George Washington, in prayer, at Valley Forge
Scene 1 - Lexington (April 19, 1775)
On the evening of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere crossed the Charles River in a rowboat, acquired a horse, and set out on his famous “ride,” arriving in Lexington about midnight. There he stopped at the home of the Reverend Jonas Clarke, pastor of the Church of Christ in Lexington, where both John Hancock and Samuel Adams were in hiding. An urgent discussion ensued, and the decision was made to oppose the imminent British incursion into Cambridge with military force. Hancock asked Pastor Clarke if the local people would fight; Clarke replied, “I have trained them for this very hour; they will fight, and, if need be, die, too, under the shadow of the house of God!” Word went out, and armed men began to gather on the Lexington Green at 2:00 AM, with Clarke the first to arrive. By daybreak, about 100 American patriots blocked the path of the British columns. Most of these men were members of Clarke’s congregation at the Church of Christ. When the British troops first appeared at Lexington, it was Rev. Clarke, his congregation and his Church who stood in their way. At the conclusion of the fateful battle, eight Americans lay dead, all members of Clarke’s church. Viewing the dead and wounded on Lexington Green, Clarke proclaimed, “From this day will be dated the liberty of the world.”
Later in the day, in the British advance to Concord and subsequent retreat under fire to Boston, most who awaited the British along the road were members of either Clarke’s church or from the churches of the Rev. Phillips Payson and the Rev. Benjamin Balch, both of whom had rallied their congregations to meet the returning British. As word of the fighting spread, other pastors quickly responded and sent word out to their congregants to join the attack on the retreating British troops.
Years later in recalling those events, the Rev. William Ware of Cambridge wrote, “It would not be beyond the truth to assert that there was no person at that time and in that vicinity—not only no clergyman, but no other person of whatever calling or profession—who took a firmer stand for the liberties of the country or was more ready to perform the duties and endure the sacrifices of a patriot than the minister of Lexington.”
Scene 2 - Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775)
On the morning of June 17, when word came that fighting had commenced at Bunker Hill, several Christian ministers rushed to give support. Rev. David Grosvenor left his pulpit in mid-sermon and, with rifle in hand, marched to the scene of action. He was accompanied by the Rev. Jonathan French, pastor of South Church at Andover. At the battle-site they were met by Rev. John Martin of Rhode Island, who, after praying with the soldiers at Bunker Hill, seized a musket and fought gallantly to the close of the battle. He became known as the “Fighting Parson of Bunker Hill.” One day after the Battle, Martin preached to the remnants of his shattered regiment from Nehemiah iv. 14: “And I said unto the nobles and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be ye not afraid of them. Remember the Lord which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and daughters, your wives and your houses.” Later, on the Day of Prayer, authorized by the Continental Congress to be observed on July 20, 1775, he expanded on this sermon. At the Great Valley Baptist Church in Tredyffryn, Pennsylvania. He said:
“Alas! alas! that ever there was occasion of even a defensive war: but occasion there has been and occasion there now is. The reason why a defensive war seems so awful to good people is they esteem it to be some kind of murder, but this is a very great mistake, for it is no more murder than a legal process against a criminal. The end is the same, the mode is different. In some cases it is the only mode left to obtain justice. And surely that religion is not from a heaven which is against justice on earth. .
“We have no choice left to us but to submit to absolute slavery and despotism, or as freemen to stand in our own defense and endeavor a noble resistance. Matters are at last brought to this deplorable extremity. Every reasonable method of reconciliation has been tried in vain. Our addresses to our king have been treated with neglect or contempt. . . Now therefore let us join, and fight for our brethren. Remember our Congress is in imminent danger. It is composed of men of equal characters and fortunes of most, if not superior to any in North America. — These worthy gentlemen have ventured all in the cause of liberty for our sakes. . . if we do not stand by them, even unto death, we should be guilty of the basest ingratitude, and entail on ourselves everlasting infamy. . . Oh! remember if you submit to arbitrary measures, you will entail on your sons despotic power. Your sons and your daughters must be strangers to the comforts of liberty. They will be considered like beasts of burden, only made for their masters’ use. If the groans and cries of posterity in oppression can be any argument, come now, my noble countrymen, fight for your sons and your daughters.”
At least 13 ministers served at Bunker Hill. At least four would be killed in the battle. Some provided moral support and guidance, some tended the injured, some picked up guns and fought, and many brought members of their congregations with them. One was the Rev. Samuel McClintock of Greenland, New Hampshire. During the battle McClintock stood in sight of the soldiers. He did not carry a weapon but raised his arms in prayer throughout the battle, a scene captured later by Jonathan Trumbull in his painting. Another, more militant, participant that day was the Rev. Joseph Thaxter. He had earlier participated in the fight at Concord Bridge, and at the battle of Bunker Hill forty-nine members of his regiment were killed at the Breed Hill redoubt. He later fought at the Battle of White Plains, and he became known for always carrying two loaded pistols throughout the war.
Perhaps one of the most valiant combatants at Bunker Hill was the Rev. David Avery. Some years earlier, Avery had been converted to the Christian faith by George Whitefield. He also studied medicine. When word of the crisis in Boston reached Vermont, Avery promptly gathered twenty men and marched toward Boston, recruiting additional troops along the way, At Bunker Hill, he did not bear arms, but he stayed to the end, and according to one report was “intrepid and fearless in battle, unwearied in his attentions to the sick and wounded.” Later in the War, Avery often rode with General Washington and took meals with him.
One month after the Battle, the Rev. Robert Davidson, a Philadelphia Presbyterian, delivered a sermon to the assembled American troops of that city. Pointing to the devastating losses the British had taken at Breed’s Hill, he took his theme from 1 Chronicles v. 22: “For there fell down many slain because the war was of God.”—which created the intense enthusiasm among officers and men.
Scene 3 - Newburyport, on the way to Canada (September 16, 1775)
In the Summer of 1775, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, with the full support of George Washington, decided upon America’s first offensive military action of the War—an invasion of Quebec. Two armies were organized to carry out the attack. The first, under General Montgomery, proceeded up the Hudson Valley to Montreal. The second, under Benedict Arnold, traveled through New England to attempt an overland expedition to Quebec City.
On September 16, 1775, Arnold’s army, with more than 1,000 volunteer soldiers, arrived at Newburyport, Massachusetts. That city would be their staging camp, from which the invasion force would head north. On the eve of their departure, soldiers of the army, led by Arnold and his second-in-command Daniel Morgan, entered the Newburyport First Presbyterian Church and proceeded to the tomb of George Whitefield in the basement vault of the Church. The Rev. Samuel Spring, an eye-witness, later reported on what transpired:
“On the Sabbath morning the officers, and as many of the soldiers as could be crowded on to the floor of the house, were marched into the Presbyterian Church in Federal Street. They marched in with colors flying and drums beating and formed two lines through which I passed—they presenting arms and the drums rolling until I was seated in the pulpit. Then the soldiers stacked their arms all over the aisles and I preached to the army and to the citizens who crowded the galleries from this text: ‘If thy spirit go not with us, carry us not up hence.’” After the service the general officers gathered around me. The men requested a visit to Whitefield’s tomb. The sexton was hunted up, the key procured, and we descended to his coffin. He had lain in the tomb six years but was in good preservation. The officers induced the sexton to take off the lid of the coffin. The body had nearly all returned to dust. Some portions of his graveclothes remained. His collar and wristbands, in the best preservation, were taken and carefully cut in little pieces and divided among them.”
The soldiers took small pieces from Whitefield’s garments—from his shirt, his coat and his trousers—and shared them among themselves. They tucked them in their boots or sewed them to their coats or put them in the lining of their hats. All of these volunteer soldiers who gathered around his tomb knew of Whitefield, and many had personally heard him speak at one or more of the multitude of his public sermons. To them he was the “Apostle of the Age,” and they would take these “holy relics” with them on the arduous journey to Canada.
The Black Regiment
The examples given above, of Lexington, Bunker Hill and Newburyport, tell only a minuscule portion of the larger picture. During the initial stages of the Revolution—1775 and 1776—the ranks of Washington’s Army and the local militias were filled with congregants from dozens of Christian churches, and it was the ministers of those churches who inspired these men to abandon their homes and fight for liberty, sometimes personally leading them into battle.
Perhaps the most famous example of this was the Rev. Peter Muhlenberg (1746-1807). On January 21, 1776, at a service in his Lutheran Woodstock, Virginia church, Muhlenberg, took his sermon text from the third chapter Ecclesiastes, which starts with “To every thing there is a season. . .” After reading the eighth verse, “a time of war, and a time of peace,” he declared, “And this is the time of war!” With those words, Muhlenberg unbuttoned and removed his clerical robe to reveal a Colonel’s uniform. He instructed that the doors of the church be opened, and outside the church door a military band began a drum roll. Muhlenberg called on his parishioners to step forward in defense of their country. Men, sitting in the pews, turned to kiss their wives and children, and then walked down the aisle to enlist. Within half an hour, 162 men were enrolled. The next day Muhlenberg led 300 new soldiers on a march out of the county. They would form the nucleus of the 8th Virginia Regiment. They would suffer at Valley Forge and Morristown and fight at Brandywine, Germantown and Yorktown. By the war’s end Muhlenberg would rise to the rank of Major General.
As inspiring as Muhlenberg’s story is, note that similar incidents occurred over and over again at dozens of churches throughout the colonies. A complete list of the churches and ministers involved in this is far too numerous to enumerate here. Just consider the following examples:
Rev. Nathaniel Bartlett, of the Congregational Church of Redding, Connecticut, was a firebrand for the Colonial American cause. He allowed war provisions to be stored in his home, including gunpowder. Local Tories vowed to hang him if he were captured. Throughout the War, Bartlett made his parochial rounds with a loaded musket in one hand, and a Bible in the other.
Rev. James Caldwell, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, urged his congregations to volunteer during the American Revolution. Because of his strong stand for liberty and his sermons encouraging the colonists to fight, he became a target for the tories. Each Sunday he would step into his pulpit, wearing two pistols, place them on the pulpit, and then proceed to preach powerful sermons about the need for Christians to stand for truth. He was so hated by the British they called him the “Rebel Priest.”
Rev. John Steele, a Presbyterian minister from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, led a force of 100 volunteers to attack Howe’s army; Rev. Joseph Willard raised two full companies and then marched with them to battle; Rev. James Latta recruited almost all of his male parishioners and then joined with them as a common soldier; Rev. William Graham , of Paxton, Pennsylvania, was so dismayed by the reluctance of young men in his church to enlist that he signed his own name on the enrollment papers. This shamed them into patriotism, and they all became riflemen in Washington’s Army; Rev. Nathaniel Porter marched on foot like a common soldier through the wilderness to Fort Independence on Lake Champlain; Rev. Thomas Read of Pennsylvania enlisted in the militia, shouldered his musket; and with fifty others marched to Philadelphia to aid in defending it against Howe; and the next year saved Washington from being overwhelmed at Elk Ferry by his knowledge of the country; Rev. Samuel Spring, mentioned above, accompanied Benedict Arnold in his march through the wilderness, the only chaplain attached to the perilous expedition to Quebec.
It was said of Rev. John Craighead that “he fought and preached alternately”; Rev. John Blair Smith was captain of a company that rallied to support the retreating Americans after the battle of Cowpens; Rev. James Hall commanded a company that armed against Cornwallis; Rev. Amnie Bobbins of Branford, Massachusetts accompanied Schuyler’s brigade as a volunteer to Canada and became an angel of mercy to the army when it was stricken down with the small pox; Rev. Stephen Farrar of New Hampshire led 97 of his parishioners to Cambridge to enlist in Washington’s Army; Rev. Benjamin Balch, whose congregants fought at Concord, later in the war served in the Navy. In one fierce battle against two British ships, Balch grabbed a musket and fought so fiercely that he earned the nickname “The Fighting Parson”.
Rev. Azel Roe, minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Woodbridge, New Jersey placed himself under the enemy’s fire and refused to retire, rallying his fellow soldiers to stand and fight. Later, he was taken prisoner and thrown into the infamous Sugar House prison of New York; Rev. David Ely, a Congregational Minister from Connecticut, though surrounded by Tories, he preached rebellion, and the tories vowed to hang him on an oak that stood near his own church; Rev. Joseph Fish, from Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, was pastor of the Congregational Church in North Stonington, Connecticut. Although seventy-six years of age, he was invited to address the men assembled at the call of Washington for immediate volunteers. He said, “Were it not that my nerves are unstrung and my limbs enfeebled with age, on such a call as you have, I think I should willingly quit the desk, put off my priestly garments, buckle on the harness, and with trumpet in hand hasten to battle”; Rev. Abraham Keteltas – authored God Arising And Pleading His People’s Cause; Or The American War . . . Shewn To Be The Cause Of God, where he avowed that the American effort was “the cause of truth, against error and falsehood . . .the cause of pure and undefiled religion, against bigotry, superstition, and human invention . . .in short, it is the cause of heaven against hell.”
Rev. Manasseh Cutler, a Congregational minister from Ipswich, Massachusetts. In 1778, he took part in General John Sullivan’s expedition to Rhode Island. Cutler was friends with both George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. After the War, he became a member of the United States House of Representatives and in 1787 was influential in the passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and wrote the section prohibiting slavery in the Northwest Territory.
Rev. Isaac Lewis - of Stratford, Connecticut. When the British attempted to land at Norwalk, he assembled with his parishioners to repel them and saw a cannon ball land three feet away. Forced back by superior numbers, he witnessed the British burn down the town. Only one house was left standing, and into this the pastor gathered his people and preached to them from Isaiah lxiv. 11, 12: “Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid waste. Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O Lord, wilt thou hold thy peace and afflict us very sore?” Lewis’s battle experience was brief but memorable. Shortly after the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, Isaac left wife, child, and family farm behind to go to war against the British. He fought in the Battle of Long Island, was shot in the thigh and crippled for life.
For those who think the above list is too long or tedious, please be aware that it is merely a partial list. Triple, quadruple or quintuple the number of Christian heroes could be named. It was the Christian ministers who recruited Washington’s army. As one historian observed, the Christian ministers “were far more effective than army recruiters in rounding up citizen-soldiers.”
In London, the paramount role of the American ministers in the Revolution was fully recognized. George III, Lord North and others raged against what they called the “Black Regiment” of Christian ministers, with the epithet referring to the black clerical robes that many of the clergymen wore. Word went out to the British field commanders that the Christian clergy were to be specifically targeted. Writing in 1864, the historian Joel Headley said:
“There was a class of clergymen and chaplains in the Revolution whom the British, when they once laid hands on them, treated with the most barbarous severity. Dreading them for the influence they wielded and hating them for the obstinacy, courage, and enthusiasm they infused into the rebels, they violated all the usages of war among civilized nations in order to inflict punishment upon them.”
Rev. Naphtali Daggett, President of Yale — When the British attacked his New Haven home, Daggett fought them off with a rifle. After he was captured and unarmed, British soldiers stabbed him multiple times with their bayonets. Local townspeople secured Daggett’s release, but he died from the wounds.
Rev. James Caldwell offered similar resistance in New Jersey, so the British burned his church, and he and his entire family were murdered.
Rev. David Cauldwell of Pennsylvania had his house plundered, his library and furniture burned while he was hunted like a common felon. He was finally captured and was forced to witness as British officers burned his Presbyterian church to the ground. Shortly thereafter, Cauldwell’s wife was killed by British soldiers as they shot through the window of Cauldwell’s home, killing his wife as she sat on a bed, holding their child.
Rev. Charles McKnight - one of the founders and trustees of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). Reverend McKnight’s church at Middletown Point was burned in 1777, and Reverend McKnight was arrested. He was thrown into the British prison ship HMS Jersey in New York Harbor and treated with such brutality that he died soon after his release.
Rev. Hezekiah Ripley - a Chaplain in the Continental Army and good friend of George Washington, He watched as British soldiers and Hessians burned down his church. Later, his house was burned to the ground. He was later captured, but escaped at night when the guards were sleeping.
As stated above, Rev. Azel Roe, minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Woodbridge, New Jersey, was captured and thrown into the infamous Sugar House prison of New York
Rev. John Witherspoon – the President of Princeton University, which the British charged was a “seminary of sedition,” he was repeatedly hunted by the British. Later, in 1776, he would sign the Declaration of Independence.
In many of the colonies, particularly New York and Virginia, almost all of the non-Anglican churches were destroyed by the British, usually accompanied by great bloodshed. It should be pointed out that American Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Quaker and Baptist ministers refused to take the Oath of Allegiance to the British Monarch, something required of all Anglican clergymen since 1604.
A Chaplain at Brandywine
The following Sermon was delivered, at George Washington’s request, by a Reverend Trout to the assembled troops on the eve of the Battle of Brandywine (September 10, 1777):
Matthew xxvi — “They that take the sword shall perish by the sword!”
Soldiers and countrymen! We have met this evening, perhaps, for the last time. We have shared the toil of the march, the peril of the fight, the dismay of the retreat; alike we have endured cold and hunger, the abuse of the infernal foe, and outrage of the foreign oppressor. We have sat night after night beside the same campfire; shared the same rough soldiers’ fare; we have together heard the roll of the reveille which called us to duty or the beat of the tattoo which gave the signal for the hardy sleep of the soldier, with the earth for his bed and his knapsack for a pillow. And now soldiers and brethren, we have met in the peaceful valley on the eve of the battle while the sunlight is dying away behind yonder heights— the sunlight that to-morrow morn will glimmer on scenes of blood. We have met amid the whitening tents of our encampment; in times of terror and gloom have we gathered together. God grant it may not be for the last time.
It is a solemn moment. Brethren, does not the solemn voice of nature seem to echo the sympathies of the town? The flag of our country droops heavily from yonder staff. The breeze has died away along the green plain of Chadd’s Ford—the plain that spreads before us glistening in sunlight—the heights of the Brandywine arise dark and gloomy beyond the waters of yonder stream and all nature holds a pause of solemn silence on the eve of the uproar of the bloodshed and strife of tomorrow.
“They that take the sword shall perish by the sword,” and have they not taken the sword?
Let the blood-stained valley; the desolated homes; the burned farmhouse; the murdered farmer; let the whitening bones of our own countrymen answer! Let the starving mother with the babe clinging to her withered breast— let her answer with the death rattle mingling with the murmuring tones that mark the last struggle for life; let the dying mother and her babe answer!
It was but a day past and our land slept in the light of peace. War was not here, wrong was not here. Fraud, and woe, and misery, and want dwelt not among us. From the eternal solitude of the green woods arose the blue smoke of the settler’s cabin; and golden fields of corn looked forth from amid the waste of the wilderness; and the glad music of human voices awoke the silence of the forest.
Now! God of mercy! Behold the change. Under the shadow of a pretext, under the sanctity of the name of God invoking the Redeemer to their aid, do these foreign hirelings slay our people. They throng our towns; they darken our plains; and now they encompass our posts on the lonely plain of Chadd’s Ford. “They that take the sword shall perish by the sword,” Brethren! think me not unworthy of belief when I tell you that the doom of the Britisher is near!
Think me not vain when I tell you that beyond the cloud which now enshrouds us, I see gathering thick and fast the darker cloud and the blacker storm of Divine Retribution They may conquer us on the morrow!—might and wrong may prevail and we may be driven from the field—but the hour of God’s vengeance will come! Aye, if in the vast solitudes of eternal space; if in the heart of the boundless universe there throbs the being of an awful God, quick to revenge and sure to punish guilt, there will the man— George of Brunswick, called King— feel in his brain and in his heart the vengeance of the eternal Jehovah! a blight will be upon his life; a withered brain, an accursed intellect; a blight will be upon his children and his people. Great God! how dread the punishment!
Soldiers! I look around upon your familiar faces with a strange interest. Tomorrow we will all go forth to battle; for need I tell you that your unworthy minister will march with you— invoking God’s aid in the fight. We will march forth to battle. Need I exhort you to fight the good fight for your homesteads, your wives, and your children? And in the hour of battle, when all around is darkness, lit by the lurid cannon glare and the piercing musket flash, when the wounded strew the ground and the dead litter your path. Then remember, soldiers, that God is with you. The eternal God is with you and fights for you. God! the awful, the infinite, fights for you and you will triumph.
“They that take the sword shall perish by the sword.”
You have taken the sword; but not in the spirit of wrong and revenge. You have taken the sword for your homes, for your wives, and for your little ones. You have taken the sword for truth, for justice, and for right; and to you the promise is, be of good cheer for your foes have taken the sword in defiance of all man holds dear. They shall perish by the sword. And now, brethren and soldiers, I bid you all farewell. Many of us may fall in the fight of tomorrow. God rest the souls of the fallen; many of us may live to tell the story of the fight of tomorrow and in the memory of all will rest the quiet scenes of this autumn night.
Solemn twilight advances over the valley; the woods on the opposite heights fling their long shadows over the green of the meadow; around us are the tents of the continental host; the suppressed bustle of the camp; the hurried tread of the soldiers to and fro among the tents; the stillness that marks the eve of battle.
When we meet again, may the long shadows of twilight be flung over a peaceful land. God in heaven grant it! Amen.
George Whitefield
In a work like this one is tempted to go back and examine all of the influences at play that led into the outbreak of war in 1775. To do this justice one would really have to begin with the Plymouth colony in 1620, and the arrival of the Puritans in 1630. That is where the “freedom seed” was planted. Later, the path to Revolution began in 1684 with the revocation of the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, an action which the Congregational ministers of Boston, led by the Rev. Increase Mather, fought fiercely against. This was repeated in many other colonies as the British Crown acted to transform all of them into Royal Colonies, by abolishing or limiting self-government. During those years, we see many individuals who fanned the flame of rebellion, including the Reverends John Wise, Samuel Willard, Jacob Duché, Jonathan Mayhew, Timothy Dwight and many others. Opposition to London’s tyrannical actions came originally from American Congregationalists and Presbyterians, but as the crisis deepened they were joined by Lutherans, Baptists, Catholics, a smattering of Quakers, and even a few dis-affected Anglicans. All of this is important—one might argue very important—but we must pass over any further discussion of it here. A detailed litany of those events will not deepen the understanding of what transpired. Instead, in this closing section, we shall focus on the ministry of George Whitefield.
“Upon his lips the Gospel appears even to the coarsest of men as sweet and as true as, in fact, it is.”
— George Washington on George Whitefield
To understand the profound influence of George Whitefield, it is crucial to recognize that between 1739 and 1770 more than 80 percent of the people then living in the American colonies had personally attended one or more of his sermons. In fact, by the time of his death in 1770, Whitefield had addressed more human beings than any other individual in human history.
His youth was turbulent, with ups and downs, and he was pulled in many directions. During those years, however, there were a number of religious works which had a lasting impact on him. One was Thomas á Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ, which he read at the age of sixteen. He said that the work made him “impatient till the bell rang to call me to tread the courts of the Lord’s House.”
He was also influenced by William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. Law was a theologian who lost all of his positions in the Church of England because of his refusal, in 1714, to swear an Oath of Allegiance to the new King George I. Law also authored a powerful rebuke of Bernard de Mandeville in 1723, in his Remarks on Mandeville’s ‘Fable of the Bees’. At the age of eighteen, George read and was greatly influenced by Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man, and Scougal’s message that “true religion was union of the soul with God, and Christ formed within us.”
At Oxford, he befriended John Wesley, beginning a long, sometimes affectionate and sometimes contentious relationship. In 1736 he was ordained as an Anglican minister, and the next year he undertook his first (of eight) trips to America. He had been invited to preach in Georgia by George Oglethorpe, the original anti-slavery founder of that colony. Whitefield was twenty-three years old.
On February 17, 1739, in England, George Whitefield lifted his voice and delivered his first out of doors sermon. This was unheard of at the time and was condemned by Church of England leaders. He preached again in Kingswood and this time to thousands. The meetings continued, night after night, and the crowds grew. The climax arrived on March 25, when more than twenty-three thousand people gathered to hear the young preacher’s final sermon. He then began open-air preaching in London itself. During the summer of 1739, Whitefield preached to somewhere between eight hundred thousand and one million people. It was more than any Englishman had ever addressed in the entire history of the nation.
On October 30, 1739, Whitefield arrived for the second time on American shores. Landing in Delaware, he traveled to Philadelphia, where he spoke from the Courthouse steps to a crowd of somewhere between 20 and 30 thousand. It was here that he met Benjamin Franklin, which began what would prove to be a life-long friendship. He next traveled to New York, stopping in New Jersey to preach at the “log college” (what would become Princeton University) of William Tennent and his son, Gilbert, He returned to Philadelphia and preached repeatedly. On November 29, the day of his departure, people thronged his door, pleading with him to remain. A company of two hundred horsemen escorted him from the city and the justices, who were in session, suspended their business until he had preached his final sermon.
In subsequent American trips, he repeatedly visited Philadelphia (and Franklin), but his mission took him to every corner of the 13 colonies. He rode south by horseback, through Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, preaching everywhere. He went to New England, preaching in Boston, Rhode Island and Connecticut. He preached to tens of thousands on the Boston Commons. He preached in many smaller surrounding towns. On one trip, in eight days he traveled 178 miles by horseback and preached sixteen times.
Whitefield found particular success in Connecticut. In fact, it is from the pen of a Connecticut farmer, a man named Nathan Cole, that we have one of the most moving testimonials of Whitefield’s fame and preaching power. Here, in part, is Cole’s account:
“Now it pleased God to send Mr. Whitefield into this land; and my hearing of his preaching at Philadelphia, like one of the old apostles, and many thousands flocking to hear him preach the Gospel, and great numbers were converted to Christ, I felt the Spirit of God drawing me by conviction; I longed to see and hear him and wished he would come this way …
“Then on a sudden, in the morning about 8 or 9 of the clock there came a messenger and said Mr. Whitefield preached at Hartford and Wethersfield yesterday and is to preach at Middletown this morning at ten of the clock. I was in my field at work. I dropped my tool that I had in my hand and ran home to my wife, telling her to make ready quickly to go and hear Mr. Whitefield preach at Middletown, then ran to my pasture for my horse with all my might, fearing that I should be too late.
“Having my horse, I with my wife soon mounted the horse and went forward as fast as I thought the horse could bear; and when my horse got much out of breath, I would get down and put my wife on the saddle and bid her ride as fast as she could and not stop or slack for me except I bade her, and so I would run until I was much out of breath and then mount my horse again, and so I did several times to favour my horse. .
“As I drew nearer it seemed like a steady stream of horses and their riders, scarcely a horse more than his length behind another, all of a lather and foam with sweat, their breath rolling out of their nostrils every jump. Every horse seemed to go with all his might to carry his rider to hear news from heaven for the saving of souls. It made me tremble to see the sight, how the world was in a struggle.
“I found a vacancy between two horses to slip in mine … When I saw Mr. Whitefield come upon the scaffold, he looked almost angelical; a young, slim, slender youth, before some thousands of people with a bold undaunted countenance. And my hearing how God was with him everywhere as he came along, it solemnized my mind and put me into a trembling fear before he began to preach; for he looked as if he was clothed with authority from the Great God, and a sweet solemn solemnity sat upon his brow, and my hearing him preach gave me a heart wound. By God’s blessing, my old foundation was broken up, and I saw that my righteousness would not save me.”
Whitefield had read the earlier Puritan writings and he knew that New England had forgotten her God. When he preached to the descendants of “the first comers,” he reminded them of their past heritage, their calling that made the exploits of their ancestors possible. He delivered more than 175 sermons in New England to tens and tens of thousands. He engendered a revived vision of purpose that caused people to view their world differently. This was the effect, not only in New England, but throughout all of the colonies. Whitefield said “All things concur to convince me that America is to be my chief scene for action.”
Whitefield’s preaching turned the colonists to a God many had long forgotten. As with the apostles of the first century AD, he preached not simply good works or obedience to doctrine, but salvation through Jesus. His was a demanding calling, but it was also one of profound love. He called upon Americans to see themselves in terms of a divine destiny, to understand the true mission of America. He reminded them of their Puritan heritage and the dream of becoming a “City upon a hill,” a Christian light to all men. On the wings of these truths arose a new identity, an American identity. He stressed again and again that our inalienable rights came not from kings or parliaments but from God alone. The rapacious demands from imperial London, beginning with the taxes to pay off the imperial French-and-Indian-War debt, were the opening salvo of an imperial offensive, one that would end political and religious freedom. All of this would ultimately lead to revolution, and Whitefield saw this. His tireless work was the birth of what became the “Spirit of 1776.”
One of the most telling tributes to him comes from the wife of Jonathan Edwards. While touring Massachusetts, Whitefield was invited to preach at Northampton in the church of the famed Jonathan Edwards. Edwards, of course, was known for sermons like “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” After hearing Whitefield preach, Edwards’ wife Sarah said this of him, “He makes less of the doctrines than our American preachers generally do, and aims more at affecting the heart. It is wonderful to see what a spell he casts over an audience by proclaiming the simplest truths of the Bible. I have seen upwards of a thousand people hang on his words with breathless silence, broken only by an occasional half-suppressed sob.”
As time passed, Whitefield came under brutal attack. The Church of England was determined to destroy him. Former allies, like John Wesley deserted him. The attacks were the most brutal in his journeys in England, Scotland and Wales, where his meetings were broken up. He was beaten, stoned, even stabbed. His pulpits were smashed, and there was at least one attempt to assassinate him. In America, it was not as bad, but by the 1750s and 60s leading Anglican officials, together with London’s colonial authorities did everything they could, including hiring thugs to break up his sermons, to stop his preaching. But Whitefield did not stop.
One individual who never deserted Whitefield, who cherished and embraced their relationship, was Benjamin Franklin. The bond between the two men was unbreakable. Franklin once wrote to Whitefield: “I sometimes wish, that you and I were jointly employ’d by the Crown to settle a colony on the Ohio. . . to settle in that fine country a strong body of religious and industrious people. Might it not greatly facilitate the introduction of pure religion among the heathen, if we could, by such a colony, show them a better sample of Christians than they commonly see in our Indian traders?”
On February 13, 1766, Franklin was summoned to appear before the entire Parliament to answer questions about American opposition to the Stamp Act. This was not exactly a Star Chamber proceeding (like Franklin’s later appearance before the Privy Council in the Cockpit), but it was a grueling interrogation that went on for hours. Accompanying Franklin to the Parliament and standing at his side as he was forced to answer 174 separate questions, was George Whitefield. . . and no one else.
Whitefield knew a Day of Reckoning was coming for America. In 1764 he sent an urgent plea to the leading ministers of Portsmouth. It is blunt, but note the compassion, the tender devotion to the cause of America.
“I can’t in conscience leave the town without acquainting you with a secret. My heart bleeds for America. O poor New England! There is a deep laid plot against both your civil and religious liberties, and they will be lost. Your golden days are at an end. You have nothing but trouble before you.”
As the 1760s proceeded, he spoke often of liberty and the obligations of church and state to preserve it. And, in New England, he always admonished the people and their leaders to measure themselves against the courage and devout belief of the “old-comers” of 1620 and 1630. He awakened in hundreds of thousands of hearts a sense of their true destiny. Given the moronic “No Kings” protests of today, it is ironic that many of the Christian soldiers who marched into battle in 1775 and 1776 chanted “No King but King Jesus! No King but King Jesus!” This is why they pledged to God their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
George Whitefield died in 1770, simply worn out by the toll from decades of ceaseless labor. At the time of his death, Whitefield was the most famous man in America, more famous even than Benjamin Franklin. Knowing that the end was near for his friend and compatriot, Franklin wrote to his brother concerning Whitefield. He simply said, “He is a good man, and I love him.”
Those who followed later—the patriot ministers of 1775 and 1776 and the patriot soldiers from dozens of Christian congregations—were all Whitefield’s children. And it was through their courage that the American Republic was born.
For further reading:
• Clarke, Jonas, Opening of the War of the Revolution: 19th of April 1775-A Brief Narrative, Lexington Historical Society, 1901
• Headley, Joel, Chaplains & Clergy of the American Revolution, Charles Scribner, Bew York, 1864
• Mansfield, Stephen, Forgotten Founding Father: The Heroic legacy of George Whitefield, Highland Books, Cumberland House, Nashville, Tennessee, 2001
• Various authors, Sermons on the Outbreak of War, 1775, National Humanities Center, 2010/2013
Thank you, Bob, for this critical and moving piece. I will be sharing this.
Those were rough times! And strong minded people! Thanks for sharing this history!