Our Heavenly Father has a plan for us, a plan of happiness. God’s work is to being pass the immortality and eternal life of humans. Many people reject the doctrine of original sin, holding that humans are inherently good and that the sin of Adam was not transmitted to posterity. Sin appears to be universal among people because of Adam’s bad example, but humans never were tainted by original sin. Further implications are drawn that it is false that humankind suffered spiritual death through sin of Adam and that the redemption of humanity is not due to the grace given by Christ but to the values of Christ’s moral teachings. Through sanctifying grace humans achieve a spiritual rebirth, not merely a remission of original sin and its effects.  Human beings are created again in the divine likeness and finds his or her nature perfected so that one may share in the divine supernatural life. Grace gives humans the power or freedom (libertas) to choose the good and to effect good works. Freedom of the will is real and active under grace, and it is accommodated to the divine sovereignty. Freedom is sufficient for evil; for good it is not enough unless it be empowered by the Omnipotent who is good. Actual grace is first active in faith and conversation and is necessary to final perseverance, or the continuation of the virtuous life. The autonomy of ethics follows from the autonomy of human beings. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

 While slavery was common throughout the original Thirteen Colonies, moral acceptance of the trade was not universal. A few founding fathers found the conscience to speak out against slavery. In 1764, James Otis declared, “Colonists are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men, White of Black.” Another patriot and firebrand, Sam Adams, stated that “No slave shall live under my roof,” and freed the two he inherited from marrying his second wife. The Sons of Liberty was an organization that was created in the Thirteen American Colonies. The secret society was formed to protect the rights of the colonists and fight taxation by the British government. William Campbell had become a leading member of the Sons of Liberty in Wilmington, North Carolina USA. He talked excitedly about inalienable rights. Thomas Peters was kidnaped from the Yoruba tribe in what is now Nigeria and brought to North America by a French slave trader. Thomas Peters had been purchased in Louisiana about 1760, and he resisted enslavement so fiercely that his master sold him into the English colonies. By 1770, Thomas Peters was enslaved by William Campbell, and he had plans for his own declaration of independence, which was enhanced by William Campbell’s spirit of equality and human rights. Eventually Thomas Peters took the moment to redefine himself as a man and escaped. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

Many other Africans who had been enslaved took advantage of the war’s confusion to gain their freedom and start a new life. Some sought refuge among the Indians in the interior. The Seminoles of Georgia and Florida generally welcomed Black runaways and through intermarriage absorbed them into tribal society. The Blacks’ reception by the Cherokee and Creek, however, was more uncertain. Some were taken in, but others were returned to slaveholders in return for bounties, and still others were held in slavelike conditions by new Indian slave masters. Of the Blacks who had the opportunity to serve the Patriot cause, many received the freedom they were promised. The patriotism of countless others, however, went unrewarded. “Of more worth is one honest person to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived,” reports Thomas Paine. The only thing that can stop a person from acting on his or her judgment is physical force, the establishment and maintenance of liberty requires a government dedicated to banning physical force—including indirect force-including indirect force, such as fraud—from social relationships; and using force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. Under liberty, no one, including the government, may stop a person from acting on his or her own judgment, producing the wealth, or keeping the product of one’s own efforts. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

The story of Thomas Peters carries revolutionary significance for human history for it is the story of how a man without official position of any sort took the side of people, like himself, who had been denied liberty, and set an example which denounced injustice. The normal pattern of the times would have called him to be stuck down on the spot. However, he was speaking for an authority and others accepted this verdict of the moral conscience as divine and hence ultimate and demanded freedom and liberty. The revolutionary and unprecedented fact is the way people challenged the status quo. The only proviso of liberty is that we may not violate the rights of others, which means, one cannot force others to act against their own judgment. Under liberty—genuine liberty, the kind under which property rights are recognized and protected—people are free to be free to earn as much money as they are willing and able to earn and buy property, invest in a business, buy health insurance, groceries or even a yacht. Freedom is an inescapable fact of our experience, and freedom means that people have the power to choose the good or the evil. It is true that God may help a person by endowing his or her nature with the possibility of sinlessness and the ability to accomplish good works, but no special grace from God is needed to attain the virtuous life. The initiation of ethical activity lies with in each person. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

God’s revulsion against injustices are less personal because they were embedded in the entire social order. Time was shot through with inequities, special privileges, and injustice of the most flagrant sort. Wealth was concentrated in the hands of rich grandess, the poor were branded like cattle and sold as slaves, persons in debt were traded for a pair of shoes. It was a World in which masters punished and tortured their slaves as they pleased; in which women were subjugated to men and unwanted children were abandoned in lonely places to die.  It is believed that God intended revolutionary America as the place of Christ’s Second Coming and that independence foretold that glorious day. Others of a less millennialist persuasion thought of America as a New Israel, a covenanted people specially chosen by God to preserve liberty in a threatening World. Americans were urged to rededicate themselves to God’s law by fighting for American freedom. It was language that people nurtured in Puritan piety and the Great Awakening instinctively understood. The belief that God sanctioned their Revolution strengthened Americans’ resolve. It also encouraged them to identify national interest with divine intent, and thus offered convenient justification for whatever they believed necessary to do.  #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

People are by nature good, and through moral strength and freedom of one’s will one can attain the highest good, and even supernatural salvation. The Revolution was seen as God’s warning to clean up their national life, to establish justice throughout the land, or be destroyed. The prerequisite to political stability is social justice; it is ingrained in the nature of things that injustice breeds it own demise. In theological terms, God’s standards are high; he will not put up forever with exploitation, corruption, and mediocrity. God’s balancing tenderness figures fully as prominently. Some here God roaring like a lion, other hear him in the ghostly stillness that precedes the storm. Yet, one thing is common to them all; the conviction that being, a child of God, has rights that even kings cannot erase. The prophets come upon the stage of history like a strange, elemental, explosive force. They live in a vaster World than those about them, a World in which pomp and kings seem small and the power of the mighty is as nothing compared with purity, justice, and mercy. So it is that whenever people have gone to history for encouragement and inspiration in the age-ling struggle for justice they have found it, more than anywhere else in the prophets. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

Having prophets is a sign of God’s love for his children. They make known the promises and the true nature of God. The prophets found meaning in their predicament by seeing it as God’s way of underscoring his demand for righteousness. God was engaged in a great controversy with his people, a controversy involving moral issues not evident to the secular observer. To correct a wayward child a parent may coax and cajole, but if the words fail he will eventually be forced to act. Similarly, in the face of the American Revolution, indifference to his commands and pleadings, God had no alternative but to let his people know who is God—whose will must be done! We are not left alone. God has given us the necessary gifts to help us in our mortal experience. What a comfort is its to know that we are not alone sailing uncharted waters as we go through life’s experiences. Our choices have the undeniable power of transforming our lives. This gift is an extraordinary sign of trust in us simultaneously a cherished personal responsibility to use wisely. Our Father in Heaven respect our freedom to choose and will never force us to do what is right. God’s invitation concerning this important and vital gift of choice is clearly expressed in the scriptures. To do good continually depicts well the standard we need to apply as we use our agency. Everything that invites and entices us to do good is inspired of God. “The single most important thing is to believe in yourself regardless of what everyone else says,” reports Hikaru Nakamura. #RandolphHaris 7 of 7

The Winchester Mystery House

 In a town where one Victorian mansion was more sumptuous and ornate than the rest The Winchester Mystery House has always been the pinnacle of elaborate, gracious excess. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/