"George Washington's Sacred Fire" by Peter A. Lillback and Jerry Newcombe

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II. CORINTHIANS, iii. 17.

AND WHERE THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS, THERE IS LIBERTY.

14 Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805 (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998), vol. 2, pp. 1154, 1159, 1165, 1166, 1167.

15 See chapter 3, note 47 where a letter from Methodist Bishops Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury on behalf of the Methodist-Episcopal church is cited. This clearly shows that Washington’s language for Deity was that of the evangelical preachers of his day. Coke and Asbury write: “We have received the most grateful satisfaction, from the humble and entire dependence on the Great Governor of the universe which you have repeatedly expressed, acknowledging him the source of every blessing,….” Washington responded on the same day “It always affords me satisfaction when I find a concurrence of sentiment and practice between all conscientious men, in acknowledgments of homage to the great Governor of the universe,….”

16 In a subsequent chapter on Washington’s sermons, we will consider the collection of sermons that Washington stated in writing that he had read, enjoyed, or approved. An example presented there is “A Sermon Occasioned by the Death of the Honourable Sir William Pepperell etc.,” Boston, 1759, to which Washington gave his “approbation” (see WGW, letter to Reverend Joseph Buckminster, December 23, 1789). The terms for “God” that Stephens used in this sermon include: “Supreme Ruler of the Universe” “great Governor of the World,” “His Providence,” “Divinity,” “universal Sovereign,” “Definition of Infinite Wisdom,” “supreme Universal Monarch,” “universal Judge,” “Discerner of true Worth.” Such titles for deity used by Christian preachers of Washington’s era, which Washington also employed, are utterly absent from Thomas Paine’s deistic Age of Reason.

17 Boller, George Washington And Religion, p. 28-29, writes, “Parson Weems quoted him [Lee Massey] as saying: I never knew so constant an attendant at Church as Washington. His behavior in the House of God was ever so deeply reverential, and greatly assisted me in my pulpit labors. No company ever withheld him from church. I have often been at Mount Vernon, on Sabbath morning, when his breakfast table was filled with guests; but to him they furnished no pretext for neglecting his God, and losing the satisfaction of setting a good example For instead of staying home out of false complaisance to them, he used constantly to invite them to accompany him. But Massey’s statement was made many years after the period to which he referred and, as Paul Leicester Ford suggested, it was probably made “more with an eye to its influence on others than to its strict accuracy.” The same comment may be made of George Washington Parke Custis’ statement, some years after Washington’s death, that his step-grandfather “was always a strict and decorous observer of the Sabbath. He invariably attended divine service once a day, when within reach of a place of worship. If we examine Washington’s own record of what he did on Sunday before the Revolution, we find that he was considerably less conscientious about attending church than either Lee Massey or GWP Custis seems to have recollected. According to his diary, Washington went to church four times during the first five months of 1760, and in 1768 he went fifteen times; and these years seem to be fairly typical of the period from 1760 to 1773. It is true, as the pietists have noted, that bad weather sometimes made it impossible to make the trip to church, that illness occasionally kept Washington at home, and that Pohick Church did not hold services every Sunday because the rector had to preach elsewhere in Truro parish. But Washington, we know, also transacted business on Sundays, visited friends and relatives, traveled, and sometimes went fox-hunting, instead of going to church. . . . But at the most it does not seem to have exceeded an average of once a month.”

Boller’s use of Washington’s diaries here is methodologically unsound. His conclusions are non-sequiturs. Washington, for example, almost ignores political events. On this count, they were irrelevant too. (Historians have been frustrated by Washington’s seeming indifference in his own diary to the world-changing events that he often participated in.) Or by this same logic, church attendance could be construed as even more important than his attendance at the Constitutional Convention—for he never even said a word beyond bare attendance! Or as a reductio ad absurdum, by the same logic, consider then the profound significance of the fact that on a Saturday and Sunday at the end of July 1769, Washington chose to give so much detail concerning his hounds. With barnyard clarity, Washington records: “Chaunter again lind with Rockwood” and “The black bitch countess appeard to be going proud” and “was shut up in order to go to the same Dog.” And that the next day “Chaunter Lined again by rockwood.” By Boller’s logic, if importance is established by record and commentary, we are compelled to assume that the breeding of his dogs was the most important thing in his life, since Washington by far presents more on his dog’s historical actions than he does of his own actions on Sunday worship or at the Creation of a New American Government! Let it be noted, that a thorough search of Washington’s diaries shows that he did not fox-hunt on Sundays. Not being of the Puritan tradition, he had no scruple about traveling on Sunday. The few Sundays in his diaries that mention fox hunting show that he traveled to someone’s home to fox hunt. The next day’s entry then shows the typical recounting of the foxes that were chased and sometimes killed. While Boller’s logic diminishes the faithfulness of Washington’s attendance at church, a few other factors should be kept in mind. First, to make his point, he must, in essence, call Reverend Massey and Washington’s grandson, who grew up in Washington’s house, exaggerators or outright liars. Next, he has to disregard the fact that the trip to church took nearly all day, since it required an approximately nine mile carriage ride through unpaved country roads, and in the winter, it was to a church building that by law could not have a fireplace for heat, lest it be susceptible to catching fire. Further, Boller’s portrayal of the minimal attendance of Washington at church overlooks the written record and the physical evidence of Washington’s custom of reading a sermon to his family on Sundays. Finally, we will, in a subsequent chapter, consider the training the Washington family gave to their children through Episcopal tutors and that Washington himself received in childhood in regard to the regular use of The Book Of Common Prayer which provided a weekly spiritual experience, even when weather, health, distance, or lack of clergy prevented the family from attending worship. As strange as it may sound, in the rural countryside of Virginia, an average of once a month attendance at church gave one high marks for consistency. Consistent with this, when Washington lived in New York and Philadelphia as president, his attendance was far more convenient and far more frequent.

18 Rupert Hughes writes in George Washington the Human Being and the Hero 1732-1762 (New York: William Morow & Co., 1926), p. 555, “Dr. Conway, speaking of Washington’s Diaries, notes ‘his pretty regular attendance at church but never any remark on the sermons.’” The same flawed logic as Boller is reflected here by Hughes. Washington did, in fact, comment on the sermons, only rarely in his diaries, but in letters to the preacher/writers of the sermons, he did on some twenty different occasions. We will consider these in a later chapter.

19 Reverend John Stockton Littell, D.D. Washington: Christian – Stories of Cross and Flag No. 1 (Keene, N.H.: The Hampshire Art Press).

20 William Fairfax, Washington’s paternal advisor, had recently counseled him by letter to have public prayers in his camp, especially when there were Indian families there; this was accordingly done at the encampment in the Great Meadows, and it certainly was not one of the least striking pictures presented in this wild —- campaign the youthful commander presiding with calm seriousness over a motley assemblage of half-equipped soldiery, leathern-clad hunters and woodsmen, and painted savages with their wives and children, and uniting them all in solemn devotion by his own example and demeanor. Jared Sparks, The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence Addresses, Messages, and other Papers, Official and Private (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1847), p. 138.

20 Washington Irving, Life of George Washington Part I, p. 203ff. Washington Irving writes, “Dr. Craik dressing his wounds, and Washington attending him with faithful assiduity….Captain Orme, who gave these particulars to Dr. Franklin, says that Braddock “died a few minutes after.” This, according to his account, was on the second day; whereas the general survived upward of four days. Orme, being conveyed on a litter at some distance from the general, could only speak of his mood from hearsay…..He died on the night of the 13th at the Great Meadows, the place of Washington’s discomfiture in the previous year. His obsequies were performed before break of day. The chaplain having been wounded, Washington read the funeral service. All was done in sadness, and without parade, so as not to attract the attention of lurking savages, who might discover and outrage his grave. It is doubtful even whether a volley was fired over it, that last military honor which he had recently paid to the remains of an Indian warrior. The place of his sepulture, however, is still known, and pointed out.”

It is undisputed tradition, according to the recounting of Washington’s soldiers, that he became chaplain at such times when there was no other to perform the service. The record that David Humphreys gives in his biography of George Washington is significant, because it is the only biography of his life that Washington read and approved: “General Braddock breathed his last. —- He was interred with the honors of War, and as it was left to George Washington to see this performed, & to mark out the spot for the reception of his remains to guard against a savage triumph, if the place should be discovered.” In David Humphreys, Life of George Washington (University of Georgia Press, 1991), pp. 15-20. Thus, Washington’s presiding over the burial service for General Braddock is not mere tradition. Braddock was buried with “the honors of war” and this ceremony would have included the use of the prayers from the Book of Common Prayer.

21 See WGW, vol. 2, Oct 12, 1761; vol. 3, July 18, 1771, July 15, 1772. Under the date of July 18, 1771 is found: “INVOICE OF GOODS TO BE SHIPD BY ROBERT CARY & CO. FOR THE USE OF GEO. WASHINGTON, POTOMACK RIVER, VIRGINIA, A Prayr. Book with the new Version of Psalms and good plain type, covd. with red Moroco., to be 7 Inchs. long 4? wide, and as thin as possible for the greatr. ease of caryg. in the Pocket.”

22 The Apostles’ Creed was to be said in both the morning and evening prayer as outlined by the 1662 Book Of Common Prayer, as well as the 1789 revision. This historic Christian creed declares: “I BELIEVE in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary; Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell, The third day he rose from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; The holy Catholic Church; The Communion of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The Resurrection of the body; And the Life everlasting. Amen.”

23 The Lord’s Prayer, as given in the 1662 Book Of Common Prayer says, “ Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. Amen.” It was to be used daily both in the morning and evening prayer.

24 The Ten Commandments were an essential part of the catechism in the1662 Book Of Common Prayer. The public corporate reading of the Ten Commandments provided for in the Communion Service of the 1662 Book Of Common Prayer was as follows:

“Then shall the Priest, turning to the people, rehearse distinctly all the TEN COMMANDMENTS; and the people still kneeling shall, after every Commandment, ask God mercy for their transgression thereof for the time past, and grace to keep the same for the time to come, as followeth.

Minister.

God spake these words, and said; I am the Lord thy God: Thou shalt have none other gods but me.