October 31 and Government

By Pastor Shawn Mathis

“He that will not honor the memory, and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American liberty.”

America’s first great historian, George Bancroft (founder of Annapolis), although not a Calvinist himself, was honest in his evaluation of history:
The fanatic for Calvinism was a fanatic for liberty; and, in the moral war fare for freedom, his creed was his most faithful counselor and his never-failing support. The Puritans… planted… the undying principles of democratic liberty.[1] [He further claimed]:…Calvin infused enduring elements into the institutions of Geneva, and made it for the modern world, the impregnable fortress of popular liberty, the fertile seed-plot of democracy. We boast of our common schools; Calvin was the father of popular education, the inventor of the system of free schools. We are proud of the free States that fringe the Atlantic. The pilgrims of Plymouth were Calvinists; the best influence in South Carolina came from the Calvinists of France. William Penn was the disciple of the Huguenots; the ships from Holland that first brought colonists to Manhattan were filled with Calvinists. He that will not honor the memory, and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American liberty.[2]
But this is not all. Bancroft’s assessment is based upon an intimate knowledge of the intellectual and religious culture of that time. Consider: ...

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