On 9th December 1775, Crown forces engaged Patriot troops in the Battle of Great Bridge. It was the first engagement of the Revolutionary War in Virginia. Only weeks later, on 1st January, the Royal Navy bombarded Norfolk, Virginia, with British landing parties being confronted by Patriot militia. The confrontation resulted in the town being burnt to the ground. On the eve of the shelling of Norfolk, and ending the tumultuous year of 1775, David Griffith - then rector of Shelburne Parish in Loudoun County, northern Virginia - entered the pulpit of Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg. Griffith had previously publicly indicated his support for the Patriot cause. Now from the pulpit, amidst the realities of armed conflict and political confrontation, preached on a scriptural text at the heart of Anglican political theology, and often invoked by Loyalist clergy, Romans 13:1&2: The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth ...
Protestant Episcopalian - Burkean - clerk in holy orders