When the First Continental Congress met on Sept 7, 1774, they started with prayer and were moved to tears by how God met them that day.
Ten months later in July of 1775, Congress made the First National Call to Prayer and Fasting.
The observance of a day of fasting and prayer was announced in all the colonies by the Continental Congress in 1775. Congress issued a proclamation for “a day of public humiliation, fasting, and prayer” to be held on Thursday, July 20, 1775. It came about due to the British invasion of Boston and the beginning of the war.
On behalf of the Continental Congress, John Witherspoon and John Hancock, instructed the colonists to pray for an honoring of “the just rights and privileges of the Colonies in civil and religious” matters. The proclamation was sent on horseback to every town. John Adams wrote that the people responded enthusiastically to the call to prayer and more people attended than normally went to church.
HERE IS THE PROCLAMATION
MONDAY, JUNE 12, 1775
The committee, appointed for preparing a resolve for a fast, brought in a report, which, being read, was agreed to as follows:
“As the great Governor of the World, by His Supreme and Universal Providence, not only conducts the course of nature’ with unerring wisdom and rectitude, but frequently influences the minds of men to serve the wise and gracious purposes of his Providential Government;
and it being, at all times, our indispensable duty devoutly to acknowledge His Superintending Providence, especially in times of impending danger and public calamity, to reverence and adore His Immutable Justice as well as to implore His Merciful interposition for our Deliverance:
THIS CONGRESS, therefore, considering the present critical, alarming and calamitous state of these colonies, do earnestly recommend that Thursday, the 20th day of July next, be observed, by the inhabitants of all the English colonies on this continent, as a Day of Public Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer;
That we may, with united hearts and voices, unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins; and offer up our joint supplications to the All-Wise, Omnipotent, and Merciful Disposer of All Events; humbly beseeching Him:
- to forgive our iniquities,
- to remove our present calamities
- to avert those desolating judgments with which we are threatened,
- and to bless our rightful sovereign, King George the third, and
- to inspire him with wisdom to discern and pursue the true interest of all his subjects,
- that a speedy end may be put to the civil discord between Great Britain and the American colonies, without farther effusion of blood.
And
- That the British nation may be influenced to regard the things that belong to her peace, before they are hid from her eyes.
- That the colonies may be ever under the care and protection of a kind Providence, and be prospered in all their interests.
- That the divine blessing may descend and rest
- upon all our civil rulers,
- and upon the representatives of the people,
- in their several assemblies and conventions,
- That they may be directed
- to wise and effectual measures for preserving the union,
- and securing the just rights and privileges of the colonies;
- That virtue and true religion may revive and flourish throughout our land;
And
- That all America may;
- soon behold a gracious interposition of Heaven, for the redress of her many grievances,
- the restoration of her invaded rights,
- a reconciliation with the parent state, on terms constitutional and honorable to both;
And
- That her civil and religious privileges may be secured to the latest posterity.
And it is recommended to Christians, of all denominations,
- to assemble for public worship,
- and to abstain from servile labor and recreations on said day.
Ordered, That a copy of the above be signed by the president and attested by the Secy and published in the newspapers, and in hand bills.”