Samuel Davies grew up in a farming family in Delaware, received a classical education, and became an evangelist Presbyterian minister. He moved to Virginia in 1747. Though he was careful to maintain good relations with the Anglican authorities there, he managed to draw large numbers of Virginians to his evangelical faith and established a thriving network of ministers around him. He was known as a powerful orator, and Patrick Henry claimed to have been influenced by his example. He was an advocate of spreading the Christian faith among the slaves of Virginia. A little over a decade after his arrival in the state, he left to become president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), where he launched an aggressive campaign of reform. His labors were cut short by his death less than two years into his term as president.
Davies took the lead in rallying popular support in Virginia behind the British in their war with France. The British did not fare well in the early days of the French and Indian War in the North American colonies (putting the young George Washington into retreat). In the spring of 1758, Davies gave this sermon to the militia in Hanover County, where he had made his home. He urged the assembled men to join the British cause, arguing that they had a religious duty to take up arms in defense of their country.
Jeremiah 48:10 – Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully; and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.
Nothing can be more agreeable to the God of Peace than to see universal harmony and benevolence prevail among His creatures; and He has laid them under the strongest obligations to cultivate a pacific temper toward one another, both as individuals and as nations. Follow peace with all men, is one of the principal precepts of our holy religion. And the great Prince of Peace has solemnly pronounced, Blessed are the peacemakers.
But when, in this corrupt, disordered state of things, where the lusts of men are perpetually embroiling the world with wars and fightings and throwing all into confusion; when ambition and avarice would rob us of our property, for which we have toiled and on which we subsist; when they would enslave the freeborn mind and compel us meanly to cringe to usurpation and arbitrary power; when they would tear from our eager grasp the most valuable blessing of Heaven, I mean our religion; when they invade our country, formerly the region of tranquility, ravage our frontiers, butcher our fellow subjects, or confine them in a barbarous captivity in the dens of savages; when our earthly all is ready to be seized by rapacious hands, and even our eternal all is in danger by the loss of our religion; when this is the case, what is then the will of God? Must peace then be maintained? Maintained with our perfidious and cruel invaders? Maintained at the expense of property, liberty, life, and everything dear and valuable. Maintained, when it is in our power to vindicate our right and do ourselves justice? Is the work of peace then our only business? No; in such a time even the God of Peace proclaims by His providence, “To arms!” Then the sword is, as it were, consecrated to God; and the art of war becomes a part of our religion. Then happy is he that shall reward our enemies, as they have served us. Blessed is the brave soldier; blessed is the defender of his country and the destroyer of its enemies. Blessed are they who offer themselves willingly in this service, and who faithfully discharge it. But, on the other hand, Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully; and cursed is he that keepeth back his sword from blood.
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Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood. This denunciation, like the artillery of heaven, is leveled against the mean, sneaking coward who, when God, in the course of His providence, calls him to arms, refuses to obey and consults his own ease and safety more than his duty to God and his country.
Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully. This seems leveled against another species of cowards—sly, hypocritical cowards who undertake the work of the Lord, that is, take up arms; but they do the work of the Lord deceitfully, that is, they do not faithfully use their arms for the purposes they were taken. They commence soldiers, not that they may serve their country and do their duty to God but that they may live in ease, idleness, and pleasure, and enrich themselves at the public expense. Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and serves himself under pretense of serving his country.
And will these violence’s cease without a vigorous and timely resistance from us? Can Indian revenge and thirst for blood be glutted? Or can French ambition and avarice be satisfied? No, we have no method left but to repel force with force, and to give them blood to drink in their turn who have drunk ours. If we sit still and do nothing, or content ourselves, as alas! we have hitherto, with feeble, dilatory efforts, we may expect these barbarities will not only continue but that the Indians, headed by the French, those eternal enemies of peace, liberty, and Britons, will carry their inroads still farther into the country and reach even to us.
Some cry, “Let the enemy come down to us, and then we will fight them.” But this is the trifling excuse of cowardice or security, and not the language of prudence and fortitude. Those who make this plea, if the enemy should take them at their word and make them so near a visit, would be as forward in flight as they are now backward to take up arms.
And, in such circumstances, is it not our duty, in the sight of God, is it not a work to which the Lord loudly calls us, to take up arms for the defense of our country? Certainly it is: and cursed is he who, having no ties sufficiently strong to confine him at home, keepeth his sword from blood. The man that can desert the cause of his country in such an exigency; his country, in the blessings of which he shared while in peace and prosperity; and which is therefore entitled to his sympathy and assistance in the day of its distress; that cowardly, ungrateful man sins against God and his country, and deserves the curse of both.
Ye that love your country, enlist; for honor will follow you in life or death in such a cause. You that love your religion, enlist; for your religion is in danger. Ye that love your friends and relations, enlist; lest ye see them enslaved or butchered before your eyes.
I seriously make the proposal to you, not only as a subject of the best of kings and a friend to your country but as a servant of the most high God; for I am fully persuaded what I am recommending is His will; and disobedience to it may expose you to His curse.
Perhaps some may object that should they enter the army their morals would be in danger of infection, and their virtue would be perpetually shocked with horrid scenes of vice. This may also be a discouragement to parents to consent to their children’s engaging in so good a cause. I am glad to hear this objection, when it is sincere and not an empty excuse. And I wish I could remove it by giving you a universal assurance that the army is a school of religion and that soldiers, as they are more exposed to death than other men, are proportionably better prepared for it than others. But alas! the reverse of this is too true; and the contagion of vice and irreligion is perhaps nowhere stronger than in the army; where, one would think, the Supreme Tribunal should be always in view, and it should be their chief care to prepare for eternity, on the slippery brink of which they stand every moment.
*this is a shortened and condensed version.
The full original sermon can be found in the link below.
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