Amen...or, Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin time.
Alexis de Tocqueville summed the same warning up nicely: “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
And another: “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”
So we can’t say we weren’t warned what would bring about America’s demise as a great country. Webster and de Tocqueville would be saddened that we listened to lesser men and voted for our destruction.
“Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him. They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off. “ (Hosea 8:3-4)
“Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him. They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off. “ (Hosea 8:3-4)
Noah Webster 1758—1843. He is called the “Father of American Scholarship and Education,” and was author of several books that were widely used in schools in his day. Note that in 1808 Webster underwent a profound conversion to Christ that is reflected in his statements, which contrast some earlier ones.
As soon as the Reformation from popery began to dawn in the sixteenth century, and civil liberty has been advancing and improving as genuine Christianity has prevailed...
[T]he religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles, which enjoins humility, piety and benevolence…This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government. (Noah Webster, History of the United States [New Haven: Durrie and Peck, 1832], p. 300)
The moral principles and precepts found in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws... All the misery and evils which men suffer vice...proceed from their neglecting or despising the precepts contained in the Bible.
As the means of temporal happiness, the Christian religion ought to be received, and maintained with cordial support. It is the real source of genuine republican principles...
The religion of Christ and His apostles, in its simplicity and purity, unencumbered by the trappings of power and the pomp of ceremonies, is the surest basis of a republican government. (^ibid, p. 339)
[O]ur citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion. (^ ibid, p. 6)
In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed…No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. (Preface to the 1828 edition of Webster’s American Dictionary of the English)
The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good and the best corrector of all that is evil in human society – the best book for regulating the temporal concerns of men, and the only book that can serve as an infallible guide to future felicity. (Noah Webster, The Holy Bible . . . With Amendments of the Language (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1833), p. 5.)
[T]he Christian religion… is the basis, or rather the source, of all genuine freedom in government… I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of Christianity have not a controlling influence. (K. Alan Snyder, Defining Noah Webster: Mind and Morals in the Early Republic (New York: University Press of America, 1990), p. 253, to James Madison on October 16, 1829)
More historical quotes: http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/Quotes_compare.html Thank God