Sir,
The liberty which I take, of sending the following Sermon from the press, with a dedication to the first Magistrate, is not from the thought, that I can, in any way, add to a reputation, so high as his, in our own country and throughout the world; but for a use, which arises out of my argument.
The relation which I have asserted of religion to civil policy, is well known to be considered as chimerical by some; while it is contemplated by others, as involved in whatever relates to the prosperity of the commonwealth. If a question should be raised, concerning the sense of the governments under which we live, it cannot be denied, that persons of the latter description may appeal to many particulars, in law and in practice, which can be defended on no other ground, than that of the propriety of the states availing itself of the religious principle in the minds of its citizens, in order to answer the purposes of its institution. When, therefore, in addition to constantly operating sanctions, we hear the voice of our country calling on us to assemble, for the express design of offering our acknowledgments to the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, for his prospering of its counsels, and of involving the continuance of his mercies; it is another sanction of the latter opinion, which the advocates of it cannot fail to notice, as being to their purpose; especially if it be aided by the reputation of those, from whose authority it proceeds.
It cannot have escaped the notice of any, that, since your elevation to the seat of supreme Executive authority, you have, in your official capacity, on all fit occasions, directed the public attention to the Being and Providence of God: And this implies a sense, as well of the relation, which nations, in their collective capacities, bear to him, their Supreme Ruler; as of the responsibility to him of earthly Governors, for the execution of the truths committed to them. Even had such acknowledgements come from any one, whose conversation or whose conduct were in opposition to the principle implied; still they might have been pleaded, as an homage to the truth, extorted by existing circumstances, or by some selfish views; at the expence of the violation of theory, or else of the crimination of the person. In the present instance, it is to my purpose to remark; and, but for this circumstance I should not now remark it; that an unimpeached sincerity of character, accompanied by the public acknowledgment of a Divine Being, not attached to station but evidenced throughout life, warrants, on every rule of evidence, a much stronger construction. We have a right, to apply the testimony of such a character, as the result of an enlightened conscience; and to think it an advantage to our cause, to pronounce, that a mind, which has embraced all the civil interests of the American people, has not overlooked the relation which they all bear, to the great truths of religion and of morals.
On this ground, Sir, I presumed, in the following discourse, delivered in your presence, to apply the summons under which we were assembled, to the doctrine which it was my object to establish: In doing which, it could not escape my recollection, that the sanction would come, with especial weight, before a Congregation, who have been witnesses of a correspondent conduct of the person, in his attendance on divine worship among them, during the frequent occasions of his temporary residence in this city, within the twenty years last past. For the truth of the construction of the act of government, the preacher only is responsible: The right of making the construction, if it be done with decency, seemed to come within his privileges as a citizen: And for any censure he might hazard, as to the propriety of the reasoning, he was willing to commit himself in that respect; considering, as he did, that the point intended to be established, was not mere matter of speculation, but involved important duties of civil rulers and equally important rights of Christian ministers: The former, as a conformity to professions brought forward to the public eye; and the latter, as giving us an opportunity to remind our civil superiors, when occasion and prospect of usefulness occur, of practicing duties, which with a view to the happiness of the civil state, they, officially and with great propriety, recommend to us and to our congregations.
From this statement of circumstances, the design, and I hope, the propriety of the Dedication, must be evident. It is, Sir, that in proof of a point, which I believe to be essential to the duties and to the felicities of public and of private life, I may, in the most explicit and pointed manner that occurs to me, avail myself of the aids which I think I discover, in the measures of your administration and in the weight of your character: A use of human authority, which cannot be objected to, as inapplicable to the subject; because it is of the essence of my argument, that, in every permanent government, civil rulers will be drawn to confess the principle asserted; either, as in the present instance, by a declaration of truths believed and felt; or, as may happen, by a compliance with what they suppose to be popular prejudices and weakness. And this is a circumstance, which I apply in proof, that my doctrine is involved in, and inseparable from social order.
The time, Sir, may come, and I believe it must come, when the doctrine here maintained will be held a much more important subject, than it has yet been, of political investigation; and when the acknowledging of it will be demonstrated by facts, to be a trait in the character of the enlightened statesman and in that of the virtuous citizen. In the event, it will be no small part of the praise of the chief magistrate of the present day, that, as the result of his own judgment and consistently with his own practice, he made acknowledgements, which are in contrariety to a theory, that sets open the flood-gates of immorality....
That you may enjoy that best reward of your present labors; and that the remainder of your life may be crowned with a measure of felicity, proportioned to the glory of the past period of it; is, Sir, the sincere wish and the devout prayer, of your respectful, affectionate and obliged humble servant,
WILLIAM WHITE
Feb. 28th, 1795.
See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum.
39 Reverend Samuel Davies, “Religion and patriotism the constituents of a good soldier.” A sermon preached to Captain Overton’s Independent Company of Volunteers, raised in Hanover County, Virginia, August 17, 1755. By Samuel Davies, A.M. Minister of the Gospel there. (Philadelphia: Printed by James Chattin, 1755.).
40 We saw this in the case of Uzal Ogden’s request for Washington to endorse his critique of Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason. Also, Reverend Knox mentioned above, who had written on a uniform system of education, had requested Washington’s endorsement. Washington declined in both instances. But that is what makes his endorsement of Parson Weem’s Immortal Mentor so remarkable, because it was not the practice of Washington to issue an endorsement. We will consider the Weem’s publication in a subsequent chapter.
41 For the history of the Stith family, see Meade, Old Churches, p.137-138:
William Stith was the only son of Captain John Stith, of the county of Charles City, and of Mary, a daughter of “William Randolph, gentleman,” of Turkey Island, in the adjoining county, Henrico, in the Colony of Virginia : their son William was born in the year 1689. On the death of her husband, Mrs. Stith, at the instance of her brother, Sir John Randolph, removed to Williamsburg and placed her son in the grammar-school attached to the College of William and Mary, where he pursued his academic studies and graduated. His theological studies were completed in England, where he was ordained a minister of the Episcopal Church. On his return to Virginia, in the year 1731, he was elected master of the grammar-school in the College and chaplain to the House of Burgesses. In June, 1738, he was called rector to Henrico parish, in the county of Henrico. He marred his cousin Judith, a daughter of Thomas Randolph of Tuckahoe, the second son of William Randolph, of Turkey Island, and resided in the parsonage on the glebe near Varina, the seat of justice for the county of Henrico. There he wrote his History of Virginia, which was printed and bound in the city of Williamsburg, at the only printing-press then in the Colony. In August, 1752, he was elected President of William and Mary College, to which he removed and over which he presided until his death, in 1755....A third married William Stith, and was the mother of Reverend Mr. Stith, the historian of Virginia, minister of Henrico, and afterward President of William and Mary College. His sister married Commissary Dawson, and he himself married Miss Judith Randolph of Tuckahoe. Another of the family married the Reverend Mr. Keith, who settled in Fauquier, and was the ancestor of Judge Marshall. ... Bishop Randolph, of the latter part of the last century, was first Archdeacon of Jersey, then Bishop of Oxford, and then of London, in all which stations he was most highly esteemed. His collection of tracts for the benefit of young students for the ministry show him to have been a Bishop of sound doctrines and of a truly catholic spirit.”
42 See the chapter entitled, “Washington the Low Churchman.”
43 WGW, vol. 36, 9-25-1798. To Reverend G. W. Snyder.
44 Twohig, The Diaries of George Washington, vol. 5, November, Sunday 8th, 1789. “It being contrary to Law & disagreeable to the People of this State (Connecticut) to travel on the Sabbath day and my horses after passing through such intolerable Roads wanting rest, I stayed at Perkins’s Tavern (which by the bye is not a good one) all day—and a meeting House being with in a few rod of the Door, I attended Morning & evening Service, and heard very lame discourses from a Mr. Pond.”
45 Twohig, Diaries, Monday October 10, 1785.
46 Twohig, Diaries, Sunday July 3, 1791. “Received, and answered an address from the Inhabitants of York town—& there being no Episcopal Minister present in the place, I went to hear morning Service performed in the Dutch reformed Church—which, being in that language not a word of which I understood I was in no danger of becoming a proselyte to its religion by the eloquence of the Preacher.” PGW vol. 6.
47 WGW, vol. 31, 3-28-1791. To Tobias Lear.
48 Ibid., vol. 3, 7-9-1771. To Jonathan Boucher.
49 Ibid., vol. 28, 7-25-1785. To David Humphreys.
50 See for example, GWP, Series 8 Miscellaneous Papers, where Washington’s extensive personal notes on various topics, such as farming, history and constitutional forms of government are copied by him from various books he had read.
51 WGW, vol. 36, 12-21-1797. To James Anderson. “If a person only sees, or directs from day to day what is to be done, business can never go on methodically or well, for in case of sickness, or the absence of the Director, delays must follow. System to all things is the soul of business. To deliberate maturely, and execute promptly is the way to conduct it to advantage. With me, it has always been a maxim, rather to let my designs appear from my works than by my expressions. To talk long before hand, of things to be done, is unpleasant, if those things can as well be done at one time or another; but I do not mean by this to discourage you from proposing any plans to me which you may conceive to be beneficial, after having weighed them well in your own mind; on the contrary, I request you to do it with the utmost freedom, for the more combined, and distant things are seen, the more likely they are to be turned to advantage.”
52 Custis writes in Recollections, pp. 162-163, “General Washington, during the whole of both his public and private life, was a very early riser; indeed, in the maternal mansion, at which his first habits were formed, the character of a sluggard was abhorred. Whether as chief magistrate, or the retired citizen, we find this man of method and labor seated in his library from one to two hours before day, in winter and at daybreak in summer. We wonder at the amazing amount of work which he performed. Nothing but a method the most remarkable and exemplary, could have enabled him to accomplish such a world of labor, an amount which might have given pretty full employment to half a dozen ordinary, and not idle men, all their lies. When we consider the volume of his official papers—his vast foreign, public, and private correspondence—we are scarcely able to believe that the space of one man’s life should have comprehended the doing of so many things and doing them so well.”
53 WGW, vol. 30, 4-1789. “I will only say, that, during and since the Session of the Convention, I have attentively heard and read every oral and printed information of both sides of the question that could readily be procured. This long and laborious investigation, in which I endeavoured as far as the frailty of nature would permit to act with candour has resulted in a fixed belief that this Constitution, is really in its formation a government of the people.” Washington’s concern for the constitutional crisis looming in America is well seen in WGW, vol. 29, 11-15-1786, To Bushrod Washington. “Among the great objects which you took into consideration at your meeting at Richmond, how comes it to pass, that you never turned your eyes to the inefficacy of the Federal Government, so as to instruct your Delegates to accede to the propositions of the Commrs. at Annapolis; or to devise some other mode to give it that energy, which is necessary to support a national character? Every man who considers the present constitution of it, and sees to what it is verging, trembles. The fabrick which took nine years, at the expense of much blood and treasure, to rear, now totters to the foundation, and without support must soon fall.” Washington’s written study notes on constitutional forms are found in The George Washington Papers of the Library of Congress, Series 8, “Miscellaneous Papers,” images 344-366.
54 As for example, the sermons by Stith, “The Nature and Extent of Christ’s Redemption” and Clark, “An Answer to the Question of Why I Am a Christian,” and the study by Berrington that have been included as illustrations in this study.
55 See, for example, Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, pp. 76-77, 132, 145, 162-163, 195.
56 Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 502.
57 Ibid., p. 503.
58 Ibid., p. 510.
59 Ibid., p. 500.
60 Ibid., p. 39.
61 Ibid., p. 221.
62 WGW, vol. 33, 8-29-1793.
63 Ibid., vol. , 9-9-1797
64 “The divine mission of Jesus Christ evident from his life, and from the nature and tendency of his doctrines.” A sermon preached at Stamford, October 11, 1796, before the Consociation of the Western District in Fairfield County. By Isaac Lewis, D.D., Pastor of a consociated church in Greenwich. New Haven] Printed by T. and S. Green—New-Haven., [1796]
“The political advantages of godliness.” A sermon preached before His Excellency the governor, and the honorable legislature of the state of Connecticut, convened at Hartford on the anniversary election. May 11, 1797. By Isaac Lewis, D.D., Pastor of a church in Greenwich. Hartford: Printed by Hudson & Goodwin., 1797.
65 WGW, vol. 7, 3-31-1777 to BRIGADIER GENERAL GEORGE CLINTON “I congratulate you most cordially on your late appointment to a command in the Continental Army. I assure you it gave me great pleasure when I read the Resolve, and wishing that your exertions may be crown’d with a suitable success. I am etc.” Ibid., vol. 16, 8-5-1779 to Reverend Uzal Odgen, “ Reverend. Sir: I have received, and with pleasure read, the Sermon you were so obliging as to send me. I thank you for this proof of your attention. I thank you also for the favourable sentiments you have been pleased to express of me. But in a more especial mannr. I thank you for the good wishes and prayers you offer in my behalf.” Ibid., vol. 24, 5-29-1782 to Governor Jonathan Trumbull, “Your Excellency’s reply to Deans Letter I read with great Satisfaction, and this pleasure was hightened by findg. that it contained not only your own Sentiments, but also conveys the Sense of the Legislative Body of your State. From a variety of circumstances I view the present, as the most critical moment, that we have almost ever experienced throughout the present contest.”; Ibid., vol. 26, 3-10-1783 to Jame Mitchell Varnum, “Dear Sir: I have had the honor to receive your favor of the 21st. Ulto. and beg your acceptance of my particular acknowledgments for the honorauble and flattering manner in which you have spoken of me, in the dedication to your Oration, delivered before our Brethren at Providence. The Sentiments which you have expressed in your Oration I have read with pleasure, and am with great esteem etc. [WGW Note: “An Oration: delivered in The Episcopal Church in Providence (Rhode-Island) Before the Most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, On the American Festival of St. John the Evangelist, December 27, 1782, Providence: Printed by John Carter.]”; Ibid., vol. 26, 3-30-1783 to President Boudinot of Congress, “Dear Sir: I was upon the point of closing the Packet which affords a cover to this Letter when the Baron de Steuben arrived and put your obliging favor of the 17th. Instt. into my hands. I read it with great pleasure and gratitude, and beg you to accept my sincere thanks for the trouble you have taken to communicate the several matters therein contained many parts of which ‘till then were altogether New to me.”; Ibid., vol. 28, 2-5-1785 to Benjamin Vaughn, “ Sir: I pray you to accept my acknowledgment of your polite letter of the 31st. of October, and thanks for the flattering expressions of it. These are also due in a very particular manner to Doctr. Price [by Reverend Richard Price, an English nonconformist minister], for the honble mention he has made of the American General in his excellent observations on the importance of the American revolution addressed, “To the free and United States of America,” which I have seen and read with much pleasure.”; Ibid., vol. 28, 10-30-1785 to Daivd Humphreys “My dear Humphreys: ... I am very much obliged to you for the poem you sent me, I have read it with pleasure, and it is much admired by all those to whom I have showed it.”; Ibid., vol. 33, 7-20-1794 to Sir John Sinclair, “I have read with peculiar pleasure and approbation, the work you patronise, so much to your own honor and the utility of the public. Such a general view of the Agriculture in the several Counties of Great Britain is extremely interesting; and cannot fail of being very beneficial to the Agricultural concerns of your Country and to those of every other wherein they are read, and must entitle you to their warmest thanks for having set such a plan on foot, and for prosecuting it with the zeal and intelligence you do. I am so much pleased with the plan and execution myself, as to pray you to have the goodness to direct your Book-seller to continue to forward them to me, accompanied with the cost which shall be paid to his order or remitted so soon as the amount is made known to me. When the whole are received I will promote, as far as in me lays, the reprinting of them here.” There are many others as well.
