Reverend John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg

John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg

One of the Black Robed Regiment

John Peter Mulenberg was the son of Pennsylvania Lutheran minister Henry Muhlenberg. Though not an avid student, John went on to be a successful clergyman, soldier, and statesman.

After dropping out of college in Pennsylvania, he went with his brothers to study at the University of Halle in Germany. His father, considered as the Patriarch of the Lutheran Church of America, hoped John would choose the ministry; however, John’s advisors encouraged him to pursue commerce. For three years he endured a miserable apprenticeship with a merchant, before finally deciding to follow his childhood aspirations of joining the military. He joined the Royal American Regiment of Foot in the British army.  In 1767 he returned to Philadelphia and was honorably discharged.

John Peter Muhlenberg began theology studies and was licensed as a Lutheran minister in 1769. He started in ministry by assisting his father in New Jersey. He married the following year and received a call to minister to a church in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. As the established church in Virginia was Anglican, he needed to first travel to England for ordination as an Anglican minister. He served that Lutheran church in Woodstock, Virginia from 1772-1775.

During his years in Virginia he became an admirer of Patrick Henry and began participating in the patriot cause. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Virginia Provincial Convention. What the Rev. Muhlenberg will probably be best known for was a sermon he is said to have delivered to his church January 21^st, 1776, as reported in a biography by his great nephew.

The text of his sermon was from Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace,

        and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Muhlenberg stated, “And this is a time of war.” He then removed his clerical garb to reveal his Colonel’s uniform beneath it. His congregation and community must have been stirred by his word and actions because within a half hour 162 men enrolled, and the next day three hundred men from the county gathered to form the beginning of the 8^th Virginia Regiment.

This statue of  Muhlenberg was given to
The National Statuary Hall by
Pennsylvania in 1889

"Brethren, we came to this country to practice our religious liberties, and if we don't get involved, we're going to lose them."   

John Peter Muhlenberg, (1777)

Muhlenberg fought at Charleston, Brandywine, Stony Point and Yorktown. When the war was over, he no longer felt he could return to the ministry. Eventually he returned to Pennsylvania and went on to serve as a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, Lieutenant-Governor of Pennsylvania, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Shortly after being elected to serve in the Senate he resigned to take a job for the newly formed U.S. Customs Service.  Muhlenberg died in 1807 and is buried in Trappe, Pennsylvania.

“When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you. When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. He shall say: “Hear, Israel: Today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not panic or be terrified by them. For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”  Deuteronomy 20:1-4

THE BLACK ROBED REGIMENT

THE BLACK ROBED REGIMENT

It was not just the politician and soldier that pursued independence from Great Britain. Many of the clergy at the time of the American Revolution spoke out fearlessly from their pulpits about freedom and the need to oppose oppression by the crown. These patriot pastors, referred to as “The Black Robed Regiment” by the British, contributed to the advancement of independence by their calls for fasting, prayers, patriotic sermons, and sometimes by actually serving in the military. These are only a few of the patriotic pastors:

James Caldwell:   “The Fighting Chaplain” 

- pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethtown, was speaking out against the actions of the crown in the early 1770’s. He pleaded to the Virginia Legislature for religious liberty when restrictions were placed on churches. In April, 1775, Caldwell was serving on a committee that formally urged the Presbyterian churches to support the rebellion making him a target for revenge. He was elected chaplain of the Third New Jersey Brigade under Colonel Elias Dayton, a member of his own congregation.

In 1780 British and German forces raided Elizabeth Town, burning the Presbyterian Church and the courthouse. Caldwell wanted to move his wife and children to a safer location; however, Hannah stayed behind with her two youngest children, possibly because she felt safer in their home than traveling. The older children were sent to stay with friends in another town. Several churches and buildings were burned and Hannah Caldwell was killed when she was shot through the chest by a redcoat through a window of their house.

During a battle near Springfield, when Americans were taking many losses, they ran out of the paper critical in rolling the powder for their muskets. Reverend James Caldwell ran into a Presbyterian Church and gathered as many “Watts” hymnals as he could manage and handed them out to the troops, shouting “Give ‘em Watts, boys!” His patriotic and memorable comment did not hold off the siege of Springfield, but it was remembered and retold often.

Phillips Payson

-  was a Congregationalist minister in Massachusetts known for leading a group of irregulars in combat during the Revolution.

David Avery

-   became pastor of the Congregational church at Windsor, Massachusetts in 1773. Also a trained surgeon, Avery furnished his own medicine and instruments to supplement the Army's supplies. He was made chaplain of Col. Patterson's regiment in 1775 and later became chaplain of the fourth Massachusetts Brigade. He served at the battle of Bunker Hill; Noodle's Island, and the siege of New York. His congregation was supportive when he asked to be released from his pastorate in 1777, feeling it was his duty to remain in the army. After the war, he began preaching again and was a missionary to the New York Indians.

Rev. Jonas Clarke

His home was the destination when Paul Revere made his famous ride. As minister, Clarke not only had insight on what was happening in the colonies, but John Hancock and Samuel Adams were at his parsonage on when the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord came under fire. He expressed his views in the pulpit and in prayer — he knew a minister had a powerful platform.

  

Isaac Backus

- a Baptist pastor, Backus and others realized that the search for religious liberty was tied to the search for political liberty. In 1774 Backus, and others approached the First Continental Congress to gain their support to fight for religious liberty. John Adams, Sam Adams and others accused them of using a minor issue to divide the colonies while they were advancing the cause for political liberty. When the revolution began, Baptists joined the patriot cause believing it would also lead to religious liberty. On the Sunday following the Battle of Lexington, Backus preached a sermon encouraging resistance to the crown which resulted in many enlisting in the revolutionary army.

Samuel Cooper 

He served as pastor of the Brattle Street Church, in Boston, Massachusetts 1747-1783. Members of his parish included John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and others.

Ebenezer Baldwin

Pastor of the First Church in Danbury, Connecticut. Mr. Baldwin was noted for his passion to enlighten his parishioners to danger they faced in losing their liberty. In November, 1775, he preached a motivating sermon hoping to wake up the people to the significance of the struggle in which they were engaged.

My question is this: Is there still a Black Robed Regiment in our nation, or has political correctness, and laws which inhibit free speech, silenced individuals called to publicly pronounce the Truth of God’s Word?

Come back to this blog August 25th to learn about the pastor who took his sermon from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, then removed his clerical robe revealing his Colonel’s uniform, and led many of his congregation to enlist in the patriot cause.