SoulFood (13) A Moral People

      500 years ago Hugo Grotius wrote advice for rulers: “He knows not how to rule a kingdom that cannot manage a Province.” So obvious, and yet neglect of track record can see people in power who lack personal discipline. The “Peter Principle” applies to government positions too. Are you in charge of a team or a family? Grotius says to you: “You cannot regulate a family if you don’t know how to govern yourself, you cannot govern yourself if your reason isn’t stronger than your appetites; nor can reason rule unless it is itself ruled by God.” The person who discovers submission to upright authority finds true freedom. Yet that’s only true within a rules-respecting society.

      Grotius mentioned rule by God. This implies far more than occasionally or even often attending a religious gathering.  Being ruled by God means knowing God and comprehending God’s wishes in life circumstances. It’s both knowing and doing what pleases the world’s Creator. Unselfishness is just another way of doing His will. What is the use of being religious without being moral as well?

      In the USA our final authority appears to be a very old, yet still ‘living’ document. One of the first realities new immigrants observe in America is that the final judgement on any action is whether or not it is in line with the Constitution.  This great document is one of earth’s finest articles of government. However it too requires a people who are ruled by God. President John Adams said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”

      If we are to avoid the struggle of Russian Tzar Peter the Great, who lamented that the hardest of all his conquests was self rule, we need to perceive the importance of religion plus morality in daily life. A village can only influence a child – it takes obedience to parents (parents who are themselves obedient to God) to raise that child. Too many homes teeter forwards on constantly reworked compromises between tired parents and willful kids, instead of being places of moral order. The taming of the will happens best in the first 5 years of life. Parents, that's your responsibility and you cannot do it harshly: The child’s will must learn how to submit to authority without the child’s spirit being trampled on. Compliment, praise, encourage, but never yield when expecting obedience.

      The Jewish prophet Samuel was instructed by his mentor to reply thus to God’s call: “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” Poet James Burns captured it in the verse: O give me Samuel’s heart, a lowly heart that waits where in Your house You are, or watches at Your gates by day and night, a heart that still moves at the breathing of Your will.

      In the 1796 farewell address George Washington advised the nation: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”  Political prosperity doesn’t begin and end in Washington. The reason many in Hunterdon don’t have to lock their doors at night is because their neighbors are moral enough to refrain from stealing. The true greatness of a country is measured by citizens who act uprightly even when assured that they could escape punishment for doing wrong. Your personal righteousness exalts this nation.

      The last word goes to Noah Webster – yes founder of the Webster Dictionary – who opined: “The moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evils which men suffer: vice, crime, greed, injustice, oppression, slavery and war; proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible”