the time drew near when they would have to govern themselves.

Historians tell us that in an effort to prepare themselves, they began a universal reform movement to gear themselves up to the level of virtue and morality which the ministers of the New Awakening had urged them to achieve.

But even as late as 1776 many felt they were not yet good enough. It is interesting that Thomas Paine had arrived from England a short time before and he believed they were amazingly good people. In fact, he wrote a pamphlet called Common Sense which became a best seller overnight and told the colonists they were not only good enough to govern themselves, but they should immediately break away from the British Empire before they had been corrupted by the pompous manners and immorality of the English.

The  Constitution Designed Only For A Virtuous People

So the Americans made the greatest bungee leap in our entire history when they set up the first free people in modern times. But notice that after the Revolution, when they wrote the Constitution, they designed it exclusively for good people. As John Adams afterwards wrote:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”12

And Benjamin Franklin added: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."13

These Founders were warning us that if we lost our Biblical standards of morality and respect for God’s law, the Constitution would cease to be the supreme law of the land. They were talking about conditions as they now exist in America.

A Warning From One of America’s Greatest Admirers – Alexis de Tocqueville of France

No one appreciated what the American Founders had accomplished more than a French judge who came to America in 1831 to tour the country. His name was Alexis de Tocqueville, and he soaked up more of the American scene in ten months than most travelers absorb in years. He went home and wrote his two famous books entitled, Democracy in America. No author ever caught the original vision and spirit of the American founders better than Alexis de Tocqueville.

But toward the end of these books he inscribed a profound warning to future generations of Americans. He said there is a danger that they might lose their spirit of rugged individualism and begin to ask the government to manage “their principal concerns… [and] spare them all the care of thinking and the trouble of living.”14

“The supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform,, through which the most original minds and the most energetic character cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd.”15

Almost as though de Tocqueville were watching developments in America today, he continues:

“The will of man is not shattered but softened, bent, and guided – men are seldom forced by it to act, they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy… it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, [debilitates], extinguishes, and stupefies the people, till [the] nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”16

The Leading Founders Had the Same Concern

Thomas Jefferson was also fearful that this might happen. He even saw some of the trends drifting in this direction in his own day. Therefore he warned the people by saying:

“When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks [and balances] provided… and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.”17

James Madison, who is sometimes called the father of the Constitution, felt exactly the same anxiety. He seems to have projected a prophetic eye into our own generation as he declared:

“If Congress can employ money indefinitely for the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare… they may take into their own hands the education of children… they may assume the provision of the poor…  Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America."18

A Warning from Abraham Lincoln When He Was 28 Years Old

Finally, let me tum to Abraham Lincoln. When he was 28 years old he gave one of the greatest speeches of his life to the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois. He began on an optimistic note as he said:

“We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate.”19

Then Lincoln turns to the signs of the times, even in his own day, and says:

“There is even now something of ill omen amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country – the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice.”20

Lincoln then addressed the prospect of the nation allowing these destructive forces to escalate until its very existence might be threatened. Then he said:

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be the author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide."21

I wonder what President Lincoln would say today if he knew that mobs had over 100 American cities burning in 1968 and only recently the whole south section of Los Angeles was burned and ransacked by mobs.

What would he say about a crime wave so violent and widespread that the majority of the states do not have enough prisons to house the convicted criminals. What would he say about a President who wants to welcome sexual perverts into the armed services. And what about a million abortions per year legalized by an order of the Supreme Court?

Here is what he said would happen if the people ever allowed their affairs to be dominated by the federal government. He wrote:

Would he be shocked by a national debt that now exceeds the debts of all other nations of the earth combined? What would he think about the Federal Reserve System that now operates with pieces of paper that cannot be redeemed in either gold or silver? Then there is the phenomenal breakdown of the family with the number of divorces equal to the number of marriages and millions of children being born each year out of wedlock and millions of others having to be raised by single parents.

I think we know what Lincoln would say as well as the rest of the great leaders who first established the foundations of this nation. After all, the United States became the first free people in modern times and it was hailed around the globe as the “hope of the world.” I think the Founding Fathers would be horrified with what is happening today.

Of course, none of this should have happened. And it would not have happened if the past six or seven generations of Americans had remained a virtuous people and required their leaders to stay within the parameters of the Constitution.

Let me repeat again the words of John Adams when he said: “This Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”22

But what if America had remained a moral and a religious people? Supposing the whole nation had used the Bible as John Adams suggested and insisted that their leaders in Washington operate strictly within the requirements of the Constitution? How different would things be today if that had happened?

That will be the subject of “America, Quo Vadis? PART 2” in next month’s “Behind the Scenes...At Home and Abroad”.

References:

1. Quoted by Adrienne Koch, The American Enlightenment, p. 167.
2. Isaiah 18:1.
3. Isaiah 18:3.
4. Isaiah 18:7.
5. Zephaniah 3:10.
6. Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England. New York: S. Converse, 1830, vol. IV pp. 128-33. This is also covered in Cherry's God's New Israel pp. 55-59.
7. Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England. New York: S. Converse, 1830, vol. IV pp. 128-33. This is also covered in Cherry's God's New Israel pp. 55-59.
8. Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England. New York: S. Converse, 1830, vol. IV pp. 128-33. This 1s also covered in Cherry's God's New Israel pp. 55-59.
9. Comad Cherry, God's New Israel, p. 55.
10. Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin, New York: The Viking Press, 1938, p. 136.
11. Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin, New York: The Viking Press, 1938, p. 137.
12. W. Cleon Skousen, The Making of America, p. 53.
13. W. Cleon Skousen, The Making of America, p. 53.
14. Alexis de Tocqueville,  Democracy in America, 2:336.
15. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 2:337.
16. Alexis de Tocqueville,  Democracy in America, 2:337.
17. Quoted by W. Cleon Skousen, The Making of America, p. 187.
18. Quoted by Thomas James Norton, Undermining the Constitution, Devin Adair, New York, 1950, p. 188.
19. Lincoln’s entire speech  appears  in  The Freemen Digest, February, 1984, pp. 38-42; this quotation is on p. 38.
20. Lincoln’s entire  speech  appears  in The Freemen  Digest, February, 1984, pp. 38-42; this quotation is on p. 38.
21. Lincoln's  entire  speech  appears  in The Freemen Digest, February, 1984, pp. 38-42; this quotation is on p. 38.
22. W. Cleon Skousen, The Making of America, p. 53.

Published by Textbook Publishers copyright 1999

The Thomas Jefferson Center for Education

P.O. Box 775, West Jordan, UT 84084