“Delivered by the Power of God Out of the Hands of All Other Nations”

(Book of Mormon Authorship, BYU Religious Studies Center, p. 189-211; Cowley & Whitney on Doctrine, pp. 314-315)

“It was not Satan who caused the heroic struggle of the American colonies, giving them power to win their freedom and independence, to the end that a nation might arise upon this chosen soil with a mission to foster and protect the infant and growing Church of Christ. That was a righteous war, and the divine inspiration for it rested upon the Patriot Fathers …” (Cowley & Whitney on Doctrine, p. 391)

“It is an interesting thing that Washington, during the progress of the Revolutionary War and more particularly at the close of the Revolutionary War, expressed himself repeatedly to the effect that the American armies by themselves were altogether too weak to bring about this independence they now had achieved—but that independence came as a gift of God to these American colonies.” (Mark E. Petersen, BYU Speeches of the Year, Feb. 20, 1968)

“From the standpoint of numbers, equipment, training, and resources, the rag-tag army of the Colonists should never have won the war for independence. But America’s destiny was not to be determined by overwhelming numbers, or better military weapons or strategy. As Adams declared: ‘There’s a divinity which shapes our ends.’ God took a direct hand in the events that led to the defeat of the British. When the war was over, here is how Washington ascribed the victory; ‘The success, which has hitherto attended our united efforts, we owe to the gracious interposition of heaven, and to that interposition let us gratefully ascribe the praise of victory, and the blessings of peace.’ (To the Executives of New Hampshire, Nov. 3, 1789) It seems fashionable today for historians to ‘secularize’ our history. Many modern scholars seem uncomfortable with the idea that a Divine Power had a hand in the beginnings of our nation. They seek to explain away what the colonists themselves saw as divine intervention in their behalf.” (Ezra Taft Benson, Righteousness Exalteth a Nation, p. 3)