The U.S. Constitution has it’s root with the Magna Carta. The original Magna Carta written in the 1215 and original had 63 clauses. This document was between the lowest level of nobility called Barons/Freeman and the King but really had little to do with the majority of the population (about 90% to 95%) known as peasants who were not considered free so this document didn’t apply to them. King John signed under duress, but as soon as rebel forces left London King John renounced it because of a clause (clause 61), which basically made him King in name only. This started a civil war in England. The Pope stepped in and backed King John. The Pope declared the Magna Carta as shameful document to be forced on a King with the threat of violence. The Pope saw this as an attack on the Church’s authority over the King and Church territory. The King was supposed to answer to the Pope and the Pope was God representative on earth.
King John died during the civil war in 1216 his young son became King Henry III. Representatives for young King Henry III sign a new version with the clause that upset King John taken out and more clauses taken out in 1217. Henry III in 1225 at the age 18 signed an even shorter version and the final version was signed by Henry’s son Edward 1st in 1297. Edward 1st was best known as Longshankes who re-imposed royal authority over his people including the Jews in England known as the “Statute of the Jewry”.
The only reason Edward signed the most recent version of the Magna Carta was not because he believed God gave men rights but because he need English Freemen and Nobles to support him and his fight with the Scots and William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.
Now before the 1517 pretty much everyone in Europe was Catholic and the Pope and the Catholic Church had a lot of say even with the Royal houses of Europe. It wasn’t until the mid 1600’s did groups in England begun to assert the belief that the Magna Carta should represent all without distinction of class or status. But after that there were other documents enacting the will of God. In Britain the King or Queen of Britain was Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Elizabeth 1st who was a Protestant started this.
“Being by God's Ordinance, according to Our just Title, Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governour [sic.] of the Church, within these Our Dominions, We hold it most agreeable to this Our Kingly Office, and Our own religious Zeal, to conserve and maintain the Church committed to Our Charge, in the Unity of true Religion, and in the Bond of Peace;”
Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1563
Article XXXVII
Of the Civil Magistrates
“Where we attribute to the Queen's Majesty the chief government, by which titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended, we give not to our princes the ministering either of God's word or of sacraments, the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen doth most plainly testify: but only that prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself, that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil-doers.
The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England.
The laws of the realm may punish Christian men with death for heinous and grievous offences.
It is lawful for Christian men at the commandment of the Magistrate to wear weapons and serve in the wars.”
James the 1st of England (aka James the VI of Scotland) was a Protestant and for whom the King James Bible was commissioned by and is named after. King James 1st also wrote the Divine Right of Kings, which states that a king only has to answer to God and God detest rebellion.
True Law of Free Monarchies by King James in 1598,
“ As there is not a thing so necessary to be known by the people of any land, next the knowledge of their God, as the right knowledge of their allegiance according to the form of government established among them, especially in a monarchy (which form of government, as resembling the divinity, approacheth nearest to perfection, as all the learned and wise men from the beginning have agreed upon, unity being the perfection of all things), so hath the ignorance and (which is worse) the seduced opinion of the multitude, blinded by them who think themselves able to teach and instruct the ignorants, procured the wrack and overthrow of sundry flourishing commonwealths and heaped heavy calamities threatening utter destruction upon others.”
Kings are called gods by the prophetical King David because they sit upon God his throne in the earth and have the count of their administration to give unto him. Their office is "to minister justice and judgment to the people," as the same David saith; "to advance the good and punish the evil," as he likewise saith; "to establish good laws to his people and procure obedience to the same,"as divers good kings of Judah did; "to procure the peace of the people," as the same David saith.”
He goes on about a Kings position in society. King and the law and explaining that a King is like a father and his subjects are his children and so on. Then ends with the following.
“I grant, indeed, that a wicked king is sent by God for a curse to his people and a plague for their sins; but that it is lawful to them to shake off that curse at their own hand, which God hath laid on them, that I deny and may do so justly. Will any deny that the king of Babel was a curse to the people of God, as was plainly forespoken and threatened unto them in the prophesy of their captivity? And what was Nero to the Christian church in his time? And yet Jeremiah and Paul (as ye have else heard) commanded them not only to obey them but heartily to pray for their welfare.
It is certain, then (as I have already by the law of God sufficiently proved), that patience, earnest prayers to God, and amendment of their lives are the only lawful means to move God to relieve them of their heavy curse.”
“Next, in place of relieving the commonwealth out of distress (which is their only excuse and color), they shall heap double distress and desolation upon it; and so their rebellion shall procure the contrary effects that they pretend it for. For a king cannot be imagined to be so unruly and tyrannous but the commonwealth will be kept in better order, notwithstanding thereof, by him than it can be by his way-taking. * * *
I grant, indeed, that a wicked king is sent by God for a curse to his people and a plague for their sins; but that it is lawful to them to shake off that curse at their own hand, which God hath laid on them, that I deny and may do so justly. Will any deny that the king of Babel was a curse to the people of God, as was plainly forespoken and threatened unto them in the prophesy of their captivity? And what was Nero to the Christian church in his time? And yet Jeremiah and Paul (as ye have else heard) commanded them not only to obey them but heartily to pray for their welfare.
It is certain, then (as I have already by the law of God sufficiently proved), that patience, earnest prayers to God, and amendment of their lives are the only lawful means to move God to relieve them of their heavy curse”
In 1611 the King James Bible was finished. King James had a man the name of Thomas Helwys imprisoned for petitioning the King for separation of Church and state. Thomas died in prison in 1616.
In Europe you had Kingdoms that accepted certain religions as their official religion. France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire were Catholics and Britain was Protestant. At this time in history it was common for countries to have an official religion. This was the history the Founding Fathers knew. This was the mixture of God and politics they knew. Until the influence of Enlightenment Movement.
The Age of Reason was in the 17th century which the sciences were on the rise and political debates were being made about the existence of God. Then the Age of Enlightenment that began in Europe somewhere 1680 1700 and ended around 1800. Both these periods were pushing religious theocracy out as well as Monarchy powers. The basic idea of the Enlightenment Movement is to humanize religion. Enlightenment philosophies rejected the idea of original sin. It rejects revealed religion principals. Philosophers introducing the idea that God maybe the creator of all thing but God does not interfere in mans life. Mans relationship with God is a private one.
Thomas Paine’s “Age of Reason” written 1792 and published 1794,
“I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.
I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
Even though this was written about a year or two after the Constitution this was a view point that was circulating amongst some of the Founding Fathers as well as some of the people of the time.
The Founding Fathers were men of different beliefs and different understanding of God. They didn’t agree with each other on issues of politics and religion. The ideas of the Age of Enlightenment that began in Europe were in America and the Founding Fathers not only having knowledge of European history and but also were learning the ideas and philosophies of the Enlightenment period. Thomas Jefferson went as far as creating his own Bible which is known has the Jefferson Bible. Jefferson edited the New Testament, which he removed portions such as angels, Jesus’ miracles, Jesus’ genealogy, the trinity, prophesies and most importantly the resurrection.
From the “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” aka the Jefferson Bible
60: And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.
61: Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
62: Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.
63: There laid they Jesus,
64: And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.
Jefferson ends it there with no resurrection. Much of what Jefferson edited is considered the foundation of Christianity. Jefferson wanted to eliminate what he considered religious dogma and the supernatural aspects. He basically wanted just the ethical teachings of Jesus to be important. Some of his contemporaries agreed with him but many disagreed him and yet tolerated his right to such views.
Founding Fathers understood the potential danger of a government or a leader who claims the will of God as reason for control the will of the people. This is why religion is separate from government and the Founding Fathers did not want to take any chances of allowing the government or leadership to fall under the concept of divine right of kings.
“As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles. First, not being hereditary, their collective knowledge, wisdom, and virtue are not precarious. For by these qualities alone are they to obtain their offices, and they will have none of the peculiar qualities and vices of those men who possess power merely because their father held it before them.” - Tench Coxe, September 28, 1787
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