The Constitutions Part Vlll
Part I: The people were “not a party” to the Constitution.
Part II: There are two forms of government - free and not free.
Part III: The people opposed the Constitution for good cause.
Part IV: Consolidation of power by men is a rejection of God.
Part V: To retain rights you must accept responsibility.
Part VI: Applications, oaths and affirmations lead to bondage.
Part VII: God gave man dominion over himself and the land and man gave that dominion and responsibility to other men through avarice and sloth.
Charters and Choices
What drew men and women to cross an ocean in leaky boats, facing untold hardships and risking their lives and the lives of their families, to settle in an untamed wilderness? What call were they answering? What destination did they seek? What means did they use? What purpose could pull them and what of that courage and motivation remains in us today?
At first, it was well-nigh impossible to find settlers to colonize this new land called America, until the signing of the colonial charters by Charles I, and eventually, Charles II.
Those Charters were unique amongst the colonies. They were fashioned after the Bishopric of Durham and waived certain privileges of the kings of England. Their error, as seen by the ruling elite, needed fixing and were not to be repeated again.
Since William of Normandy took Harold’s lands and chattels and choses in action by right of “judgment in arms” in 1066 with his success at Hastings, the natural civil liberties of freemen had been constantly under attack.
Except for the occasional revolt, there was no real progress back toward the natural liberty enjoyed by men living in a a free state before the “will and order” of William and his “Doomesday Book”. With that book of estate registration he established his systems of “legal titles” to land and levies of tribute called property tax.
Recalling Liberty Under God
The memory of a system of government often more effective in the securing of liberty and justice, once enjoyed by freemen who required no central government, was all but stamped out and forgotten. No real hope for freedom arose in that land until the translation of the Bible into English in 1382, awakening the precepts of the “perfect law of liberty” and the possibility of a “government of the People, by the People and for the People”.1
Men again began to understand the plan of God for man and the government preached by Christ. With new found knowledge and the memory of the not too distant past, some men began to preach and work for a system of self government available to the virtuous and brave of heart.
Both the system they found themselves laboring for and under, the Kings men and the “Legal” Church, were a clear contradiction of what they read for themselves without the filtering of an orthodox interpretation. They still had some remembrance of how they had governed themselves without kings and rulers for hundreds of years with the assistance of a servant Church.2
Now they read for themselves how the ancients of Israel lived free from kings and parliaments, tithing to ministers only “according to their service”3 and granting freewill offerings. The head of each house was prince on his own land, having been delivered from bondage in Egypt by Moses and Rome by Christ.
They read about the sin of the people calling for a king to judge them like the other nations,4 and if they did fall prey to such ruling elite that they should do nothing to return them to that bondage in Egypt5 where the people labored for the governing powers several months of every year.
Christ had preached a kingdom that was at hand and appointed men to serve it. It operated by faith, hope and charity as opposed to contract, force and exercising authority.6
The first century Church serving the congregations of the people did the same as those ancient public servants of Israel and prospered while under Roman persecution and through a great dearth7 in their world. The early Church thrived, the congregations prospered, in the heart of the Roman Empire. Their system of self governance had been forgotten by the people but now recalled under the fresh and independent examination of scriptures. The people had to change and become doers of the word again before the blessings could be realized.
The people longed again for that freedom. That longing was a prayer but repentance would be required and the seeking of the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
From Runnymede to the Roundheads and Whigs rebellions against tyranny became a costly affair for kings and the people alike. Only the bravest of men, with virtue and dedication, dared to preach the true Gospel of the Kingdom of God at hand, as opposed to the kingdoms of elite men. In the face of the authoritarian Church, they often suffered the pains of the burning stake for their efforts. Even the dead were not immune from the vengeance of orthodox religions. Fear of the truth exhumed their bodies to bring their corpses to face their fires of their wrath posthumously. Only the stoutest of hearts and the most dedicated of souls could see any hope in the wilderness of the Americas where savages and the elements brought hardship and often death.
Christ and Kingdoms
The seventeenth century Americans came here looking for the freedoms that were all but totally gone from Europe and the land of the Anglo-Saxon. They did not gain their freedom by the so-called revolution, but had earned it by perseverance, hard work and the grace of God. When they spoke of “religious freedom” and “civil freedoms” it meant more than most pew warmers and flag wavers think today.
They began to understand just how deep Christ’s teachings went and what responsibilities accompanied a free society. They began to understand the practicalities of the Kingdom of God. They traded dogmatic philosophy for loving philanthropy, loving their neighbor as themselves or dying.
Millions came here risking all to obtain those freedoms, God-given rights and the personal responsibilities that accompany them. While most of Europe remained complacent, content, or too timid to reach out for such liberty and freedom they stood and stepped forward.
Those freedoms, once so well understood, so cherished and purchased at such great prices, are all but gone from the lives and minds of most Americans. All that is left is the illusion of affluence, blurred memories of past heroism, withered laurels and vain holidays.
The spirit that loves rights and responsibility, and that cherishes freedom and liberty, is still alive in America and the world today, and is buried in the hearts, minds and souls of many, yet, as always, appears only in a minority of the people.
Those who will seek the hidden and suppressed knowledge, make the commitment and do the deeds required of a free society shall again restore a nation to the perfect law of liberty. It will not be a nation dominant but a nation within a nation, like a rock island jutting out from seas of turmoil and tempests.
From its earliest preaching the kingdom of God brought with it social upheaval, fundamental political change and social and political persecution.
“In no relation can the religious motive in English expansion be neglected without doing violence to the record… Still more significant in English expansion than the work of preachers in quest of souls to save, were the labors of laymen from the religious sects of every variety who fled to the wilderness in search of a haven all their own.”8
Our view of their hearts cannot be seen through books and reports of modern historians. Most would not reveal the failure of our modern systems and societies because it would reveal the error of that which they are a part. It is a conspiracy of pride that keeps the truth from each generation. When there is fundamental error in the nature of society who of society could afford the courage of exposing it.
“Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school. And the one man that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool.” 9
What is our history as a people and what part of it may teach us the truth that will set us free?10 What could set us free and why would we want that freedom? Or do we?
“…Faith in Christ inspired the missionaries… and... colonists who subdued the waste places of the new world…”11
But what is faith in Christ? What was the first Century Church really doing? Why did Jesus preach a kingdom at hand,12 and not a Church on the corner? Why did He tell us to do the same13 and appoint a kingdom?14 What kind of government was this kingdom and if it was for the living how does it work? If God is the same then was it a government like Israel in its early uncorrupted days when the people possessed the land wherever they went, and there was no king or parliament, prince or potentate, president or prime minister to make laws and rule over the people? Did Jesus want us to exercise authority one over the other with our democratic vote or elect men to make laws, treaties, or covenants for us, exercise authority over us, be our benefactors15 like Egypt?16
The answer is, No! Whether you admit it or not.
He preached a government, Yes! But it was not like the governments of the Gentiles or other nations. It was a government that was at hand and could be operated in both the midst of the Roman Empire or the wilderness. It was not a part of the Roman world and practiced a system where the persona jurisdiction remained free in the status of the people as individuals. It was a government as old as Man himself but often forgotten or overlooked, neglected or abandoned by men from generation to generation. It was the kingdom of God on earth.17
The Dominion of Man
The concerns of men and women and their pitfalls have not changed from the beginning of man’s walk on earth. How he lives and by whom he lives are his constant choice. By which government he may live remains his choice, the centralized civil powers devised by men, or by God’s kingdom at hand?
Genesis 1:26 “And God said, Let us make man ... and let them have dominion ...”
Numbers 14:24 “But my servant ... hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.”
This is our choice, follow after God and his prophets and Christ and His way or follow after other gods. God gave dominion to men and those who serve Him must possess the land.18 As the King of England sent his subjects to possess the land on his behalf so also God sent his subjects to posses the land on His behalf. The question will always remain as to who are God’s people.
No one actually owns the land or wilderness, for God made the land and it is His. But upon improving land it becomes proper that the use of the land and the benefits produced by that sweat should become the rightful possession of the one who invested his life and labor in the endeavor of dressing and keeping it. Another question does arise, who owns the labor of the man upon the land.19
“Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land ...” Amos 2:10
What is the concern here is the dominion of God on earth as represented by those who remain faithful children and servants to the Father who created them. His kingdom has stood upon the earth from the beginning and has been passed down from generation to generation by His obedient servants.
The Corporate Kingdom
“... mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion [is] an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom [is] from generation to generation:” Daniel 4:34
The modern Corporation Sole is an emulation of the concept of the divine institution of the Family. It is the corpus of God passed down through the faithful sons of that heavenly Father.
The one generation that breaks this chain would place every generation thereafter in the condemnation of bondage throughout eternity without redemption. But the family of Christ lives on by the blood of Christ, his redemption20 and adoption.21
How does His kingdom work? How can we implement it? Does it have structure? Can it be a system based on freedom?
“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.” Exodus 20:12
Governments are the product of the invested interest and rights of those who participate in their creation and maintenance. All governments are forms of corporations and/or systems of trust and faith. Even civil rights are the rights originally vested in the individual but vested in corporate governments and exercised as privileges by its members.
The covenants, contracts and constitutions of the people may form a government easier than they may sever the ties of that government. The conditions of membership, surety for debt, timing for departure and what you may take with you may vary.
There are two choices in the formation of governments that should always be considered before any authority is established. The people may form a government by giving it the right to choose for the people about what shall be given or done or not done. Or, the people may only give some thing to the government over which it may choose to act.
In the former the whole body of people as members of a political society form a corporate society. In the latter a small corporate titular body exists but the families of the people remain autonomous.
In the former the government as corporate head has power to exercise authority one over the other, and the members are subject to that power. In the latter the government only represents the interest of the people in what was given. The people remain free, only what was given is under the control of government.
In the former the bureaucracy of government is the state and the people end up serving it. In the latter the state is the people and the government is the servant.
In the former the people may need a contract with the state and do not need a great deal of virtue such as charity and love but in the latter it is essential but the contract is with an unseen God and the people.
How these distinctions play out in a working government should be second nature to every member of any Church, Synagogue, or Mosque. Abraham, Moses and Christ understood this mystery of self government. Modern educational institutions has no interest in teaching it and modern tyrants have every interest in keeping it secret.
Colonists, Crowns and Contracts
Even the colonists were altering the contract by permission:
“Now the commercial corporation for colonization,… was in reality a kind of autonomous state. Like the state, it had a constitution, a superior law binding constituents and officers.”
“The colonies were ‘companies’. The legal instrument for realization of that design was a charter granted by ‘the dominionitive authority of the king’ uniting the sponsors of the enterprise in ‘one body politic and corporate,’ known as the Trustees for establishing the colony…”
“Thus every essential element long afterward found in the government of the American state appeared in the chartered corporation that started English civilization in America.”22
England was plagued with civil war and the prospect of removing large groups of dissenters and settling the wilderness with someone of the lineal consanguinity of England seemed to be a practical move for any king. The Charters were uniquely liberal.
Charter. “An instrument emanating from the sovereign power, in the nature of a grant, either to the whole nation, or to a class or portion of the people, to a corporation, or to a colony or a dependency, assuring them of certain rights, liberties, or powers… is granted by the sovereign…”23
While these charters were not perfect or ideal they left a gaping hole through which those willing to make the sacrifices for freedom might travel.
“All corporations, of whatever kind, are molded and controlled, both as to what they may do and the manner in which they may do it, by their charters or acts of incorporation, which to them are the laws of their being, which they can neither dispense with nor alter.”24
As we have seen the term republic “signifies the state independently of its form of government.”25 but it was the Natural Law which “was the first defense of colonial liberty.”
Also, “There was a secondary line upon which much skirmishing took place and which some Americans regarded as the main field of battle. The colonial charters seemed to offer an impregnable defense against abuses of parliamentary power because they were supposed to be compacts between the king and people of the colonies; which, while confirming royal authority in America, denied by implication the right of Parliament to intervene in colonial affairs. Charters were grants of the king and made no mention of the parliament. They were even thought to hold good against the King, for it was believed that the King derived all the power he enjoyed in the colonies from the compacts he had made with the settlers. Some colonists went so far to claim that they were granted by the ‘King of Kings’-and therefore ‘no earthly Potentate can take them away.’” 26
To change the perception of American history27 in the minds of the people information concerning the Charters would need to be one of the first concepts to go.
George Washington, in his General Order of July 9, 1776 speaks of rights and liberties already possessed and to be defended as Christians when he said:
“The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country.”
Rights and Liberties are attached to the land and the men who stand upon it. Freedom was not granted by the Charters but the opportunity to obtain freedom was. A door was left open for those who had the courage to go through it. This was a vast unclaimed land. Neither paper proclamations in parliament nor boasting in the taverns could subdue it. Men and women came here by the thousands seeking civil and religious freedom.
They did not seek the comfort, entitlements, protections and restrictions of a feudal or federal state but the responsibility, burdens and rights of the state of freedom under the perfect law of liberty. Some were backed by Companies who were compelled to allow them the chance to obtain an allodial title in land of their own after proving up land for those investors.
Some independently set out to establish their own autonomous community plantations or “Hundreds”. The ruling elite would spend the next 400 years gathering in their lost chicks.
The colonies of America were Republics long before the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. Cromwell as the Lord High Protector of England’s own short lived republic in Great Britain sent troops to the colonies when the rights of individual freemen were threatened by the usurpation of ambitious men who were not willing to give up the ideas and precepts of royal elitism despite the fact that Charles I had already done so in America in hopes of diluting the resistance in England to his own exercising authority.
Until the colonial charters were signed, ridding that kingdom of troublesome rebels, there seemed to be no relief for the king from the people’s desire to control the tyranny of government. In those charters the individual colonies were called “a republic.” But what kind of republics were they? They were not utopias but refuges of individual responsibility where no law could be made “except by the consent of the freeman.”
Those early Separatist and members of the “Ancient Church” worked for these colonial companies but “were given land grants after their seven years servitude to the ‘Merchants Adventurer’s’ was over.”28 They labored for seven years, risked death and suffered great hardships so that they could become “lawful freemen” living on untaxable land.
This was their prayer, their hope, their goal.
“The oath of fealty and homage necessarily accompanied the numerous grants of land” by the kings since the arrival of the Normans but this was neglected and overlooked in the Americas for these Separatists and Bible readers would have refused, if it had been required.
The powers that be knew of that large number of “ordinary citizen, living on his farm, owned in fee simple, untroubled by any relics of feudalism, untaxed save by himself... had a new self-reliance.”29 They knew they were slipping through their tyrannical fingers and needed to insure their loyalty.
Remember that neither the Americans nor the kings were homogeneous groups. Charles I’s reign ended with the plop of his head in a basket. Charles II, known as ‘Good Time Charley’, was the son of a Catholic and the head of the Church of England. Charles II granted the Pennsylvania Charter in payment of debt to William Pen(nington). A debt he could not have paid otherwise.
When William went to collect the debt he refused to take off his hat in the presence of the king, which could have lost him his head with other kings. The king said that one of them should remove his hat, so the king obliged with the doffing of his own bonnet and agreed to the Charter.
“Accordingly, when Americans were told that they had no constitutional basis for their claim of execution from parliamentary authority, they answered, ‘Our Charters have done it absolutely.’ ‘And if one protests,’ remarked a Tory, ‘the answer is, You are an Enemy to America, and ought to have your brains beat out.’30 ”31
At times the kings of England spoke only French or German and queens were drawn from other nations in search of a healthy heir. When we speak of Americans they too were not a singular uniform group. Language, blood and belief varied, but also status for some were landed and felt no allegiance to German speaking kings or pompous Parliaments and little protection was offered.
Charles II and others new a natural and lawful breach was coming and attempted to provide for it by means of voluntary compliance of those who would not willingly conform:
“And because it may happen that some of the people and inhabitants of the said Province, cannot in their private opinions, conform to the publick exercise of religion, according to the liturgy form and ceremonies of the Church of England, or take and subscribe the oath and articles, made and established in that behalf, and for that the same, by reason of the remote distances of these places, will, we hope, be no breach of the unity and uniformity established in this nation; ...” 32
Who were these non-conforming people who would not subscribe to oaths and articles and why did the king only ‘hope for no breach’. Those are not the words of a lord in a contract where he holds all the cards. There was authority slipping from these Kings. These Charters did not grant freedom but they allowed for the opportunity to obtain free dominion, e.g. freedom. This was a period of great unrest in the world and England had proposed the Oath of Supremacy in order to insure loyalty. Catholics were required to take it before entering Virginia according to the Charter of Virginia in 1606.
There were many who would not take oaths including Quakers and Separatists.
Why?
It was simple and obvious. They had read the Bible as we have explained in Part VI.
The King did not own America or its land. What his Charters did was allow his once subject citizenry to own land in a brave new world. Some would claim land for themselves which by the Law would make them free again. Or they could have continued to settle for a “legal title” that would be registered in his Doomsday book of the king. Many of those early American pilgrims knew better than Americans do today.
Good-by Bondage, Hello Freedom
When the Separatists or Pilgrims departed from the shores of England they said, “Good-bye Babylon. Good-bye Rome.” The Common Law and the Holy Bible was the foundation of this Republic in the 1600’s. The government’s authority was insignificant although it arose from the Common Law of the Land. While those men bravely walked toward liberty under God at a great personal sacrifice, modern Christians have slothfully slid into greater bondage than that of Egypt.
It is now Roman Law that dominates the legal system and the courts of much of the world. In Black’s law dictionary, found in every law office of the US democracy, there is hardly a page that does not make reference to its Latin origins or its legal principles.
“‘Civil Law’, ‘Roman Law’ and ‘Roman Civil Law’ are convertible phrases, meaning the same system of jurisprudence.”33
John Adams said that when the grantees of the “Massachusetts Bay Charter carried it to America they ‘got out of the English realm, dominions, state, empire, call it by what name you will, and out of the legal jurisdiction of the Parliament. The king might, by his writ or proclamation, have commanded him to return; but he did not’.”34 Had he called them back his foothold in America would have been gone.
America was not the earliest Christian Republic. Christianity as taught by Christ and practiced by the early Church, was a republic. In Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, “the Christian republic... gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart of the Roman Empire.”35
It was the true Christians struggling to follow the ordinances of Jesus Christ that created an impenetrable barrier to the tyranny of George III. “We must realize that today’s Establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution… the truth is that the vast bureaucracy now runs this country, irrespective of what party is in power.”36
That vast bureaucracy was created by the people’s own desires, sloth and indulgence. If they want their rights back they must first take their responsibilities back. They must do it individually and, and collectively. This was the plan and purpose of Abraham’s and Moses’ altars and Christ’s Church.
How is this done with a world so immersed in the baptism of power, control and regulations, to say nothing of debt and bankruptcy? What does a government look like that is “not like the gentiles who exercise authority one over the other”? How can it work? What is the system that operates on the “perfect law of Liberty”?
Is it a gathering of people whose interest is in being of service rather than being served, who are concerned about their neighbor’s rights and welfare as much as they are about their own, e.g. love their neighbors as themselves and who “seek first the kingdom of Heaven and its righteousness” which Jesus said was at hand???
Can it work as a viable state in the heart of the American empire or the proverbial new world order?
The answer is surprisingly simple but one of the best kept secrets of our time.
You must let God open your eyes, heart and your mind. You must look at all things anew.
Contracts, Covenants, and Constitutions
The book Contract, Covenants, and Constitutions, reveals the contrasting nature of a free government and those established by contract. It brings the original Constitution of the United States into historical contexts and the change in the modern American government into a unique revealing perspective. It also takes a detailed look at the prohibition in the Bible concerning government by contract; the Biblically delegated elements for constitutions; and the debt and bondage that always results from the failure to adhere to Godly precepts.
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Active Footnotes:
2Luke 22:25-27 “And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.”
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