Christian Heritage Quotes

“It is the eternal struggle between these two principles --right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time..." Abraham Lincoln

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." Abraham Lincoln

I believe our nation is at a crossroad - the current generation will either walk the path of restoration and rebirth concerning our national blessings or walk a crumbling, perilous path of eroding foundations and diminishing light. I believe the keys to which way we will turn are simple: Will we, once again, acknowledge God and His sovereignty over us? Will we, once again, acknowledge our sins, rebellion, and apathy and seek His forgiveness and restoration? Will we, once again, acknowledge the responsibility to which believers in Christ have been called?
We must remember, proclaim, and defend truth! We must not, any longer, forget, remain silent, or give ground! Either way, we shall indeed reap what we sow

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." Ronald Reagan

"If the Moral character of a people degenerate, their political character must follow. These considerations should lead to an attentive solicitude to be religiously careful in our choice of all public officers...and judge of the tree by its fruits." Elias Boudinot

"All persons living in this province, who confess and acknowledge the One Almighty and Eternal God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, and that hold themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly in civil society, shall in no wise be molested or prejudiced for their religious persuasion or practice, in matters of faith and worship; nor shall they be compelled at any time to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever." April 25, 1662- William Penn signed this to establish religious liberty in the new province of (Pennsylvania).

"Everyone appointed to public office must say, "I do profess faith in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost. In God who is blessed forevermore I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures and the Old and New Testaments which are given by divine inspiration." Delaware Constitution of 1776

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ…. We shall not fight alone… God presides over the destinies of nations… The battle is not to the strong alone… Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, ALMIGHTY GOD! Give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry of the Constitutional Convention

"A general dissolution of Principles and Manners will more surely overthrow the Liberties of America than the whole Force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader . . . If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security." Samuel Adams, 1787

"Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being, who rules over the universe, who presides in the council of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States.." "...Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency" From President George Washington's Inaugural Address, April 30th, 1789, addressed to both Houses of Congress.

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible" President George Washington, September 17th, 1796

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports . . . And let us indulge with caution the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion . . . Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of religious principle." President George Washington

"...The Smiles of Heaven can never be expected On a Nation that disregards the eternal rules of Order and Right, which Heaven Itself Ordained." President George Washington


"I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- God Governs in the Affairs of Men, And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, Is it possible that an empire can rise without His aid?" Benjamin Franklin

"Except the Lord build the house, They labor in vain who build it." "I firmly believe this." Benjamin Franklin, 1787, Constitutional Convention

"The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His Apostles.... This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government."Noah Webster

"Whether this [new government] will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation [Proverbs 14:34]. Reader! Whoever thou art, remember this, and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself and encourage it in others." Patrick Henry

"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed." Patrick Henry

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever." President Thomas Jefferson

"The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart." President Thomas Jefferson

"Of all systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to be so pure as that of Jesus." Thomas Jefferson, To William Canby, 1813

"We have no government armed in power capable of contending in human passions ubridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." John Adams, address to the militia of Massachusetts, 1798.

"I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man..." President Thomas Jefferson

"The highest story of the American Revolution is this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." President John Adams

"Before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe. And to the same Divine Author of every good and perfect gift [James 1:17] we are indebted for all those privileges and advantages, religious as well as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land." James Madison

"We've staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us . . . to Govern ourselves according to the commandments of God. The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded." President James Madison

"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers. And it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." First Chief Justice of Supreme Court John Jay

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine....Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other." James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution and an original Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court

"Let the children...be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education. The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effectual means of extirpating [removing] Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the Bible at schools." Benjamin Rush


"It is no slight testimonial, both to the merit and worth of Christianity, that in all ages since its promulgation the great mass of those who have risen to eminence by their profound wisdom and integrity have recognized and reverenced Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of the living God." President John Quincy Adams

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were.... the general principles of Christianity." President John Quincy Adams


"a true American Patriot must be a religious man...He who neglects his duty to his maker, may well be expected to be deficient and insincere in his duty towards the public" First Lady Abigail Adams

"The Bible is the Rock on which this Republic rests." President Andrew Jackson

"If there is anything in my thoughts or style to commend, the credit is due to my parents for instilling in me an early love of the Scriptures. If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity." Daniel Webster

"It is extremely important to our nation , in a political as well as religious view , that all possible authority and influence should be given to the scriptures , for these furnish the best principles of civil liberty , and the most effectual support of republican government. The principles of all genuine liberty , and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by it's authority.The man therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be accessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer...." Noah Webster

"The Bible must be considered as the great source of all the truth by which men are to be guided in government as well as in all social transactions...." Noah Webster

"The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws...." Noah Webster


"All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice , crime , ambition , injustice , oppression , slavery , and war , proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible...." Noah Webster

"The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and his apostles , which enjoins humility , piety and benevolence ; which acknowledges in every person a brother , or a sister , and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity , and to this we owe our free constitutions of government...." Noah Webster

"It is the sincere desire of the writer (Noah Webster) that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible , particularly the New Testament or the Christian religion." Noah Webster


Abraham Lincoln

"I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior (Jesus) of the world is communicated to us through this book. Abraham Lincoln

"Fellow countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first...The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured...

"Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and as a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other...The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully...If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?

Fondly do we hope - fervently do we pray - that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'The judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

"With malice toward none; charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." Immediately afterwards, Lincoln kissed the Bible, bowed, and retired from the platform. Abraham Lincoln's 2nd inaugural address, March 4th, 1865.

"Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty" Abraham Lincoln.

"The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next." Abraham Lincoln.

"The only assurance of our nation's safety is to lay our foundation in morality and religion." Abraham Lincoln.


"The New Testament is the very best that ever was or ever will be known in the world." Charles Dickens

"Our laws and institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teaching of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that is should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian . . . this is a Christian nation." US Supreme Court, 1892


"America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scriptures. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very simple thing to ask of you. I as of every man and woman in this audience that from this night on they will realize that part of the destiny of America lies in their daily perusal of this great book of revelations. That if they would see America free and pure they will make their own spirits free and pure by this baptism of the Holy Scripture." Woodrow Wilson, 1911, pre-Presidential campaign speech.

"The secret of my success? It is simple. It is found in the Bible, 'In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths." George Washington Carver.

"The fundamental basis of this nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teaching we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in the right for anybody except the state." President Harry S. Truman.

"History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration to ultimate national disaster" General Douglas MacArthur

"Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."--Article III of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

"The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were . . . the general principles of Christianity."--John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 28, 1813

"My own private judgment has long been (and every day's experience more and more confirms me in it)that government cannot long exist without an alliance with Religion to some extent, and that Christianity is indispensable to the true interests and solid foundation of all governments. . . . I know not, indeed, how any deep sense of moral obligation or accountableness can be expected to prevail in the community without a firm foundation of the great Christian truths."--Joseph Story, in a letter to Jasper Adams, May 14, 1833

"The American population is entirely Christian, and with us Christianity and Religion are identified. It would be strange indeed, if with such a people, our institutions did not presuppose Christianity, and did not often refer to it, and exhibit relations with it."--John Marshall, in a letter to Jasper Adams, May 9, 1833,

"There is no country in the whole world, in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America: and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth."--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

"You have no longer any cause to fear danger from abroad . . . It is from within, among yourselves--from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for power--that factions will be formed and liberty endangered. It is against such designs, whatever disguise the actors may assume, that you have especially to guard yourselves. You have the highest of human trusts committed to your care. Providence has showered on this favored land blessings without number, and has chosen you as the guardians of freedom, to preserve it for the benefit of the human race. May He who holds in His hands the destinies of nations make you worthy of the favors He has bestowed and enable you, with pure hearts and pure hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to the end of time the great charge He has committed to your keeping."--Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837

"Christianity is not the legal religion of the State, as established by law. If it were, it would be a civil or political institution, which it is not; but this is not inconsistent with the idea that it is in fact, and ever has been, the religion of the people. This fact is everywhere prominent in all our civil and political history, and has been, from the first, recognized and acted upon by the people, as well as by constitutional conventions, by legislatures and by courts of justice."--The New York Supreme Court 1860

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. . . . We have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!"--Abraham Lincoln, "Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day," March 30, 1863

This U.S. Supreme Court decision cites a number of examples that America was founded on Christian principles, and concludes, "There is a universal language pervading [these examples], having one meaning; they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons: they are organic utterances; they speak the voice of the entire people. . . . These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation."--Church of the Holy Trinity v. US, Supreme Court decision

It is not exaggeration to say that Christianity in some of its creeds was the principal cause of the settlement of many of the colonies . . . "--David J. Brewer, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1905

"The First Amendment . . . does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State. Rather, it studiously defines the manner, the specific ways, in which there shall be no concert or union or dependency one on the other. That is the common sense of the matter."--William O. Douglas, Associate Justice of the Sup. Court 1951