5000 Year Leap (15 page)

   "And these [great natural rights] may be reduced to three principal or primary articles: the right of
personal security
; the right of
personal liberty
; and the right of
private property
; because as there is no other known method of compulsion, or of abridging man's natural free will, but by an infringement or diminution of one or other of these important rights, the preservation of these, inviolate, may justly be said to include the preservation of our civil immunities in their largest and most extensive sense."
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   The protection of these rights was later carried over into the constitutions of the various states. Here is how the Constitution of Pennsylvania stated it:

   "Article I, Section 1. All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property and reputation, and of pursuing their own happiness."
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   Over a century ago, Frederic Bastiat, who was trying to preserve freedom in France, wrote that man's unalienable rights are actually those which relate to life itself and that the preservation of those rights is primarily a matter of self-preservation. He wrote:

   "We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life--physical, intellectual, and moral life. But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. The process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.

   "Life, faculties, production -- in other words, individuality, liberty, property -- this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.

   "Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws [for the protection of them] in the first place."
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   But on what basis are the unalienable rights of mankind to be protected? This brings us to the principle which is a corollary to the one we have just discussed.

   Rights, though endowed by God as unalienable prerogatives, could not remain unalienable unless they were protected as enforceable rights under a code of divinely proclaimed law.

   William Blackstone pointed out that the Creator is not only omnipotent (all-powerful),

   "... but as He is also a Being of infinite
wisdom
. He has laid down only such laws as were founded in those relations of justice, that existed in the nature of things ... These are the eternal, immutable laws of good and evil, to which the Creator Himself in all His dispensations conforms; and which He has enabled human reason to discover, so far as they are necessary for the conduct of human actions. Such, among others, are these principles: that we should live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render to everyone his due."
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   Blackstone also said it was necessary for God to disclose these laws to man by direct revelation:

   "The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man's felicity."
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   An analysis of the essential elements of God's code of divine law reveals that it is designed to promote, preserve, and protect man's unalienable rights.

   This divine pattern of law for human happiness requires a recognition of God's supremacy over all things; that man is specifically forbidden to attribute God's power to false gods; that the name of God is to be held in reverence, and every oath taken in the name of God is to be carried out with the utmost fidelity, otherwise the name of God would be taken in vain; that there is also a requirement that one day each week be set aside for the study of God's law; that it is also to be a day of worship and the personal renewing of one's commitment to obey God's law for happy living; that there are also requirements to strengthen family ties by children honoring parents and parents maintaining the sanctity of their marriage and not committing adultery after marriage; that human life is also to be kept sacred; that he who willfully and wantonly takes the life of another must forfeit his own; that a person shall not lie; that a person shall not steal; that every person must be willing to work for the things he desires from life and not covet and scheme to get the things which belong to his neighbor.

   These principles will be immediately recognized as the famous Ten Commandments. There are many additional laws set forth in the Bible which clarify and define these principles.
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   In recent years the universal emphasis on "rights" has seriously obscured the unalienable duties which are imposed upon mankind by divine law. As Thomas Jefferson said, man "has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
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   There are two kinds of duties -- public and private. Public duties relate to public morality and are usually supported by local or state ordinances which can be enforced by the police power of the state. Private duties are those which exist between the individual and his Creator. These are called principles of private morality. The only enforcement agency is the self-discipline of the individual himself. William Blackstone was referring to public and private morality when he said:

   Let a man therefore be ever so abandoned in his principles, or vicious in his practice, provided he keeps his wickedness to himself, and does not offend against the rules of public decency, he is out of the reach of human laws. But if he makes his vices public, though they be such as seem principally to affect himself (as drunkenness, or the like), they then become by the bad example they set, of pernicious effects to society; and therefore it is then the business of human laws to correct them....
Public
sobriety is a relative duty [relative to other people], and therefore enjoined by our laws;
private
sobriety is an absolute duty, which, whether it be performed or not, human tribunals can never know; and therefore they can never enforce it by any civil sanction.
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   In a sense we could say that our unalienable duties, both public and private, are an inherent part of Natural Law. They constitute a responsibility imposed on each individual to respect the absolute rights or unalienable rights of others.

   Here are some of the more important responsibilities which the Creator has imposed on every human being of normal mental capacity:

   1. The duty to honor the supremacy of the Creator and his laws. (As Blackstone states, the Creator's law is the supreme law of the world: "This law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this...."
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)

   2. The duty not to take the life of another except in self-defense.

   3. The duty not to steal or destroy the property of another.

   4. The duty to be honest in all transactions with others.

   5. The duty of children to honor and obey their parents and elders.

   6. The duty of parents and elders to protect, teach, feed, clothe, and provide shelter for children.

   7. The duty to support law and order and keep the peace.

   8. The duty not to contrive through a covetous heart to despoil another.

   9. The duty to provide insofar as possible for the needs of the helpless -- the sick, the crippled, the injured, the poverty-stricken.

   10. The duty to honorably perform contracts and covenants both with God and man.

   11. The duty to be temperate.

   12. The duty to become economically self-sufficient.

   13. The duty not to trespass on the property or privacy of another.

   14. The duty to maintain the integrity of the family structure.

   15. The duty to perpetuate the race.

   16. The duty not to promote or participate in the vices which destroy personal and community life.

   17. The duty to perform civic responsibilities -- vote, assist public officials, serve in official capacities when called upon, stay informed on public issues, volunteer where needed.

   18. The duty
not
to aid or abet those involved in criminal or anti-social activities.

   19. The duty to support personal and public standards of common decency.

   20. The duty to follow rules of moral rectitude.

   The Creator revealed a divine law of criminal justice which is far superior to any kind being generally followed in the world today. This is a most important element of God's revealed law, and let us therefore emphasize it again even though we discussed it earlier.

   It will be recalled that God's revealed law provided true "justice" by requiring the criminal to completely restore the property he had stolen or to otherwise pay the damages for losses he had caused. It was the law of "reparation" -- repairing the damage. In addition, the criminal had to pay his victim punitive damages for all the trouble he had caused. This was also to remind him not to do it again.

   This system of justice through reparation was practiced by the ancient Israelites and also the Anglo-Saxons. In recent years a number of states have begun to adopt the "reparation" system. This requires the judge to call in the victim and consult with him or her before passing sentence. This discussion includes the possibility of the criminal's working to pay back the damages he caused his victim.

   If the criminal is too irresponsible to be trusted to get a job and repay his victim, then he is given a heavy prison term with the provision that he cannot be considered for parole until he will guarantee full cooperation in repayment to his victim.

   The State of Utah recently adopted such a law. Judges are required to have offenders indemnify their victims for damages wherever possible. A copy of this law may be obtained from the Secretary of State, Utah Capitol Building, Salt Lake City, Utah 84104.

   In some states, the victims of criminal activities may apply to the state for damages. This most unfortunate policy is a counter-productive procedure which encourages crime rather than deters it. It encourages a bandit to say to his victim, "Don't worry, mister. You'll get it all back from the state."

   Now we must respond to one final question concerning God's revealed laws of "true justice": What if a law is passed by Congress or some legislature which is contrary to God's law? What then?

   Among the Anglo-Saxons and the ancient Israelites, the law enunciated by God was looked upon as sacred and not subject to change by human legislative bodies. In an authoritative text entitled
England Constitutional and Legal History
, Dr. Colin Rhys Lovell of the University of Southern California writes this concerning the Anglo-Saxons:

   "To most Anglo-Saxons the law was either divinely inspired or the won of their ancestors, [being] of such antiquity that it was unthinkable that it should be changed. Alfred the Great ... was one of the few rulers of the period who issued new laws, but he too regarded the body of traditional Anglo-Saxon law as sacred and God-given."
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   Dr. Lovell explains the attitude of the Anglo-Saxon race toward their divine code of law. He says they considered it:

   "...
immutable
[emphasis in the original]. Even the all-powerful tribal assembly had no legislative power, and this theory of legislative impotence endured for a long time in the development of the English constitution and disappeared only very gradually; even many centuries later the fiction that specific legislation was not making new law but reinforcing ancient customs was preserved. Most of the great steps forward in the development of the English constitution have been taken with loud assertions that nothing new was being contemplated, only the old was being restored."
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