Bearing the Cost

Recently I have been re-reading the classic Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard. My dad first read the book to me when I was quite young, and then again around high school. I have read it myself a couple of times also. I learn something new (or in a deeper way) every time I read it.

Hinds' Feet is an allegory of sorts, with the main character, Much Afraid, allowing the Shepherd to plant the seed (thorn) of love in her heart and lead her on a journey to the High Places. Her first check comes when the Shepherd begins to lead her directly away from the mountains and through a vast desert. Here she learns the first lesson in love, Acceptance with Joy. In the desert sand where a few drops of water happen to splash from a spring, there is a single golden flower persevering; its name is Acceptance with Joy.

As Much Afraid continues her journey through the desert she does not turn toward the high places, but is led toward the Sea of Loneliness. There are many lessons to be learned here and in the next part of the journey, but finally the Shepherd leads her toward the mountains again. Now she has circuited the range and finds herself at a sheer, seemingly impassable precipice. The Shepherd tells her that to make her lame feet like hinds' feet she has to come this harder way. He promises her that she will learn the next lesson of love as she climbs the Precipice of Injury (not to be confused with Mt. Reviling or Persecution) with her strong companions, Sorrow and Suffering.

On the second day of her journey, in a lonely cleft in the sheer rock, Much Afraid meets a blood-red flower, glowing in the sunrise. The flower is named 'Bearing the Cost' (though some call it 'Forgiveness'). At one point it says,

"I was separated from all my companions, exiled from home, carried here and imprisoned in this rock. It was not my choice, but the work of others who, when they had dropped me here, went away and left me to bear the results of what they had done..."

In spite of ill treatment, the little flower continues that in this lonely and desolate place there is nothing to distract it from its Love, the sun.

"He shines upon me and makes me to rejoice, and has atoned for me all that was taken from me and done against me. There is no flower in all the world more blessed or more satisfied than I, for I look up to [my Love] as a weaned child and say, 'Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire but Thee'."

I just loved the little flower's response to adversity and loneliness: Now there is no distraction from my Love. There is no flower in all the world more blessed or more satisfied than I.

What an attitude to have! Rather than seeing our circumstances as hard, impossible, and solitary, we can both accept them with joy and bear the cost. We find that in the isolated places there is nothing to distract us from our Love: Jesus.

The passage that Bearing the Cost quotes from is Psalm 73. I have expanded it below for the sake of having some context. At the beginning of Psalm 73 the psalmist objects that the wicked prosper and do not seem to experience pain or poverty. However, like a sonnet there is a volta, a turning point; the writer thinks these things until he goes in to the Sanctuary of God. Then he realises his error and misunderstanding. He finishes with these thoughts (vv 23-28):

Nevertheless I am continually with You;
You hold me by my right hand.
You will guide me with Your counsel,
And afterward receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.
My flesh and my heart fail;
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For indeed, those who are far from You shall perish;
You have destroyed all those who desert You for harlotry.
But it is good for me to draw near to God;
I have put my trust in the Lord GOD,
That I may declare all Your works.

Indeed, may I declare in trials and loneliness that there is now nothing to distract me from my Love. May I discover that there is no person in all the world as blessed and satisfied as me. And may I truly be able to declare that there is none that I desire besides Jesus.

~ Johanna

An Arrow in Flight

When was the last time you sat down to read a good novel? For me it was last night. I picked up Pride and Prejudice to read for 'a little bit' and found myself still reading it two hours later. When was the last time you sat down to read Scripture like a novel? When was the last time you were astonished to find an hour or two had elapsed when you were reading the Bible?

A story draws us in, brings the reader in to the character's thoughts and observations, and often teaches by delighting*. Many Christians tend to think of the Bible as an instruction manual, a textbook, or a collection of sayings, stories, parables, and rules. The Bible becomes bits and pieces 'suitable' for reading in 10 or 15 minutes before dashing out the door for our busy and 'important' lives. However, the Bible is actually a story.

Now, I'm not Dawkins or some emergent church advocate calling the Bible a sham; but what if I told you the Bible is a myth, a fairytale, a metanarrative, and the like? You see, the Bible is a myth, a tale, a metanarrative (overarching story). It just happens to be a true myth, a real tale, and THE big story. (If you have heard metanarratives slandered and dismissed, or if you think they are bad, see Goheen's very readable explanation.)

If you are like me, you secretly harbour the desire to walk through a wardrobe and find yourself in a snowy land of always winter and never Christmas. Deep down you wish that dwarves, elves, talking beasts, and Hobbits really lived in a land you could sail to. We want myths and fairytales to be true. We want to step into the world of Jane Austin's or Charles Dickens' novels. We want a story-line, a hero, a victorious, happy, or peaceful ending.

Though the Bible contains various genres of writing (poetry, parables, prophecy, principles, proverbs, and past events) it is all one story. When you aim an arrow, you know from the beginning where you want it to go. If someone else sees the arrow in flight he can tell by the trajectory (at least generally) where the arrow came from and where it is going. The same is true of Scripture, we see where everything began and the track of the story. We can also see that it isn't over yet, but we have been told that the ending is victorious, joyful, and beyond restorative.

How can we see this big picture in Scripture if we only read a few verses, maybe a chapter at a time? We need to begin reading Scripture as holistically as possible. Read a complete gospel in one sitting. Read a few of Paul's letters all together. Read through all of Genesis, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah, etc. Yes, it takes time. Just remember that it is a story; it is supposed to be read as such. Remember, too, that it is a true story. Not all of it is "applicable" to life, but it does show the character of God and sets the stage for the New Testament, or the chapter of the story in which we find ourselves here and now.

* As Philip Sidney says in his Defence of Poetry: "Poesy therefore is an art of imitation...that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth - to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture - with this end, to teach and delight."  (A Defence of Poetry Oxford University Press ©1966 - page 25)

Exposing the Lies of Lust

Hello new territory...

Normally my blog is a place where I discuss books (usually older books, at that) or things God has been teaching me through circumstances, etc. Today, however, I want to talk about an issue that churches are not dealing with: the struggle women have with lust.

Lust is not only a 'male problem' - it never has been. But we have been raised to think it is only guys who struggle with knowing where to set their eyes on a summer's day (one of my friends always said that summer was 'sidewalk season' because it was the only safe place to look). We are told that only men have a black thought-life, and only males are stimulated by scantily clad women on billboards or in the windows of Victoria's Secret.

But the secret is that women struggle, too. Probably not in the same way that men do - men and women think and process differently, of course. Yet lust is a human sin, not geared towards males alone. I have found this to be the case time and again with the girls I encounter... And I would be lying if I didn't say that those billboards, et cetera are distracting to me, too. Few churches (very few, in fact) address the issue, making young women feel like they are alone in their sin, having nowhere to turn in getting help.

Here I will turn things over to someone who has thought this through and polished her writing a bit more (okay, a LOT more) than I have. Please click the link below to read the full post. It isn't long and it is eye-opening.

We need to clearly teach that lust is a human condition, not just a masculine one. Knowing God's glory is at stake, we need to create humble church cultures where secret sin is not kept in the dark, but rather brought into the light...

...The roaring lion waits in the cover of darkness to attack what he finds there, but "whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God" (John 3:21).

~ Carolyn McCulley
Lust: Not for Men Only, 22 July 2011

Words for Life

"Every acceptance of [God's] will becomes an altar of sacrifice." ~ Hannah Hurnard



"Faith looks up with open hands. 'You are giving me this LORD? Thank You. It is good and acceptable and perfect.' " ~ Elisabeth Elliot



"There is always enough time to do the will of God."
~ Elisabeth Elliot

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean;
I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you;
I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes,
and you will keep My judgments and do them.

Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers;
you shall be My people, and I will be your God.

I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses.
{Ezekiel 36:25-30a}

"I'm just being honest!"

*Note: If you don't have time to read all of this, skip to the Elisabeth Elliot quotation and following.


We live in a world, even a Christian subculture, that values 'honesty', 'genuineness', 'authenticity' and 'transparency'. I value all of those things a great deal. Yet I find that I value 'authenticity' more than I value refraining from gossip; 'genuine expression' more than not sinning in my anger (or my angry words); and I disregard building up the Body of Christ in favour of 'transparent' feelings about fellow Christians.

I am not alone in this strangely 'weighted' values system. Many other Christians are the same. We want to express our feelings, our emotions - even if in our anger we say untruths about someone. We desire to rationalise that we aren't really gossiping, we are just explaining the events (and persons involved) that hurt our feelings, frustrated us, etc.

Yesterday I was twice presented with the idea that honesty is not always the best policy.

I was listening to pastor Tim Keller talk about Removing Idols of the Heart, where he related the story of the forgiven prostitute who was kissing Jesus' feet at the house of Simon (the former leper). At one point in his illustration, Dr. Keller says that Simon wasn't more moral because he had been forgiven less than this woman (implying that he has sinned less). However, Keller's next statement caught my ear. He said that neither was the prostitute somehow more moral (according to our changed standards - as if we had the authority to do so) by being honest while Simon was a hypocrite.

In the afternoon I was reading Discipline: The Glad Surrender by Elisabeth Elliot where I came across a story that proved Mrs. Elliot-Gren does actually sin sometimes. She was speaking of her annoyance at a young woman, and at her husband's correction for letting her annoyance show. Her response was a running commentary of self-defence in her head. It was certainly 'honest' and 'genuine'.

Elisabeth Elliot went on to say,

" 'Reality' is often evil. There is a common belief that a frank expression of what one naturally feels and thinks is always good because it is 'honest'. This is not true. If the feelings and thoughts are wrong in themselves, how can expressing them verbally [or via e-mail, facebook, etc.] add up to something good? It seems to me they add up to three sins: wrong feeling, wrong thought, wrong action."

(page 66, Revell/Baker, ©1982 - emphasis mine)

So let us be honest: let us call slander by its name. Let us stomp on our own tongues to extinguish the fires of gossip. Let us cease from anger and forsake wrath that gives place to sin... Even if we were simply 'expressing ourselves'. Some forms of 'self-expression' are sin. I know, because I sin often. In the months since I have been back from Oxford, my patient mother has had many frustrated calls from me where I have 'vented' about a particular issue. However, in my 'authenticity', I confess that I sinned in just about every previously mentioned area – maybe all of them.

We must give place to emotions, but the place for our emotions (which includes things like rage, bitterness, resentment, even frustration) is found in the piercing eyes of the Man of Sorrows. When we look into the very eyes of Jesus, all of our hurts, unrighteous anger, jealousies, lusts, etc. die. Not because we haven't experienced real pain, frustration, desires, and so on, but because Jesus, too, has dealt with derision and scorn. He, too, has served annoying people. He had to be flexible at the last second. His closest friends deserted Him. Those in authority constantly badgered Him. People mocked Him and goaded Him. He knows.

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. ~ Hebrews 4:15

Jesus experienced rejection, hatred, scorn, abandonment (by His disciples and His own Father), and much more, but He did not sin in the way He reacted to those things. He was honest in His cry of "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" but He did not reject His mission or His Father at that point. He was obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2).

We must daily pray that we may have the mind of Christ. When we meet with joy and pain, gladness and frustration, hope and despair, ungodly anger and righteous indignation, unkindness and overwhelming blessing, unfairness and injustice (completely different things!), doubt and trust, and the myriad of other emotions that daily confront us, we will be able to respond aright if we have asked the Holy Spirit to help us put on the mind of Christ.

Remember, honesty is not always the best policy if you are 'expressing yourself' from wrong motives or in a sinful way. Look into the pages of Scripture, and into the eyes of Christ crucified, for direction on how to deal honestly with your emotions.

The Fruit Itself

“Education is only a ladder to gather fruit from the tree of knowledge, not the fruit itself.” ~ Attributed to Einstein

What is education? Does it differ from 'schooling' and 'learning'? Is education itself an end or a means to the end?

There are many questions that come up in the discussion and dissection of education. To set up a definition of this word, let us look at its etymology. Educate: circa mid 15th century. From the Latin pp educare 'bring up, rear, educate,' which is related to educere 'bring out, lead forth'...

"To bring out or lead forth from what exactly?" one might ask. Good question. It has been presented to me by Hillsdale College professor, Michael Bauman, that to educate means 'to bring one out of ignorance'.

Educate has changed in meaning over the course of time. While in one sense it still means 'to lead one out of ignorance', it now also means 'formal learning at a college or university'. This could also be called 'information gathering'. Due to this more modern idea of education it is little wonder that statements like the following have been made:

“I've never let my school interfere with my education.” ~ Mark Twain

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” ~ Einstein

“My education was interrupted only by my schooling” ~ Winston Churchill

Though different words are used, the same idea is conveyed - formal teaching or 'information gathering' can actually get in the way of being led out of ignorance. Often it is the character of a teacher, mentor, family member, or friend that really changes the way we view life, the way we live.

Do not misunderstand me. There is much to be said for learning one-on-one with a tutor and writing one or two papers a week for eight weeks. There is something to be said for the American style of learning through lectures and classroom discussions. However, there is also much to be said for reading, pondering, and thinking things through at one's own desk or kitchen table. There is something great to be said for learning lessons by observing a person's character; from conversations; from looking into the eyes of the homeless; from being still and letting the words of the Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis, Lord's prayer, Confession, and Creed pour over your soul during evensong.

Life is so much bigger and richer than merely the classroom, or books by themselves, or even the inside of a chapel. If we allow God to be our Tutor and all the facets of life to be the books, classroom, and hands-on 'lab-work' as-it-were, we could have no better education - full stop.

When we are thus educated we will find that education itself is not the goal, but it is the process by which we become more fully alive, truly human. It leads us to be able to glorify God -because He has allowed us to know Him- and to enjoy Him forever, which is the fruit of life itself.

~ Johanna

Material for Sacrifice

Here is something I gleaned yesterday from the Elisabeth Elliot book I am reading called, The Path of Loneliness.

"IS it not legitimate, then, to think of loneliness (or whatever you struggle with) as material for sacrifice? What I lay on the altar of consecration is nothing more and nothing less than what I have at this moment, whatever I find in my life now of work and prayer, joys and sufferings.

Some people see singleness as a liability, a handicap, a deprivation, even a curse. Others see it as a huge asset, a license to be a "swinger", an opportunity to do what feels good. I see it as a gift. To make that gift an offering may be the most costly thing one can do, for it means the laying down of a cherished dream of what one wanted to be, and the acceptance of what one did not want to be. 'How changed my ambitions!' the apostle Paul may have thought, for he wrote, 'Now I long to know Christ.' "

~ Elisabeth Elliot (emphasis mine)

One further sentence in the book that snagged my attention was, "What we don't have now, we don't need now." This was written about someone not being able to make friends after a move... But I think it can apply to anything, and its converse may be just as true, "What we do have now is what we need to learn to be satisfied with." Not satisfied with forever, but until the LORD changes our vocation, places us in the community that we need, or blesses us with a spouse, etc. But what we don't have now, we don't need. We can live here and now as whole human beings.

~ Johanna

You Come Too: Lessons from Poetry

To the Cuckoo

O blithe newcomer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice:
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near.

Though babbling only to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my schoolboy days
I listened to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen!

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed birth! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, fairy place,
That is fit home for Thee!

~ William Wordsworth

"Thou bringest unto me a tale / Of visionary hours." Wordsworth writes this of the cuckoo's call, yet he is doing the very same thing through his poem.

The whole poem is a tale of vision, bringing the reader's mind up and into the light. Wordsworth's poem gives one's mind the wings to flit through the air and momentarily forget any troubles that might be weighing him to the ground. "And I can listen to thee yet; / Can lie upon the plain / And listen, till I do beget / That golden time again."

This aspect of 'transportation' in poetry is precisely why one should read it. Poetry - indeed, good literature as well - has the ability to bring one out of one's self to think and feel things that ordinary life may not have yet taught him. I find that I learn much about the wide world, about good character, about hope, about sorrow, about love, about death, about Life woven through the lines of poetry and prose. You may do the same, 'You come too.' *

~ Johanna

*The Pasture, by Robert Frost

On Fairy Stories and Innocence

We live in a world where fairy stories are thought to be for children only. We exist in a culture that thinks innocence in adults is impossible, unusual, or even detrimental. To be a 'grown up' one must be concerned with the weather, with bills, career, keeping up the yard, and the list goes on interminably.

It is thought to be quite childish to read fairy stories, to delight in rainy days (or sunny days), to find cheer in smelling the flowers blooming along the path of one's morning walk, to stop and watch a funny little animal in its daily habits, or some other equally small pleasure. Folks call you 'Pollyanna' if you are too cheery about how nice the day is, what lovely flowers grace the out-of-doors, how magnificent a tree or mountain are, how enchanting the stars are, and so on. They believe you to be insincere or out of touch with reality.

What if all of those so-called 'adults' are wrong? Perhaps you possess innocence and they have been lured away by the sensuality of worldly cares. It would seem that becoming an 'adult' is a dull and dreary affair filled with woes and cares. A 'grown up' does not remember how to imagine, or how to really play with children, nor do they know how to appreciate fairy stories.

Our culture takes fairy tales and flips them upon their heads, making the female character the heroine and emasculating the male rôle. Innocent stories are supplanted with sexual undertones, and in many cases, sexual overtones, too. Heroes of tales today are rebellious, belligerent, arrogant, and haughty; replacing the valour, nobility, maturity, and selflessness of past heroes.

The worlds of Narnia and Middle Earth are stories about men of valour, obedience, sacrifice for the greater good, ordinary and extraordinary men, and every day responsibilities and duties - all without even a rumour of sensuality. In these stories no one is even fighting for a girl, but for the good of the world. Not that fighting for a girl is bad, but it is not the end goal.

Yet it is these types of classic stories that awaken the warrior within us. These tales birth the desire to serve humbly alongside dwarves, elves, talking beasts, ancient kings, worthy rangers, and Gandalf or Aslan himself. When we close the book we are inspired to be better than we were when we opened it. We are ready to accept life's adventures and its daily happenings; to discover how big the world truly is; to do right even though it is costly; to be a true and loyal friend; to seek peace at our own expense and to fight when it is necessary.

For these reasons fairy stories ought to be read and re-read by adults to remind them of the things that are more real, more glorious or weighty than the airy matters of offices, bills, and parties. Real fairy stories (not the sort dispensed by Disney) have protagonists who are real, fallen men who are stretched to become better than they were.

True adults know that they are not the most important person in their sphere or the world. They take time to enjoy small pleasures, they seek innocence and self-sacrifice over sensuality and arrogance. They know the reality of hardship, sorrow, and loss, yet they do not focus on those things. They remember their armchair and kettle just beginning to sing on the hearth, as Bilbo did in The Hobbit; and it is the simple joys of life that give them the courage and strength to pursue right at any cost. These are the true grown ups, everyone else is just play acting.

~ Johanna

Post Script: This entry has been a few years in the processing. I have been labelled Pollyanna for being too optimistic and cheerful. I have been called immature for being more innocent than my peers. At first I was offended and felt somewhat immature and unrealistic... Perhaps I am. However, I have come to the conclusion that greatness must be tempered by humility; hustle and work must be balanced with enjoyment of small pleasures; and the stress of hard things in life must be brought hope through fairy stories. Stories show us reality better than 'real life' does sometimes.

Post, Post Script: You may notice that, unlike my usual entries, I said nothing of God by name in this one. Surely heroism, valour, self-sacrifice, and every good, true, excellent, and beautiful thing stems from God Himself. Of course, but I figured my readers already knew that to be true and knew that to be my belief. I think the character of God is very latent in this whole piece.

My Academic Reason for Going to Oxford

.:The following text (except the essay) was written 8 March 2011 after I finished my final Oxford tutorial:.

Below is the paper that I came to Oxford to write. At least, it was the one (topic-wise) that I had envisioned. Getting to this paper took a lot of reading and ate a lot of hours of sleep. It is certainly not my best writing (I wrote the whole paper in 3-1/3 hours before my tutorial this morning), but the essence of this paper is the question I wanted an answer to when I had to pick my primary topic for Oxford "way back" in November.

The paper was well-received, my final tutorial went well, and I am sitting in disbelief realising that the term is over. It is a day of bittersweet feelings and thoughts. It is a day of sunshine and a few tears. I am very pleased, and very humbled at the kindness of the LORD.

And now, my final History essay for Hilary 2011:

Revolutionary Reflections

Why Did Edmund Burke Aid the American Colonies but Oppose the French?

“The fresh ruins of France, which shock our feelings wherever we can turn our eyes, are not the devastations of civil war; they are the sad but instructive monuments of rash and ignorant counsel in time of profound peace.”1 This says Edmund Burke early in his treatise, Reflections on the Revolution in France. Over and again in this work Burke chastises the French for the revolution they are staging. His above testimony is an incrimination of their deficient cause for revolt, something Burke decries loudly. Throughout Reflections he criticises the French on many points, chiefly the following: replacing the government without sufficient cause; lacking a moral and religious foundation needed for any sustainable government; and rejecting the rule of law, erecting instead the rule of man.

Burke’s reasons for denouncing the French Revolution are sound, yet they raise a valid question: why did he assist the American Colonies in their War for Independence but reject the French Revolution? The answer to this question lies precisely in Burke’s arguments given in his Reflections. Let us now consider those arguments more in depth.

Firstly, Burke is adamant that a nation’s government not be changed for ‘light and transient causes’2. He says, “The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end, and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It is not a single act, or a single event, which determines it. Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.”3 Here Burke is asserting that if one wishes to change their government there must be something vastly wrong with the government or with the individual. All other resources must be expended, other options pursued, and the future must look at least as bleak as the past before the thought of revolution should even be entertained. To underscore his point, Burke says that, “A revolution will be the very last resource of the thinking and the good”4.

Was the French Revolution founded upon such an egregious break in trust that the only response was revolt? Looking at the events leading up to the Bastille and the action at Tuileries Palace one would be hard pressed to find a series of offences worthy of rebellion. The elite resented their exclusion from the government of the country, the peasants felt the strain of an outmoded feudal system, crop failure led to the further poverty of the poor, all while the revolutionary ideas of humanist philosophers rang in the ears of the people. None of these things, separately or collectively, constituted a justifiable reason to overthrow the monarchy. France failed the first test of legitimacy for a revolution.

The second criterion for establishing or reshaping a government is a moral and religious underpinning. “All other nations have begun the fabric of a new government, or the reformation of an old, by establishing originally, or by enforcing with greater exactness some rites or other of religion.”5 This, at least, is the case of lasting governments. During the Revolution those in power took vengeance upon the church, executing the clergy and appropriating parish land. Though Burke could not see around the bend in the course of history, France would soon dispense with traditional religion to worship a Supreme Being with pagan ceremonies. More subtlety, the French had already traded the glory of God for the glory and adoration of man. Yet again, the foundation for erecting a new or altered government was made of sand.

The third thing Burke eschews in France’s Revolution is the replacement of the rule of law with the rights of man. As we have already seen, these rights of man superseded religion, it is only logical that they would displace law as well. Though France was ruled by many factions after deposing her king - some of whom penned a constitution and The Rights of Man and of the Citizen - the ‘law as supreme’ postulate was displaced. Yet Burke clearly says of a people that, “It is therefore of infinite importance that they should not be suffered to imagine that their will, any more than that of kings, is the standard of right and wrong.”6 A good portion of Burke’s treatise is dedicated to the importance of law being transcendent, not created by the will of man, as if such a thing were possible.

From the above points, one finds a deplorable lack of legitimacy in France’s Revolution. It is no wonder that Burke opposes their uprising. Further, it becomes clear that the very points Burke states as warranted grounds for resistance and the institution of a new form of government are precisely the foundation of America’s War for Independence. The Colonies had grounds for separation, clearly stating them in the Declaration of Independence. This declaration was only given after multiple pleas to the law were made, many attempts to reconcile were sought, and a final outright refusal to obey unjust requirements brought more penalties. Finally, the Declaration of Independence appeals to God as the One who endows men with rights. From letters, speeches, and other historical documents, we see that the Founding Fathers based their decisions - and the governing Constitution - on the law of God. This dichotomy between the French and the American colonists is clearly why Burke fought for the colonists in Parliament but rejected the French Revolution.

Endnotes:

1. Burke, Edmund: Reflections on the Revolution in France Dover Publications Copyright ©2006; page 37
2. This phrase is from the Declaration of Independence, obviously showing how the Americans felt about the gravity of a change in government
3. Burke; page 28
4. ibid
5. Burke; page 35
6. Burke; page 93