Happy July 4th

I have a friend who just graduated from SMU with a Master of Arts in History. He sent me these great quotes from some of our founding fathers.

Patrick Henry
1. "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased a 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!"
2. "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 faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
3. "The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed."
4. "Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom."
5, "It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains."

James Madison
1. "It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage....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."
2. "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions 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."

Fisher Ames
(Author of the First Amendment)
"Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a schoolbook? Its morals are pure, its examples are captivating and noble..."

Those who fought the revolutionary war and founded our nation were not perfect. They were not living in a vacuum free from the concerns of finances. They were individuals who assumed that the freedom they achieved would be exercised within the moral responsibility to God described in the Bible.