Benjamin Rush - Signer of the Declaration of Independence

Who said the signers of the Declaration of Independence were not Christian? What about Benjamin Rush?

This unfamiliar signer was physician-general, president of the mint, a statesman, medical practitioner, writer, and professor of chemistry and the practice of medicine.

Dr. Rush formed the Philadelphia Dispensary, served as president of the American Society for the abolition of slavery and Philadelphia Medical society and VP of the Philadelphia Bible Society and American Philosophical Society.

When other doctors fled Philadelphia during the yellow fever outbreak, he stayed, believing God placed him there.

He argued for the use of the Bible as a school textbook, desiring to give each American family their own copy. His logic shows in his 5 assumptions:



1. Christianity is the only true and perfect religion

2. The best way to learn more of Christianity is through the Bible

3. The Bible contains more knowledge useful to man than any other
book.

4. That knowledge is most durable and useful when imparted early in
life.

5. When the Bible is not read in schools, it is seldom read in
any subsequent period of life.



Dr. Rush believed that the enemy “never invented a more effective means of limiting Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the Bible at schools.”

Politically, he declared, “The only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government is the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible,” and that every state building in the US should have inscribed above its door, "The Son of Man Came into the World, Not To Destroy Men's Lives, But To Save Them."

This signer of our Declaration of Independence understood that our freedom comes from the truth of God Almighty found in His Word.