The Formula for a Settled and Quiet Government

By J. Michael Sharman, 24 July, 2006

The Formula for a Settled and Quiet Government<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
J. Michael Sharman

It would be a stretch to say that the reason each of the 104 colonists sailed with John Smith to <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Virginia in 1607 was to help create a colony founded on the Bible and whose purpose would be to glorify God.
But it's no stretch at all to say that it was the dream and the motivation of the men who sent them, the officers and owners of the Virginia Company.
In December 1606, before the ships set out for the New World, the Virginia Company gave their set of written instructions to the colonists, saying: "[C]hiefly the way to prosper and achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind for the good of your Country and your own, and to serve and fear God the Giver of all Goodness, for every plantation which our Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out."[1]
Even the very Charter which created the Virginia Company stated that the purpose of the colony would be to present the Christian religion to the natives who already lived there and thus to create "a settled and quiet Government" for all the inhabitants, native and European.[2]
Most of the Virginia Company men would have read, agreed with, and adopted the formula identified by John Wycliffe two centuries earlier for how to obtain that settled and quiet government.
You might have heard of John Wycliffe. He was a priest. His goal was to translate the Bible into the common English language because it was his belief that without knowledge of the Bible there could be no peace in the life of the Church or of society, and outside of it there could be no real and abiding good.[3]
It was a radical thought to consider creating a Bible in the common language, because in his day only those with priestly authority who were able to understand Latin, Greek, and Hebrew could read the Bible for themselves and present it to others.
A prologue of a book is what the author wants you to know first before you get into the main text. Wycliffe's prologue to his English translation of the Bible contains this elegant and powerful phrase: "The Bible is for government of the people, by the people and for the people."
The 14th Century Church leaders didn't take too kindly to John Wycliffe or his ideas.
First, his duties as a teacher were taken from him. Then his priestly powers were taken away. Next he was imprisoned, condemned as heretic, and put to death. A couple of decades later the Church leaders were still arguing over him so they dug up his body, ground up his bones and tossed them in the river. They really didn't like John Wycliffe.
John Wycliffe said the Bible is our government. The Virginia Company told their colonists God's way was the way to a settled and quiet government. Abraham Lincoln in his own time and in his own way, privately and publicly, said the same.
As you go in to the Lincoln Memorial, you see Mr. Lincoln sitting up there, and to your left, which is Mr. Lincoln's right, inscribed in marble is his Gettysburg Address. The core of the Gettysburg Address is his phrase "Government by the People, of the People, for the People."
One of Lincoln's advisors came up to him once and commented that it was good that God was on the side of the Federalists, the Union. Lincoln rebuked him by saying, "Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."
As America celebrates the 400th year since Jamestown was founded, it would be a very good time to rediscover the formula for a settled and quiet government, and the basis for government of the people, by the people and for the people. Let's make sure we are still on God's side, for God, as Mr. Lincoln said, is always right.