Blog Post
A H Harry Oussoren • Mar 31, 2020
On Not Trusting One Person to Govern
“Trust not a single person with the government of your state. … What mischief may you not expect from such power in a mere man, though the best of men, from whom the truth is industriously hidden, and to whom falsehood is often presented in its place, by artful, interested, and malicious courtiers?
And be cautious in trusting him even with limited power, lest sooner or later he sap and destroy those limits, and render himself absolute.
For by the disposal of places, he attaches to himself all the placeholder, with their numerous connexions, and also all the expecters and hopers of places, which will form a strong party in promoting his views. By various political engagements for the interest of neighbouring states or princes, he procures their aid in establishing his own personal power. So that through the hope of emoluments in one part of his subjects, and the fear of his resentment in the other, all opposition falls before him.”
From “The Levee” by Benjamin Franklin, 1779; cited in The Oxford Book of Essays, John Gross (ed.), Oxford, 1991. Pp. 61-62).
Ben Franklin started this caution retelling the biblical story of Job – the righteous lover of God. In this powerful teaching narrative, God has convoked the court or levee of heaven - a gathering of the worthies of the realm. Satan has also appeared having just perused happenings on earth. God asks Satan, in your meanderings did you notice Job – how faithfully he lives.
Satan, maliciously, scoffs at God’s confidence in Job: he has everything – family, property, animals, wealth, health – why wouldn’t he be faithful to you? Let me test his faithfulness. I’ll take away all he has and then we’ll see how much he really loves and obeys you! God acquiesces to the plot. We know the sorry story of Job’s loss of family, animals, wealth, and finally, even his health.
Says Franklin, “…if the Deity himself [sic], being the monarch, may for a time give way to calumny, and suffer it to operate the destruction of the best of subjects…,” then don’t be surprised if a mere mortal – like an elected President in whatever country – abuses power for his malevolent personal or political interests.
A wise and judicious post-Revolutionary War message from one of the founders of American democracy. It has particular relevance in our time.
Whoever has ears to hear and eyes to see and brains to understand and faith to discern, listen to what the Spirit through Ben Franklin has been proclaiming since 1779.
Pilgrim Praxis
The genocide in apartheid and settler colonial Palestine urgently calls for urgent discernment and action. Could the ongoing rounds of blood letting and destruction finally end to begin a journey toward truth, and justice-based peace? I hope so for the sake of all who dwell in this (un)Holy Land.