Consistent with this are his General Orders from Middle Brook on Monday, April 12, 1779, where he “enjoins” a “strict” keeping of a day of prayer and fasting for the forgiveness of sins:
The Honorable the Congress having recommended it to the United States to set apart Thursday the 6th day of May next to be observed as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, to acknowledge the gracious interpositions of Providence; to deprecate deserved punishment for our Sins and Ingratitude, to unitedly implore the Protection of Heaven; Success to our Arms and the Arms of our Ally: The Commander in Chief enjoins a religious observance of said day and directs the Chaplains to prepare discourses proper for the occasion; strictly forbiding all recreations and unnecessary labor.17
In his General Orders from Head Quarters in Valley Forge on Saturday, May 2, 1778, he told his men that it was even more glorious to be a Christian than to be a patriot:
While we are zealously performing the duties of good Citizens and soldiers we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of Religion. To the distinguished Character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to add the more distinguished Character of Christian.18
He wrote to Governor Jonathan Trumbull, also a clergyman, on September 6, 1778. His words show that he believed, along with the minister, in the sovereignty of God over life for “his people”:
...The violent gale which dissipated the two fleets when on the point of engaging, and the withdrawing of the Count D’Estaing to Boston may appear to us as real misfortunes; but with you I consider storms and victory under the direction of a wise providence who no doubt directs them for the best of purposes, and to bring round the greatest degree of happiness to the greatest number of his people.19
On June 8, 1783, Washington wrote to every Governor of all thirteen of the new American states, and in so doing, consciously and explicitly prayed as a Christian:
...the Legacy of One, who has ardently wished, on all occasions, to be useful to his Country, and who, even in the shade of Retirement, will not fail to implore the divine benediction upon it. I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.20
On October 28, 1789, Washington wrote to the First Presbytery of the Eastward indicating his sympathy for Christianity in its simplicity with respect to “the path of true piety.” He proceeds to declare his intent as leader of the new “government” under its new Constitution or “Magna Charta” to assist these “ministers of the gospel” in the “furtherance” of “true religion”:
I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. To this consideration we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna Charta of our country. To the guidance of the ministers of the gospel this important object is, perhaps, more properly committed. It will be your care to instruct the ignorant, and to reclaim the devious, and, in the progress of morality and science, to which our government will give every furtherance, we may confidently expect the advancement of true religion, and the completion of our happiness.21
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO GEORGE WASHINGTON
We know that George Washington was not a theologian or an evangelist. So the topics of his daily duties did not directly engage spiritual or biblical themes. Given his inward and shy personality on matters concerning himself, we should not expect a treatise from him that would summarize his “few and simple”22 points of religion.
But given the reality we have already seen repeatedly, namely, that spiritual truths and Christian ideas surface in his writings, perhaps it is a useful exercise to assemble the elements of the Christian Gospel that have been preserved for us by his own pen. This method has both a strength and a weakness. The strength is that all of the words are Washington’s. The limitation is that the distilling of all of this relevant material is ours—the result of careful study and assembly. We believe this presentation of the Gospel according to George Washington is faithful to Washington’s writings and to the theology he subscribed to and professed as an eighteenth century Anglican. This exercise will also show Washington’s extensive exposure and commitment to the Christian Gospel. It may be compared to the task of systematic theology—carefully discovering theological ideas and then constructing them in the logical order that the material itself suggests.
While the principles of Washington’s religion were “few and simple,”23 they were cognizant of the “gospel.”24 Thus he spoke of “our blessed Religion,”25 “the Religion of Jesus Christ,”26 and “the blessed religion revealed in the Word of God.”27 Washington spoke of “true religion”28 yet coupled it with his gracious spirit declaring that “a true Christian Spirit, will lead us to look with Compassion upon their Errors [the inhabitants of Quebec] without insulting them.”29 This true religion was both “natural and revealed.”30 Yet it was especially as revealed religion that it was “above all,” since it was available to Americans through “the benign light of revelation,”31 and was found in “Holy Writ.”32
Washington was aware of his own inner life, referring often to “my soul.”33 The “Divine Author” of the religion that Washington received when he wrote of “our blessed religion” was none other than the religion of Christ. It was Christ in his “charity, humility and pacific temper of mind” that Washington called all Americans to “imitate.”34 Consoling a friend he wrote, “...our Religion holds out to us such hopes as will, upon proper reflection, enable us to bear with fortitude the most calamitous incidents of life.”35 Since the “Lord and Ruler of Nations”36 and the “Divine Author of life and felicity”37 has come to the earth allowing people to celebrate the “Christmas Hollidays,”38 George Washington as a child could copy such a Christmas poem:
Assist me Muse divine to sing the morn,
On which the Saviour of mankind was born;
But oh! what numbers to the theme can rise?
Unless kind angels aid me from the skies?
Methinks I see the tunefull Host descend,
Hark, by their hymns directed on the road,
The gladsome Shepherds find the nascent God!
And view the infant conscious of his birth,
Smiling bespeak salvation to the earth!
For when the important Aera first drew near
In which the great Messiah should appear
And to accomplish His redeeming love
Resign a while his glorious throne above.39
And as an adult, he could likewise speak openly of Christmas: “I hope the next Christmas will prove happier than the present....”40 “...I may on these accounts venture to hope that you will spend a happy and merry Christmas....”41 And pray as Washington did on Christmas Day, on December 25, 1770. This year Christmas fell on a Tuesday. His entry for this date says, “Went to Pohick Church and returnd to Dinner.” Christmas Sundays in the Anglican tradition were also Sundays when the Lord’s Supper was celebrated.
The Nativity of our Lord, or the Birthday of Christ, Commonly called Christmas-Day. The Collect: Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
And soldiers and congressman together can affirm “the enlightening sounds of the Gospel”42 that declare that “above all ... he hath diffused the glorious light of the gospel, whereby, through the merits of our gracious Redeemer, we may become the heirs of his eternal glory.”43 And so people can prepare for death by writing, as George Washington did in his youth, as he copied a “Form of a Short Will.”
In the Name of God, Amen. The Sixth Day of Oct. In the year of our Lord, 1744, I, A.B. being Sick and Weak of Body but of Sound Judgment and Memory (thanks to God Therefore) Remembering the mortality of my body knowing that it is Determined for all men once to die, Doe make and ordain this my last Will and Testament, That is to say Principally and first of all I recommend my Soul to God Who gave it hoping for salvation in and through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, and my body to have buried in a decent manner ....44
Thus “Ministers of the Gospel”45 have the duty to “prepare [men] for the other world.”46 They do this by “instructing the ignorant and reclaiming the devious,”47 “propagating the gospel”48 and seeking “to Christianize”49 non-believers. “Sin”50 and “evil men” exist.51 “Sinners”52 express their “nature”53 through “iniquity,”54 “depravity,”55 “rascality”56 and failure to heed “conscience.”57 Thus, men fail to keep their “duties to God and man.”58
But, because God is “powerful to save,”59 “we must place a confidence in that Providence who rules great events, trusting that out of confusion he will produce order, and, notwithstanding the dark clouds, which may threaten at present, that right will ultimately be established.”60 He is the “the Sovereign Dispenser of life and health”61 and the “Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and Sovereign Arbiter of Nations.”62 He rules from a “throne of grace,”63 extending grace,64 and mercy,65 from a propitious66 heaven for the “professors of Christianity” who seek the “most direct plainest and easiest” “road to heaven.”67
Washington’s copied childhood poem described the work of the cross with these words:
Beneath our form every woe sustain
And by triumphant suffering fix His reign
Should for lost man in tortures yield his breath,
Dying to save us from eternal death!
Oh mystick Union! Salutary grace!
Incarnate God our nature should embrace!
That Deity should stoop to our disguise!
That man recovered should regain the skies!
Dejected Adam! From thy Grave ascend
And view the Serpent’s Deadly Malice end,
Adorring bless th’Almighty’s boundless grace
That gave his son a ransome for thy race!68
As an adult, Washington described the work of the cross with these words: “The blessed religion revealed in the Word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institutions may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made subservient to the vilest of purposes.”69 (emphasis ours)
But “the seventh, now called the first day”70 of the week” has come. And so, Washington was trained as a fourteen-year-old to determine the annual celebration of Easter each year.71 In 1768, Easter fell on April 3rd. Washington’s diary for that date says, “Went to Pohick church and returnd to Dinner.” The prayer that Washington said that Easter Sunday from the Book of Common Prayer affirmed a hearty belief in the resurrection of Christ:
Almighty God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; We humbly beseech thee, that, as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.72
