The Great Spirit Part II

The Great Spirit was a commonly held term for God even to the Church Hierarchy. This hymn was adopted by the Episcopal Church in 1892:

1 Spirit divine, attend our prayers,
And make this house Thy home;
Descend with all Thy gracious powers,
Oh, come, great Spirit, come!
2 Come as the light; to us reveal
Our emptiness and woe:
And lead us in those paths of life
Where all the righteous go.
3 Come as the fire, and purge our hearts
Like sacrificial flame;
Let our whole soul an offering be
To our Redeemer's Name.
4 Come as the dove, and spread Thy wings,
The wings of peaceful love;
And let Thy Church on earth become
Blest as Thy Church above.
5 Spirit divine, attend our prayers;
Make a lost world Thy home;
Descend with all Thy gracious powers,
Oh, come, great Spirit, come! [bold face mine]
Amen.

--Andrew Reed, D.D. (1787-1862), written in 1829. Founded Wycliffe Chapel in England, graduated Yale. Congregationalist.

The Great Spirit is Without Any Doubt Whatsoever The God of Abraham

There are many primary sources showing evangelicals, including Elias Boudinot, using the term "Great Spirit", and it would take too long to post them all. It will be posted all later. However, what is interesting is the Indians themselves using the "Great Spirit" when talking about Christ and the Gospel:

Brother, the Chiefs have agreed that I [Capt. Pollard, an Indian] should speak to you in their name. We are happy to see you among us. We are happy to hear about the Great Spirit. We are happy to hear the gospel. We have understood almost everything you have told us. We like it very much. We thank you for coming to talk to us...I made a short reply..that should we never meet together again to worship the Great Spirit upon earth..blessing the God and Redeemer.

--Abiel Holmes, D. D. Secretary. Nov. 6, 1817.

Like I have been saying all along, the Great Spirit was a diplomatic term we used to spread the Gospel. Here is Congress using the "great spirit." How ironic, the man who said this was the Chairman of Congress, and an Evangelical:

Congress hopes to enjoy the friendship of the Indian Nations, and to live with them like brothers as long as the Sun and Moon shall last. We recommend to you peace and a steady adherence to the Treaties made between the thirteen States and your people. We wish you a good Journey home, and pray that the great spirit above may direct you, and take you under his special care. [bold face mine]

--David Ramsay, Chairman of Congress, May 5, 1786. Journals of Continental Congress.

This forever erases the idea unitarians thought all religions had the same god. Not even Thomas Jefferson believed that rubbish given his Christian Virginia Act for Religious Freedom was Christian.

Another Post GW Promoting Christianity By the Govt.

[A]nd, here, I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. To this consideration we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna-Charta of our country. To the guidance of the ministers of the gospel this important object is, perhaps, more properly committed -- It will be your care to instruct the ignorant, and to reclaim the devious--and, in the progress of morality and science, to which our government will give every furtherance [A helping forward, Websters 1828], we may confidently expect the advancement of true religion, and the completion of our happiness. [bold face mine]

 

 

--GW to the Presbyterian Ministers of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, (Nov. 2, 1789), reprinted in 4 The Papers of Washington (Dorothy Twohig, ed.) at 274; see also 1 Stokes, Church and State in the U.S. (1950) at 248.]

 

GW believed Congress could mandate morality to deviants.