I have the exact reprint of the laws of Connecticut of 1673.
Now, I've read through several times the capital punishment laws.
And interestingly enough, it's virtually just copy and
paste from the word of God straight into their capital punishment laws.
Okay, you wanna know why America was so great?
Because we actually punished criminals.
Cuz we actually put evil away from us among in the society.
But I have another section I wanna read for you this morning just to show you how
much different the America you live in today is than the land back then.
Here's the title, Laws Concerning Heretics.
Heretics, this court being sensible of the danger persons
are in being poisoned in their judgments and principles by heretics.
Whether Quakers, ranters, Adamites, or such like.
So it starts off and says, we realize that our nation could be poisoned and
destroyed.
The judges, the leaders of our country could be destroyed by false doctrine,
by heretics.
And then it even names the names, the Quakers, the ranters, the Adamites.
You say, what are the Quakers?
Whoo, they're feeling the spirit today.
We're gonna have the spirit come in the bar.
That's the Quakers today.
Your modern Pentecostal movement,
they're just the ancestors of your Quakers today.
Heretics, the, the ranters.
Ranters were known for being completely lawless.
Just the most lascivious group of people.
In fact, also Quakers, there was a group of Quakers that were non-theist.
Non-theist means they don't believe God exists.
There was literally subsections of Quakers that don't even believe in a god.
They didn't believe in spirituality.
And they're saying, these people are heretics.
The Adamites, this group is the weirdest cult ever.
Adamites, religious services, no one was allowed to wear clothes.
They're going back to the Garden of Eden.
And in fact, they don't believe that marriage is a biblical institution.
So everybody could just do whatever they wanted.
Talk about a weird cult.
Yeah, I want some laws on the books against those groups.
Praise the Lord that they had some laws saying these people, you know, are freaks.
Let me read a little bit more.
Do you see cause to order that no persons in this colony shall give
any unnecessary entertainment unto any Quaker, ranter, Adamite, or
other notorious heretic upon penalty of five pounds for
every such person's entertainment to be paid by him that shall so entertain them.
And five pounds per week shall be paid by each town
that shall suffer their entertainment as aforesaid.
Meaning, if you allowed them to come in and preach in your area, if anybody came
and gave them any money or any kind of just financial money, they would be fine.
They'd be punished for helping these people, for giving them money, for
entertaining them.
It is also ordered by the authority of this court that it shall be in the power
of the governor, deputy governor, or
assistance to order that all such heretics, as aforesaid,
be committed to prison or sent out of this colony.
And no person shall unnecessarily fall into discourse
with any such heretic upon the penalty of 20 shillings.
Meaning, just talking to a heretic, you would get penalized, just talking to them.
And they said, these people need to be thrown in jail or thrown out of our colony?
You say, why was America so much better back then?
Because they didn't tolerate heretics.
Because they didn't let their nation and their area and
their judges get poisoned with heresy, get poisoned with false doctrine.
They didn't let the Joel Osteens come into town.
They said, hey, you wanna go to Joel Osteen's church?
You're gonna be penalized, and we're gonna throw him in jail, and
we're gonna throw him out of this colony.
We're not gonna just let all the heretics and freaks and weirdos.
Wouldn't it be great if all the Pentecostals just had to leave?
Go back to Africa, you freaks, okay, where you get that African mix of religion.
They wanna talk about how horrible it was that we brought people from Africa
into America.
You know what, they actually got Christianity, a lot of them got saved.
Why don't we give back the Pentecostalism, okay?
Since we condemn slavery, which is wrong, why don't we give back Pentecostalism too?
Why don't we say, hey, we don't wanna bring that with us.
We don't want that to come into our area, into our nation.