Studies in Political Philosophy

Bramble Men

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: Bramble Men

Genre: Speech

Track: 19

Dictation Name: RR124K19

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

We give thanks unto thee, Almighty God, that thou art our peace in a world of conflict, our rest in a restless world, our help in a very sick world, and so, our Father, we come to thee now, that thou mightest givest peace, rest, and health, that thou mightest refresh us by thy word and by thy spirit so that we may resume our responsibilities and the blessed assurance of thy presence and of thy victory. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our scripture is Judges 9:1-21. Bramble Men. “And Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem unto his mother's brethren, and communed with them, and with all the family of the house of his mother's father, saying, Speak, I pray you, in the ears of all the men of Shechem, Whether is better for you, either that all the sons of Jerubbaal, which are threescore and ten persons, reign over you, or that one reign over you? remember also that I am your bone and your flesh. And his mother's brethren spake of him in the ears of all the men of Shechem all these words: and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech; for they said, He is our brother. And they gave him threescore and ten pieces of silver out of the house of Baalberith, wherewith Abimelech hired vain and light persons, which followed him.

And he went unto his father's house at Oprah, and slew his brethren the sons of Jerubbaal, being threescore and ten persons, upon one stone: notwithstanding yet Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left; for he hid himself. And all the men of Shechem gathered together, and all the house of Millo, and went, and made Abimelech king, by the plain of the pillar that was in Shechem. And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you. The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us.

But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us.

But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees?

Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us.

And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?

Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us.

And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon. Now therefore, if ye have done truly and sincerely, in that ye have made Abimelech king, and if ye have dealt well with Jerubbaal and his house, and have done unto him according to the deserving of his hands; (For my father fought for you, and adventured his life far, and delivered you out of the hand of Midian: and ye are risen up against my father's house this day, and have slain his sons, threescore and ten persons, upon one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his maidservant, king over the men of Shechem, because he is your brother;) If ye then have dealt truly and sincerely with Jerubbaal and with his house this day, then rejoice ye in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you: but if not, let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the men of Shechem, and the house of Millo; and let fire come out from the men of Shechem, and from the house of Millo, and devour Abimelech. And Jotham ran away, and fled, and went to Beer, and dwelt there, for fear of Abimelech his brother.”

The story narrated in this chapter as a whole is very simply told. We know the person referred to as Jerubbaal by his more common name, both names are given and cited in Judges 8:35, as Gideon. Gideon {?}. He left behind him seventy-two sons. One of these was the son of a handmaiden, and his name was Abimelech, and Abimelech went to his relatives, his mother’s relatives in Shechem, and conspired with them to seize power over that part of Palestine. They were ready to go along with him, gave him a considerable amount of silver ingots so that he hired mercenary troops, went to his father’s home at Oprah{?}, seized it and killed seventy of his brothers, had them beheaded on one stone. The youngest of his brothers, a very young man, Jotham, alone escaped.

Abimelech then returned to Shechem and was there crowned king over that part of Palestine. During the coronation ceremonies, which were held at a particular point, young Jotham climbed on top of the cliff, from whence he could speak to the crowd gathered below, and yet it would have taken them too long to get up there to have any hope of capturing him, and from thence, he spoke unto them in a parable, and then Jotham fled.

Jotham’s parable was perfect. Within three years, fire went out, as he said, from one to another, and these people began to destroy one another until finally, all those parties involved in this conspiracy and murder had destroyed each other, and the land was rid of them. It was an ugly, vicious act that they had perpetrated, and the conclusion was one befitting him.

Our concern today is with Jotham’s parable, the Parable of the Trees. The most famous, perhaps, of all the parables of the Old Testament and deservedly so. Jotham spoke to a captive audience, and he gave them a parable that was not only interesting, but quite humorous as well. He said that a number of the trees had decided that they needed a king, and so a delegation of the trees went from tree to tree to ask one of them to be king over them, and they went first of all to the olive tree. Now, the olive tree is perhaps the most single important tree in world history. The olive tree had functioned throughout history in a way that very few of us realize, because in Antiquity, and still in many parts of the world, the olive is basic to human economy. Olive oil and olives themselves, being a basic part of the human diet, a daily part of it, so that with olives and the oil of olives, and one or two other things, many people throughout history have lived out their lives and lived quite happily{?}. One might say that close to the olive in eminence in human history has been the palm tree.

The olive, too, has a hardy wood that is almost second to none. Only the redwood rivals the olive, and in some respects, the olive tree is even more outstanding than the redwood. It is quite reliably stated by a number of scholars, that the olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane are from the same rootstocks of the trees already old in New Testament times that were there when our Lord prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. They were indeed cut down and the orchard entirely destroyed at the Fall of Jerusalem, but the roots of olives are very, very strong and healthy, and they send up new shoots even though they be cut down repeatedly. The wood, also, of the olive is a very fine kind of wood, and where it is abundantly available, used in the manufacture of many things.

Thus, the olive tree was the first choice, a most distinguished tree, and so when they came to the olive tree and said, “Reign thou over us,” the olive tree said unto them, “Should I leave my fatness (or richness), wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?” and so the trees next went to the fig tree, and said, “Come thou, and reign over us.” Again, they had gone to a tree that has an important role in human history, and especially in ancient times, in the Middle East, and in Mediterranean world, the fig tree was an important part of the economy of that area. We might add that these three trees selected, the olive, the fig, and the grapevine, are also extremely important in the economy in the State of California. Far more than most people realize, but the fig tree also refused, saying, “Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees?

Then said the trees unto the vine, “Come thou, and reign over us.” And the vine said unto them, “Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?” Next they went to the vine. “Come thou, and reign over us,” and again, the grapevine has a distinguished role in the history of mankind, not only for the fruit, but also for the raisins and for the juice and wine made from it, and the vine also refused, saying, “Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?” Thus, on all sides, they were refused and so finally they came to the bramble, or thistle, and said, “Come thou and reign over us.” And the bramble said unto the trees, “If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.”

This then is the parable. It’s an amusing one as well as a very telling one, because bramble men are around us and we live in a time of brambles, thistles, that have come to power. The pretention, the delusion of power that the bramble has is, of course, quite pointed in Jotham’s parable, and amusing, if it were not also tragic. The bramble says to all the trees, the lordly palm, the olive, the apple, the apricot, the cherry, and to the grapevine, “Come thou and rest in my shade.” And so it is with bramble men in church and state, bramble men around us. It is the bramble men that lust for power, and bramble men who feel that they are so great that the palm and the olive can rest in their shade, and so bramble men have an illusion as to their important and their height, and bramble men, in every age, are the ones who are ready to take power, ready to seize power, and whenever you concentrate power at any point, it is the bramble, the thistles, the bramble men who are ready to assume power.

The other trees, the other men, see life not in terms of vain glorious honor and power, but in terms of utility, in terms of usefulness, in terms of service to God and to man, and so the trees that truly bear fruit are not the ones that are in search of power, and a great name, and today, the bramble men around us are at the top, and they demand more and more concentration of power, and the bramble men tell us that now life has become so complicated that it is no time any longer for the old freedoms. It is time for the palm trees and the olives to bend down and to take orders from the thistle, from the bramble. Life is too complex for them to be able to bear fruit without directions from the bramble.

In church, too, we see the brambles at the top, all around us. Bramble men are the men who rise to power because when men have become brambles, they want bramble men to reign over them. I recall, vividly, an experience once some years ago when it was necessary in a church to dismiss an assistant pastor because of his incompetence, as well as his theological weakness, and it was interesting to see that the men who were his champions were the ones who most despised him, and this is precisely why they liked him. They wanted a man at the helm of the church whom they could look down upon, whom they could despise. So they could look to him and say, “I’m better than he is so I have some standing with God.” In other words, they wanted leadership that they could feel superior to, because their standard was not the word of God, but a man, and so they were ex{?} since they could look down at their leader, and I recall, too, the remark of one woman, a Catholic, who instead of being disillusioned by what she saw at a retreat in the conduct of some of the clergy, found it most encouraging to her, because she could then say, “Well, if they’re Catholic leaders, I’m a good Catholic compared to them.” In other words, not the standard of God, but the contemptibility of men and a sense of Pharisaic superiority. Such people love bramble leaders, and they demand them, and this is why they may criticize the bramble men in church and state, that they will follow them. They will do nothing to destroy their power, because this is the only standard they want, something they can feel superior to, and so it is that bramble men create bramble leadership, but the bramble said, “If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow.”

Now, for a palm tree and an olive tree, an apricot, an apple, a peach tree, to rest under the shadow, shade of a bramble or a thistle, it is necessary for them to be cut down. Only if they are cut down to the ground can they rest under the shade of a bramble, a thistle, and so what was the bramble demanding? Society must be leveled. There must be an equality of all, under me, and equality is always integration downward because the bramble can never hope to grow to the height of the palm tree, or of the olive, and so the bramble says to all the trees, to have a truly equal society, level yourselves so that you can rest under my shade, and so the destruction of all social order follows.

Jotham concluded his parable by saying, “If you have done these things in honesty and integrity, then may all be well with you, but if what you have done has been evil, let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the men of Shechem, and the house of Millo; and let fire come out from the men of Shechem, and from the house of Millo, and devour Abimelech.” Let fire come out from one to the other and destroy them. Now, the bramble is highly inflammable. It burns easily and quickly. Let a spark touch it and it goes up in a puff. The bramble society has no lasting power. It is a society in which the leadership is worthless, as worthless as a bramble bush or a thistle, and everything that accepts it is become worthless, because they have ceased to be living trees and have become dead stumps that a bramble can spread its shade over, and so when a spark hits, it goes up in a puff of smoke. The bramble society has no lasting power.

We are living in a bramble world and in a bramble society, and the brambles reign over us. There was a time when one could look to the leadership of most countries with something like pride and respect, but it has been a long time since we could look to the leadership of any country with anything resembling respect. Rather, our feelings are more one of shame as we look to those in high places. We live in a bramble world, and the bramble world will go up in smoke, and so it is important for us as we face that world to stand in terms of faith, and to separate ourselves from the brambles, because all who put their trust in brambles, all who rest under the shade of the bramble bush will be burned when the bramble goes up in smoke. Let us pray.

We give thanks unto thee, Almighty God, for thy word and for thy so-great salvation. We thank thee, our God, that thy word is truth and that even as Abimelech, the bramble, and his society of bramble men destroyed one another, so throughout the ages the bramble men and the bramble societies have perished according to thy word. Make us strong in faith, therefore, our Father, so that as we survey the world around us, we may know that thy power is unchanged still, and our bramble world will go up in smoke. Those who stand in terms of thy word shall flourish and prosper. Like a tree planted by rivers of water, plant us, our Father, therefore, firmly in thy word and in thy spirit, that we may prosper and abound unto thee. In Jesus name. Amen.

Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Audience] I was wondering if the crown of thorns of Jesus, had any relation with him. I think I know the plant, but {?} it’s one of the bramble family. It was {?} would be painful, but {?}

[Rushdoony] Not to my knowledge, and I doubt that there is. The idea was since he was being executed as a king, to make a mockery of it and to make it a painful mockery, and it was probably a rose bush that they put. This is the most likely thing.

[Audience] There is a bush that’s very {?} thorn, must more so than a rose, and I think it’s brambles. {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, could be. I don’t know. I’ve never thought of that. Yes?

[Audience] {?} politics today, trying to get good men to run for office. If they’re cut down{?} Is that the reason for the {?}

[Rushdoony] Isaiah said that when a society reaches the point of corruption, wise men will not serve, and he also characterized such a society as one in which women and children rule over men, and we see that today, too, because in most homes, the children rule the roost, and in many marriages, the women wear the pants. Yes?

[Audience] Why is it {?} given up {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, the characteristic sin of man as he rebels against God is to refuse to meet his responsibility, which is to exercise dominion under God so that men rebel against God by evading responsibility, but women’s responsibility is to be under dominion, and her rebellion is to assume authority that is not hers. So each is sinning in a particular way. Now when Adam and Eve fell, Adam’s sin was that he wasn’t ready to assume responsibility, but Eve’s was that she wanted to be as God, to assume responsibility. She took the leadership. He should have been exercising authority at that point, and of course, you see that today in church life, in that in most churches, the men are in the minority. They don’t want any responsibility, and the women are in the majority and they’re trying to take over the church and tell the pastor exactly what he should do, and that’s no joke. That’s one of the hardest parts of the ministry today, the fact that many women, the wrong sort, are just trying to run the church. So you see, each sins in his and her way.

[Audience] But what {?} nobody {?}?

[Rushdoony] Well, I think the men should be compelled to take the responsibility. Now, one of the ways, you see, our law has progressively gone downhill in this respect. Now, it used to be that it was a part of Christian law and order that a man couldn’t walk away from his responsibilities, because he was the responsible creature. So what happened if he had an affair and a child was born? He got the child. Well, you can see what that did to anything. It wasn’t the girl’s responsibility. She wasn’t left stuck with a child. Now, what that kind of law immediately did was two things. First, the girl thought twice about any affair because she was going to lose the child. It belonged to the man. The man thought twice about it because he couldn’t walk away. He had to take that child to his home and explain it to his wife. You know, that put a damper on things. Now, we put a premium on it, you see, because we enable the man to walk away from his responsibility. So we’ve created a society in which responsibility has been placed in the wrong area. Now, if we had godly law and order, men would not be permitted to walk away from their responsibilities, and the courts wouldn’t sustain them in it. Now, that’s just one instance of many.

[Audience] But do you think that that was the wrong thing to do {?} because {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, let me tell you one of the finest, conservative, political scientist in this country, who was teaching at the time, at Columbia, had to say. He said it would lead to socialism to give women the vote. Why? Because he said the great work in our society of women has been this: women have organized into clubs, and associations, and various activities, and what have they done? They have taken over the works of mercy in every community, so that they make sure that the human side of things is ministered to. Wherever there is any kind of charity, they are there, and he said, give women the vote and they will want to see, through voting, the same thing accomplished. So he said, we will get socialism very quickly now that the women are demanding and will soon get the vote. Now, he wrote that about 1920. What has happened to welfare since then?

[Audience] Depression.

[Rushdoony] Yes, right, and you have women’s groups all over the country trying to get more and more welfare, organized, they are the shock troops of socialism, the women’s clubs. League of Women’s Voters, what you will, name them. They’re the shock troops of socialism. Now, I’m not saying that you women should not vote, because since women do have the vote today, your vote is important in counteracting this thing, but basically, the biblical conception of society is not atomistic, not individualistic, but in terms of the family, so that the vote is by the family. If there isn’t a man in the household, if the woman is a widower she should have the vote. She is then functioning as head of the household, but the basic unit should not be the individual, but the family, and I do not believe that single men should have the right to vote any more than I believe that men without property should vote in the counties where property is at stake. Why? The single man has no stake in the future, and when you’re voting, you’re voting in terms of the future, and what does a single man who’s a drifter care? He’s here today, gone tomorrow. He’s not concerned about the future. Why should he vote? Why should he?

The basic unit, in terms of biblical law, is the family, and no one could hold office in biblical times unless they were married. They were not regarded as a responsible man without that, and I think that’s a good principle. Yes?

[Audience] Is this why we have the attitude in voting that we have? {?} to vote, I mean we take it for granted, voting today.

[Rushdoony] Yes, what has happened is first, we have given the vote to women, so that their natural impulse towards charity is not channeled into voting, so it has a short range purpose. We’ve given the vote to people without land, to vote taxes against people with land, so that again, they’re thinking in terms of short-range interest. What can I get today? We’ve given the vote to people who are not married, who don’t have families. Again, the short-range purpose is in sight. So, instead of having the vote as it was intended to when this country was established, be determined by the long-range interests of family life, now, because it’s atomistic, it’s in terms of the short-range interest, what can I get out of things today? What’s in it for me? and as a result, you have the kind of situation we have. People are voting their bellies. Yes?

[Audience] Do you think that they should also apply to people that say, live in apartments all their lifetime, even though they’re with family, because some people do not want the responsibility of owning a home?

[Rushdoony] I should say then that those people have no right to vote in a county election. Federal and state, yes, but in a county election where property is at stake, they should not vote, because it makes a difference on how you vote on bond issues and the like, and men for office, if you have no property that can be taxed. This makes all the difference in the world. It is the same principle as saying that atheists have a right to vote in the church, and the democrats can vote in any republican meeting, and republicans in any democratic meeting. It’s the principle of confusion, of anarchy. Yes?

[Audience] In relation to this, granting women the suffrage, the Russians imposed socialism, the bondage of their people, without any {?}I mean, they said they had a right to vote but they gave them no one to vote for. Now, it could be possible that they had a hand in subverting our country to women suffrage so that they would {?} deteriorate {?}

[Rushdoony] Women suffrage began, of course, among the socialists and the radicals of the last century. They were the ones who began the agitation for it, in the name of freeing women, but actually for the purpose of promoting a socialistic world.

[Audience] Well, another corollary of the same idea {?} that people have one vote per person, which is, in a sense, true democracy, and it won’t work, because everybody’s got a different idea of what they want. The family head, going it alone, would be the representative side of the republic {?} they’re separated.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Right, and I think it’s significant, by the way, to realize, I just discovered this recently, Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto, and Frederick Engels, in another document, both defined democracy, this was over a hundred years ago, as communism.

[Audience] Isn’t that {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, he speaks of democracy there and equates it with communism. Now, when we speak of the home and the man’s authority, this is not in the Victorian sense, because the Victorian Era was not Christian. It was actually very definitely indifferent to Christian, and agnostic, but when you go back, for example, to the old American homes, go back to the Colonial Period, for example, a woman had a very responsible role. The Yankee ship captains would be gone, for example, three years on a trading voyage or on a whaling ship, in the China Seas, or in the South Pacific, and during that time, they could be confident that their wife was managing everything because she was capable, and if the man who took the ship was a trader say, in Boston or in New York, and had a business there, he left in the confidence that his wife had everything in hand and managed the entire business during his absence. In other words, he was indeed a king, but she was the prime minister, not a flunkey. In the Victorian home, the idea was that the woman was a luxury, and this is not the biblical idea. She is a helpmeet, but the Victorian idea was that she was to be a luxury, and so they deliberately made the woman a luxury, accentuated in every way her helplessness. For example, the hourglass shape and the corseting it required made the woman fairly helpless, and that was the idea. She was above any practical purpose. This, too, was the purpose of the hoop skirt. How can you work with a hoop skirt? You can even get near this thing, and this again, was the idea. To emphasize that you were absolutely useless, and this is as alien from the biblical perspective as one can imagine, and in Proverbs 31 when it describes the wife whose price is far above rubies, what it described was a woman who runs the entire household, the business, the farms, and everything so well that her husband can become a counselor and sit at the gates, because that’s what it meant to sit at the gates, to be a member of the city council, or town council, in the confidence that all the enterprises are being beautifully managed by her. Yes?

[Audience] Well, on getting back to {?} how does Jesus fit into this?

[Rushdoony] Jesus doesn’t fit into these patterns because he is the law-giver and he is the Lord, so because he was very God of very God, as well as very man or very man, therefore, we cannot expect him to be exactly like us, but the disciples were all married men, and we know that Paul was a widower, because he could not have been on the Sanhedrin otherwise, and he says, “I gave my vote against Stephen,” describing his conduct before he was a Christian, but his wife was not living at the time apparently, because he speaks of the others traveling from lace to place, the Apostles, as missionaries, with their wives, but he said I don’t burden any church with the expense of a wife, let alone mine. I’m supporting myself.

[Audience] {?} voting today, in relation to what Isaiah said, voting for people for office, {?} more intelligently on issues, but in relation to what Isaiah said about a society reaching a point where wise men will not run. Well, that’s the way it sometimes appears today, I mean, it’s so corrupt that’s it’s hard to imagine {?} running and getting into office {?} corrupted. So, {?}

[Rushdoony] It is becoming difficult to vote, and I think you’ve experienced what many of us have, that at many points on the ballot, we simply skip over because it is morally impossible to vote, and when that stage is reached, all we can do is to hope and pray that there will either be a judgment or a moral reawakening so that the current can be reversed. Yes, you had a question?

[Audience] Yes, in relationship to this question, Jesus didn’t really {?}. I mean, he held himself {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, but he did do this, and I’m glad you brought up the question. He did not begin his ministry until approximately thirty. We are not told what happened in the years between the time he was twelve years of age, the visit to the temple and the time he begins his ministry and is hailed by John the Baptist. Those years were left a blank, but I think we can almost certainly say what happened, because Joseph is on the scene when they are at the temple. Joseph is no longer on the scene when he has begun his ministry. What has happened? Joseph has died somewhere along the way. Now, what was any eldest son responsibility in a home where the father was dead? Well, it was to provide for the family. So I think we can safely assume this fact, that our Lord became head of the household on Joseph’s death and worked, provided for the family until the other sons were old enough to assume the responsibility, and had married, and provided a home for their mother, and then he began his ministry, because we are told that he, at all points, kept the law, and this was one of the requirements of the law, so that I think we can safely assume that this is what he did during those years. Of course, the occultists and others have all kinds of nonsense at this point about the hidden years of Jesus, and supposedly he was in Tibet, and in India, learning from secret masters, and so on and so forth, all of which is the most fantastic kind of rubbish. We can, I think, fairly safely assume that because Joseph was not on the scene, he kept the law, which meant he provided for his mother, his brothers, and sisters until one of them married and provided a home for Mary. Yes?

[Audience] Well, when {?} where the men now a days are corrupt and {?} corrupt, do you think that’s the big {?} factor {?} great love for voting [?}. Do you think that will be a {?}

[Rushdoony] I don’t know, but I do know that there is an increasing cynicism on the part of most people with regard to the men running for office, and justifiably so, because we find increasingly the same kind of talk coming from every quarter. It was just the last few days that President Johnson said, for example, that it was time to end the Cold War. It belonged to a past generation, and so we should be at peace with the communists. Why fight old quarrels? And almost at the same time, Mr. Nixon was saying that it was high time we made peace with Red China, that there was no reason for quarrel with them. Now, when you begin to hear the same kind of song on both sides of the fence, you begin to lose any faith in the political process. Yes?

[Audience] Well, where did that {?} work and some have to work {?}.

[Rushdoony] exactly. We have to work knowing that our labor, because we labor in the Lord, is never in vain. In other words, everything we do, according to Romans 8:28, the Lord makes to work together for good, but the reverse of that is that everything that everyone does outside of God, God makes to work together for evil. So that we cannot lose. Our effort when it is done in the name of God and in faithfulness to him, adds up to something. So that feeble though our effort seems, is against that of the opposition. When we faithfully discharge our duty, it is going to add up to something. We don’t know how, but the duties are ours, the results are in the hands of God and he assures us that they will add up to something.

[Audience] I’d like to add a little comment on his question about how are we going to vote {?} voting for. If we can find the principles {?} voting for those principles in spite of the {?} five star general, then we do have a chance to succeed {?} political force.

[Rushdoony] I think one of the things that is most instructive in this area is the experience of the Roman Empire. When the Empire came along, people were ready to see it replace the republic, because voting had become a farce. Everyone they voted in was exactly like everyone else, and so what was the sense to voting? And of course, what happened then with the Empire was, that everyone who gained position in the Empire was just as bad, or usually a little worse, than someone before him, and I think one emperor really revealed the absurdity and the insanity of the whole thing. He was a mad emperor: Caligula, and with all these corrupt and degenerate politicians coming around him, and he was as bad as any of them, but he was insane, which was an advantage in those days. He played a good joke on the Empire. They were pying{?} for one of the highest offices under the emperor, and he named his horse to the office. He thought his horse was a better candidate.

Any other questions? We have time for one more.

[Audience] I don’t think, question, in relationship to what Martha said, one of the sins of ancient Israel was that they looked at the nations around them to get their direction. I think this is so true of us today when the{?} even what we, in our evaluation, might consider {?} look to those obviously in our direction, whereas, if we look to God and follow his leading, and the results of that {?} it doesn’t matter whether we see the results, or tangible evidence of it at this moment, and it will all work together for good. We don’t have to see it, but I remember when I was teaching Sunday School, over and over again, and I’m sure we used {?} for our children, {?} because everybody’s doing it, you know, and that God would really have us look to him for our direction {?}

[Rushdoony] I think one of the most amazing and most wonderful things about the beginnings of this country was this: those men who came over and started building their homes in New England were as helpless as anyone could be. They didn’t have a carpenter in the batch{?}, they didn’t know how to build homes. The homes they built were like the western corals, have you seen them, when they drive a couple boards in the ground and then weave the willows, the loose branches among them? That’s what they did. They just stuck those branches down between these two stakes they pounded in the ground and then daubed it with mud to keep the wind from whistling through, and so they were very flimsy homes. They were catching fire and burning to the ground all the time, and this is how they lived for quite awhile, and yet, in all of that, they were keeping diaries and revealing their confidence, that they were building a new civilization, a Christian civilization, and they were keeping a full record, and that’s why we know so much about them, because they knew future generations were going to look back and say, “There were the beginnings of a great and marvelous civilization.” Well, here they faced hostile Indians, all kinds of trouble from England, all kinds of sickness, their own utter inability because they were just a group of Christians who were city-folk who’d never had any experience, even with English countryside where everything was neat as a pin, and yet they had that confidence. They knew that in the face of all the frustrations, and time and time again it seemed as though they were going to be wiped out. The French navy heading for them, and they were a handful, and the French navy was going to take over and drive out the English, but they had that confidence, that faith. The future was theirs under God, because they were working in terms of him.

Well, I think things are so much brighter and easier for us. I think God will hold us guilty if we don’t have the kind of faith they did, and even greater confidence in the future, and the future is ours under God.

[Audience] {?} some of those people {?} I would be calmer {?}

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, they were not young.

[Audience] So we have hope?

[laughter]

[Rushdoony] Well, with that, we stand dismissed.

End of tape