A Reformed Response to COVID-19: Introduction
By James Brown Jr.
Posted: April 30th, 2020
Posted: April 30th, 2020
In what is being described as unprecedented, we were forced into an unfamiliar combination of crisis, pandemic, and lock-down. Our nation was almost completely shut-down, which is unprecedented in the modern American context since vaccines and the digital age.
Because this is not the normal way of life, we act as if something strange is happening to us. We have experienced sweeping restrictions and lock-downs in every state in America and throughout the whole world. What could this be? Antichrist, Jews, and Masons, oh my! Or maybe it is Bill Gates, 5G, or a plot to persecute Christians!
Over the last century, Americans have been so conditioned with heretical theological principles, lunatic eschatological presuppositions, and revolutionary humanistic premises that we are barely functional. The degree to which these things have impacted our society does make this an unprecedented situation.
Then we must combine that with the modern era of luxury and what largely amounts to freedom from death and suffering. For example, the current life expectancy for an American is 78.6 years.1 According to the website, Our World in Data, "at the beginning of the 19th century no country in the world had a life expectancy longer than 40 years."2 In 1900, life expectancy in the United States was 46.3 years for males and 48.3 years for females.3
Before the modern era life was full of fear, suffering, and death. For English people in the late 16th and 17th centuries, over "12% of all children born would die in their first year" and out of 100 live births during this era, "60 would die before the age of 16."4
This constant and universal suffering is tragically described on one website with the following historical example.
Because this is not the normal way of life, we act as if something strange is happening to us. We have experienced sweeping restrictions and lock-downs in every state in America and throughout the whole world. What could this be? Antichrist, Jews, and Masons, oh my! Or maybe it is Bill Gates, 5G, or a plot to persecute Christians!
Over the last century, Americans have been so conditioned with heretical theological principles, lunatic eschatological presuppositions, and revolutionary humanistic premises that we are barely functional. The degree to which these things have impacted our society does make this an unprecedented situation.
Then we must combine that with the modern era of luxury and what largely amounts to freedom from death and suffering. For example, the current life expectancy for an American is 78.6 years.1 According to the website, Our World in Data, "at the beginning of the 19th century no country in the world had a life expectancy longer than 40 years."2 In 1900, life expectancy in the United States was 46.3 years for males and 48.3 years for females.3
Before the modern era life was full of fear, suffering, and death. For English people in the late 16th and 17th centuries, over "12% of all children born would die in their first year" and out of 100 live births during this era, "60 would die before the age of 16."4
This constant and universal suffering is tragically described on one website with the following historical example.
"The English politician and barrister William Brownlow and his wife Elizabeth Duncombe had 19 children together. Thirteen of them died. Some periods of their life were particularly tragic: in just eight years between 1638 and 1646 they had seven children. All of them – Thomas, Francis, Benjamin, George, James, Maria, and Anne – died in a row. The parents’ heartbreak is obvious from William’s diary records: when George, their fifteenth child, died in 1642 his father wrote 'Thou O God hast broken me asunder and shaken me to pieces.'"5
Our current crisis is not unprecedented as it has never happened before in the United States and throughout the world. Neither it is unprecedented in certain parts of the world in the modern era. It is unprecedented in the modern Western Civilized era, which is part of the problem and the elephant in the room.
Pandemics have had global implications in the past but the response to them was in a localized context. These local and regional mitigation principles have been implemented on a national and global scale and it is scary to modern Americans who have been conditioned with all the kookiness and even the luxuries of the 20th Century, which is now bearing fruit in the 21st Century.
Setting aside the individualistic, self-indulgent, grandiose issues, at least for now, the fact is we are responding to this pandemic the same way towns, cities, states, and nations responded to the 1918 Spanish Flu, which was much the same way Western Civilization has responded to all pandemics dating back to the medieval Black Death. The difference is pampered Americans have no concept of suffering and death. Could it be that virologists see the danger because they study past pandemics and present viruses while we live self-absorbed and self-indulgent lifestyles?
Regardless, we are not experiencing anything new with social distancing, quarantine, and isolation. These things have been the prescribed response for any society that has believed something deadly to be contagious.
From the beginning of this crisis, we have been bombarded with media content based upon emotional presuppositions rather than careful study and application. In our individualistic, arrogant, and pretentious age, we often know the answers before we ever hear the questions, much less do the research, and this crisis has exposed our cultural proclivity toward emotion over reason.
This is not new in our society as it has become part of our DNA since the 1960s, but it is the biggest crisis we have faced with our new worldview built upon autonomous individualism where everyone has their truth and their reality. In other words, our society, culturally speaking, is based upon ignorance because there is no regard or concern for real knowledge.
One of the reasons for this celebrated ignorance, in addition to our character deficiencies, is the cultural drive for spontaneous, immediate, and superficial content. Most people do not have the knowledge and experience to provide anything meaningful to the enormous volume of issues facing our society today.
With all of this, we have not yet considered all the presuppositions, standards, and wisdom involved to make the right conclusions. We have this erroneous idea that the answer to any question, dilemma, or problem lies inherently in each of us, which is why someone with no experience in an issue believes he is an expert. Humanists believe divine-like qualities naturally exist in each individual while many Christians believe it is a mystical quality given to us by the Holy Spirit. Both presuppositions produce false knee-jerk reactions to issues that need data to make wise applications. Knowledge does not grant wisdom but knowledge is a prerequisite to wisdom.
As a result, producing content in a spontaneous, immediate, and superficial World Wide Web context is not easy unless you have adequate resources, such as solvency, trained staff, and state-of-the-art technology, unless you are willing to cast thoughtfulness, evidence, and accuracy to the wind.
Much of what transpired since we entered this crisis has been a demand for immediate answers to a multitude of questions to which no one was prepared. Despite our ignorance, that has not stopped many from attempting to give concrete conclusions based upon impulses, speculation, and emotion. The drive to produce media on COVID-19 and all the issues surrounding this crisis has quickly become a fool's errand in most cases.
This is not a new phenomenon and is why we, Reformed Church of the Holy Trinity, traded our short-term hurry to change the world for a long-term calmness to change a particular church with specific families in a local community. This is not to say that we do not have a view beyond our local context. What we are saying is that change begins locally.
The point in all of this is that we have learned to be careful, purposeful, and precise in the lane God has placed us. Therefore, when this unprecedented crisis, at least unprecedented in our lifetime, came upon our nation and upon the whole world, we realized this was a situation that was not only way above us but beyond the present America Church as a whole.
No one in our modern context was thinking about, much less doing any real exegetical, legal, and historical work in the Church's response to pandemic and plague. This is not to suggest the information does not exist, but no one in the modern context was focused upon these issues.
In addition to this, it is not just theological doctrine and application, legal precedent, and historical examples but the important field of virology that is necessary to this discussion. It was obvious to us that we were going to have to be cautious and initially respond by using a general equity approach based upon standards, principles, worldviews, and examples in other related areas to this specific crisis.
This is not a problem if you believe in a systematic approach. It is not sufficient in the long run, but it is helpful and necessary to be able to see the big picture to make current real-time decisions. Until all the research can be conducted and published sufficiently and proficiently, every question, concern, and detail cannot be answered. Initially, we must walk in faith in what we know rather than speculate about what we do not know.
So, where did we begin?
First, we began with the clear teaching of Scripture concerning our disposition of submission to civil authorities. Yes, rulers are authorities to be obeyed even when we have questions and do not have all the answers to any proposed question.
Numerous passages teach this including Deuteronomy 17:8-13, Romans 13:1-7, Titus 3:1-2, and 1 Peter 2:13-17. Therefore, we are to be inclined to submission to the point that "If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men" (Romans 12:18). It does not always depend upon us in situations where "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). We may also experience situations where we are "for peace: but when [we] speak, they are for war," as David described in Psalm 120:7. Nevertheless, as much as it depends upon us we are to live peaceably with "all" men. This includes our civil authorities.
In other words, we must have specific, legitimate, lawful, and necessary reasons to disobey. It also means that we must exhaust all legitimate and lawful means to rectify any possible breach of the peace. We are to live in peace until it is impossible.
Yet, in our spontaneous, immediate, and superficial culture, too many would rather set these things aside without suffering a long train of abuses and exhausting every possible redress of grievances like our Forefathers. We forget that our independence from Great Britain was not based upon individualistic civil disobedience but legitimate and lawful governmental actions. Our Forefathers took Romans 13 seriously but today all we hear is that the answer is 1776 when we know nothing about 1776.
Based upon these prerequisites and the information we had and still have at this time, there was no supporting evidence to prove to us that we were to respond to this situation is anything other than submission to our civil rulers.
Richard Baxter, the famous English Puritan, concurs with this premise in times of pestilence writing that, "If the Magistrate for a greater good, (as the common safety) forbid Church Assemblies in a time of pestilence, assault of enemies, or fire, or the like necessity, it is a duty to obey him."6
Biblically and historically in the Reformed tradition, we could initially conclude that our response to the executive decisions of our civil rulers must begin with submission, which is what we have and will continue to do. The burden of proof is not for submission, as this is to be our disposition, but the burden of proof is upon those advocating for disobedience. So, without clear and direct evidence that the Church is to disobey and rebel against civil leaders acting to protect and preserve the life and health of its citizens, we will continue our posture of submission.
Second, we began with the pro-life or sanctity of life worldview based upon the clear teaching of natural and revealed law. This should also go without saying, but the right to life is not as highly valued as claimed by some.
However, the preservation of life is a top Biblical priority. So much so that every necessary and reasonable attempt should be made to protect innocent life.
Every command and principle in Scripture has a positive and negative expression. For example, "thou shalt not kill" also implies "thou shalt preserve life."
The case law for Old Testament Israel bears this out. In Deuteronomy 22:8, within the jurisdiction of Israel, when someone built a new house they were to construct a guardrail around their roof so they would not be guilty of shedding innocent blood if someone should accidentally fall from off the rooftop. John Gill called this negligence to reasonably protect life as manslaughter.7 It needs to be strongly emphasized that Calvin is not talking about an action of negligence but the inaction of negligence being manslaughter.
Calvin comments on this passage by writing, "This precept [Deuteronomy 22:8] also has reference to the preservation of human life. We know that the roofs of the Jewish houses were flat, so that they might freely walk upon them. If there were no railings round them, a fall would have been fatal; and every house would have often been a house of mourning. God, therefore, commands the edge to be fortified with battlements, or railings, or other inclosure, and accompanies the injunction with a severe denunciation; for He declares that the houses would be defiled with blood, if any one should fall from an uninclosed roof. Now, if guile were thus contracted by mere incautiousness, it hence appears how greatly He abominates deliberate cruelty; and, if it behooved everybody to be thus solicitous as to the lives of their brethren, it shows how criminal it is to injure them purposely and in enmity."8
This same principle of "thou shalt preserve life" is also applied to humans and animals in the specific application of a goring ox and an uncovered pit in Exodus 21:28-36.
Although the laws of separation that are part of the Ceremonial Law they do have a judicial component to them that is applicable by general equity. Whether it was the laws concerning leprosy or coming into contact with a dead body, one of the purposes was public health and safety.
What we see in these examples is that the civil government has the authority and designation to enact reasonable laws for the preservation of human life. This includes communicable diseases as the German Reformer Johann von Ewich attests:
Pandemics have had global implications in the past but the response to them was in a localized context. These local and regional mitigation principles have been implemented on a national and global scale and it is scary to modern Americans who have been conditioned with all the kookiness and even the luxuries of the 20th Century, which is now bearing fruit in the 21st Century.
Setting aside the individualistic, self-indulgent, grandiose issues, at least for now, the fact is we are responding to this pandemic the same way towns, cities, states, and nations responded to the 1918 Spanish Flu, which was much the same way Western Civilization has responded to all pandemics dating back to the medieval Black Death. The difference is pampered Americans have no concept of suffering and death. Could it be that virologists see the danger because they study past pandemics and present viruses while we live self-absorbed and self-indulgent lifestyles?
Regardless, we are not experiencing anything new with social distancing, quarantine, and isolation. These things have been the prescribed response for any society that has believed something deadly to be contagious.
From the beginning of this crisis, we have been bombarded with media content based upon emotional presuppositions rather than careful study and application. In our individualistic, arrogant, and pretentious age, we often know the answers before we ever hear the questions, much less do the research, and this crisis has exposed our cultural proclivity toward emotion over reason.
This is not new in our society as it has become part of our DNA since the 1960s, but it is the biggest crisis we have faced with our new worldview built upon autonomous individualism where everyone has their truth and their reality. In other words, our society, culturally speaking, is based upon ignorance because there is no regard or concern for real knowledge.
One of the reasons for this celebrated ignorance, in addition to our character deficiencies, is the cultural drive for spontaneous, immediate, and superficial content. Most people do not have the knowledge and experience to provide anything meaningful to the enormous volume of issues facing our society today.
With all of this, we have not yet considered all the presuppositions, standards, and wisdom involved to make the right conclusions. We have this erroneous idea that the answer to any question, dilemma, or problem lies inherently in each of us, which is why someone with no experience in an issue believes he is an expert. Humanists believe divine-like qualities naturally exist in each individual while many Christians believe it is a mystical quality given to us by the Holy Spirit. Both presuppositions produce false knee-jerk reactions to issues that need data to make wise applications. Knowledge does not grant wisdom but knowledge is a prerequisite to wisdom.
As a result, producing content in a spontaneous, immediate, and superficial World Wide Web context is not easy unless you have adequate resources, such as solvency, trained staff, and state-of-the-art technology, unless you are willing to cast thoughtfulness, evidence, and accuracy to the wind.
Much of what transpired since we entered this crisis has been a demand for immediate answers to a multitude of questions to which no one was prepared. Despite our ignorance, that has not stopped many from attempting to give concrete conclusions based upon impulses, speculation, and emotion. The drive to produce media on COVID-19 and all the issues surrounding this crisis has quickly become a fool's errand in most cases.
This is not a new phenomenon and is why we, Reformed Church of the Holy Trinity, traded our short-term hurry to change the world for a long-term calmness to change a particular church with specific families in a local community. This is not to say that we do not have a view beyond our local context. What we are saying is that change begins locally.
The point in all of this is that we have learned to be careful, purposeful, and precise in the lane God has placed us. Therefore, when this unprecedented crisis, at least unprecedented in our lifetime, came upon our nation and upon the whole world, we realized this was a situation that was not only way above us but beyond the present America Church as a whole.
No one in our modern context was thinking about, much less doing any real exegetical, legal, and historical work in the Church's response to pandemic and plague. This is not to suggest the information does not exist, but no one in the modern context was focused upon these issues.
In addition to this, it is not just theological doctrine and application, legal precedent, and historical examples but the important field of virology that is necessary to this discussion. It was obvious to us that we were going to have to be cautious and initially respond by using a general equity approach based upon standards, principles, worldviews, and examples in other related areas to this specific crisis.
This is not a problem if you believe in a systematic approach. It is not sufficient in the long run, but it is helpful and necessary to be able to see the big picture to make current real-time decisions. Until all the research can be conducted and published sufficiently and proficiently, every question, concern, and detail cannot be answered. Initially, we must walk in faith in what we know rather than speculate about what we do not know.
So, where did we begin?
First, we began with the clear teaching of Scripture concerning our disposition of submission to civil authorities. Yes, rulers are authorities to be obeyed even when we have questions and do not have all the answers to any proposed question.
Numerous passages teach this including Deuteronomy 17:8-13, Romans 13:1-7, Titus 3:1-2, and 1 Peter 2:13-17. Therefore, we are to be inclined to submission to the point that "If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men" (Romans 12:18). It does not always depend upon us in situations where "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). We may also experience situations where we are "for peace: but when [we] speak, they are for war," as David described in Psalm 120:7. Nevertheless, as much as it depends upon us we are to live peaceably with "all" men. This includes our civil authorities.
In other words, we must have specific, legitimate, lawful, and necessary reasons to disobey. It also means that we must exhaust all legitimate and lawful means to rectify any possible breach of the peace. We are to live in peace until it is impossible.
Yet, in our spontaneous, immediate, and superficial culture, too many would rather set these things aside without suffering a long train of abuses and exhausting every possible redress of grievances like our Forefathers. We forget that our independence from Great Britain was not based upon individualistic civil disobedience but legitimate and lawful governmental actions. Our Forefathers took Romans 13 seriously but today all we hear is that the answer is 1776 when we know nothing about 1776.
Based upon these prerequisites and the information we had and still have at this time, there was no supporting evidence to prove to us that we were to respond to this situation is anything other than submission to our civil rulers.
Richard Baxter, the famous English Puritan, concurs with this premise in times of pestilence writing that, "If the Magistrate for a greater good, (as the common safety) forbid Church Assemblies in a time of pestilence, assault of enemies, or fire, or the like necessity, it is a duty to obey him."6
Biblically and historically in the Reformed tradition, we could initially conclude that our response to the executive decisions of our civil rulers must begin with submission, which is what we have and will continue to do. The burden of proof is not for submission, as this is to be our disposition, but the burden of proof is upon those advocating for disobedience. So, without clear and direct evidence that the Church is to disobey and rebel against civil leaders acting to protect and preserve the life and health of its citizens, we will continue our posture of submission.
Second, we began with the pro-life or sanctity of life worldview based upon the clear teaching of natural and revealed law. This should also go without saying, but the right to life is not as highly valued as claimed by some.
However, the preservation of life is a top Biblical priority. So much so that every necessary and reasonable attempt should be made to protect innocent life.
Every command and principle in Scripture has a positive and negative expression. For example, "thou shalt not kill" also implies "thou shalt preserve life."
The case law for Old Testament Israel bears this out. In Deuteronomy 22:8, within the jurisdiction of Israel, when someone built a new house they were to construct a guardrail around their roof so they would not be guilty of shedding innocent blood if someone should accidentally fall from off the rooftop. John Gill called this negligence to reasonably protect life as manslaughter.7 It needs to be strongly emphasized that Calvin is not talking about an action of negligence but the inaction of negligence being manslaughter.
Calvin comments on this passage by writing, "This precept [Deuteronomy 22:8] also has reference to the preservation of human life. We know that the roofs of the Jewish houses were flat, so that they might freely walk upon them. If there were no railings round them, a fall would have been fatal; and every house would have often been a house of mourning. God, therefore, commands the edge to be fortified with battlements, or railings, or other inclosure, and accompanies the injunction with a severe denunciation; for He declares that the houses would be defiled with blood, if any one should fall from an uninclosed roof. Now, if guile were thus contracted by mere incautiousness, it hence appears how greatly He abominates deliberate cruelty; and, if it behooved everybody to be thus solicitous as to the lives of their brethren, it shows how criminal it is to injure them purposely and in enmity."8
This same principle of "thou shalt preserve life" is also applied to humans and animals in the specific application of a goring ox and an uncovered pit in Exodus 21:28-36.
Although the laws of separation that are part of the Ceremonial Law they do have a judicial component to them that is applicable by general equity. Whether it was the laws concerning leprosy or coming into contact with a dead body, one of the purposes was public health and safety.
What we see in these examples is that the civil government has the authority and designation to enact reasonable laws for the preservation of human life. This includes communicable diseases as the German Reformer Johann von Ewich attests:
“Neither in this case ought the authority of certain worthy and most learned men to move us, who seem too indiscreetly for to deny that this care appertains unto the Magistrate, whose office (say they) it is not to rid men from diseases, but only to maintain the safety and peace of our life and goods.
"For it may even out of their own words be proved sufficiently, that albeit the magistrate ought not to cure the diseases of every several man, or preserve them from such as do not openly ravage, nor have common causes (for this is the proper duty of the physicians), yet when as they hold it to be belonging to their charge, by their service and authority to perform, that their subjects may live commodiously: who sees not that this commodiousness does also appertain unto the health of the body? Which thing he that believes not, the same has never seen how miserably all the duties of men are cumbered, the order of the churches, the exercises of godliness, the instruction of youth, the traffic of citizens, whereupon must needs ensue a most grievous destruction of particular persons, when the plague troubles a city or country.
"Wherefore, I appeal unto thyself, whosoever thou art that art of this opinion, that thou thinkest not it to be the duty of the Magistrate to preserve the commonwealth from diseases (and especially common diseases) do not such sicknesses seem unto thee to be numbered amongst other incommodities? And can men live together commodiously when as these diseases do rage? Doubtless this canst thou not affirm if ever thou hast had experience before what the plague is, or what it may work, where it once has prevailed? Why then, say I, doest thou think it a thing not appertaining unto the duty of the magistrate, to deliver men from such diseases, that is with public care to defend?
"I pray thee, hast thou not seen that which is usual in all well ordered commonwealths, how diligently in cities the Magistrate provides and stores up such things as serve for the use of war? How carefully he prepares weapons? How busily he retains garrisons set in a readiness? Especially when he is in fear of some hurt to ensue? and to what end? but that men should live commodiously. Wherefore are horses kept; ships built; walls repaired, trenches dug, towers set up and banks cast: but that the citizens should live more commodiously in safety against the invasions or assaults of the enemies?
"Dogs are maintained for the like cause, nets are pitched, hunters are hired and troops of country people draw together if at any time wolves or such like beasts do trouble a country. I remember in the kingdom of France that certain leopards, which the king uses to keep, did break out of ward, and in every place slew the countrymen. The whole country was mustered and neither cost nor labor spared until they had rid the land from that fear. How much more justly then in this calamity and misery also ought there some provident course to be taken whereby this so mighty an enemy and cruel beast may be kept away from our throats, which in a very short time is wont to ravage very far, and as it were a canker, eat up every thing that is next [to] it?
"To the end that the clean in the Old Testament should not keep company with the unclean lepers, by the authority of the Magistrate, there was made a separation, neither were they received among the other people before that they were by the priests appointed to this office, judged cleansed after they were viewed naked.”9
Third, we responded with the principle of loving our neighbor as ourselves according to Leviticus 19:18 and in Matthew 22:39. It is important to note that in Matthew 22 Jesus identified loving God and loving your neighbor as the greatest and second greatest commandments. He then went so far to say that the whole law hinges upon these two commandments. Therefore, our application of the law toward our fellow man must begin with loving our neighbor.
There are numerous applications of this in Scripture which include esteeming others better than ourselves and putting the needs of others above ourselves (Philippians 2:3-4). For Christians, this should be an inherent precept resulting from the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 5:9).
Johann von Ewich believed so adamantly in these three principles, he wrote that those who would not follow the order the civil magistrates in a pandemic by restricting themselves, they "shall be found to have committed this heinous offense upon notorious and wicked boldness, as a murderer after the loss of his goods being set to die and having nothing further to lose (if he be without children) let him be delivered over unto the hangman.”10
We believed this was a reasonable and sound response to this extraordinary situation. Let's face it, we were unprepared for this pandemic but social distancing, quarantine, and isolation has been the common practice for at least the last 500 years.
Therefore, we believed our response beyond these three principles of submission, life, and love should be considered cautiously, academically, systematically, and with long-suffering.
However, that was not going to be the basis for the response of many who are disposed to disobedience and rebellion. As a result, there has been endless speculation, conspiracy theories, knee-jerk reactions, and uninformed conclusions. Because these ignorant and rash reactions are having a huge influence upon the whole, and specifically in our local context, we must go beyond our initial response to give fuller answers to the many questions causing discontent, chaos, and rebellion. This we will begin in the second part of A Reformed Response to COVID-19.
There are numerous applications of this in Scripture which include esteeming others better than ourselves and putting the needs of others above ourselves (Philippians 2:3-4). For Christians, this should be an inherent precept resulting from the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 5:9).
Johann von Ewich believed so adamantly in these three principles, he wrote that those who would not follow the order the civil magistrates in a pandemic by restricting themselves, they "shall be found to have committed this heinous offense upon notorious and wicked boldness, as a murderer after the loss of his goods being set to die and having nothing further to lose (if he be without children) let him be delivered over unto the hangman.”10
We believed this was a reasonable and sound response to this extraordinary situation. Let's face it, we were unprepared for this pandemic but social distancing, quarantine, and isolation has been the common practice for at least the last 500 years.
Therefore, we believed our response beyond these three principles of submission, life, and love should be considered cautiously, academically, systematically, and with long-suffering.
However, that was not going to be the basis for the response of many who are disposed to disobedience and rebellion. As a result, there has been endless speculation, conspiracy theories, knee-jerk reactions, and uninformed conclusions. Because these ignorant and rash reactions are having a huge influence upon the whole, and specifically in our local context, we must go beyond our initial response to give fuller answers to the many questions causing discontent, chaos, and rebellion. This we will begin in the second part of A Reformed Response to COVID-19.
1. "National Center for Health Statistics," Center for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed April 29, 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/life-expectancy.htm
2. Max Roser, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Hannah Ritchie, "Life Expectancy," Our World in Data, First published in 2013; last revised in October 2019, https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy
3. "National Center for Health Statistics," Center for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed April 29, 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2010/022.pdf
4. "Raising Children in the Early 17th Century: Demographics," Plimoth Foundation, accessed April 29, 2020, https://www.plimoth.org/sites/default/files/media/pdf/edmaterials_demographics.pdf
5. Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie and Bernadeta Dadonaite, "Child and Infant Mortality," First published in 2013; updated in November 2019, https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality
6. Richard Baxter, "A Christian directory," (London: Printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673), 870-872, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A26892.0001.001/1:7.125?rgn=div2;view=fulltext
7. John Gill, "Exposition on the Whole Bible," https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/geb/deuteronomy-22.html
8. John Calvin, "Commentary on the Bible," https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/cal/deuteronomy-22.html
9. Johann von Ewich, "The duetie of a faithfull and wise magistrate, in preseruing and deliuering of the eommon [sic] wealth from infection, in the time of the plague or pestilence," (Imprinted at London: At the three Cranes in the Vintree by Thomas Dawson, 1583), p. 4-5, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A00472.0001.001/1:6.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext
10. Ibid, 106, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A00472.0001.001/1:7.9?rgn=div2;view=fulltext
2. Max Roser, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Hannah Ritchie, "Life Expectancy," Our World in Data, First published in 2013; last revised in October 2019, https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy
3. "National Center for Health Statistics," Center for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed April 29, 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2010/022.pdf
4. "Raising Children in the Early 17th Century: Demographics," Plimoth Foundation, accessed April 29, 2020, https://www.plimoth.org/sites/default/files/media/pdf/edmaterials_demographics.pdf
5. Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie and Bernadeta Dadonaite, "Child and Infant Mortality," First published in 2013; updated in November 2019, https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality
6. Richard Baxter, "A Christian directory," (London: Printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673), 870-872, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A26892.0001.001/1:7.125?rgn=div2;view=fulltext
7. John Gill, "Exposition on the Whole Bible," https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/geb/deuteronomy-22.html
8. John Calvin, "Commentary on the Bible," https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/cal/deuteronomy-22.html
9. Johann von Ewich, "The duetie of a faithfull and wise magistrate, in preseruing and deliuering of the eommon [sic] wealth from infection, in the time of the plague or pestilence," (Imprinted at London: At the three Cranes in the Vintree by Thomas Dawson, 1583), p. 4-5, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A00472.0001.001/1:6.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext
10. Ibid, 106, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A00472.0001.001/1:7.9?rgn=div2;view=fulltext
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Brown Jr.
Since 2013, James has served as the pastor of Reformed Church of the Holy Trinity. For 22 years, he has worked in the ministry in Georgia and Indiana. Ordained as a Baptist minister in 2004, he is now a member of Evangel Presbytery. James is married to Sonya and they have 9 children and 6 grandchildren.
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