"It is earnestly recommended that all officers and soldiers diligently to attend Divine Service and all officers and soldiers who shall behave indecently or irreverently at any place of Divine worship shall if commissioned officers be brought before a court martial there to be publicly and severely reprimanded by the President, if non-commissioned officers or soldiers, every person so offending shall for his first offence forfeit one sixth of a Dollar to be deducted out of his next pay, for the second offence he shall not only forfeit a like sum but be confined for twenty-four hours and for every like offence shall suffer and pay in like manner, which money so forfeited shall be applied to the use of the sick soldiers of the troops or company to which the offender belongs."[146]
The continental congress in its acts for the regulation of the Army issued the above orders. Orders also came from headquarters directing the soldiers actions along religious lines. "All officers see that their men attend upon prayers morning and evening also the service on the Lord's Day with their arms and accouterments ready to march in case of any alarm, that no Drums to be beaten after the parson is on the stage".[147]
But the religion of the American soldier was more than an order from the provincial congress or from headquarters. It was an influence which was an important factor in the soldiers life and in the war. In the American Revolution perhaps the religious element was not the paramount factor as it had been in the crusades or the Puritan Revolution giving character to the whole movement, it rather stayed in the back ground and supported the political and military organizations.[148]
The pulpit had been a factor in shaping the soldier's life before he left home, it was a day when newspapers and other means of disseminating ideas were not very plentiful and the pulpit was about the only way of reaching the majority of the people. It is said of one minister who was famous for his bold sermons and his purely political discourses although they were delivered from the pulpit he "knows all our best authors and has sometimes cited even in the pulpit passages from Voltaire and Jean Jaques Rousseau".[149]
The house of representatives of Massachusetts saw the value of the clergy in shaping public opinion and passed a resolution asking them to make the question of the rights of the colonies a topic of their discussions on week days. The pulpit, too, had its place in the election campaign. There was preached before the governor and house of representatives of Massachusetts what was called the "election sermon". It was a sermon preached by the best ministers of the colony, not exactly as a mere compliment to religion, but with the object in view of instruction. The ministers did not only deliver dissertations on the doctrinal truths, but they discussed the rights of men, the nature of government and theories of liberty and equality. The sermons delivered on such occasions do not seem to be impracticable theological discourses, but rather on the other hand very practicable. The questions of the day being subjects discussed; for it was through the medium of the church that the people received the foundation for their beliefs in political affairs.
On Monday the 29th of May, 1771, John Tucker of Newbury preached the election sermon on the text "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of men for the Lord's sake whether it be the king as Supreme". From that as a text he went into a discussion of the sort of submission which was due to the rulers. In 1773 Charles Turner preached from Romans and tried to show why it was the right and duty of the clergy to enter into politics. The next year when excitement was reaching its height it is interesting to note the sort of text Rev. Hitchcock of Pembroke took for the basis of his sermon. It was from Proverbs XXII, 2, "When the righteous are in authority the people rejoice but when the wicked bear rule the people mourn".[150] It is not hard to believe that just such sermons and many others like them had some thing to do with the Revolution as well as Navigation Acts and Correspondence Committees. Of course it must be said that since the people did not rise as one man there was another view to take on the question, but the people were guided in the opposite view also by the clergy.[151]
The clergy did more than discuss politics from the pulpit before the conflict broke for when the war was on in earnest and troops were being raised the ministers left their pulpits to take their place in the army not always as chaplains, but sometimes in the ranks and sometimes as head of the company. In one company of minute men from Domeers the deacon went as captain and the minister as lieutenant.[152] Besides the part played by the clergy, the church as a whole was one of the forces working for the care and comfort of the American Soldier. The churches were turned into barracks and hospitals.[153] Messages of the officers of the army describing the soldiers' conditions in camp were read from the pulpit on Sunday Morning; the afternoon congregation would be made up almost entirely of men, and the women were to be found at home knitting or spinning.[154]
When Washington assumed command of the army at Cambridge he found chaplains attached to different regiments sent from various colonies, especially from the New England colonies. Some of these were volunteers without pay and others were appointed by the provincial congress.[155]