Faith of Our Fathers (Part 1) - Family devotional
"A Gift of the Beneficent Creator"
Alexander Hamilton fought in the Revolutionary War and also served as General Washington's secretary. He was a major force in the drafting of the Constitution and became our country's first Secretary of the Treasury.
He believed that when God created Adam and Eve he wanted them to have freedom. He believed that the government's job was only to protect and enhance that God-given freedom. Just before the Revolution, while only 18 years old, he wrote the following in an influential political pamphlet calling for American independence from England:
"The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be rummaged from among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by moral power..."
"You would be convinced that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent [kind] Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that, and cannot be wrested from any people without the most manifest violation of justice. Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society."
Bible verses to read:
"Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God." - 1 Peter 2:16
"And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." - Genesis 2:16-17
Discussion questions: