On behalf of the Second Continental Congress in declaring America’s independence, Jefferson in the first paragraph of the Declaration drew upon authority greater than the Crown, the British Empire, and the long traditions of English law and government. “With a firm Reliance on the protection of divine Providence,” he and those present staked “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor” upon “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.”

Taking Jefferson’s words at the face value that men risking their lives and the fates of their families would, one must ask in what language did they read the divine message that convinced them of natural law? Certainly in the language of the Bible and the works of philosophers, but also in everything they experienced day and night, in nature itself, in the derivative circumstances and construction of the world around them. Their beliefs—and their courage—came not just from reading the works of man, but also from a direct reading of creation. Not insulated by technology and cities of concrete, steel, and glass, they were never far from the elemental intensities of nature that have led man since the beginning to apprehend a divine presence.

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