Patrick Henry
Leader of the Anti-Federalists
Was a Man Devoted To The Bible

The testimony left by Patrick Henry, leader of the Anti-Federalists, reminds us of the fatal course we have chosen, over 200 years after his stirring words echoed in the Virginia House of Burgesses. His warnings stand like a decommissioned lighthouse on a barren and rocky coastline.

After the ratification battle was over, and the Anti-Federalists subdued, Patrick Henry urged submission, but his warnings have proven to be prophetic. He was never reconciled to the new government and refused invitations to serve in its leadership. The price of rejecting the Holy Commonwealth has been high, paid in the blood of thousands of U.S. soldiers which stain the soil from Gettysburg to Iwo Jima and Afghanistan. Paid in the blood of 30 million aborted babies sacrificed on a Baalish alter. Paid in the toil of a people weighed down by the chains of bureaucracy and confiscatory taxation.

“Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live;” said the Lord, “And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord.”

The hand of God’s judgment rests heavy on America to the end that she might repent and return to the ancient covenant. God has not forgotten the Anti-Federalists lost cause, to the extent that it was based in the Bible.

Biblical Analysis
Of The Constitution

Some Anti-Federalists pointed out that the U.S. Constitution was a clear departure from the Holy Commonwealth ideal established by the Puritans under John Winthrop. This was especially evident at two points, 1) its substitution of the governing authority of the people for that of God and, 2) its scrapping of the requirement that federal officials bind themselves by oath to govern in accordance with biblical law (Article VI, Section 3).

Other flaws in the document were pointed out by the Anti-Federalists. But these two alone are sufficient to brand the Constitution as a heretical departure from the pattern for civil government outlined in the Bible. This pattern may be detected at many points including II Kings 11:17 where “Jehoida made a covenant between the Lord and the king and the people that they should be the Lord’s people; between the king also and the people.”

Patrick Henry did not fully recognize the covenant-breaking character of the proposed constitution to the same extent of many other Anti-Federalists. But he fought it with all his strength in the Virginia ratifying convention, from the standpoint of its assault on American liberty. He fell just short of victory.

Biblical Analysis
Of The Convention

In Hosea 8:4 God complains that His people “set up kings, but not by me.” The right of the people to select their own political leaders is contingent on their prior covenant with God and the authority of His law. Republican elections must flow out of, or occur in the context of, the covenant relationship with God or they are spurious and will eventually dissipate in corruption.

In the same way that He condoned the Israelites asking to consolidate their nation under a king, God might have condoned the American consolidation of government. In effect the Americans, like the Israelites of old, were rejecting the liberty they enjoyed as a loose confederation of states/tribes and asking "for a king to judge us like all the nations" (I Sam. 8:4).

It will emphatically lead to tyranny if the nation at the same time rejects the rule of God and His law. It may take 200 years or more, but the judgment will not fail.

Asking for a king is one thing. Rejecting God as King is quite another. "And the Lord said to Samuel, "Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them" (I Sam. 8:7). That was the fatal error of the convention in Philadelphia.

As the prophet Isaiah observes, “The earth also is defiled…because they have…broken the everlasting covenant.” (Is. 24:5). The path of reform is clear but will be followed only by a people willing to renew the long-neglected covenant with God. This was trampled underfoot with the AntiFederalists in Philadelphia so many years ago.

(1) David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 778-779.

(2) Ashley Woodiwiss in Invitation to the Classics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1998), pp. 200,201.