And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
Jesus Christ (excerpts) from the Book of John
But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 7
The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
Jeremiah 31
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3
And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be cone fold, and one shepherd.
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
John 10
And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
Ephesians 3
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
John 14
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
John 14
For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.
John 16
And the great and wonderful love made manifest by the Father and the Son in the coming of the Redeemer into the world;
D&C 138
Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen.
"All Things Were Created by God, Therefore upon Him All Mankind are Equally Dependent, and to Him They are Equally Responsible."
The Founders vigorously affirm throughout their writings that the foundation of all reality is the existence of the Creator who is the designer of all things in nature and the promulgator of all the laws that govern nature.
The Founders were in harmony with John Locke who said that a person who calls himself an 'atheist' is merely confessing that he has never dealt with the issue of the Creator's existence. Therefore Locke would say that an Atheist is out of touch with the most important and fundamental reality.
John Locke insists that everyone can know that there is a divine Creator. With Descartes each person can say "Cogito ergo sum'. With God, each person can say, "I AM!" Further more, each person knows that he is something. And something cannot be produced by nothing. Therefore what brought man and everything else into existence had to be something. In order for all of this organizing and arranging to be as such that it is, the Organizer would have to be all-knowing. The something would therefore have to be superior to everything which had resulted from this effort.
Locke taught that the Creator must be a cogitative being since man is cogitative. And that a non-cogitative being like a rock could never have produced a cogitative being like a man. Locke also taught that the Creator would reflect a sense of right and wrong, and a sense of indignation for violation of the law.
The American Founding Fathers agreed with Locke. They considered this truth as the most fundamental premise underlying ALL self-evident truth.
The Founding Fathers also relied on the writings of William Blackstone when it came to their foundation on God's revealed law. He stated that the will of God which is expressed in the orderly nature of the universe is called "the law of nature' and there are laws for human nature just as surely as they exist for the rest of the universe.
The Founders looked at the Creator as both intelligent and benevolent, and anxious and able to respond to people's petitions when they are deserving of needed blessings and engaged in a good cause.
Charles Bracelen Flood discovered in his research that during the Revolutionary War that there were at least sixty-seven desperate moments that George Washington acknowledged that he would have suffered disaster had not the hand of God intervened in behalf of the struggle for Independence. James Madison also acknowledged the hand of God during the Constitutional Convention.
We can now see that the Founders were quite sincere when they adopted the motto "In God we trust." And it is also now clear why they required all witnesses who testify to take an oath and swear before God that they will tell the truth.
In closing, a note from Tocqueville "A presiding judge remarked that he had not before been aware that there was a man living who did not believe in the existence of God; that this belief constituted the sanction (in law, that which gives binding force) of all testimony in a court of justice; and that he knew of no case in a Christian country where a witness had been permitted to testify without such belief."
(The 28 Principles of Liberty are adapted from the book "The 5000 Year Leap" by W. Cleon Skousen. This article is also published at www.Myspace.com/angelsings www.LDSFreemen.com and the Cape Fair Cryer newspaper in Missouri.)
