Absolutes vs. Anarchy in the Early Virginia Colonies

Four Hundred years ago when the Virginia colonies were on the verge of annihilation, the governors drafted a document called, “The Lawes Divine, Moral and Martial, for the Colonies of Virginia.”

These laws provided very strict and precise guidelines for daily life in the colonies. They covered everything from borrowing tools, to performing the daily necessities of life as they so politely put it.

They even had a provision for those who blasphemed God to have a bodkin thrust through the tongue… the second time so offending. And the third time you broke any of these lawes, you would be put to death.

Pretty harsh you say? The reason such strict moral and martial laws were implemented was because everyone had established their own absolutes. There was no legal authority and anarchy ruled.

Ironically before the Lawes were implemented, there were more deaths, desertions, mutinies and murders than after. They realized early on that true liberty was based on absolutes that all men lived by. They knew that license was death, not only to the individual, but to the corporate body as well.