When in the course of Human events, our father Adam led the way in casting off the restraints of his life giving Creator, It became necessary for God to promise to crush the rebellion and to bring His eternal kingdom of peace and freedom for His people at the appointed time.
Self-evident truths had been used by God’s enemy to deceive us, therefore God has given us truth through His Word. By it we learn that all men having been created by God, from birth follow into rebellion their head Adam who failed to obey the one who had given him true life and freedom. Since that day death has passed upon all men, but eternal life has been promised in a new and better Son of Adam who would come to crush the rebellion. Those who look to the Creator and sustainer of life who made this promise are marked by the blood of a substitute who died in their place that they might live to see the promised Son win freedom for His people. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in this present and passing world are the pursuit of those who remain without this substitute leading the way to an eternal kingdom. Therefore each man seeks to govern according to his own self-evident truths and is consequently hypocritical, dictatorial, and often murderous in these pursuits. Those with eyes only for an earthly kingdom consent to be governed only by other men who pursue liberty and happiness in this world. When this happiness is stifled by selfish men, other selfish men rise up to put and end to these abuses and usurpations with an effort to govern more justly and bring in a new and better earthly kingdom. However those who rebel against these unjust authorities are infected with the same despotic hearts and their best attempts at an earthly kingdom of freedom are soon foiled by, if not themselves, their own sons. The history of present man is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over his brother. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to God’s law, the most wholesome and necessary for the kingdom and glory of God.
He has not been righteous.
He has not loved His Creator, nor his fellow creation. Instead he loves himself and pursues only his own interests.
He does not seek after God.
He has turned aside from God and has become useless.
He does not do good.
Everything he says leads to the grave as he lies and deceives and curses his own Creator.
His mouth is full of ungrateful bitterness as he judges and gossips about his neighbor while blind to his own wicked ways.
He gladly and swiftly desires and brings about death for his neighbor as he establishes his earthly kingdom of happiness for himself.
All of his ways are destructive and bring misery rather than peace.
He is filled with unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slander, he hates God, he is insolent, arrogant, boastful, he invents all kinds of evil, he never even obeyed his parents much less any other law, he has no understanding yet thinks he is wise, he is untrustworthy, unmerciful, and unloving, he commits all kinds of sexual wickedness to the point of homosexuality and pretend to be something other than what God has made him.
He knows he deserves death for these things, yet he approves and recommends them.
We declare that we were once were blind to our condition as being the same as described. We were angry about these conditions being true of those who ruled us, but we did not see that we only desired to rule over others so that we might live this way.
But God who is rich in mercy, by His great love, has by His Spirit breathed new life into us. He has rescued us from the condemnation of death and self-righteous hypocrisy, and has marked us with the blood of a Substitute. God Himself took on flesh, and though he ruled in righteousness, was made sin for us so that we would be declared righteous in Him.
We therefore the citizens of a heavenly Kingdom whose builder and maker is God, declare ourselves to be dependent upon one king for our wisdom (and so we reject self-evident truths), our righteousness, and our sanctification. We confess our weakness and selfish ways while still on this earth and living in this age, and therefore we seek an eternal kingdom governed by the eternal King. We are pilgrims on the way to this kingdom who do not hope in men but who hope only in the worthy lamb (substitute) who is worthy to receive all honor, glory, and power.
We will love our enemies, and do good to those who hate us as we travel through this world which will soon pass away. Our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor we count as nothing that we might win Christ on whom we depend.