In 1776, the colonists were facing the ultimate fight for protecting their “unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The British were bearing down on all fronts – militarily, legally, economically – with the goal of not only crushing the resistance, but the spirit of the colonists.
Before the Second Continental Congress was convened in June 1776, John Witherspoon, pastor and president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton), preached his famous sermon, The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men. The sermon was published and later distributed in Philadelphia in 1776.
While Witherspoon resisted infusing politics and political life in his sermons, he recognized the impending issues of his day and time were too great to avoid speaking about. He chose Psalm 76:10 as his text. It reads, “Surely the wrath (anger) of man shall praise thee; the remainder of wrath you will restrain” (KJV).
Witherspoon believed that God’s providence, his sovereign being, supersedes all that man is or could do, good or bad, right or wrong. In other words, he writes that regardless of “…all the disorderly passions of men, whether exposing the innocent to private injury, or whether they are arrows of divine judgment in public calamity … in the end … (all) will be to the praise of God.”
What can Christians today learn and take away from Witherspoon’s words?
As Christians, my co-author and I recognize the divine guidance we have in our lives. We claim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We receive and imperfectly walk out the redemptive power of God into our daily lives. We love, we laugh; we cry, we mourn. We are human.
Though we reside in this temporal body only for a short time, we do not abandon our responsibility and commitment to the institutions of society, including family, business, education, and civic life. Our praise, duty, and honor are first and foremost directed toward God; yet like the Christians of late 18th century America, who, living and working in tumultuous civic upheaval, we cannot abandon our civic responsibilities.
Today, Christians of all stripes and denominations are to be as engaged and committed to the principles of our constitutional democracy as should any demographic group. We cannot stand idly by without embracing and acting upon our civic duties and responsibility.
We must vote and declare our civic commitment. The cause of liberty, both civic and religious, is too important to squander.
In his sermon, Witherspoon wrote, “If your cause is just – you may look with confidence to the Lord and intreat him to plead it as his own … that the cause in which American is now in arms, is the cause of justice, or liberty, and of human nature … that our civil and religious liberties, and consequently in a great measure the temporal and eternal happiness of us and our posterity, depend on the issue…” (i.e., the conflict with Great Britain).
Witherspoon cautioned Christians against blind and faithless political action. Wisdom on how to proceed is critical. He writes, “…if to the justice of your cause, and the purity of your principles, you add prudence in your conduct, there will be the greatest reason to hope, by the blessing of God, for prosperity and success.”
For the Christian colonists, it was to act with caution and intelligence to form a united front against the British adversary. For Christians today, our duty and responsibility are to cast our vote, to be involved at the grassroots level, and to let our voices be heard at city council meetings, school boards, and local civic organizations.
Our civic action, however, is not to be pious and self-righteous. Regardless of what the eventual outcome may or may not be, we are duty bound to act and respond selflessly, not seeking glory or tribute.
Certainly, we desire peace, freedom, and security. We desire to see a better world for our children and grandchildren. But our purpose and motivation are (or should) to be witnesses of God’s glory and of His providence in this world.
In sum, Witherspoon said it best, “…I beseech you to make a wise improvement of the present threatening aspect of public affairs, and to remember that your duty to God, to your country, to your families, and to yourselves is the same… (so) in times of difficulty and trial, it is in the man of piety and inward principle, that we may expect to find the uncorrupted patriot, the useful citizen … God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty be inseparable, and that unjust attempts to destroy the one, may in the issue tend to the support and establishment of both.”
How can we as Christians do any less?
