Billy Graham, deceased at 99, followed the path first cut by George Whitefield, preacher of the new birth

Thomas Kidd, here:

George Whitefield, born on Dec. 16, 1714, was a Church of England minister who led the Great Awakening, a series of Christian revivals that swept through Britain and America in the mid-1700s. Whitefield drew enormous audiences wherever he went on both sides of the Atlantic, and his publications alone doubled the output of the American colonial presses between 1739 and 1742. If there is a modem figure comparable to Whitefield, it is Billy Graham. But even Mr. Graham has followed a path first cut by Whitefield. ...

“As you have made a pretty considerable progress in the mysteries of electricity,” Whitefield [once] wrote to [Benjamin] Franklin in 1752, “I would now humbly recommend to your diligent unprejudiced pursuit and study the mystery of the new-birth.”

Moses and the American founders

From James P. Byrd, here:

[T]he story of Moses and the Exodus was one of the most cited biblical texts in revolutionary America. In 1776, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, about “a Parallel between the Case of Israel and that of America.” John Adams had heard this preached in a sermon, and he thought it was enlightening because it “indicated strongly the Design of Providence that We should be separated from G. Britain.” ...

In 1776, when Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson discussed what should be on a “Great Seal” for the new nation, they both thought of the Exodus story. As John Adams reported, Franklin wanted the seal to feature the parting of the Red Sea, with Moses raising his staff while Pharaoh and his chariots of soldiers drowned as the waters closed in on them. In contrast, Jefferson wanted another scene from the Exodus, with the Israelites led through the wilderness by a cloud in daytime and a pillar if fire at night.

Some of the founders saw themselves as politically enslaved by the British “pharaoh,” King George III, and his oppressive policies. ... [M]any patriots adopted this story, viewing themselves as the new Israel, and naming George Washington the American Moses. ... 

[Thomas Paine] turned to 1 Samuel 8 to make his case. Paine asserted that God did not want the people to have a king. God warned that kings would oppress them, and so they did, Paine argued. 

'Tis Easier To Keep Holidays Than Commandments

"How many observe Christ's Birth-day! How few, his Precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments."

-- Poor Richard's Almanack, 1743