Stiff Right Jab: George Washington: Believer Liberator

Steve Farrell
August 15, 2002

Who freed America from King George, God or George Washington?

An irate atheist, disturbed that an American writer in a major US publication dared testify that thousands of years ago God freed Israel from Egyptian bondage, and that the fundamental laws which followed the event - namely the ten commandments - were intended to be a universal freedom blueprint, wrote the following retort:

"You've got to be a joke. How can anyone take you seriously, if you believe, as a matter of history, this: "The Lord stepped in and freed them."

"Did the Lord step in and free America from King George? No. George Washington stepped in."

My response to the reader and his ilk is this: there is no joke here. Revisionist history aside, George Washington and his fellows never embraced the faithless, arrogant belief that the American Revolution was won by man's brute and brawn and genius, alone.

From the beginning of the War, there was no doubt as to where Washington drew his strength and resolve and his hope for victory.

When the First Continental Congress convened in 1774, and Thomas Jefferson called for a prayer to be offered, the Founders, each of them, in faith and humility bowed before their Maker. One delegate knelt. Bishop White, who was present, says that the kneeling man was George Washington. (1)

Congress, from that day forward, became a praying and a believing body of men. Recalled Benjamin Franklin, a dozen years later:

"In the Beginning of the Contest with Britain, when we were sensible of Danger, we had daily Prayers in this Room for the Divine Protection. Our Prayers, Sir, were heard; - and they were graciously answered. All of us, who were engag'd in the Struggle, must have observed frequent Instances of a superintending Providence in our Favour." (2)

This thing must disturb the militant atheist, or the deceitful libertine libertarian, that the collective feeling of those men who produced the greatest and freest government in the history of the world was that they relied upon God, and held out the invincible conviction that He had intervened in their favor. As Patrick Henry, in his stirring "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death," had predicted:

"[W]e shall not fight our battles alone." (3)

No one defended this conviction more stoutly than General George Washington. To Joseph Reed, he wrote on January 4, 1776:

"How it will end, God in his great goodness will direct. I am thankful for his protection to this time." (4)

To the Massachusetts legislature several months later, wrote he:

"The interposition of . . . Providence . . . has manifestly appeared in our behalf through the whole of this important struggle. . . .

"May that being, who is powerful to save, and in whose hands is the fate of nations, look down with an eye of tender pity and compassion upon the whole of the United Colonies; may He continue to smile upon their counsels and arms, and crown them with success, whilst employed in the cause of virtue and mankind." (5)

Washington knew if God was to be on America's side, their cause must be just, her soldiers must pray, but more than this, they must act like Christians. He believed, for instance, that using the Lord's name in vain undermined an army's strength. Therefore, in 1776, he issued this order, which he repeated when necessary:

"The General is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice heretofore little known in an American army, is growing into fashion. He hopes the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessings of heaven on our arms if we insult it by our impiety and folly." (6)

Washington, as we see, was a level headed believer who saw faith and manly works as a sensible combination which pleases God.

We need to engage in a "brave resistance ... [to] conquer or die ... [to engage in a] vigorous and manly exertion ... [and to] rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions." (7)

Along the same line, the aid of the supreme Being had worked so many "miracles for our deliverance," the General wrote, that he worried that the troops might become so over-dependent upon the miraculous, that they would stop "troubling [themselves] about the matter," or fail to do their part. (8)

Column space doesn't permit a numbering of the numberless miracles wherein Washington's troops were delivered by changes in the elements, impressions in Washington's heart, the timely discovery of traitors, the sparing of the general's life in instances when surely he should have died, and in that instant wherein the "just God who presides over the destinies of nations ... raise[d] up friends to fight our battles for us," (9) even the French, and rich Jewish merchants.

Washington's notes and letters are filled with this common theme:

"The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations." (10)

And so let this author reveal his own witness: God raised up General George Washington to fight a divine battle, as a necessary prologue to the establishment of a Divine Constitution, which stands today as the standard of liberty to all the world.

To the day of Washington's death, to his credit, this believer liberator never took credit for the victory, even when others gave him opportunity, he always put them in their place - and shame on anyone who would claim otherwise, and call it history.

Contact Steve at stiffrightjabsf@aol.com - Missed an article? Visit Steve's archives

Footnotes

1. Schroeder-Lossing, Life and Times of Washington, 2:658.

2. Smyth, ed., Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 9:600-601, this being part of an appeal by Franklin that a chaplain be appointed from that day forward to pray over their sessions, and to pray over Congress later on, a religious tradition which lives to this day.

3. Henry, Patrick. "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death."

4. Fitzpatrick, ed., Writings of George Washington, 4:211-12.

5. Fitzpatrick, ed., Writings of George Washington, 4:441-42; and see 5:93.

6. Cousins, Norman. "In God We Trust," 1958.

7. Fitzpatrick, ed., Writings of George Washington, 5:211.

8. Fitzpatrick, ed., Writings of George Washington, 7:456.

9. Henry, Patrick. "Give Me Liberty of Give Me Death."

10. Fitzpatrick, ed., Writings of George Washington, 12:343.