---
title: 'Samuel Davies: Be a Patriot, But Be a Christian Patriot'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2024-07-05
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2024-samuel-davies-be-a-patriot-but-be-a-christian-patriot
---

# Samuel Davies: Be a Patriot, But Be a Christian Patriot

“Therefore, my young Friends, let Religion be the Source of your Benevolence and Publick-Spirit; and have a Regard to the Will of God, in all your good Offices to Men. Let it not be your principal End, to gratify a natural Benevolence of Temper; to procure Honour to yourselves, or to accomplish some interested Design; but to Please God. Let this be the Center, in which all the Actions of your Life shall terminate, and the Scope to which they tend. Then you may claim a Character more noble than even that of a Patriot, I mean a CHRISTIAN.” — [**Samuel Davies**](/authors/samuel-davies), *Religion and Public Spirit: A Valedictory Address to the Senior Class, Delivered in Nassau*-*Hall, September* 21, 1760 (1762), p. 11