I did it because a few weeks ago
when I was at home seeking to prepare
for this visit it seemed to me that
having prepared one address on Spurgeon I couldn't
really bring myself to prepare another particularly in
this bicentennial year.
Even in England and Scotland you know we
are very conscious of the date and it
seemed to me we even have postage stamps
which I haven't seen here yet but it
seemed to me to come all the way
to Harvey Cedars and to speak only about
an Englishman at this time wasn't really appropriate
and then I must admit I have been
looking for some while for an opportunity to
speak on Asheville Green when we were last
here at Harvey Cedars in 1973.
One of the memorable blessings of that visit
was the possibility of borrowing the life of
Asheville Green.
It took me I suppose two to three
months to read it.
It's over 600 pages but I shall never
forget the joy of first reading it and
in addition Jim Adams whose name has been
mentioned a few moments ago a missionary in
Columbia Jim was then preparing to leave for
Latin America and I was greatly moved when
he pressed into my hands an old rather
tattered and infinitely precious volume called Discourses by
Asheville Green.
I read both those books for the first
time in 1973 and ever since then it
seemed to me that here is a Christian
leader of a past generation who we really
ought to know and a man who has
a great deal to say to us.
Asheville Green started to write his life when
he was 79 years old.
You can picture him in the year 1840
in a room in Philadelphia wearing a clerical
wig and silk stockings dressed in the 18th
century style starting to write his life at
the age of 79.
And he went on writing until he was
85 and I have to tell you in
case you think he was just seeking to
recapture memories that he had his diaries which
he had kept all his days and from
those diaries he built this most valuable record
of his life.
He says at the beginning that as he
looked back he had lived to see a
new race succeed his own contemporaries and that
the whole face of the nation and society
had changed in his lifetime.
The America of his youth was a land
of dense forests and few and small cities.
He says there were no turnpike roads there
were no banks there were no canals no
railroads no steamboats indeed no United States but
only 13 colonies under King George III.
Well this life of Asheville Green was at
length published after his death in 1849.
There's one statement in the book which is
certainly wrong.
Towards the conclusion certain other prominent Christians finished
the volume off because Green died before his
completion and one of these men wrote that
Asheville Green would be remembered 100 years hence.
Well that is a statement which as you've
already seen a few moments ago is incorrect.
Now why then Asheville Green and what relevance
has he to the year 1976?
Well a great deal.
He spent his most impressionable years at the
time of the Revolutionary War on that night
of April the 19th in 1775 when Paul
Revere rode from Boston Asheville Green was 12
years old and when the war concluded he
was 20 and he was closely involved in
a great deal of what took place in
those intervening years.
He actually knew he says personally 15 or
16 of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence and what is more remarkable at the
age of 21 he had to address Congress
and the ministers of France and Holland and
finish his address with a particular oration to
George Washington.
Well we talked about splurging yesterday at 22
in the Crystal Palace but I think I
would rather have been splurging in that position
than Asheville Green at the age of 21
addressing Congress.
So you see he was very closely involved
in that period and not only so but
this is my second reason why he is
a worthy subject of attention he not only
participated in a number of those events but
he has left very full records and information
and in particular he writes on the extent
of the Christian influence in the transformation of
the 13 colonies into the United States.
Now as you know modern writers have been
prone to give very little place to religion
in the Revolutionary War.
Everybody is told of the religious disbelief of
Thomas Jefferson everybody is told of the latitudinarian
views of Benjamin Franklin but the impression is
given that French atheistic philosophy was the dominant
influence or at any rate an equal influence
with the influence of the Christian faith in
that period.
And in the very decided judgment of Asheville
Green that is an altogether erroneous interpretation of
200 years ago.
To me that makes him interesting I know
this is a wide subject and you will
find other views you will find them in
the book room there but in the ongoing
discussion of this I think that men like
Asheville Green ought to be heard.
How strong was the influence of the Christian
faith in the Revolutionary War?
My third reason then for turning to him
is that he is a fine example of
the spirit of the Christians of 200 years
ago.
As patriots you remember political events and as
Christians we ought to remember the church of
that day.
We are still one with them they in
glory and we upon earth.
We are united with them in the body
of Christ.
We shall meet them by God's grace in
the future and we are in debt to
them now for their labors.
We have entered into their heritage and therefore
at a time when people are simply commemorating
national events, surely as Christians we ought to
remember the church and the saints of that
period which is now so much a subject
of attention.
Asheville Green then was born at Hanover in
Morris County, New Jersey in the year 1762.
1762.
His father was Jacob Green In the year
1745 Jacob Green had been a student at
Harvard and George Whitfield had been visiting and
preaching in New England and Jacob Green rode
with Whitfield from New England down into the
middle colonies and there Jacob Green remained.
He became pastor at Hanover and he stayed
there for 45 years until his death in
1790.
He was twice married and Asheville Green was
the a son, one of the sons of
his second marriage.
His wife was of Scots, Irish descent.
Both my parents, says Green, were eminently pious.
My mother always praying with the family when
my father was from home.
In no other family have I known the
Lord's day to be observed with equal strictness
and solemnity.
My father, after preaching to the people of
his pastoral charge twice on each Sabbath in
the summer and once in the winter and
after resting for a short time had his
whole family collected together for instruction and devotion.
It is at least 70 years ago and
yet in my mind's eye I see him
sitting in his armchair and without book and
commonly with his eyes shut asking in regular
order every question in the Westminster shorter catechism
helping or correcting those who could not repeat
it perfectly.
And then Green goes on to describe very
beautifully the exercises in which they engaged how
the children were given portions of scripture examined
them on their reading.
The whole was concluded with a short address
from my father and all was by an
impressive prayer.
No secular business no conversation on secular subjects
was allowed in the family except that which
related to milking the cows and relieving the
necessities of animals of which my father had
a considerable number.
Well, Jacob Green was the pastor as I've
told you.
He was also a good deal besides.
He was the local school teacher.
He was the local doctor.
He had real interest in farming though he
didn't do much of that.
He made sure that Ashbel Green was taught
farming by one of the congregation.
He taught his son a good deal of
medicine.
As a youth Ashbel Green was trained to
let blood and to remove teeth and to
inoculate for smallpox and one gets the impression
of a family life which was very varied
and very rich and full of interest.
And one of the points of interest was
the political agitation of the day.
Every week Ashbel Green would have to go
about half a mile to a tavern where
he waited the arrival of the mail from
New York and expected in the mail was
John Holt's newspaper.
Now in New York in those days though
it may be to believe it there were
only two real newspapers certainly that boasted any
influence.
One was published by John Holt and the
other by James Rivington and these two papers
were as opposite as could be on political
matters.
Rivington's paper was a high Tory paper supporting
the high handed government of George III and
John Holt's paper was a paper which stood
vigorously for the interests of the colonies and
the antagonism between these papers was an antagonism
which was reflected through society.
But Ashbel Green tells us that when this
paper came to the tavern Holt's paper he
would be off home with it.
It would immediately be the subject of attention
and discussion and every member of the congregation
was a supporter of Holt's paper.
That's an interesting point.
It is of course a matter of fact
that certainly in New Jersey and in many
other parts of the colonies the Christians were
solidly behind the interests of the colonies over
against the politics of the English Tories.
There was only one man who Ashbel Green
knew in his childhood who was a supporter
of the other view.
It has sometimes been wondered why when the
war broke out at last in April 1775
why it was that Christians in the colonies
were so commonly found on the American side.
What was their justification for seeking independence by
means of revolution?
But that question misunderstands the circumstances in which
the struggle began.
By and large the Christians of New England
and the Scots-Irish of New Jersey of
course and both were so prominent in the
war by and large they were not for
independence in 1775.
All that they wanted was to safeguard a
degree of self-government along with loyalty to
the British Crown.
And on this point there is a recorded
conversation of an old farmer of Massachusetts which
seems to me to get very near to
the spirit of the outlook I've just mentioned.
He was a man who fought at Concord
the first engagement.
He lived to be 91.
And when he was an old man a
young man of 21 asked him why he
had faced the redcoats at Concord in 1775.
Did you take up arms against intolerable oppressions?
He was asked.
Oppressions?
replied the old man.
I didn't feel them.
What?
Were you not oppressed by the Stamp Act?
I never saw one of those stamps.
I certainly never paid a penny for one
of them.
Well, what about the tea tax?
I never drank a drop of the stuff.
I sympathize with that point.
Something wrong with American tea.
Then the young man went on.
Then I suppose you had been reading Harrington
or Sidney or Locke about the eternal principles
of liberty.
Never heard of them.
We read only the Bible, the Catechism, Watts'
Psalms and Hymns and the Almanac.
Well then.
Well then, said the young man.
What was the matter?
And what did you mean in going to
the fight?
Young man, what we meant in going for
those redcoats was this.
We always had governed ourselves.
And we always meant to.
And they didn't mean that we should.
Now, that was certainly the whole feeling in
which Ashbell Green grew up.
And when the war began, it wasn't, in
their view, a war for separation and for
independence.
As you well know, I trust the Declaration
of Independence was a good fourteen months after
the outbreak of war.
And even in 1777, as late as 1777,
the continental flag carried the Union Jack in
one of its cantons.
Admittedly, in that year it came off.
But it's illustrating the point that when the
war began, separation wasn't the immediate object.
But, like the text in the book of
Proverbs, in the letting out of water, who
can say what will be the consequence, once
the war began, the violence and insult that
was offered on occasions by the British troops,
and particularly the introduction of foreign German mercenaries,
so inflamed the public opinion that the point
of no return was reached and the motto
liberty or death became the watchword of the
colonies and certainly of the Christians along with
others in the colonies.
Now, as I say, Ashbelgrine in his youth
was caught up in the midst of this.
At the age of ten, in Hanover, the
boys were drafted into this youth militia.
They were given their wooden rifles.
They drilled, they marched until the age of
sixteen, the age that every boy longed for,
when they would actually take up arms and
fight in the militia.
As you know, the war was conducted by
a professional army on the American side, which
was a comparatively small army, the Continental Army,
and backed up by the militia, which did
a great deal of havoc to the British
side.
And even at fourteen, Ashbelgrine could be found
at night standing with a bayonet guarding a
bridge over one of the rivers.
He was, of course, in Hanover County, at
Hanover in Morris County.
He was very much in the center of
a lot of the military activity.
At sixteen, he fought with the militia.
He was in several of the engagements near
New York and elsewhere.
Writing of this in later life, he speaks
of two memories, two memories in particular, as
being the most dreadful that he recalled.
They weren't actually battles.
One was in December 1777, when prisoners on
both sides were released.
And a number of men of the colonies
were released in New York in that month.
And there being no hospitals, they were distributed
through the homes of the patriots.
And twelve of these men arrived at the
door of the manse.
And this is what Ashbelgrine says, Such another
company of miserable human beings, pallid and emaciated,
begrimed with dirt and smoke, and in every
way squalid in the extreme, my eyes never
beheld.
Twelve of these pitiable objects were brought in
a wagon and laid down at my father's
door, the most of them so helpless that
they could not get into the house without
assistance.
I cannot pretend to state how many of
those who were brought in carriages and left
in my father's parish never recovered.
I can only say that a number of
them died.
One of these men caught fever.
I think this man lived, so perhaps I
can mention this.
It has its humorous side to it.
Ashbelgrine on Sabbath morning was detailed to remain
at home and to look after these sufferers.
But this Irishman, big hefty Irishman, suffering from
a measure of delirium, suddenly sprang from his
bed with threats that he would kill anyone
who stopped him.
And he proceeded to rush out of the
house and to run through the cornfields in
his nightcoat or whatever he was.
Well, happily, he ran in the direction of
the church or close to it where the
congregation were then assembled.
So Ashbelgrine, though he couldn't tackle the Irishman,
could get to the church and somehow got
one or two of the elders out of
the service and together they managed to hold
this great strapping man and bring him back
to the house.
That incident made a deep impression on him
and so did the second one, the outbreak
of smallpox which affected not only the army
but the civilian population in 1777.
His father's church was then turned into a
hospital and those who suffered from smallpox were
taken there and very few indeed, if any,
of these people recovered.
It was this smallpox outbreak that led, in
the providence of God, you might say, to
Ashbelgrine's conversion.
And it happened in a way that you
would never imagine.
George Washington proposed that the only way to
check the outbreak was to inoculate the entire
army and the entire civilian population.
Now, Jacob Green, Ashbel's father, as I told
you, was something of a doctor and he
went to Washington in Morristown and pleaded with
Washington that this was a mistaken policy, it
was far too risky.
But, at length, Jacob Green was convinced and
he heartily entered into the plan.
And so troops were billeted out in civilian
homes, they were inoculated and the family was
inoculated at the same time.
And ten Virginian officers were billeted in the
manse at Hanover.
And this is what led to Green's conversion.
In the militia, he says, his captain, his
officer, was a godly man and he found
nothing in the militia that was injurious to
his Christian beliefs.
But for the first time when he met
these Virginian officers, he met men who, quite
evidently, had no Christian faith.
He was amazed that these men could be
in a home that was rich with Christian
books, with his father's library, and never once,
he says, in two months, did they take
down a single book from the shelves.
They spent their time in cards and in
other such things.
And Asheville Green says that this had a
degree of influence in leading me to question
the truth and authority of divine revelation with
which my domestic education had been deeply imbued.
In a word, I became skeptical in regard
to the Holy Scriptures.
This led to a period of doubt and
conflict.
He says he began to read books on
Christian apologetics.
He says that as he read them, they
often impressed him, and yet, I found that
my doubts were not ended, and that my
mind was far from being in a settled
and quiet state.
At length, in all his perplexity, he came
to this conclusion.
The thought struck me forcibly that if the
Bible did contain a revelation from God, which
we must believe on the peril of our
soul's salvation, it would then certainly carry on
the face of it the evidence of the
justness of its claims, provided it were carefully
and candidly examined.
And with a sincere and earnest desire to
know the truth, the goodness of God, I
thought, guaranteed this.
If he had indeed spoken to us in
the Bible, to the Bible itself, I determined,
therefore, to make my final appeal.
My Christian education had already rendered me in
a degree familiar with a large portion of
its contents.
But on this, I resolved to place no
dependence.
I took up the New Testament as if
I had never opened it before, and with
the single object of looking out for the
signatures of divinely inspired truth.
And I prayed, as well as half an
infidel might pray, that God, in whose existence
I believed, would help me to form a
just opinion of the truth or the fallacy
of the Bible.
Proceeding in this way, I have not gone
through the four Gospels till all my scepticism
left me.
And to this hour, it has never returned.
He goes on in his book to speak
of the place of apologetics and the place
of the Bible in apologetics.
I commend that very much to the ministers
present.
Then, at this point, having been convinced of
the truth of the Bible, he began to
think of his own condition.
If the Bible was true, then he was
lost.
Conviction of sin deepened, and ultimately he came
to the joy of assurance of the forgiveness
of sins in Christ.
So when the Revolutionary War was in its
early stages, Ashbell Green's motto was liberty or
death.
But these few years later, his great watchword
became the words holiness to the Lord.
He went out to the house where he
was staying then, and he wrote deep in
the bark of one of the trees the
words holiness to the Lord.
Now, he was one of four brothers, one
of the middle brothers.
The first, the eldest, and the youngest, the
father intended to be students, and the two
middle brothers, the father wanted to be farmers
or mechanics.
But Ashbell Green was so interested in books
that the father couldn't deter his studies.
So Ashbell Green, in between serving in the
militia, he also tutored at school, and then
at last, in the spring of 1782, he
went to Princeton College as a student.
Well, it must have been an interesting sight
to go to Princeton College in 1782.
A number of you will know that Princeton
College, or Nassau Hall, as it was sometimes
called, was built in 1756.
It came directly out of the Great Awakening.
And before the Revolutionary War, it had done
great work in sending men into the ministry,
and also sending men into positions of influence
in government and state.
But then in the war, the college figured
largely, it was occupied by American troops, it
was occupied by British troops who plundered the
library.
And at last, in the Battle of Princeton,
in, was it January 1777?
In the Battle of Princeton, British troops used
Nassau Hall, the main building, as a defensive
work.
And in the old prayer hall, where Jonathan
Edwards and Samuel Davies had gathered with the
students, American cannon fire wrecked the building.
You know the story of how the portrait
of George III that was hanging on the
wall was torn in two by one of
these cannon shot that came through the window.
Well, when Ashbel Green got to Princeton in
1782, the building was still bearing all the
marks of that war, which was just coming
to its conclusion.
And there were about 40 students.
And one of the effects of the war
was that the president of the college was
absent.
The president was the famous John Witherspoon.
I say famous, I'm afraid again his name
is little remembered.
The only minister to sign the Declaration of
Independence.
A very great Christian leader.
And he was so needed in the leadership
of Congress at that time that he alternated
between Princeton and Philadelphia, where Congress met.
So Ashbel Green then, and I must hasten
on, Ashbel Green studied at Princeton.
He was the leading student of his year.
That is how at 21 he had to
address Congress.
Congress in 1783 met at Princeton.
And when the commencement day services were being
held, Congress suspended its meetings and gathered with
all the students.
And Ashbel Green had to stand and to
address them and Congress.
And then, as I said, a special address
to George Washington.
The next day, Washington asked Green to come
and to dine with him.
And that was the beginning of Ashbel Green's
friendship with George Washington, who, of course, was
a much older man.
Green stayed at Princeton until he was, well,
I should say, until 1787.
He became a tutor in the college and
taught there.
At last, he was convinced that his duty
was to enter the Christian ministry.
It wasn't easy for him.
He was engaged to be married and his
fiancée was not enthusiastic about him preparing for
the ministry.
And the crisis came one evening when he
had been visiting the house of Witherspoon and
coming home with a man called Samuel Stanhope
Smith, who was one of the tutors.
Green asked Smith what he thought about this
question of his entering the ministry.
And Smith answered that the real question was
not what his duty was, but whether he
would follow his inclination or his duty.
Green says, this roused me.
For although I now believe that Smith's suspicion
was right, I did not so view it
then.
And therefore, I answered promptly and earnestly, no
sir, I think not.
That is to say, it wasn't between his
duty and his inclination.
He went on to say, I simply want
to know my duty.
Theology, Smith went on, is not the road
either to fame or wealth.
The law in this country leads to both
these objects.
But if you wish to do good and
prefer an approving conscience before all other considerations,
I have no hesitation in saying that you
ought to preach the gospel.
And so Green reached the decision which he
never lived to regret, that he entered the
ministry of the church.
Now, the rest of his life one can
divide into three portions.
This will make it simple.
From 1787, for twenty-five and a half
years, he preached in Philadelphia, the second Presbyterian
church of Philadelphia.
That was the first period.
The second period of his life was the
period when he became president of Princeton College,
from 1812 for ten years.
Then the third period began when he was
60, and he lived to be 89.
He began a new period of life at
the age of 60.
He returned to Philadelphia.
He became the editor of a new paper
called The Christian Advocate, and in many ways
was as influential at the age of 70
as he had been at 35.
Samuel Miller of Princeton, a very able Christian
leader, he says, with regard to Green, for
more than 40 years together, he set an
example of diligence and tireless labor in the
service of the church.
In all the great movements of his church
during the period in question, whether in the
cause of domestic or foreign missions, he might
be said, without exaggeration, to be the master
spirit to whom the whole church was accustomed
to look more than to any other individual.
You see why at the beginning that man
believed that Green would be remembered a hundred
years hence.
He was, says Miller, the master spirit.
In his 85th year, he was still studying
and writing with a hand as clear, bold
and steady as a man of 40.
He made his last appearance in the General
Assembly in 1846, supported on both sides by
friends, and two years later he died in
1848.
Now had there been time, what I would
have done would have been to try to
sketch to you the leading features of these
three periods.
The years in Philadelphia, the years at Princeton,
and the final years.
I'll have to hasten over this with just
touching on a few things.
In his years in Philadelphia, he was without
question the leading evangelical preacher in the city.
He was, says one who was there, eminently
popular.
No minister in the city approached him in
this respect.
Crowds flocked to hear him more than the
place of worship could contain.
His evening service was especially attended by all
denominations so that not only once or a
few times only, but from one year's end
to another and for a course of years
his ministry was attended with unabating interest.
One example of his influence, it comes from
a little later.
In Philadelphia at this period, the Sunday school
lessons taught were the same in all the
churches.
That's what I read, I presume in all
the churches, all the Protestant churches.
Possibly there must have been at least one
Catholic church there.
Of course the Catholics were very few in
number at this period.
All the Sabbath school teachers taught the same
lesson.
And in the week before they taught the
lesson, one of the ministers of the city
would address the Sabbath school teachers on the
lesson.
And this would happen on a Friday night.
And Ash Beltvene was the minister who for
a considerable time preached and lectured the Sabbath
school teachers on the Friday night before the
Sunday.
He lectured about a thousand Sabbath school teachers.
And then on the Sunday morning they went
and spoke to ten thousand children.
Seems to me a very good system.
And if you want to know the kind
of thing that he gave those Sabbath school
teachers, you can read it if you're happy
enough to find the precious volumes.
Ash Beltvene has two volumes on the Shorter
Catechism.
And in many ways I think they're the
best things ever written on the Shorter Catechism.
They're not only theological but they're popular and
interesting.
Ash Beltvene on the Shorter Catechism.
Well I must pass over but you can
see his influence as a preacher.
Then about 1800 he began to have a
number of trials.
There was some opposition in his congregation.
There was difficulty over his health.
He began to suffer from dizziness.
To stand on the edge of a platform
would worry him.
So much so that in the end he
had to stop using a pulpit.
And then his wife's health began to break
down.
So as well as being a preacher and
a pastor he says how he was a
nurse and a father.
And the care of the home fell very
largely upon his shoulders.
He passed through a very difficult period.
And it's a very valuable period written in
his biography.
He says how in the midst of these
difficulties and trials he never knew more spiritual
help and blessing in his ministry.
Well preaching was his first love.
There is no employment in this world that
I love.
And when he was called to Princeton in
1812 he had great struggles.
In the end one of the things that
convinced him it was his duty to go
to Princeton was the saying of George Whitefield.
George Whitefield had said once to John Witherspoon
every gownsman every student is legion.
Meaning if you touch one student you touch
a thousand others.
And this is what brought Green to Princeton
for ten very valuable years of his life.
And that volume that Jim Adams gave me
was a volume of addresses that Ashbel Green
gave to the students at Princeton in those
ten years.
I mustn't start to speak about that.
It's a whole subject in itself.
He has a tremendous emphasis on learning and
piety.
And his discourses to me are fascinating in
their value in that respect.
He pressed for greater piety alongside with learning.
I must pass over then.
The last period of his life as I
said was back in Philadelphia.
And in this period more and more he
was a man of deep prayer.
Indeed from his early years he used to
give one day a month to prayer and
fasting.
But in his last years he seemed to
be continually praying.
This is what Samuel Miller says.
In the most casual and unreserved intercourse of
society he appeared the deepest.
As he advanced in life this spirit seemed
and with respect to the later years of
his life exercises of devotion occupied of his
soul.
Now you'll find much of that in his
diary.
The absorbing element of his soul.
A lady was once very anxious to meet
him and discuss a certain thing with him.
And she came to his house I don't
know how often but she always got the
same reply that Dr. Green was at his
devotions and couldn't see her.
At last the poor woman in exasperation said,
Dr. Green is always at his devotions.
There was truth in that.
One minister who saw him near the end
of his life he says, My very last
interview with him impressed me with the depth
of the spirit of devotion which had characterized
his life.
He was feeble and forgetful and in a
mood to talk very little to anybody.
But hearing I was in the city he
sent for me that I might attend to
a matter of business with him connected with
the New Jersey Historical Society.
I entered his study on a May morning
about nine o'clock.
His Greek testament was open before him.
He requested me to be seated.
The business ended he waved his hand saying,
My devotional meeting is not yet concluded and
I shall be happy to see you at
another time.
And as I closed the door of his
study the prayer God bless you fell upon
my ear the last words I ever heard
him utter.
In the last few months of his life
he lost the ability to speak altogether.
He could scarcely communicate except by a note
or a whisper to those around him.
And so he continued until the very week
before his death when a Christian friend was
reading in his presence the first chapter of
the Gospel of John and came to the
text and of his fullness of all we
received.
And to the amazement of all that were
present Ashbell Green in a voice as loud
as was loosed and he burst into ecstasy
blessing God for the gift of his son
and the Gospel.
That he had been permitted to preach this
Gospel and had been honoured with any measure
of success in his ministry.
He goes on describing the praise and the
exaltation of Green.
The scene was indescribably impressive.
No person that did not see it can
imagine the majesty of the preacher and the
power of his word.
Scarcely more unexpected than if he had spoken
from his coffin.
These were the last words and praises of
Ashbell Green.
Now I conclude with two general comments which
are by far the most important matter I
think that we have to draw from this.
First returning to the point I made in
the Revolutionary War.
As I say Green's biography is full of
first hand evidence on this point.
Take for example the city of Philadelphia as
he knew it in the 1790s.
He says that in that city such was
the strength of Christian influence and commitment that
there was only one newspaper that had any
sympathy with disbelief in the Bible.
And such was the public recognition of the
Ten Commandments that legislation required that on the
Lord's Day chains would be placed across every
places of worship to prevent any traffic.
And then I have not yet mentioned this
that the Congress meeting in Philadelphia his acquaintance
with George Washington was renewed and for eight
years Ashbell Green with one other man was
chaplain to Congress and that meant something in
those days.
Every week alternately with William White the other
chaplain he would be in Congress he would
take prayers every morning.
And he said that in eight years he
never once saw any trace of irreverence in
the Congress.
And he says Ashbell Green that he believed
the reason why the leaders of the new
nation obtained such common support at the time
of the war was that they were recognized
as men of character upholding moral and the
instances quote the sacred regard to truth of
the Continental Congress and its carefulness quote never
to deceive the people and this he says
was due to the influence of the gospel.
And he mentions in particular the name of
Charles Thompson there were several presidents to the
Continental Congress there was only one secretary and
this secretary throughout the whole period of its
existence was Charles Thompson.
Charles Thompson was so well known and so
regarded for his integrity that it was a
common proverb that Thompson's name used to be
put on all statements of Congress all public
statements and it was a proverb people would
say it's as true as if Charles Thompson's
name was on it.
Now Charles Thompson says Green was a pious
Christian he spent his free time in the
translation of the Bible translated the whole Bible
for his own profit.
It was his custom says Green when national
events appeared gloomy to soothe his painful feelings
and await the developments of divine providence in
the study of the holy scriptures.
And then Green says a great deal about
George Washington.
He speaks of Washington's open acknowledgement of God
both in public and in private.
He speaks of how Washington rebuked blasphemy in
the army how carefully he supported the public
worship of God and how in Congress Washington
declared quote the propitious smiles of heaven can
never be expected on a nation that disregards
the eternal rules of order and right which
heaven ordains.
And again says Washington religion and morality are
the essential pillars of civil society.
Now Green of course was well aware that
on the part of some men respect for
religion was only apparent.
He knew Thomas Jefferson he was chaplain under
Jefferson for a period.
But he points out certain interesting facts about
Jefferson and not least the degree of deception
which Jefferson was capable of using.
He says for example how in 1774 when
Jefferson was wanting to rouse the people the
old Puritan sentences and Green says that it
wasn't until many years later that Jefferson's unbelief
became known.
I'm not quoting Green at that point I
must be careful.
That's not exactly what he says.
What he says is this that in time
Jefferson's infidelity became generally known but he says
quote it was not openly avowed till after
his death.
He charged his grandson in his will to
publish certain papers which he left.
And this material says Green contained a mass
of infidelity of the most malignant and abusive
kind.
And Ashcroft Green himself answered that.
Jefferson's views were those of course of the
philosophy of the French Enlightenment.
And on the face of it the slogans
of the French Revolution liberty, equality and fraternity
were the same as the sentiments declared in
the American Revolution.
The French abolished any religious idea in government.
They proclaimed the sole design of government to
be the advantage and happiness of man.
The American Revolution on the other hand was
supported by many who held that the first
duty of state is to seek the glory
of God.
And they believed with Washington that civil society
cannot be held together without morality.
And that morality in turn depends upon the
religious recognition of God.
The French Revolution inspired the kind of ultra
-democracy which is ultimately the...
It deified the voice of the people by
making the people the seat of authority.
So that the chief concern of politicians necessarily
became pleasing the voters.
No duty was owed to God.
No authority was to be considered as coming
from Him.
The great question which politicians had to settle
in deciding between one of several possibilities was
simply the question will it be popular?
Now the prevailing spirit of the American Revolution
was not of this kind.
And Asheville Green writes comparing the American and
the French Revolutions What may be called the
materials of these two revolutions were as different
as can well be imagined.
The leaders in our revolution were good as
well as great men.
If there were a few infidels among them
as no doubt there were they were obliged
to conceal their infidelity because it was unpopular.
Our people speaking comparatively were an intelligent, moral...
In the most of these provinces days of
fasting and prayer were no novelty.
They had been a frequent occurrence.
The influence of the clergy both in and
out of the pulpit was great and commanding.
It was also well known that the Continental
Congress recommended days of religious observance.
Our army too had chaplains to whom the
commemorations would permit.
Of all this there was not only nothing
in the origin and progress of the French
Revolution.
There was the absence of all good and
the presence of much evil.
An eruption took place of the most ferocious
and infernal passions that human nature had.
Now that leads to a question which we
have no time to examine.
We will all have to do more reading
ourselves.
And in that concern they sometimes it seems
to me reacted in the other direction as
a great deal that would need to be
said and which cannot be said here.
My last point with which I close is
that this strength of Christian influence in the
Revolutionary War owed its source to one thing
only and that is to the great awakening
of the 1740s.
You know it seems a long time from
1740 to 1776 but that's not long.
The men who were converted in the 1740s
in so many instances were the men who
were leading in the 1770s.
And almost every character who influenced Ashbell Green
was a man who had been touched by
the spirit of God in the great awakening.
John Witherspoon, friend of Whitefield, his own father
Jacob Green, his tutor Samuel Smith at Princeton,
all the way along.
Then when Green went to Philadelphia the second
Presbyterian church in Philadelphia was a church built
by the converts of Whitefield in the aisle
in front of the pew the body of
Gilbert Tennant the great leader in the great
awakening or one of them was buried.
The country was permeated especially New Jersey and
parts of New England with the power of
the Christian faith experimentally known.
And Ashbell Green's life brings out very clearly
how this influence penetrated the nation.
And that is the reason why Green in
his latter years gave himself to prayer.
He was interested in government.
He was interested in arts and literature.
But he believed that the future of the
United States depended upon such effusions of the
spirit as had visited the country in the
1740s.
And as far as he was concerned there
was nothing greater that he could do than
to pray for such revivals and such works
of God.
In the year 1842 he closes a letter
to his son with words with which we
will also close.
Let us not despair of our country for
there are still indications that she is destined
to a great agency in the enlightening and
reforming of the world.
But let the religious community awake to its
situation.
Let there be among all denominations of evangelical
Christians a combination of prayer and effort in
the pressingly needful work of resisting vice and
promoting reformation.
This is our duty and if we duly
perform it we may trust in God that
he will yet make the United States the
glory of all lands.
Affectionately, Adieu.
Thank you very much.