A former pastor at the church I served, Luke, was married to Lettie, whose maiden name was Witherspoon. Yep, it’s the same Witherspoon who signed the Declaration of Independence.
John Knox Witherspoon (1723-1795) preached the most impactful sermon of the American Revolution. Congress had declared May 17, 1776, as a national day of fasting and prayer for mounting tensions with England. John, president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) preached in the college chapel on “The Dominion of Providence in the Passions of Men.” The first half of the sermon, now largely ignored, was an appeal to turn to God and be saved. The second half addressed the political crisis at hand. While it was his first foray into talking about politics in the pulpit, he was convinced the exigencies of the moment required him to speak his conscience. His sermon soon appeared in print on the streets of Philadelphia and generated momentum for the Declaration of Independence. He famously prayed, “God grant that in America religious and civil liberty may be inseparable.” John Adams called John Witherspoon “A true son of liberty…but first, a son of the Cross.” John Witherspoon said in his sermon, “If your cause is just, if your principles are pure, if your conduct is prudent, you need not fear the multitudes of opposing hosts. If your cause is just, you may look with confidence to the Lord and entreat him to plead it as his own. You are all my witnesses, that this is the first time of my introducing any political subject into the pulpit. At this season, however, it is not only lawful but necessary and I willingly embrace the opportunity of declaring my opinion without any hesitation, that the cause in which America is now in arms is the cause of justice and liberty. I am satisfied that the confederacy of the colonies, has not been the effect of pride, resentment or sedition, but of a deep and general conviction that our civil and religious liberties, and consequently in great measure the temporal and eternal happiness of us and our posterity depended on the issue…There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost and religious liberty preserved. ”
We close with the inaugural prayer offered at the Continental Congress by Rev. Jacob Duche in 1774: