Wisdom From the Founders: Governed by God or By Tyrants
America today refused to be governed by God. So we've gotten the tyranny we've asked for
William Penn: “Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.”
Noah Webster: “Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”
The Left will deny the above as vociferously as anything they can deny. They hate God, they hate Christianity, they hate religion, they love only themselves, and that means their selfish, licentious desire for earthly pleasure. Some Leftists stop at that, but those who crave power want to rule and control others. They frequently become tyrants.
Penn and Webster’s meaning above is quite clear. People who are “governed by God” will live a virtuous, God-fearing Christian life. The apostle Paul describes it in Galatians 5:22-23: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” This is the essence of the Christian life, and obviously people who live that kind of life won’t need much government to control them. They only need government to protect them against those who will not live such a life. Those who do not practice what Paul taught above, even if they claim to be Christians, are not true followers of Jesus of Nazareth and His religion. At best, they are hypocrites. At worst, they are...Leftists.
However, if people refuse to live by the virtues listed above (and elsewhere in the New Testament), they must live by...something. Some atheists are good people, but unfortunately, when an absolute standard (such as Christianity) is rejected, “every man does that which is right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). The standard some people create for themselves might be “good,” and indeed, in harmony with much of what New Testament Christianity teaches. But, as is so evident in our world today, many people, when moral limitations are removed, will not live virtuous lives. They will have to be compelled to conform to civilized behavior so that indeed a peaceful, calm, civilized society can exist. The more wickedness there is in a society, the more government necessary (“tyranny”) to control it. “If all men were angels,” James Madison said, government wouldn’t be necessary. And the fewer angels there are in a given society, the more government will be necessary to secure our “life, liberty, and happiness” against them. If men will not obey God, they will be forced to obey government. Or civilization will cease to exist.
And if the non-angels get in control of government, there will be tyranny. Lenin. Stalin. Hitler. Mao. Pol Pot. Castro. The Kims. These men were not the “salt of the earth.” They did not follow God. And, as noted above, many who refuse to follow Christ’s teachings will simply let that lead them into selfish, hedonistic pleasure. But many want power. And when they get into power, they become tyrants.
So, government tyranny actually erupts for two reasons: the necessity to control a population that will not be “governed by God” and live virtuous lives. If men are not personally governed by God, they will be governed by tyrants—compelled by outside forces into civilized behavior. But sometimes, tyrants arise because men who refuse to be governed by God gain government power. Depending upon how much conscience they have—and history indicates that too many of them have very little—will determine how much tyranny a country will have to endure.
But, from whichever source the tyrant comes from, it is 100% from those who will not, personally, be governed by God.
America, right now, is being governed by tyrants because Joe Biden and most of the Deep State refuses to be governed by God. And Joe Biden and the Deep State have gained power for the simple reason that too many of the American people themselves, no longer submit to governance by God.
Edmund Burke put it this way: “But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint...Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters” (emphasis mine, MKL).
God and virtue and self-control, or tyranny and slavery, fear, and oppression. That is the choice men have. Very, very few have ever opted for the former.