Washington’s pew in St. Paul’s chapel, New York City, where he worshipped as President
Although it has been argued that George Washington was unwilling to partake of Christian Communion, the fact that he quotes the very verse that speaks of Communion in his most public letter only further corroborates the written testimonies of his communing.
As we turn to his further use of this biblical Eucharistic language, we will see that this was not an anomaly or something interpolated into his otherwise deistic perspective by speech writers. This is evident because he returns to this same phrase in his self-composed first draft of his presidential Farewell Address, which he enclosed in a letter to Alexander Hamilton on May 15, 1796. Following his custom to avoid using the precise phrase a second time, this time “cup of blessing” is presented with the synonymous “cup of beneficence.” He also places the phrase in a deeply spiritual context with phrases such as the “all wise dispensor of blessings,” “favor,” “happiness,” “our Creator,” “bountifully offered:”
That as the allwise dispensor of human blessings has favored no Nation of the Earth with more abundant, and substantial means of happiness than United America, that we may not be so ungrateful to our Creator; so wanting to ourselves; and so regardless of Posterity, as to dash the cup of beneficence which is thus bountifully offered to our acceptance.
Washington uses this biblical idea of the metaphor “the cup of _____” in other contexts as well. Consider, for example:
The Cup of Reconciliation: to The President of the United States, Mount Vernon, July 13, 1798: “Satisfied therefore, that you have sincerely wished and endeavoured to avert war, and exhausted to the last drop, the cup of reconciliation...”
Cup of National Felicity: To Jonathan Trumbull, July 20, 1788: ...at least we may, with a kind of grateful and pious exultation, trace the finger of Providence through those dark and mysterious events, which first induced the States to appoint a general Convention and then led them one after another (by such steps as were best calculated to effect the object) into an adoption of the system recommended by that general Convention; thereby, in all human probability, laying a lasting foundation for tranquillity and happiness; when we had but too much reason to fear that confusion and misery were coming rapidly upon us. That the same good Providence may still continue to protect us and prevent us from dashing the cup of national felicity just as it has been lifted to our lips, is the earnest prayer of My Dear Sir, your faithful friend...
This is perhaps the most striking example of the Eucharistic imagery used by Washington. It reflects the Anglican custom of the common chalice being presented to the communicant’s lips. The imagery of “dashing the cup” suggests being deprived of the Communion cup, because it was dropped just as one was about to drink from it. This use of the image is presented in a spiritual context as well: “grateful and pious exultation,” “trace the finger of Providence,” “dark and mysterious events,” “the same good Providence may still continue to protect,” “earnest prayer.”
But the scriptures also use the imagery of the cup in a negative sense as well. So when Washington speaks of drinking the “bitter cup,” he forcefully alludes to Matthew 26:39, a passage that depicts the sufferings of Gethsemane. The point of his remarks is the horrific suffering of the prisoners of war. Written from his own sufferings at Valley Forge, he says to The President of Congress, March 7, 1778:
...impeding the progress both of drafting and recruiting, by dejecting the Courage of the Soldiery from an Apprehension of the Horrors of Captivity, and finally by reducing those, whose Lot it is to drink the bitter Cup, to a Despair, which can only find Relief by renouncing their Attachments and engaging with their Captors.
In yet another negative variation on the phrase, Washington uses the image of “the cup of folly” when he writes to Thomas Johnson, October 15, 1784: “I trust that a proper sense of justice and unanimity in those States which have not drunk so deep of the cup of folly may yet retrieve our affairs.”
CONCLUSION
Let’s recap the main points we’ve discovered so far in this discussion of Washington’s participation in the Lord’s Supper:
1) Washington was a regular communicant all his life in the Anglican Church until the Revolutionary War;
2) During the Revolutionary War, when he was leading a rebellion against the King, the earthly head of that church, the general ceased communing in the Anglican context;
3) On occasion, during the war, there are credible reports he received communion in churches of other denominations;
4) After the war, there are credible reports that he did again on occasion receive Communion from his own denomination; and did so in a state of forgiveness and restoration toward the Anglican clergy that had rejected him or his views before or during the war;
5) In none of his extensive writings did he ever deny his belief in the doctrines of his native church (including the atonement of Christ, his passion for the forgiveness of sins, which is the focus of communion). This is significant, since Washington, as a man of honor, had made vows as a vestryman and church warden, therein affirming his belief in the doctrines of the Anglican Church that included a belief in the atonement of Christ and the Communion of the Lord’s Table;
6) Instead, he actually uses the biblical Eucharistic imagery of “the cup of blessing” in public and private writings, a phrase he employs in highly biblical and spiritual contexts, even aptly using an allusion to the “bitter cup” of Gethsemane to reflect the sufferings of prisoners of war as he wrote from the crucible of Valley Forge.
7) Washington seemingly never lost communion with his faith, even though communion with the King was broken forever, and communion with his home church and its clergy was broken for awhile. But why then, as president, did he not commune in Philadelphia?
TWENTY ONE
Shadow Or Substance?:
Putting Professor Boller’s Evidence for Washington’s Deism on Trial
“
I contend, that it is by the substance, not with the shadow of a thing, we are to be benefited.
”
George Washington February 2, 1787
1
In this chapter we continue to address the objection that Washington was not a Christian because he did not partake of Christian Communion. As we have already seen in the last chapter, the very way the argument has been presented by Professor Paul Boller, Jr., author of George Washington & Religion, is flawed. In this chapter we intend to take Professor Boller at his word, when he claimed that he would use only evidence that would hold up in a court of law.2 As we cross-examine his argument, we find that it woefully fails, based upon the very standard he erected for himself. Our point will be to show that when credible witnesses from an historical perspective are permitted to speak, which Professor Boller permits when convenient for his argument, Washington’s Communion practices fit consistently with all of the known facts and with his Christian character.
THE EPISCOPAL CLERGYMEN AND “MRS.” CUSTIS TAKE THE STAND
It is claimed by Professor Boller that Washington never communed at all, because of the statements made by Philadelphia Bishop William White and his assistant, the Episcopal priest Reverend Dr. James Abercrombie. But the facts speak otherwise. The evidence we have already considered in the previous chapter argues that Washington communed in Virginia, in Morristown, New Jersey, and in New York City.3
There is significance in the fact that Washington communed under the new government and under the new bishop, Samuel Provoost, as testified by Mrs. Alexander Hamilton. In essence, his return to the Episcopal table was an affirmation of his historic Anglican faith, yet it was still consistent with his belief that the breach with the British crown was a just and righteous act of resistance to monarchical tyranny. The Episcopal Church was no longer the Anglican Church, although its clergy still were ordained in the order and succession of the Anglican prelates or bishops, overseen by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the head of the Episcopal Church in the United States was not the King.
The American version of the Book of Common Prayer now had prayers for the president and Congress, but not for King George. The American head of state, however, was not the head of the Episcopal Church, even if he was Episcopalian. Washington’s lofty, political position did not translate into a high, ecclesiastical position. This meant that Washington held the anomalous position of being the leader of his country, but only a follower in his church’s government. He was an honored member of his church, but his views of ecclesiastical matters, whatever they may have been, or however deeply held, were merely personal. As we shall see, his strongest ecclesiastical view he chose to reveal to history only in the quietness of his diary. Otherwise, we are left to explain his views mainly by his basic motto—deeds not words.
The facts do indicate that he did not commune while he served as president in Philadelphia. This is admitted by all sides of the debate concerning Washington’s religion, as we will see in a moment. Just to put this into context, we need to explain a few aspects of the customs of that time. In the Episcopal Church in the late 1780s, it was customary to have Communion only three or four time per year. (Only later did the Episcopal Church change to have the sacrament each Sunday morning). Second, it was customary for the service to contain a break between part one of the service— —the liturgy of the word—which included the sermon, and part two, the liturgy of the Table, which included Communion. Often during that time, according to the record of Reverend James Abercrombie, who will be quoted below, “the greater part of the congregation” would get up and leave—Washington often being one of them. That being said, people on all sides of the debate on George Washington and religion have agreed that it was his custom to not receive Communion while he was in Philadelphia attending services at Christ Church. Reverend John Stockton Littell, advocate of Washington’s Christianity writes, “It is a fact that Bishop White could not testify to Washington’s making his communions nor even to his religious faith.”4
Similarly, advocate of Washington’s Deism, historian Rupert Hughes wrote,
His refusal to take communion was admitted by his own clergyman, William White, Bishop of the Episcopal Church in America from 1787 to 1836. Colonel Mercer had written to ask if General Washington “occasionally went to the communion,” or “if he ever did at all.” Bishop White answered:
