PATRIOT PREACHERS
These
patriot-preachers were staunchly patriotic, seriously independent, and
steadfastly courageous. They were found in almost all of the various Protestant
denominations at the time: Baptist, Presbyterian, Congregational, Anglican,
Lutheran, German Reformed, etc. Their Sunday sermons — more than Patrick
Henry’s oratory, Sam Adams’ and James Warren’s “Committees of
Correspondence,” or Thomas Paine’s “Summer Soldiers and Sunshine
Patriots” — inspired, educated, and motivated the colonists to resist the
tyranny of the British Crown, and fight for their freedom and independence.
Without the Black Regiment, there is absolutely no doubt that we would still be
a Crown colony, with no Declaration of Independence, no U.S. Constitution, no
Bill of Rights, and little liberty.
The exploits of the Black Regiment are legendary. When General George Washington
asked Lutheran pastor John Peter Muhlenberg to raise a regiment of volunteers,
Muhlenberg gladly agreed. Before marching off to join Washington’s army, he
delivered a powerful sermon from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 that concluded with these
words: “The Bible tells us there is a time for all things and there is a time
to preach and a time to pray, but the time for me to preach has passed away, and
there is a time to fight, and that time has come now. Now is the time to fight!
Call for recruits! Sound the drums!”
Then Muhlenberg took off his clerical robe to reveal the uniform of a Virginia
colonel. Grabbing his musket from behind the pulpit, he donned his colonel’s
hat and marched off to war. And as he did, more than 300 of his male congregants
followed him.
Muhlenberg’s brother quotes John Peter as saying, “You may say that as a
clergyman nothing can excuse my conduct. I am a clergyman, it is true, but I am
a member of society as well as the poorest layman, and my liberty is as dear to
me as any man. I am called by my country to its defense. The cause is just and
noble. Were I a Bishop … I should obey without hesitation; and as far am I
from thinking that I am wrong, I am convinced it is my duty so to do — a duty
I owe to my God and my Country.”
Remember, too, it was Pastor Jonas Clark and his congregants at the Church of
Lexington who comprised that initial body of brave colonists called Minutemen.
These were the men, you will recall, who withstood British troops advancing on
Concord to confiscate the colonists’ firearms and arrest Sam Adams and John
Hancock, and fired “the shot heard round the world.”
The “Supreme Knight” and great martyr of Presbyterianism was Pastor James
Caldwell of the Presbyterian church of
Elizabethtown (present-day Elizabeth),
New Jersey. He was called the “Rebel High Priest” and the “Fighting
Chaplain.” He is most famous for the story “Give ’em Watts!” It is said
that at the Springfield engagement, when the militia ran out of wadding for
their muskets, Parson Caldwell galloped to the Presbyterian church and returned
with an armload of hymnbooks, threw them to the ground, and exclaimed, “Now,
boys, give ’em Watts! Give ’em Watts!” — a reference to the famous hymn
writer, Isaac Watts.
Not
an easy path: Presbyterian minister James Caldwell, who gained fame during the
battle of Springfield, New Jersey, when he gathered Watts hymnals from a church
for use as rifle wadding and shouted to the troops as he handed them out, “put
Watts into them,” was killed in the war, as was his wife.
Stilling
the breathless messenger, he sat quietly through the services, and when they
were ended, he passed out, and mounting the great stone block in front of the
meeting-house, he beckoned to the people to stop. Men and women paused to hear,
curious to know what so unusual a sequel to the service of the day could mean.
At the first words a silence, stern as death, fell over all. The Sabbath quiet
of the hour and of the place was deepened into a terrible solemnity. He told
them all the story of the cowardly murder at Lexington by the royal troops; the
heroic vengeance following hard upon it; the retreat of Percy; the gathering of
the children of the Pilgrims round the beleaguered hills of Boston. Then
pausing, and looking over the silent throng, he said slowly: “Men of New
Jersey, the red coats are murdering our brethren of New England! Who follows me
to Boston?” And every man of that audience stepped out into line, and
answered, “I!” There was not a coward nor a traitor in old Hopewell Baptist
Meeting-house that day. [Source: Cathcart, The Baptists and the American
Revolution, 1876]
Consider,
too, Pastor M’Clanahan, of Culpepper County, Virginia, who raised a military
company of Baptists and served in the field, both as a captain and chaplain.
Reverend David Barrow “shouldered his musket and showed how fields were
won.” Another Baptist, General Scriven, when ordered by a British officer to
give up Sunbury, near Savannah, sent back the answer, “Come and get it.”
Deacon Mills, of the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, “commanded
skillfully” 1,000 riflemen at the Battle of Long Island, and for his valor was
made a brigadier general. Deacon Loxley of the same church commanded the
artillery at the Battle of Germantown with the rank of colonel. (Source:
McDaniel, The People Called Baptists, 1925)
A list drawn up by Judge Curwen, an ardent Tory, contained 926 names of British
sympathizers living in America — colonial law had already exiled a larger
number — but there was “not the name of one Baptist on the list.” Maybe
this is why President George Washington, in his letter to the Baptists, paid the
following tribute: “I recollect with satisfaction that the religious society
of which you are members has been, throughout America, uniformly and almost
unanimously, the firm friend to civil liberty, and the persevering promoters of
our glorious Revolution.” Maybe it explains why Thomas Jefferson could write
to a Baptist church, saying, “We have acted together from the origin to the
end of a memorable Revolution.”
(Source: Ibid.)