Daniel Dreisbach

My book, “Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers,” is now available from Oxford University Press and other booksellers! amzn.to/2fDi3eQ

20 March 1779: pray that God “will grant…Freedom to those who are in Bondage, & Comfort to the Afflicted: That he will...extend the Influence of True Religion, & give us that Peace of Mind which the World cannot give.” Congress, PROCLAMATION for “Fasting, Humiliation & Prayer.”

20 March 1780: “The only sure and permanent foundation of virtue is Religion. Let this important truth be engraven upon your Heart, and that the foundation of Religion is the Belief of the one only God.…” Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams. #AbigailAdams #AdamsPapers

20 March 1781: “that it may please [God] … to grant that truth, justice and benevolence, and pure and undefiled religion, may universally prevail.” PROCLAMATION of “The United States in Congress assembled,” recommending “a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer.”

On March 17, 1790, the Marquis de Lafayette sent to “My Beloved General” #GeorgeWashington a key to the demolished Bastille prison, stating: "it is a tribute Which I owe as A Son to My Adoptive father, as an aid de Camp to My General, as a Missionary of liberty to its patriarch."

16 March 1776: may we “confess & bewail our manifold sins & transgressions, and by a sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease his righteous displeasure, and through the merits & mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain his pardon & forgiveness….” Congress, Fast-Day Resolution.

16 March 1776: “In times of impending calamity and distress; when the Liberties of America are imminently endangered…, it becomes the indispensible duty of these hitherto free & happy Colonies,...to acknowledge the over-ruling providence of God...” Congress, Fast-Day Resolution.

I had the great honor of giving a talk today at Historic Christ Church in Weems, VA. The talk commemorated the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (June 12, 1776), a cornerstone of American founding principles. @VARevolution250 @VAHumanities

15 March 1776: Believing “that the Providence of Almighty GOD over-rules & directs the Affairs of Mortals,” the Colony of New Hampshire's Council & Assembly appointed "a Day of public Humiliation, Fasting & Prayer;…That we may be preserved from wasting & Epidemical Distempers.”

@TWilliamsAuthor They are looking forward to your visit and presentation! It was a great audience today.

@d3bach @VARevolution250 @VAHumanities Have a great talk! I’ll be speaking there June 11 on enslaved people and the Declaration of Independence!

“...Providence sometimes chastises nations with physical epidemics, & sometimes...with moral epidemics, & after a while removes them. This encourages hope; for if we have arrived at or near the *pessimum* of this evil, the *melius* cannot be far distant.” #JohnJay, March 14, 1815

10 March 1786: Massachusetts Proclamation urged people to “confess their Sins to GOD; & implore the Forgiveness of them through the Merits & Mediation of JESUS CHRIST our SAVIOUR:... resolving...not only to forsake them, but to bring forth the positive Fruits of a virtuous Life.”

"the bible contains more knowledge necessary to man in his present state, than any other book in the world." Dr. Benjamin Rush (signer of the Declaration of Independence), A Defence of the Use of the Bible as a School Book (addressed to the Rev. Jeremy Belknap, March 10, 1791).

@Pete4CA Thank you for the opportunity and the generous hospitality extended to me! I return home with great memories of my time at @PepperdineSPP.

And we were honored to have you, Dan! Wonderful talk for our “Faith, Freedom, and the Founding” series. Video up on the @PepperdineSPP YouTube channel soon.

I was honored to give a lecture today at @PepperdineSPP on biblical influences on the #Founders’ views on #HumanNature and how those views shaped their political thought and practice. The Founders’ political anthropology, informed by Genesis 3, viewed man as a fallen creature.

“The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like Gravity, ever acting, … gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is ingulphing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them.” Thomas Jefferson,  9 March 1821.

@jacobkpayne03 It was my pleasure!

@d3bach @PepperdineSPP Thank you for coming!

6 March 1799: President John Adams called on his fellow citizens to observe “a day of solemn humiliation, fasting & prayer” & implore “the most High GOD” to “make us deeply sensible that ‘righteousness exalteth a nation, but that sin is the reproach of any people’” [Prov. 14:34].

6 March 1799: #POTUS #JohnAdams recommended that citizens observe “a day of solemn humiliation, fasting & prayer,” confess past transgressions, & seek the “pardoning mercy” of “the most High GOD...through the great Mediator & Redeemer [&]...through the grace of his #HolySpirit.”