Instruments of Providence

The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were intelligent and religious men with a strong sense of ethics and honor. Their professions included lawyers, merchants, doctors, educators, and four were full-time preachers. Even more of them were preacher’s sons. Most of them were active churchgoers with significant contributions of money, time, and talent. In short, they “practiced what they preached.”

In 1848 B. J. Lossing published a book about these men in which he stated, “The signing of that instrument was a solemn act, and required great firmness and patriotism in those who committed it… Such were the men unto whose keeping, as instruments of Providence, the destinies of America were for the time intrusted (sic); and it has been well remarked, that men, other than such as these—an ignorant, untaught mass, like those who have formed the physical elements of other revolutionary movements, without sufficient intellect to guide and control them—could not have conceived, planned, and carried into execution such a mighty movement, one so fraught with tangible marks of political wisdom, as the American Revolution.”

Where are such leaders today? Oh, that men would place their trust in the Lord and say along with many worthies in the Old Testament, “Here am I; Lord, send me!”

“The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of man.” --Benjamin Franklin