Nothing could more perfectly express the optimism of Benjamin Franklin’s simplified form of Christian piety mixed with Enlightenment thinking than his affirmation of the harmony between prudence and benevolence:

… for self-denial is never a duty or a reasonable action but as it is a natural means of procuring more pleasure than you can taste without it; so that this grave, saint-like guide to happiness, as rough and dreadful as she has been made to appear, is in truth the kindest and most beautiful mistress in the world. … It is doing all the good we can to others, by acts of humanity, friendship, generosity, and benevolence; this is that constant and durable good which will afford contentment, and satisfaction always alike, without variation or diminution … their happiness or chief good consists in acting up to their chief faculty, or that faculty which distinguishes them from all creatures of a different species. The chief faculty in man is his reason, and consequently his chief good, or that which may be justly called his good, consists not merely in action, but in reasonable action. By reasonable actions we understand those actions which are preservative of the human kind and naturally tend to produce real and unmixed happiness. (1)

Need it be said, I suppose nowadays it does. The founders supported religious freedom as the first among rights so as to encourage faith, conviction, and moral conduct among the people, which in turn inspires love, sacrifice, obedience, reverence, consecration, and so forth, as checks on the natural tendency of the democratic principle to run into selfish extremes on the principles of equality, individual sovereignty, and the acquisition of wealth and power.

Widespread immorality, on the other hand, had no practical benefit for the state, except in its tendency to make it more tyrannical. Noted Franklin: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt they have more need of masters.” (2)

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in regards to America (and for that matter any nation or people), add to Franklin’s advice, and the biblical reminder that “righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people;” (3) yet, another witness; and this for modern man. Again, and again we read from “The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ” this clear promise and warning: “Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; and inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence.” (4)

We read elsewhere in the book that this is “the everlasting decree” upon this land. Thus, both practical reason, and the reinforcing testimony of ancient and modern revelation affirming that in the matter of both personal affairs, and the nation at large, morality matters.

The Liberty Letters are written by NewsMax.com pundit, Steve Farrell, and are a project of the Latter-day Center for Moral Liberalism.

Footnotes

1. Bigelow, John. “The Works of Benjamin Franklin,” Vol. 1, pp. 387, 393-95.
2. Smyth, “Writings of Benjamin Franklin,” 9:569.
3. Proverbs 14:34, “Holy Bible,” King James Version.
4. 2 Nephi 4:4, “The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.”

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