Noah Webster

The great American lexicographer Noah Webster was born in pre-Revolutionary New England to a Puritan family. He embarked on a career in law after the completion of his studies at Yale College in 1778, which were interrupted by a swift tour of duty in the Revolutionary War.

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Saint Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas displayed remarkable acumen in his early education and, to the dismay of his parents, resolved to embrace the religious life. He received the Order of Saint Dominic sometime between 1240 and 1243, and continued studying under Europe’s greatest scholars, including Albertus Magnus.

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Johannes Althusius

Johannes Althusius was born in Diedenshausen in Westphalia in 1557. Beyond a record of his birth, little is known about his early life. Upon receiving his doctorate in both civil and ecclesiastical law at Basle in 1586, he accepted a position on the faculty of law at the Reformed Academy at Herborn.

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Abraham Kuyper

Abraham Kuyper’s life began in the small Dutch village of Maassluis on October 29, 1837. During his first pastorate, he developed a deep devotion to Jesus Christ, spurring him to a deep commitment to Calvinist principles, which profoundly influenced his later careers.

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Hugo Grotius

In the United States’ Capitol, twenty-three marble relief portraits of historical figures central to the principles of American law oversee the House Chamber. These portraits include Moses, Pope Gregory IX, Sir William Blackstone, and Hugo Grotius. In truth, Grotius’s jurisprudence was considered authoritative by the American Founders.

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Luis de Molina

Born in Spain in 1535, Luis de Molina was one of the most accomplished, learned figures in the sixteenth-century revival of Scholasticism on the Iberian peninsula. A member of the Jesuit Order, Molina spent twenty-nine years of his life in Portugal–first as a student, then as a professor of theology, law, and philosophy.

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William Perkins

William Perkins, Cambridge scholar and preacher, was one of the most popular theologians of the Elizabethan age, eventually outselling even John Calvin.

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John Milton

John Milton is generally regarded, next to William Shakespeare, as the greatest English poet, and his magnificent Paradise Lost is considered one of the finest epic poems in the English language. Educated at Saint Paul's School in London and Christ's College in Cambridge, Milton was versed in Latin, Greek, French, and Italian.

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John Locke

Philosopher John Locke, along with thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and Rene Descartes, is often blamed by Christian social ethicists for misappropriating the natural law tradition, articulating unbiblical views of human nature, and generally secularizing modern Western political reflection.

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Charles Carroll of Carrollton

When the signatories of the Declaration of Independence pledged their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor,” few men had more to lose than Charles Carroll of Carrollton. A wealthy landowner, businessman, and member of a prominent Maryland family, Carroll risked the confiscation of his estate and the loss of his life if the British had prevailed.

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Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was one of the most eminent men of an exceptionally eminent generation. He was handsome, articulate, vigorous, and a steadfast friend. He was also an accomplished scientist, farmer, and architect. His massive library formed the core of the Library of Congress's new collection after the first was lost in the burning of Washington in the War of 1812.

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James Madison

In the Spring of 1776, with the American Revolution well under-way, the Commonwealth of Virginia's Revolutionary Convention deliberated the new state's constitution. The delegates intended to include a Declaration of Rights, which, in turn, would include a clause on religious liberty.

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