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John Witherspoon, ordained minister & Signer of the Declaration of Independence "A Republic must either preserve its Virtue or lose its Liberty."
John Witherspoon was born in Scotland on February 5, 1723.
A descendant of Protestant Reformer John Knox, Witherspoon was educated at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and afterwards served as a Presbyterian pastor.

His writings brought him to the attention of the trustees of the College of New Jersey, who sent Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton to Scotland to persuade him and his wife, Elizabeth, to come to the American colonies.

Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton later joined John Witherspoon in signing the Declaration of Independence.
Sailing to America in 1768, John Witherspoon became the President of the College of New Jersey, which was later renamed Princeton University.
There, Witherspoon taught 12 members of the Continental Congress, and 9 of the 55 writers of the U.S. Constitution, including James Madison.

Witherspoon's other Princeton students included:

1 U.S. Vice-President,
3 Supreme Court Justices,
10 Cabinet Members,
13 Governors,
28 U.S. Senators,
49 U.S. Congressmen,
37 judges, and
114 ministers.
John Witherspoon was elected as a delegate from New Jersey to the Continental Congress.

He declared:

"Gentlemen, New Jersey is ready to vote for independence ... The country is not only ripe for independence, but we are in danger of becoming rotten for the want of it!"
John Witherspoon was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration.

He lost two sons in the Revolutionary War.
In the Continental Congress, he served on 120 Congressional Committees.

He was a primary proponent of the SEPARATION OF POWERS, insisting checks be placed on the power of government.
The same day the Continental Congress declared a Day of Fasting, May 17, 1776, Rev. Witherspoon told his Princeton students:

"If your cause is just, if your principles are pure, and if your conduct is prudent, you need not fear the multitude of opposing hosts.

He is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind.

Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple (hesitate) not to call him an enemy of his country ..."
Witherspoon concluded:

"It is in the man of piety and inward principle, that we may expect to find the uncorrupted patriot, the useful citizen, and the invincible soldier ...

God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable and that the unjust attempts to destroy the one, may in the issue tend to the support and establishment of both."
When peace was made with Britain, John Witherspoon exhorted all in his "Thanksgiving Sermon" to live for:

"... the Glory of God, the public interest of religion and the good of others, as civil liberty cannot be long preserved without virtue.

A Republic must either preserve its virtue or lose its liberty."
John Witherspoon resisted "tyranny of conscience," citing:

"There is not a single instance in history, in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire ...

If therefore we yield up our ... property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage ...

Governments are to defend and secure rights of conscience."
In regards to man's need for redemption, Rev. Witherspoon explained:

"The corruption of our nature ... is the foundation-stone of the doctrine of redemption.

Nothing can be more absolutely necessary to true religion, than a clear conviction of the sinfulness of our nature and state ..."
He continued:

"Men of lax and corrupt principles take great delight in speaking to the praise of human nature, and extolling its dignity, without distinguishing what it was at its first creation from what it is in its present fallen state ...

The evil of sin appears from every page of ... the history of the world ...

Nothing is more plain from scripture ... than that man by nature is in fact incapable of recovery without the power of God specially interposed."
In his Lectures on Divinity, Rev. John Witherspoon stated:

"Religion is the grand concern of us all ... the salvation of our souls is the one thing needful."
After his wife died in 1789, John Witherspoon headed up a committee in the New Jersey legislature to abolish slavery.
John Witherspoon died near Princeton, New Jersey, on NOVEMBER 15, 1794.

John Adams he described Rev. Witherspoon as:

"A true son of liberty ... but first, he was a son of the Cross."
In his Pastoral Letter, Rev. John Witherspoon explained:

"Universal profligacy (immoral behavior) makes a nation ripe for divine judgments and is the natural means of bringing them to ruin;

Reformation of manners is of the utmost necessity in our present distress."
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