The Declaration of Independence First Received in the Churches

Philadelphia, July 2, 1776, Congress Orders it read to congregations by their preachers …the Black Robed Regiment

Prologue. The colonies were now in a state of rebellion and civil war. The King of Great Britain had decreed that traitors were to be hanged. The delegates to the Continental Congress had completed the writing of the Declaration of Independence, July 2th to be signed in two days on July 4, 1776. They ordered that this document be first delivered to men dressed in black, the clergy, and ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Forty-nine men had signed the most important document ever composed. Seven more delegates would add their names.

Americans were being slaughtered for speaking out against the tyranny imposed on them. Scores were killed at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 by the King’s Redcoats. Joseph Warren was shot in the face at the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, one week after his 34^th birthday. His body had been mutilated, his head cut off and buried secretly by the King’s soldiers to prevent him from becoming a martyr. He had led the rebellion against King George’s abuses of American colonists’ rights…he was hated by the Massachusetts Governor and the King’s military occupiers. He left four children without a father. Their mother was dead. He had been a single parent for less than two years. Warren County, Virginia, is named in his honor.

The fight for freedom would spread to every colony and go on for seven years. The King would send tens of thousands of soldiers to put down the American rebellion. 231,000 Americans would join the fight to be free and have a Republic where the people governed themselves. 25,000 American soldiers would die in this fight for a Republic. They were Common soldiers…youth in their teens, fathers and mothers, and old men. A nation under God was their goal, and they succeeded.

Our Story. The debating was over, and the Declaration of Independence had been approved by the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia on a hot July 2nd day. Questions abounded still, and anxiety as to the future of men about to affix their signatures to a piece of paper destined to be the greatest and most historic document in the history of the world.

Fifty-six men from the thirteen colonies had worked for weeks to compose the world’s first such document, and at the bottom of this Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress ordered that when printed and ready for distribution on July 4th, the documents would be sent to parish clergy and ministers. The importance of this is that the instructions did not direct this circulation to town clerks or newspapers, but to preachers of the Gospel, men known as the “Black Regiment,” thus named for the black robes they wore.

The pulpit had already played a role and would play a more important one in American freedom. The black-robed ministers would encourage activism, and many would personally join in the fighting and serve as soldiers and chaplains. As many as one hundred would leave the pulpit of the church for the “pulpit of the camp and battlefield.”  Twelve would die in battle.

When the Declaration arrived in the hands of the clergy, it was “required to read the same to their respective congregation, as soon as divine service ended, in the afternoon, on the first Lord’s Day after they have received it.”

Church members would find it hard to have services without their ministers, now gone to war. Attendance dropped off due to a lack of clergy personnel on the home front. The war and home front would never be the same… every place where the British chose to camp, they sought to destroy George Washington’s “rag tag” army in the north and Nathanael Greene’s in the South.

Tempers flared in all corners of the land, and debates were held between Loyalists and patriot members of congregations. In Loudoun County, Virginia, at Ketoctin Baptist Church, near Purcellville, a debate between Tory John Osborn and Preacher John Marks was arranged. Heated tempers caused the debate to be called off, and John Marks joined General Washington’s Army as a Chaplain. John Osborn would not give up his support of the King’s cause and, in defiance, would name his new son Tarleton after one of General Cornwallis’ most cruel officers, Colonel Banastre Tarleton. Tarleton is portrayed in Mel Gibson’s movie The Patriot as merciless and inhumane. John Osborn and Chaplain John Marks are buried in the Ketoctin graveyard, a few feet from each other. A host of church members who became soldiers of the Revolution are there, too.  Fate played a trick on ol’ John Osborn; he died on July 4th, years after Independence was won. As a young minister, my first church was in the Old Ketoctin Church. I served there for nearly ten years. As God would have it, when I moved to Loudoun County, I bought the old Osborn farm established in 1733. I farmed it for 30 years, retiring to Warren County over twenty years ago with my wife, Sondra.

The Rev. Jonathan Boucher, Anglican Priest, a supporter of King George from Maryland, would carry not just his sermon into the pulpit but also a loaded pistol. His congregation was split, and the danger of personal attacks was ever-present. Fearing for his life, he returned to England.

The Rev. Peter Muhlenberg of Woodstock, Virginia, regularly preached for the cause of American colonists’ freedom. He had a surprise for his congregation on the day of his final service at his Woodstock church, to drive home the point that the American Revolution must succeed. Following the final hymn, he threw off his black robe as he recited Ecclesiastes Chapter 3, “a time for war and a time for peace, and now is the time for war,” and revealed his uniform of a militia colonel. He then recruited men of his congregation to join the fight for independence, and they became known as the “German Regiment” as most migrating from Europe did not yet speak English. Peter had been licensed as an Anglican priest and ministered to the German settlers of the Shenandoah Valley. He was now considered a traitor to the English Empire. He served with honor as a Revolutionary War officer and rose to the rank of major general. There is a statue of this black-robed priest in the yard of the old courthouse in Woodstock honoring him. He marched to war in January of 1776, along with 300 men of the Valley of Virginia, to join General George Washington. They fought until the surrender of the British at York Towne seven years later. All would be wounded and many killed during this war for the “Glorious Cause.”

The majority of Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Puritans, Methodists, and most of the denominations in the Colonies, excepting the Quakers, would join in preaching the insurrection. Anglican priests were split because of their vows of allegiance to the King, but still, many would heed the call of Independence. The torch of Independence was lit early with Anglican George Whitefield’s arrival in the Colonies in 1740. He was known as the greatest preacher in the Colonies. He preached salvation through Jesus Christ and gave warning to the people about the oppression of the King, and launched the “Great Awakening.” He traveled from New England to Georgia, setting attendance records, and started “field preaching,” which Anglican John Wesley also used. The difference in the political points of view of Whitefield and Wesley was commonly known. Wesley taught “obedience” to the Crown, and Whitefield spoke of “man’s right of freedom” from oppression, including the slaves. A movie has just been released about his ministry and his very special relationship with Benjamin Franklin. They became close as George preached Salvation in Jesus Christ. Ben and George became fast friends when Ben Franklin used his printing press to promote Whitefield by printing and circulating thousands of copies of Whitefield’s sermons.

We cannot avoid, ignore, or abandon our responsibilities in striving to preserve the heritage secured by our Founders. Laity and the clergy must be vigilant and ever ready to fight for our Republic to ensure it is not weakened by interlopers and left for scavengers who come to suckle from the breast of Liberty bought with the blood of patriots. We must speak out against the mockery of our form of government and the eschewing of our Constitution to satisfy alien purposes, while abandoning the individual freedoms we treasure. Our Founders knew and voiced the reality that moral values of Christianity are the “bedrock” foundation of our Republic, and it will crumble without them.

I invite clergy and laymen from the mountains to the plains, from sea to shining sea, from Alaska to the Keys, and from Virginia to Hawaii to light the fires of that “old time religion” and preserve the freedoms won on the frozen tundra of Valley Forge, in the icy Delaware River, on the rain drenched field at Guilford Courthouse, Daniel Morgan’s “fire and sword” at Cowpens, in the alligator filled swamps of South Carolina, and finally, on the sandy beaches at Yorktown.

Arise, layman and clergyman, whose hearts are filled with concern for the future of our Country, and become active patriots.

Raise your voices as our soldiers did fighting in what they called the “Glorious Cause.” Let us shout their battle cry in one voice, “There is NO king, but King Jesus!” And let us join in singing the new hymn “Awaken Us Today,” the theme of the new movie “The Great Wakening,” telling the story of George Whitefield and Ben Franklin.

Larry Wilson Johnson of Virginia
Liberty Man and Clergyman