"PLEAD OUR CAUSE, O LORD" _ CHAPTER # 1

PLEAD OUR CAUSE, O LORD - CHAPTER # 1 !!!    Already they were bickering. It was day two of the First Continental Congrees__Tuesday, September 6, 1774. Delegates from twelve of America's thirteen colonies had assembled at Carpenters Hall in Philadelphian to officially reacts to deteriorating relations between Great Britain and its American colonies. Decades of disagreement had led to a tense crisis between the colonies and the Mother Country. In an attempt to resolve the issues, the colonies had dispatched delegations to Philadelphia's gtand assembly, which was the first of its king in America. Oprning deliberations had been cordial and productive. The delegates had voted to call their assembly the "Continental Congress," had appointed Virginia delegate Peyton Randolph as its president, and had agreed to meet in Philadelphia's Carpenters Hall. Then came day two__and the opening display of cooperation sank into a mire of argument.

# 2 _At issue was the question of how to count votes. Large colonies wanted their populations to count for more. Small colonies wanted equal repersentation. Amid the debate, Philadelphia's church bells began tolling at the news that British forces were bombarding the city of Boston. It was a false alarm, but it added to an atmosphere of anxiety in Congress. The dark mood may have been heightened by the deadly risk each delegate faced by simply being there. The unprecedented assembly was unauthorized by Britain's King George 111 or the British Parliament. Among the delegates in attendance were men who believed the British government's treatment of the American colonies amounted to tyranny. Such politics were deemed treasonous by some, and the delegates undoubtedly knew what grisly fate sometimes befell traitors to the Crown.

# 3 _If arrested and convicted of high treason, a delegate might find himself in Great Britain's notorious Tower of London, waiting to be "drawn and quartered." If so sentenced, he would first be hanged until almost dead, then cut down and disemboweled. While still alive, he would be forced to watch his intestines burned. Then, one by one, other bodily organs would be torturously removed until death finally occurred. Afterward, his corpse would be beheaded and his torso cut into quarters. Finally, his head would be publicly mounted on a post. "Let us prepare for the worst," New Jersey delegate Abraham Clark at one point advised a colleague; "we can Die here but once." Debate on how to count votes concluded with a consensus__a single vote for each delegation__but the tension among delegates led some to fear that the Continental Congress might dissolve in disunity.

# 4 _Then Massachusetts delegate Thomas Cushing made a motion. Cushing was a forty-nine-year-old Boston lawyer, a Harvard alumnus, and a successful merchant. A member of the Masschusetts Committee of Safety, he was a prominent champion of Colonial political rights__always "busy in the interest of liberty," according to a colleagus. He observed the second day's tense deliberations with the savvy of a seasoned stateman__then he acted. From now on, Cushing formally proposed, Congress should officially open its day with prayer. The motion reflected Cushing's personal faith__he was a deacon at Boston's Old South Congregational Church__and it also reflectedthe common faith of most delegates. Even so, Cushing's motion for prayer provoked an immediate challenge.

# 5 _Concerns were voiced by John Rutledge of South Carolina and John Jay of New York. A thirty-five-year-old Lordon-educated attorney, Rutledge was renowned for his eloquence and political acumen. The older of two brothers in the South Carolina delegation, he would eventually become his state's governor and later the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was anything but a critic of Christianity: tutored by clergymen as a child, he was an Anglican who worshipped at Charleston's St. Michael's Church.

# 6 _John Jay was also  a believer. At twenty-eight, the New York attorney was a prominent member of New York City's Trinity Church. Descended from French Huguenots who had been driven from Europe for their Protestant faith, he would eventually become president of the American Bible Society. Like Rutledge, he too would someday become a governor and a U.S. chief justice, and__like Rutledge__he made no argument for separation of church and state. They were merely concerned that a congressional prayer might increase disunity because so many Christian denominations were represented in Congress. Could the delegte unite in a congressional act of worship?

# 7 _Massachusetts delegate Samuel Adams believed so__and he quickly rose to support Cushing's prayer motion. By almost any measure, Sam Adams was the most famous advocate of Colonial rights in America__and the most controversial. Politics was his passion, and he was a master of the craft. An instrumental leader in the Massachusetts legislature, he was viewed by many as Colonial America's leading defender, but Britain's leaders called him an "angel of darkness." He too was devout. Raised in a family of committed Christians, he had considered the ministry in his youth. Now, as a middle-aged Calvinist, he took his faith seriously, and was said to possess "the dogmatism of a priest."

# 8 _He was "no Bigot," Sam Adams told his fellow delegates. He "could hear a Prayer from a Gentleman of Piety and Virtue, who was at the same Time a Friend to his Country"__and he heartily endorsed the call to congressioal prayer. Congress agreed__and promptly passed Cushing's motion. Beginning the next day, the Continental Congress would officially open every day's session with prayer. But who would be the first to pray? In an obvious display of congressional unity, Samuel Adams, a Puritan Congregationalist, nominated an Anglican clergyman to offer the first official prayer. Congress approved his nomination and promptly sent an invitation to the selected minister.

# 9 _His name was Jacob Duche, and at age thirty-seven, he may have been the most popular preacher in Philadphia. The Anglican pastor of Philadelphia's prestigious Christ Church, Duche was the son of a former Philadelphia mayor and brother-in-law to congressional delegate Francis Hopkinson. A graduate of Cambridge University, he was well educated, served as professor of ortaory at the College of Philadelphia, and was renowned for his eloquence in the pulpit. The invitation to open Congress with prayer was a measure of his prominence, but carried genuine risk: Duche was a minister in the Church of England, Britain's official state church, and accepting the invitation could have put him in harm's way with the British government. He accepted anyway.

# 10 _The next morning__Wednesday, September 7, 1774__the pastor appeared before the delegates attired in Anglican clergyman's robes. When the Congress was called to order, he opened the day's session with a formal prayer, then followed it by reading from the Bible. The Bible passage Duche read was the Anglican "collect" for the day__the scripture scheduled for that day in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer__PSALM 35:

Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me. Take hold shield and buckler; and stand up for mine help. Draw out also the spear; and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul: let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt. Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angel of the Lord chase them. Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the Lord persecute them. For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul. Let destructioncome upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath bid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall. And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord: it shall rejoice in his salvation. . . .Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine hurt: let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me. Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the Lord be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant. And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long.

# 11 _Assembled in the intimidating shadow of Royal power, the  delegates found the relevance of Psalm 35 to be extraordinary. It was all the more striking for those who realized that particular Psalm had been placed in the prayer book as the reading for September seventh many years earlier. "It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that morning," Massachusetts' John Adams wrote his wife. Duche's prayers were apparently equally moving. The Secretary of the Continental Congress, Charles Thompson, managed to record one of them as it echoed in the stillness of Carpenters Hall.

O! Lord, our heavenly father, King of Kings and Lord of lords: who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth and reignest with power supreme & uncontrouled over all kingdoms, empires and governments, look down in mercy, we beseech thee, upon these our American states who have fled to thee from the road of the oppressor and thrown themselves upon thy gracious protection, desiring henceforth to be dependent only on thee.

# 12 _To thee they have appealed for the righteousness of their Cause; to Thee do they look up, for that countenance & support which Thou alone canst give. Take them, therefore, Heavenly Father, under thy nurturing care: give them wisdom in council, valour in the field. Defeat the malicious designs for our cruel adversaries. Convince them of the unrighteousness of their cause. And if they persist in their sanguinary purposes, O! let the voice of thy unerring justice sounding in their hearts constrain them to drop the weapons of war from their enerved hands in the day of battle.

# 13 _Be thou present, O God of Wisdom and direct the counsels of this honourable Assembly. Enable them to settle things upon the best and surest foundation, that the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that harmony and peace may effectually be restored, and truth and justice, religion and piety prevail and flourish amongst thy people. Preserve the health of their bodies and the vigour of their minds; shower down upon them and the millions they represent such temporal blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world, and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ thy son, Our Saviour, AMEN. 

# 14 _Some delegates were moved to tears. Duche's prayer, marveled John Adams, was "as pertinent, as affectionate, as sublime, as devout, as I ever heard offered up to Heaven. He filled every Bosom present." Connecticut's Silas Deane said the congressional devotion was "worth riding One Hundred Mile to hear." On a motion by New York's James Duane, the delegates unanimously voted to award Duche the official thanks of Congress. After the prayer and Bible-reading, some said, Congress had a renewed sense of purpose and unity.

# 15 _Their decision to find their way by faith was typical of Colonial America. In eighteenth-century America, observed Colonial scholar Patricia Bonomi, "the idiom of religion penetrated all discourse, underly all thought, marked all observances [and] gave meaning to every public and private crisis." The philosophical foundation of Colonial American culture, law, and government was the Judeo-Christian worldview. It was also the flame of inspiration that fired the American quest for freedom. The common people of Colonial America and their learders would soon established a new nation, and it would be founded on an old Book__THE BIBLE.

BIRTH OF THE NATION 1607 - 1776

# 1 _He was old now__white headed and weather-faced__but his memories were rich. He had been present at creation__at the birth of the nation. What scenes he had witnessed: Stamp Act protests, rousing debates in the Massachusetts legislature, ministers passionately preaching freedom from the pulpit, crowds crying, "No taxation without representation!"__and tons of tea spreading like brown ink in Boston Harbor. He has almost been captured by British troops at Lexington in 1775, when the shots were fired that changed the world. He had served as a delegate to the Continental Congress__as the most famous man there, by some estimate. He could remember the faces, the voices, the votes for independence__and the fresh, new appearance of the Declaration of Independence, which bore his signature.
# 2 _He was Samuel Adams, and in March 1797 he was seventy-four years old. He had served God and the people almost his entire life, and he was not finished yet. Not quite. He had been a political writer, an agitator, a legislator, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a United States congressman, a member of the Massachusetts convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution, the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts__and now, in his final years, he was the state's governor.
 He had seen so much__a grand, sweeping survey of America-in-the-making-and yet, he still had important duties to perform.
# 3 _One of them was before him now. It was his responsibility as governor to issue an official proclamation for the commonwealth of Massachusetts. This was no frivolous public statement. It did not resemble future proclamations issued by governors to promote tourism, celebrate sports victories, or recognize beauty queens, state fairs, and cooking festivals. On March 20, 1797, founding father Samuel Adams, now governor of Massachusetts, issued an official state proclamation calling for a "Day of Solemn Fasting and Prayer" in Massachusetts.
# 4 _It was not an unusual government action in eighteenth-century America: legislatures, governors, and the Anerican Congress had officially called for days of thanksgiving and had set aside official days for prayer and fasting. On the designated days, normal activities ceased in most places. Businesses closed. Traffic disappeared. Countless Americans assembled in their churches. Ministers of the Gospel, the most respected professionals in America, led them in worship, confessing sins, giving thanks, and respectfully imploring the blessings of Almighty God.
# 5 _Adams now did so again. With the "advice and consent" of the state legislatute, he officially proclaimed that a day in May would be set aside throughtout Massachusetts "for the purpose of public fasting prayer." On that day, "Ministers of the Gospel, with their respected congregationd" were asked to "assmble together and seriously consider, and with one untied voice confess our past sins and transgressions, with holy resolutions, by the Grace of God, to turn our feet into the path of His Law__Humbly beseeching Him to endue us with all the Christian spirit of Piety, Benevolence and the Love of our Country; and that in all our public deliberations we may be possessed of a sacred regard to the fundamental principles of our free elective civil Constitutions. . . .'' As governor, Adams also called on the people of Massachusetts to pray for the state's businesses, its industry, its education system, for the other American states, and for the national goverment. "And I do hereby recommend," he added, "that all unnecessary labour and recreation may be suspended on the said day." The proclamation concluded with an official request that would undoubetedly seem statling to many in a distant, future America:
I concede that we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the World__That the rod of tyrants may be broken into pieces, and the oppressed made Free__That wars may cease in all the Earth, and that the confusions that are and have been among the Nations may be overruled for the promoting and speedily bringing on that holy and happy period, when the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all the people willingly bow to the Sceptre of Him who is the Prince of Peace.
# 6 _By issuing such an official proclamation, were the governor and legislature of Massachusetts violating the United States Constitution? Not to their thinking. Samuel Adams had signed the Declaration of Independence and had voted to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, he not only understood the original intent of America's founding documents__he had helped make them. So had many others in his day, and they too had crafted, assisted, or observed First Day proclamations such as the one Samuel Adams issued in 1797. For them, America's foundation of faith was common knowledge, and they viewed American liberty as a legacy of the Judeo-Christian worldview. In their day, it was an accepted fact that American and English law were based on the Higher Law of the Bible__ans so were America's founding documents."The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence, were the only principles in which that beautiful assembly of young gentleman could unite," wrote founding father John Adams. "And what were these general principles? I answer, the general principles of Christianity. . . ." America's founding fathers, however, did not act alone: their decisive, deliberate actions reflected the common values of the people they represented. They were the real founding fathers__the people of Colonial America whose values forged the nation. Today, they are largely forgotten. So too are many of the key events that motivated them, such as the Great Awakening, and many of the leaders who inspired them, such as Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Davies, George Whitefield, even Samuel Adams. Fading too among the American public is awareness of the nations, founding values, such as Higher Law and inalienable rights.
# 7 _Some modern historians, such as the Jewish scholar Abraham Katsh, have labored mightily to preserve a record of America's faith__based founding. Of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, Katsh wrote: "there runs through these two prime instruments of American government the deeper meaning and higher purpose of a constant regard for principles and religious ideads, based on a profound sympathy with the Scriptures. . . ." The historical record is clear: America was forged on faith. But is that foundational fact common knowledge in contemporary America? Or has it been cast aside amid the clutter of modern distractions? Or perhaps lost by the neglect of the disinterested?
# 8 _In a contemporary classroom survey of upper-level American university students, all demonstrated extensive knowledge of popular culture-music and musicians, actors and actresses, star performers of the NBA, NFL, and NASCAR. They correctly identified the leading contestants in a televised talent show and the titles of contemporary motion pictures. When queried on topics from American history, all demonstrated a general knowledge that was decidedly superior to the random on-the-street interviews frequently cited in the modern news madia. Fewer than 10 percent, however, correctly indentified Jonathan Edwards. One percent knew of George Whitefield. Twice as many thought Samuel Adams was an alcoholic beverage rather than a founding father. One percent recognized the Great Awakening. None__not one__was able to correctly identify John Calvin's Institutes or apparently had ever heard of Higher Law.
# 9 _A century after his death , New England theologian Jonathan Edwards, whose 1741 sermon launched the Great Awakening, was deemed so important that Harvard historian Gerorge Bancroft devoted numerous pages to him in his epic History of the United States of America. Fifty years later, in the early twentieth century, Pulitzer Prize__winning historian Edward Channing depicted Edwards as a "keen intellect" who "united wonderful skill in the use of language and remarkable power of expression." In the same era, Encyclopaedia Britannica described Edwards as "an earnest, devout Christian and a man of blameless life," who had achieved a "great work" of scholarship. When New York University established the nationally acclaimed Hall of Fame for Great Americans in 1901, Edwards was honored as one of its first inductees, and was enshrined alongside Gerorge Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.
# 10 _By the twenty-first century, however, Americans and their heroes had changed. Jonathan Edwards was now unkown to most and discredited by others. In contrast to the respectful treatment Edwards had received from biographers a century earlier, he was now denounced for "high-handedness and bigotry" by a leading online student encyclopedia. The famous sermon that sparked the Great Awakening was dismissed as an "appeal to religious fear," and the faith in Christ inspired by his preaching was belittled as emotional "convulsions and hysteria." As for the Great Awakening__the unprecedented revival that inspired American independence? It was merely an odd "religious frenzy," the encyclopedia's student readers were informed, which spun "out of control" and stifled "liberal interpretation of doctrine."