Virtue, Liberty, and Independence

The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor

2012-01-23T23:25:00.000-08:00

Ezra Stiles (1727 - 1795) was born in New Haven, Connecticut and became an illustrious influential American Congregational clergyman and educator. Stiles was educated at Yale during the Great Awakening. He was ordained in 1749. He tutored students until he resigned his post as a minister in 1755. Afterward, he chose to study law and eventually practiced law in New Haven, Connecticut.

Stiles was fascinated with Benjamin Franklin's scientific research concerning electricity. Stiles actually conducted his first electrical experiments in New England and in 1775, he became a close personal friend with Franklin the illustrious scientist of Philadelphia. He became the pastor of a Newport Rhode Island church in 1756 where he faithfully conducted his religious duties as a shepherd tending his flock. Stiles chose to continue his studies in Science intensively while corresponding with savants with whom he became acquainted.

Ezra Stiles became the founder of Rhode Island College in 1763 which is now Brown University.

His congregation dispersed when Britich troops captured Newport Rhode Island. He chose to travel to Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1777. In 1778, the following year, he received an appointment to the post of President of Yale College. Ezra Stiles continued to hold the position until his death in 1795. While at Yale, he taught ecclesiastical history and gave lectures on astronomy and philosophy. Reverend Ezra Stiles received the honored reputation of a proficient scholar unequaled throughout the English colonies in the colonial era.

In 1790, he was honored to become the president of the first society for the abolition of slavery in Connecticut.

As President of Yale College, he delivered this major Election Address on May 8, 1783. The title of the address is "The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor."

The Election Address was delivered before Governor Jonathan Trumbull and the General Assembly of Connecticut.

SERMON

Preached before

His Excellency

JONATHAN TRUMBEULL, Esq., L.L.D.

Governor and Commander in Chief

And the Honorable

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

The State of CONNECTICUT,

Convened at Hartford,

At the

Anniversary ELECTION

May 8th 1783.

By EZRA STILES, D.D.

President of Yale College.

NEW HAVEN

Printed by Thomas & Samuel Green.

M,DCC,LXXXIII.

At a GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the Governor and Company of the State of CONNECTICUT, holden at Hartford on the second Thursday of May, Anno Dom. 1783.

ORDERED, That ROGER SHERMAN, Esq; and Captain HENRY DAGGETT, return the Thanks of this Assembly, to the Reverend Doctor EZRA STILES, for his Sermon delivered before the Assembly, on the 8th instant; and desire a copy thereof, that it may be printed.

A true copy of Record, Examined by GEORGE WYLLYS, Sec’ry.

AN ELECTION SERMON

DEUT. XXVI.19

And to make thee high above all nations, which He hath made in praise, and in name, and in honor; and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord thy God.

Taught by the omniscient Deity, Moses foresaw and predicted the capital events relative to Israel, through the successive changes of depression and glory, until their final elevation to the first dignity and eminence among the empires of the world. These events have been so ordered as to become a display of retribution and sovereignty; for while the good and evil, hitherto felt by this people, have been dispensed in the way of exact national retribution, their ultimate glory and honor will be of the Divine sovereignty, with a not for your sakes, do I this, saith the Lord, be it known unto you – but for mine holy name’s sake.

HOWEVER IT MAY BE DOUBTED, WHETHER POLITICAL COMMUNITIES ARE REWARDED AND PUNISHED IN THIS WORLD ONLY; AND WHETHER THE PROSPERITY AND DECLINE OF OTHER empires have corresponded with their moral state, as to virtue and vice: yet the history of the Hebrew Theocracy shows, that the secular welfare of God’s ancient people depended upon their virtue, their religion, their observance of that holy covenant, which Israel entered into with God, on the plains at the foot of Nebo on the other side Jordan. Here Moses, the man of God, assembled three million of people, the number of the United States, recapitulated and gave them a second publication of the sacred jural institute, delivered thirty-eight years before, with the most awful solemnity at Mount Sinai. A
Law dictated with sovereign authority by the Most High to a people, a world, a universe, becomes of invincible force and obligation without any reference to the consent of the governed: - it is obligatory for three reasons, viz. its original justice and unerring equity, the omnipotent Authority by which it is enforced, and the sanctions of rewards and punishments. But in the case of Israel, He condescended to a mutual covenant; and by the hand of Moses lead His people to avouch the Lord Jehovah to be their God, and in the most public and explicit manner voluntarily to engage and covenant with God to keep and obey His Law. Thereupon this great prophet, whom God had raised up for so solemn a transaction, declared in the name of the Lord, that the Most High avouched, acknowledged and root them for a peculiar people to Himself; promising to be their God and Protector, and upon their obedience, to make them prosperous and happy. Deut. xxix.10 & 14. Chapter xxx.9 & 19. He foresaw indeed their rejection of god, and predicted the judicial chastisement of apostasy; a chastisement involving the righteous with the wicked. But as well to comfort and support the righteous in every age and under every calamity, as to make His power known among all nations, God determined that a remnant should be saved. Whence Moses and the Prophets, by Divine direction, interspersed their writings with promises, that, when the ends of God’s moral government should be answered in a series of national punishments, inflicted for a succession of ages, He would by His irresistible power and sovereign grace, subdue the hearts of His people to a free, willing joyful obedience; turn their captivity; - recover and gather them from all the nations whether the Lord had scattered them in His fierce anger – bring them into the land which their fathers possessed – and multiply them above their fathers – and rejoice over them for good, as He rejoiced over their fathers. Deut. xxx.3. Then the words of Moses, hitherto accomplished, but in part, will be literally fulfilled; when this branch of the posterity of Abraham shall be nationally collected, land become a very distinguished and glorious people, under the great Messiah, the Prince of Peace. He will then make them high above all nations which He hath made in praise, and in name, and in honor, and they shall become a holy people unto the Lord their God.

I shall enlarge no further upon the primary sense and literal accomplishment of this and numerous other prophecies respecting both Jews and Gentiles, in the latter day glory of the church. For I have assumed the text, only as introductory to a discourse upon the political welfare of God’s American Israel; and as allusively prophetic of the future prosperity and splendor of the United States. We may then consider,

I. What reason we have to expect that, by the blessing of God, these States may prosper and flourish into a great American Republic; and ascend into high and distinguished honor among the nations of the earth. To make thee high above all nations, which He hath made in praise, and in name, and in honor.

II. That our system of dominion and CIVIL POLITY would be imperfect, without the true RELIGION; or, that from the diffusion of virtue among the people of any community, would arise their greatest secular happiness: which will terminate in this conclusion, that Holiness ought to be the end of all civil government. That thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord thy God.

I. The first of these propositions will divide itself into two branches, and lead us to show,

Wherein consists the true political welfare and prosperity, And what the civil administration necessary for the elevation and advancement, of a people to the highest secular glory.

2. The reasons rendering it probable that the United States will, by the ordering of Heaven, eventually Become this people. But I shall combine these together as I go along.

Dominion is founded in property; and resides where that is, whether in the hands of the few or many. The Dominion founded in the feudal tenure of estate, is suited to hold a conquered country in subjection, but is not adapted to the circumstances of free citizens. Large territorial property vested in individuals is pernicious to society. Civilians, in contemplating the principles of government, have judged superior and inferior partition of property necessary in order to preserve the subordination of society, and establish a permanent system of dominion. This makes the public defense the interest of a few landholders only.

A free tenure of lands, an equable distribution of property, enters into the foundation of a happy State: so far I mean, as that the body of the people may have it in their power, by industry, to become possessed of real freehold fee-simple estate. For connected with this will be a general spirit and principle of self-defense of our property, liberty, country. This has been singularly verified in New England, where we have realized the capital ideas of Harrington’s Oceana.

But numerous population, as well as industry, is necessary towards giving value to land, to judiciously partitioned territory. The public weal requires the encouragement of both. A very inconsiderable value arose from the sparse thin settlement of the American aboriginals; of whom there are not fifty thousand souls on this side the Mississippi. The protestant Europeans have generally bought the native right of soil, as far as they have settled, and paid the value tenfold; and are daily increasing the value of the remaining Indian territory a thousand fold: and in this manner we are a constant increasing revenue to the Sachems and original Lords of the soil. How much must the value of lands, reserved to the natives of North and South America, be increased to remaining Indians, by the inhabitation of two or three hundred millions of Europeans?

Heaven hath provided this country, not indeed derelict, but only partially settled, and consequently open, for the reception of a new enlargement of Japhet. Europe was settled by Japhet; America is settling from Europe: and perhaps this second enlargement bids fair to surpass the first: for we are to consider all the European settlements of America collectively as springing from, and transfused with the blood of Japhet. Already for ages has Europe arrived to a plenary, if not declining population of l00 millions: in two or three hundred years this second enlargement may cover America with three times that number, if the present ratio of increase continues with the enterprising spirit of Americans for colonization and removing out into the wilderness and settling new countries: and if Spain and Portugal should adopt that wise regulation respecting the connection of the sexes, which would give a spring to population within the tropics equal to that without. There may now be three or four millions of Whites, or Europeans, in North and South America: of which one half are in rapid increase, and the rest scarcely keeping their number good without supplies from the parent States. The number of French, Spaniards, Dutch and Portuguese, may be one million souls in all America; altho’ they have transfused their blood into twice the number of Indians. The United States may be two million souls. Whites, which have been an increase upon perhaps fewer than twenty or thirty thousand families from Europe. Can we contemplate their present, and anticipate their future increase, and not be struck with astonishment to find ourselves in the midst of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Noah? May we not see that we are the object which the Holy Ghost had in view four thousand years ago, when He inspired the venerable Patriarch with the visions respecting his posterity? How wonderful the accomplishments in distant and disconnected ages! While the principal increase was first in Europe, westward from Scythia, the residence of the family of Japhet, a branch of the original enlargement extending eastward into Asia, and spreading round to the southward of the Caspian, became the ancient kingdoms of Media and Persia: and thus he dwelt in the tents of Shem. Hence the singular and almost identical affinity between the Persic and Teutonic languages through all ages to the this day. And now the other part of the prophecy is fulfilling in a new enlargement, not in the tents of Shem, but in the country where Canaan shall be his servant, at least unto tribute.

I rather consider the American Indians as Canaanites of the expulsion of Joshua: some of which in Phoenician ships coasted the Mediterranean to its mouth as appears from an inscription which they left there. Procopius, who was born in Palestine, a master of the Phoenician and other oriental languages, and the historiographer of the great Belisarius, tells us, that at Tangier he saw and read an inscription upon two marble pillars there, in the ancient Phoenician (not the then modern Punic) letter, “We are they who have fled from the face of Joshua the robber, the son of Nun.” Bochart and Selden conjecture the very Punic itself. Plato, Aelian and Diodorus, Siculus, narrate voyages into the Atlantic Ocean thirty days west from the pillars of Hercules, to the island of Atlas. This inscription examined by Procopius, suggests that the Canaanites, in coasting along from Tangier, might soon get into the trade winds and be undesignedly wafted across the Atlantic, land in the tropical regions, and commence the settlements of Mexico and Peru. Another branch of the canaanitish expulsions might take the resolution of the ten tribes, and travel north-eastward to where never man dwelt, become the Tebuschi and Tungusi Tartars about Kamschatka and Yscukotskoinosin and north-east of Asia: thence, by water, passing over from island to island through the northern Archipelago to America, became the scattered Sachemdoms of these northern regions. It is now known that Asia is separated by water from America, as certainly appears from the Baron Dulfeldt’s voyage round the north of Europe into the Pacific Ocean, A.D. 1769. Amidst all the variety of national dialects, there reigns a similitude in their language, as there is also in complexion and beardless features, from Greenland to Delfeuge, and from the Antilles to Otaheite, which show them to be one people.

A few scattered accounts, collected and combined together, may lead us to two certain conclusions, l. That all the American Indians are one kind of people.

2. That they are the same as the people in the north-east of Asia.

An Asiatic territory, 3,000 miles long and l,500 wide, above the 40th degree of latitude, to the hyperborean ocean, contains only one million souls settled as our Indians; as appears from the numerations and estimates collected by M. Muller, and other Russian Academicians, in 1769. The Koreki, Jakubii and Tunguffis living on the eastern part of this territory next to America, are naturally almost beardless, like the Semoieds, in Siberia, the Ostiacs and Calmuks, as well as the American Indians: all these having also the same custom of plucking out the few hairs of very thin beards. They have more similar usage and fewer dissimilar ones, than the Arabians of the Koreish tribe and Jews who sprang from Abraham: or than those that subsist among the European nations, who sprang from one ancestor; or these Asiatic nations, which sprang from Shem. The portrait painter, Mr. Smibert, who accompanied Dr. Berkeley, then Dean of Derry and afterward Bishop of Cloyne, from Italy to America in 1728, was employed by the grand Duke of Tuscany, while at Florence, to paint two or three Siberian Tartars, presented to the Duke by the Czar of Russia. This Mr. Smibert, upon his landing at Narraganset-bay with Dr. Berkeley, instantly recognized the Indians here to be the same people as the Siberian Tartars whose pictures he had taken. Moravian Indians from Greenland and South America, have met those in our latitude at Bethlehem, and have been clearly perceived to be the same people. The kamschatdale Tartars have been carried over from Asia to America, and compared with our Indians, and found to be the same people. The Asiatic Tartars, from whom the American aboriginals derived, are distinct from and far less numerous, than the mongul and other Tartars which, for ages, under Tamerlane and other chieftains, have deluged and overran the southern ancient Asiatic empires. Attending to the rational and just deductions, from these and other disconnected data combined together, we may perceive, that all the Americans are one people – that they came hither certainly from the north-east of Asia; probably also from the Miditerranean; and is so that they are canaanities, tho’ arriving hither by different routs. The ocean current from the north of Saia might waft the beardless Samoiels or Tchuschi from the mouth of Jenesea or the Oby, around Nova Zemla to Greenland, and thence to Labrador, many ages after the refugees from Joshua might have colonized the tropical regions. Thus Providence might have ordered three divisions of the same people from different parts of the world, and perhaps is very distant ages, to meet together on this continent, or, “our Island,” as the six nations call it, to settle different parts of it, many ages before the present accession of Japhet, or the former visitations of Madoc, 1001, as well as the certain colonization from Norway A.D. 1001, as well as the christianizing of Greenland in the ninth century; not to mention the visit of still greater antiquity by the Phoenicians, who charged the Dighton rock and other rocks in Narragensett-bay with Punic inscriptions, remaining to this day. Which last I myself have repeatedly seen and taken off at large, as did Professor Sewall. He has lately transmitted a copy of this inscription to M. Gebelin of the Parisian Academy of Sciences, who, comparing them with the Punic paleography, judges them punic, and has interpreted them as denoting, that the ancient Carthagians once visited these distant regions.

Indians are numerous in the tropical regions, not so elsewhere. Baron la Honton, the last century, and Mr. Carver so lately as 1776 and 1777, traveled north-west beyond the sources of the Mississippi. From their observations it appears that the ratio of Indian population in the very heart of the continent, is similar to that on this side of the Mississippi. By an accurate numeration made in 1766, and returned into the plantation office in London, it appeared, that there were not forty thousand souls, Indians, from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, and from Florida to the Pole. According to Mr. Carver, there are about thirty, and certainly not forty Indian tribes, west of the Senecas, and six nation confederacy, and from the Mississippi and Ohio northward to Hudson’s bay, and from Niagara to the Lake of the Woods. The chiefs of all these speak the Chipeway language. And perhaps all the remaining territory north of New Spain, and even on this side the northern tropic, and north-westward to Asia, will not exhibit five times that number at highest.

Partly by actual numeration, and partly by estimate, the Indians of the Spanish dominions in America are considered as a million souls in New Spain, and a million and half in Peru, or two or three million souls in the whole. And perhaps this would fully comprehend those of Paraguay and the Portuguese provinces. In my opinion, great defalcation must be made from these numbers. The aboriginals have been injudiciously estimated at twenty millions: but I believe they never exceeded two or three million souls in all North and South America since the days of Columbus.

The European population so surpasses them already, that of whatever origin, they will eventually be, as the most of them have already become, servants unto Japhet – six hundred and twelve thousand Indians pay tribute in Peru. We are increasing with great rapidity; and the Indians, as well as the million Africans in America, are decreasing as rapidly. Both left to themselves, in this way diminishing, may gradually vanish: and thus an unrighteous SLAVERY may at length, in God’s good providence, be abolished and cease in this land of LIBERTY.

But to return; the population of this land will probably become very great; and Japhet become more numerous millions in America, than in Europe and Asia; and the two or three millions of the United States may equal the population of the oriental empires, which far surpasses that of Europe. There are reasons for believing that the English increase, will far surpass others; and that the diffusion of the United States will ultimately produce the general population of America. The northern provinces of China spread for ages, and at length deluged the southern with a very numerous and accumulated population. Proverbs xiv.28. In the multitude of people is the king’s honor.

But a multitude of people, even the two hundred million of the Chinese empire, cannot subsist without CIVIL GOVERNMENT. All the forms of civil polity have been tried by mankind, except one: and that seems to have been referred in Providence to be realized in America. Most of the states of all ages, in their originals, both as to policy, and property have been founded in rapacity, usurpation and injustice: so that in the contests recorded in history, the public right is a dubious question; it being rather certain that it belongs to neither of the contending parties: the military history of all nations, being but a description of military history of all nations, being but a description of the wars and invasions of the mutual robbers and devastators of the human race. The invasion of the lawless Macedonian who effected the dissolution of the medo-Persian empire, the widespread roman-conquests, the inundation of the Goths and Vandals, the descents of the Tartars on China, the triumphs of Tamerlane, Ulugh-beg, and Aurengzebe, and the widespread domination of the impostor of Mecca, with his successors the Caliphs and Mameluks down to Kouli-Kan, who dethroned his prince and plundered India of 200 millions sterling: - these, I say, with the new distribution of property and new erected policies, were all founded in unrighteousness, and tyrannical usurpation. The real interest of mankind and the public good has been generally overlooked. It has really been very indifferent to the great cause of RIGHT and LIBERTY, which of the belligerent powers prevailed, a Tangrolipix or a Mahomet, an Augustus or an Antony, a Scipio or a Hannibal, a Brennus or an Antiochus - tyranny being the sure portion of the plebeians, be the victory as it should happen. These things have led some every enlightened as well as serious minds to a fixed conclusion and judgment against the right and legality of all wars. In the simplicity of my judgment, I have for years been of this opinion, except as to the offensive wars of Israel, and defensive war of America. War in some instances, especially defensive, has been authorized by Heaven. The blessing given by Melchisidec to Abraham, upon his return from the slaughter of Chelderlaomer and the kings of the east, justified that holy patriarch. The war with Amelek, and the extirpation of the Canaanites by Joshua, were of God. The location of the respective territories to the first nations, was so of God, as to give them a Divine right defensively to resist the Nimrods and Ninus’s, the first invading tyrants of the ancient ages. The originally free and glorious republics of Greece, had a right from God, to withstand the haughty claims of the Assyrian empire, which they successfully resisted for ages, till the Roman power arose behind them, and at length prostrated their liberties.

But after the spirit of conquest had changed the first governments, all the succeeding ones have, in general proved one continued series of injustice, which has reigned in all countries for almost 4,000 hears. These have so changed property, laws, rights and liberties, that it has become impossible for the most sagacious civilians to decide whose is the abstract political right in national controversies – rather we know that none of them have any right. All original right is confounded and lost. We can only say that there still remains in the body of the people at large, the body of mankind of any and every generation, a POWER with which they are invested by the author of their being, to wrest government out of the hands of reigning tyrants, and originate NEW POLICIES, adapted to the conservation of liberty and promoting the public welfare. But what is the happiest form of civil government, is the great question. Almost all the polities may be reduced to hereditary dominion neither a MONARCHY or ARISTOCRACY, and these supported by a standing army. The Romans and Venetian senates were but an hereditary Aristocracy with an elective head. The senatorial succession is preserved independent of the people. True liberty is preserved in the Belgic and Helvetic republics, and among the nobles in the elective monarchy of Poland. For the rest of the world, the civil domination, though often wisely administered, is so modeled as to be beyond the control of those, for whose lend God instituted government. But a DEMOCRATICAL polity for millions, standing upon the broad basis of the people at large, amply charged with property, has not hitherto been exhibited.

Republics are democratical, aristocratical, or monarchial. Each of these forms admit of modifications both as to hereditation and powers, from absolute government up to perfect liberty. Monarchy might be so limited, one would think, as to be a happy form, especially if elective: but both monarchy and aristocracy, when they become hereditary, terminate in the prostration of liberty. The greater part of the governments on earth may be termed monarchical, aristocratics, or hereditary dominions, independent of the people. The nobles and nabobs being hereditary, will at first have great power, but the royal factions have not failed to intrigue this away from the nobles to the Prince: the assembly of even hereditary nobles, then become ciphers and nullities in dominion. The once glorious Cortes of Spain experienced this loss of power. It is next to an impossibility to tame a monarch; and few have ruled without ferocity. Scarcely shall we find, in royal dynasties, in long line of Princes, a few singularly good Sovereigns, a few Cyrus’s, Antonins, Alfreds, Boroihimes. Indeed, if we took over the present sovereigns of Europe, we behold, with pleasure, two young Princes, the EMPEROR, and the MONARCH of France, who seem to be raised up in providence to make their people and mankind happy. A Genganelli in the pontifical throne was a phoenix of ages, shone for his moment, and scarcely to be found again in the catalogue of a Platina: - We see enterprising, literary and heroic talents in a Frederick III, and wisdom in a Pontowski. I add no more – But when we contemplate the other European and Asiataic potentates, and especially of sovereigns of Dehli, Ispahaun, and Constantinople, one cannot but pity mankind, whose lot is to be governed by despots of small abilities, immersed and rioting in the splendor of a luxurious effeminacy. Nor could government proceed, were not the errors and desultory blunders of royalty frequently corrected by the circumspection of a Culao, a few sensible characters venerable for wisdom, called up among the stated councilors of Majesty.

Lord Bacon said, that monarchy had a platform in nature; and in truth monarchical ideas reign through the universe. A monarchy conducted with infinite wisdom and infinite benevolence, is the most perfect of all possible governments. The Most High hath delegated power and authority to subordinate monarchies or sole ruling powers, in limited districts, throughout the celestial hierarchy, and through the immensity of the intellectual world; but at the same time He hath delegated and imparted to them wisdom and goodness adequate to the purposes of dominion: and thence the government is, as it ought to be, absolute. But in a world, or region of the universe, when god has imparted to none either this superior power or adequate wisdom, beyond that fails to the common share of humanity, it is absurd to look for such qualities in one man; not even in the man Moses, who shared the government of Israel with the Senate of Seventy. Therefore, there is no foundation for monarchical government, from supposed hereditary superiority in knowledge. If it is said, that monarchs always have a council of state, consisting of the wisest personages, of whose wisdom they avail themselves in the government of empires; not to observe that this is a concession indicating a deficiency of knowledge in Princes, it may be asked, why not then, consign and repose government into the hands of the national council, where always resides the superiority of wisdom? The supposed advantage of having one Public Head for all to look up to, and to concenter the attention, obedience, and affection of subjects, and to consolidate the empire, will not counter-balance the evils of arbitrary despotism, and the usual want of wisdom in the sovereigns and potentates of the earth. For the hereditary successions in the dynasties of kings in the effeminate families of the great, seem to be marked and accursed by providence, with deficient wisdom. And where is the wisdom of consigning government into such hands? Why not much better, since we for once have our option or choice, to commit the direction of the republic to a Wittena-gemot, or an aristocratical council of wise men? Should we call forth and dignify some family, either from foreign nations or from among ourselves, and create a monarch, whether an hereditary Prince or Protector for life, and seat him in Supremacy at the head of Congress; soon, with insidious dexterity, would he intrigue and secure a venal majority, even of new and annual members; and by diffusing a complicated and variously modified influence, pursue an accretion of power till he became absolute.

The celebrated historian, Mrs. Catharine Macaulay, that ornament of the republic of letters, and the female Livy of the age, observes, “The man who holds supreme power for life, will have a great number of friends and adherents, who are attached by interest to his interest, and who will wish for continuance of power in the same family. This creates the worst of factions, a government faction, in the state. The desire of securing to ourselves a particular unshared privilege, is the rankest vice which infests humanity; and a Protector for life, instead of devoting his time and understanding to the great cares of government, with the scheming and plotting to secure the power after his death to his children, if he has any, if not, to the nearest of his kin. This principle in government has been productive of such bloodshed and oppression, that it has inclined politicians to give the preference to hereditary rather than elective monarchies; and as the lesser evil to consign the government of society to increasing and at length unlimited sway of one family, whether the individuals of it should be idiots or madmen. It is an uncontroverted fact, that supreme power never can continue long in one family, without becoming unlimited.”

(Mrs. Macaulay’s letter to the author, 1774).

We stand a better chance with ARISTOCRACY, whether hereditary or elective, than with monarchy. An unsystematical democracy, and an absolute monarchy, are equally detestable, the terror to all around them. An elective aristocracy is preferable for America, as it is rather to be a council of nations (agreeable to the humane, liberal and grand ideas of Henry IV and the patriot Sully) than a body in which resides authoritative sovereignty; for there is no real cession of dominion, no surrender or transfer of sovereignty, to the national council, as each state in the confederacy is an independent sovereignty.

In justice to human society, it may perhaps be said of almost all the polities and civil institutions in the world, however imperfect, that they have been founded in and carried on with very considerable wisdom. They must have been generally well administered; I say generally, otherwise government could not proceed. This may be said even of those governments, which carry great defects, and the seeds of self-destruction and ruin in their constitution – for even an Ottoman must establish and prescribe to himself a national constitution, a system of general laws and dominion. But the abstract rationale of perfect civil government, remains still hidden among politics, having hitherto baffled the investigation of the best writers on government, the ablest politicians, and the sagest civilians. A well ordered DEMOCRATICAL ARISTOCRACY, standing upon the annual election of the people, and revocable at pleasure, is the polity which combines the UNITED STATES: and from the nature of man, and the comparison of ages, I believe it will approve itself the most equitable, liberal, and perfect.

With the peoples, especially a people seized of property, resides the aggregate of original power. They cannot however assemble from the territory of an empire, and must therefore, if they have any share in government, represent themselves by delegation. This constitutes one order in legislature and sovereignty. It is a question whether there should be any other. To resolve which it may be considered, that each of these delegates or representatives, will be faithful conservators of local interests, but have no interest in attending extensively to the public, further than where all particular local interests are affected in common with that which one delegate represents in particular.

It should seem then that the nature of society dictates another, a higher Branch, whose superiority arises from its being the interested and natural conservator of the universal interest. This will be a senatorial order, standing, not on local, but a general election of the whole body of the people. Let a bill, or law, be read in the one branch or the other: every one instantly thinks how it will affect his constituents. If his constituents are those of one small district only, they will be his first care; if the people at large, their general or universal interest will be his first care, the first object of his faithful attention. If a senator, as in Delaware, stands on the election of only the same district as a deputy, the upper house is only a repetition of the lower: - if on the election of several counties combined, as in Virginia, each member of the upper house stands and feels himself charged with a greater and more extensive care, than a member of the house of burgesses: not that it is the duty of each deputy to attend to the general interest. Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Jersey, have each a senate or legislature of one order only; for although in Jersey it seemeth otherwise, yet that interest which will determine a vote in one, will determine it in both houses. The same is true of the two Carolinas.

The constitutions of Maryland and New York, are founded in higher wisdom. The polity of Massachusetts is excellent and truly grand. It retains indeed some of the shadows of royalty, which may give dignity, but never operate in essential mischief, in the hands of a chief magistrate, who is annually elective by the people at large. But Connecticut and Rhode Island have originally realized the most perfect polity as to a legislature: any emendation and improvements may be made by the assembly with respect to the establishment of the law courts, and a constitutional privy council, which in all future time will be necessary to attend the chief magistrate in the ordinary civil administration. These things are remedied in Virginia, whose constitution seems to be imperfect in but one thing – its twenty-four senators, though elected from local districts, should be elected by the people at large, being men of such public eminence, and of merit so illustrious, as to be known not to a few only, but to all the tribes throughout the state. It establishes judges, provides perfectly for legislation and law courts, for the militia, and for that continual administration of government in absence of assemblies, and while the judiciary tribunals are sitting, which must reside in and be uninterruptedly exercised at the head of sovereignty in every civil polity.

It gives me pleasure to find, that public LIBERTY is effectually secured, in each and all the policies of the United States, though somewhat differently modeled. Not only the polity or exterior system of government, but the laws and interior regulations of each state, are already excellent, surpassing the institutions of Lycurgus or Plato; and by the annual appeals to the public, a power is reserved to the people, to remedy any corruptions or errors in government. And if even the people should sometimes err, yet each assembly of the states, and the body of the people, always embosom wisdom sufficient to correct themselves: so that a political mischief cannot be durable. Herein we far surpass any states on earth. We can correct ourselves if in the wrong. The Belgic states in their federal capacity, are untied by a perfect system, constituted by that great prince WILLIAM of Nassau, and the compatriots of that age: but they left the interior government of the jural tribunals, cities, and provinces, as despotic and arbitrary as they found them. So the elective monarchical republic of Poland, is an excellent constitution for the nobles, but leaves despotism and tyranny, the portion and hard fate of the plebeians, beyond what is to be found in any part of Europe. Not so the American states: their interior as well as exterior civil and jural politics are so nearly perfect, that the rights of individuals, even to numerous millions, are guarded and secured.

The crown and glory of our confederacy is the council of the GENERAL CONGRESS, standing on the annual election of the united respective states, and revocable at pleasure. This lays the foundation of a permanent union in the American Republic, which may at length convince the world, that of all the policies to be found on earth, not excepting the very excellent one of the Chinese Empire, the most perfect one has been invented and realized in America.

If in the multitude of devices for improving and carrying our policy to greater perfection, and a more permanent and efficacious government, if, I say, some elevated geniuses should go into the ideals of monarchy, whether hereditary or elective; and others think of a partition of the united states into three or four separate independent confederacies; perhaps upon discussing the subject calmly and thoroughly, and find that the policy which will at last take place, must stand on plebeian election; they may at length be satisfied, that the die is already cast, and the policy has taken its complexion for ages to come. Thus the NINE BOWLS engraved with the map of dominion, established the policy of the Chinese Empire for near twenty ages. The ancient division of the empire subsisted by means of these symbols of dominion, which passed in procession to the nine principal mandarins or supreme governments under imperial sovereignty; and this for the long tract from their first institution by the Emperor Yu, who reigned two thousand two hundred years before Christ, to Chey-Lie-Vang, who was contemporary with the great philosopher Menzius three hundred years before Christ. So that symbol of union the American flag, with it, increasing stripes and stars may have an equally combining efficacy for ages. The senatorial constitution and consulate of the Roman Empire lasted from Tarquin to Cesar. The pragmatic sanction has probably secured the imperial succession in the house of Austria for ages. The medo-persian and alexandrine empires, and that of Timur Beg, who once reigned from Smyrna to the Indus, were for obvious reasons of short and transitory duration: but that of the Assyrian endured without mutation through a tract of one thousand three hundred years from Semiramis to Sandanapolus. Nor was the policy of Egypt overthrown for a longer period from the days of Metzraim till the time of Cambyses and Amasis. Whatever mutations may arise in the United States, perhaps hereditary monarchy and a standing army will be the last.

Besides a happy policy as to civil government, it is necessary to institute a system of LAW and JURISPRUDENCE founded in justice, equity and public right. The American codes of law and the lex non scripta, the senatus consulta and the common law, are already advance to great perfection – far less complicated and perplexed than the jural systems of Europe; where reigns a mixture of Roman, Gothic, Teutonic, Salic, Saxon, Norman and other local or municipal law, controlled or innovated and confused by subsequent royal edicts and imperial institutions: super-inducing the same mutation, as did the imperatorial Decrees of the Caesars upon the ancient jus civile or Roman law.A depuration from all these will take place in America, and our communication with all the world will enable us to bring home the most excellent principles of law and right, to be found in every kingdom and empire on earth. These being adopted here, may advance our systems of jurisprudence to the highest purity and perfection: - especially if hereafter some FLETA, BRACTON, COKE, some great law genius should arise, and with vast erudition, and with the learned sagacity of a Trebonianus, reduce and digest all into one great jural system.

But the best laws will be of the validity, unless the tribunals be filled with JUDGES of independent sentiment, vast law knowledge, and of an integrity beyond the possibility of corruption. Even a Bacon should fall from his highest honors, the moment he tastes the forbidden fruit. Such infamy and tremendous punishment should be connected with tribunal bribery, that a Judge should be struck into the horror of an earthquake, at the very thoughts of corruption. The legislatures have the institution and revocation of law: and the Judges in their decisions are to be sacredly governed by the laws of the land. Most of the states have judged it necessary, in order to keep the supreme law courts uninfluenced and uncorrupted tribunals, that the Judges be honorably supported, and be fixed in office quamdiu se bene gesserint…

Already does the new constellation of the United States begin to realize this glory. It has already risen to an acknowledged sovereignty among the republics and kingdoms of the world. And we have reason to hope, and I believe to expect, that God has still greater blessings in store, for this vine which His own right hand hath planted, to make us high among the nations in praise, and in name, and in honor. The reasons are very numerous, weighty, and conclusive.

In our civil constitutions, those impediments are removed, which obstruct the progress of society towards perfection: such, for instance, as respect the tenure of estates, and arbitrary government. The vassalage of dependant tenures, the tokens of ancient conquests by Goths and Tartars, still remain all over Asia and Europe. In this respect, as well as others, the world begins to open its eyes. One grand experiment in particular has lately been made. The present Empress of Russia, by granting lands in freehold, in her vast wildernesses of volkouskile, together with religious liberty, has allured and already draughted from Poland and Germany a colonization of six hundred thousand souls in six years only, from 1762 to 1768.

Liberty, civil and religious, has sweet and attractive charms. The enjoyment of this, with property, has filled the English settlers in America with a most amazing spirit, which has operated, and still will operate with great energy. Never before has the experiment been so effectually tried, of every man’s reaping the fruits of his labor, and feeling his share in the aggregate system of power. The ancient republics did not stand on the people at large; and therefore no example or precedent can be taken from them. Even men of arbitrary principles will be obliged, if they would figure in these states, to assume the patriot so long, that they will at length become charmed with the sweets of liberty.

Our degree of population is such as to give us reason to expect that this will become a great people. It is probable that within a century from our independence the sun will shine on fifty million of inhabitants in the United States. This will be a great, a very great nation, nearly equal to half Europe. Already has our colonization extended down the Ohio and to Koskaseah on the Mississippi. And if the present ratio of increase should be rather diminished in four of the other settlements, yet an accelerated multiplication will attend our general propagation, and overspread the whole territory westward for ages. So that before the millennium, the English settlements in America, may become more numerous millions, than that greatest dominion on earth, the Chinese Empire. Should this prove a future fact, how applicable would be the text, when the Lord shall have made his American Israel, high above all nations which He hath made, in numbers, and in praise, and in name, and in honor.

I am sensible some will consider thee as visionary utopian ideas. And so they would have judged, had they lived in the apostolic age and been told, that by the time of Constantine, the empire would have become Christian. As visionary that the twenty thousand souls which first settled New England, should be multiplied to near a million in a century and a half. As visionary that the Ottoman Empire must fall by the Russian. As visionary to the catholics the certain downfall of the pontificate. As utopian would it have been to the loyalists, at the battle of Lexington, that in less than eight years, the independence and sovereignty of the Untied States, should be acknowledged by four European sovereignties, one of which should be Britain herself. How wonderful the revolutions, the events of Providence! We live in an age of wonders: we have lived an age in a few years: we have seen more wonders accomplished in eight years, than are usually unfolded in a century.

God be thanked, we have lived to see peace restored in this bleeding land, at least a general cessation of hostilities among the belligerent powers. And on this occasion does it not become us to reflect, how wonderful, how gracious, how glorious, has been the good hand of our God upon us, in carrying us through so tremendous a warfare!

We have sustained a force brought against us, which might have made any empire on earth to tremble – and yet our bow has abode in strength; and having obtained help of God, we continue unto this day. Forced unto the last solemn appeal, America watched for the first blood: this was shed by Britons on the 19th of April, 1775; which instantly sprung an army of 20,000 into spontaneous existence, with the enterprising and daring, if imprudent, resolution of entering Boston, and forceably disburdening it of its bloody legions. Every patriot trembled till we had proved our armour, till it could be seen, whether this hasty concourse was susceptible of arrangement, and could face the enemy with firmness. They early gave us the decided proof of this, in the memorable battle of Bunker Hill. (June 17, 1775). We were satisfied. This instantly convinced us, and for the first time convinced Britons themselves, that Americans both would and could fight with great effect. Whereupon Congress put at the head of this spirited army, the only man, on whom the eyes of all Israel were placed. Posterity, I apprehend, and the world itself, inconsiderate and incredulous as they may be of the dominion of Heaven, will yet do so much justice to the Divine moral government, as to acknowledge, that this American JOSHUA was raised up by God, and divinely formed by a peculiar influence of the Sovereign of the Universe, for the great work of leading the armies of this American Joseph (now separated from his brethren), and conducting this people through the severe, the arduous conflict, to liberty and independence. Surprising was it with what instant celerity men ascended and rose into generals, and officers of every subordination; formed chiefly by the preparatory discipline of only the preceding year 1774; when the ardor and spirit of military discipline was by Heaven, and without concert, sent through the continent like lightning. Surprising was it, how soon the army was organized, took its formation, and rose into firm system and impregnable arrangement.

To think of withstanding and encountering Britain by land was bold, and much more bold land daring, by sea: yet we immediately began a navy, and built ships of war with an unexampled expedition. It is presumed never was a 35 gun ship before built quicker than that will built, noble ship the Raleigh, which was finished from the keep and equipped for sea in a few months. Soon had we got, though small, a very gallant initial navy, which fought gallantly; and wanted nothing but numbers of ships, for successful operations against that superior naval force before which we fell. We have, however, exhibited proof to posterity and the world, that a powerful navy may be originated, built and equipped for service, in a much shorter period than was before imagined. The British navy has been many centuries growing; and France, Holland, the Baltic powers, or any of the powers of this age, in twenty years, may build navies of equal magnitude, if necessary for dominion, commerce, or ornament.

A variety of success and defeat hath attended our warfare both by sea and land. In our lowest and most dangerous estate in 1776 and 1777, we sustained ourselves against the British army of sixty thousand troops commanded by Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton, and other the ablest generals Britain could procure throughout Europe, with a naval force of 22,000 seamen in above eighty British men of war. (To lose America, has cost Britain the loss of more than a hundred thousand men, and a hundred and twenty millions sterling in money. Mr. Thomas Pitt, from authentic documents, lately asserted in Parliament, that only the first five years of this war had cost Britain five millions more, than all the wars of the last age, including the splendid victories of the Duke of Marlborough.) These generals we sent hone one after another, conquered, defeated, and convinced of the impossibility of subduing America. While oppressed by the heavy weight of this combined force, Heaven inspired us with resolution to cut the Gordian knot; when the die was cast irrevocable in the glorious act of INDEPENDENCE. This was sealed and confirmed by God Almighty in the victory of General WASHINGTON at Trenton, and in the surprising movement and battle of Princeton; by which astonishing effort of generalship, General Howe and the whole British army, in elated confidence and in open-mouthed march for Philadelphia, was instantly stopped, remanded back, and cooped up for a shivering winter in the little borough of Brunswick. Thus God turned the battle to the gate; and this gave a finishing to the foundation of the American Republic. This with the Burgoynade at Saratoga by General GATES; and the glorious victory over the Earl of CORNWALLIS in Virginia, together with the memorable victory of Eutaw Springs, and the triumphant recovery of the southern states by General GREENE, are among the most heroic acts, and brilliant achievements, which have decided the fate of America. And who does not see the indubitable interposition and energetic influence of Divine Providence in these great and illustrious events? Who but a WASHINGTON, inspired by Heaven, could have struck out the great movement and manoeuvre of Princeton? To whom but the Ruler of the winds shall be ascribe it, that the British reinforcement, in the summer of 1777, was delayed on the ocean three months by contrary winds, until it was too late for the conflagrating General CLINTON to raise the siege of Saratoga? What but a Providential miracle detected the conspiracy of Arnold, even in the critical moment of the execution of that infernal plat, in which the body of the American army, then at West Point, with his excellency General WASHINGTON himself, were to have been rendered into the hands of the enemy! Doubtless inspired by the Supreme Illuminator of great minds, were the joint councils of a Washington and a Rochambeau, in that grand effort of generalship, with which they deceived and astonished a Clinton, and eluded his vigilance in their transit by New York, and rapid marches for Virginia. Was it not of God, that both the navy and army should enter the Chesapeak at the same time? Who but God could have ordained the critical arrival of the gallic fleet, so as to prevent and defeat the British, and assist and cooperate with the combined armies in the siege and reduction of Yorktown? Should we not ever admire and ascribe to a Supreme energy, the wise and firm generalship displayed by General GREENE, when (leaving the active, roving Cornwallis to pursue his helter-skelter ill-fated march into Virginia), he coolly and steadily went onwards, and deliberately, judiciously, and heroically, recovered the Carolinas and the southern states?

How rare have been the defections and apostacies of our capital characters, though tempted with all the charms of gold, titles, and nobility? Whence is it that so few of our army have deserted to the enemy? Whence that our brave sailors have chosen the horrors of prison ships and death rather than to fight against their country? Whence the men of every rank have so generally felt an spoken alike as if the cords of life struck unison through the continent? What but a miracle has preserved the union of the states, the purity of congress, and the unshaken patriotism of even general assembly? It is God who has raised up for us a great and powerful ally, an ally which sent us a chosen army and a naval force; who sent us a ROCHAMBEAU and a CHATELLUX, and other characters of the first military merit and eminence, to fight side by side with a WASHINGTON and a LINCOLN, and the intrepid Americans, in the line and battle of Yorktown. It is God, who so ordered the balancing interests of nations, as to produce an irresistible motive in the European maritime powers, to take our part. Hence the recognition of our independence by Spain and Holland, as well as France. Britain ought to have foreseen that it must have given joy to surrounding nations, tired and wearied out with the insolence and haughtiness of her domineering flag, a flag which spreads terror through the oceans of the globe, to behold the era when their forces should have arrived to such maturity and strength, that a junction of national navies, would produce an aggregate force, adequate to the humiliation of Britain and her gallant and lofty navy. Nor could they resist the operation of this motive, prompting them to assist in the cutting off of a member, with which the growing aggrandizement and power of Britain were connected; as thus she would be disarmed of terror, and they should be at rest. If Britain doth not learn wisdom by these events, and disclaim the sovereignty of the ocean, the junction of national navies will settle the point for her, in less than half a century. So wonderfully does Divine Providence order the time and coincidence of the public national motives, cooperating in effecting great public events and revolutions.

But the time would fail me to recount the wonder-working Providence of God, in the events of this war. Let these serve as a specimen; and lead us to hope that God will not forsake this people; for whom He has done such marvelous things (whereof we are glad and rejoice this day) having at length brought us to the dawn of Peace.

O PEACE! Thou welcome guest! All hail, thou heavenly visitant! Calm the tumult of nations, and wave thy balmy wing to perpetuity over this region of liberty. Let there be a tranquil period for the unmolested accomplishment of the magnalia dei, the great events in God’s moral government, designed from eternal ages to be displayed in their ends of the earth.

And here I beg leave to congratulate my country, upon the termination of this cruel and unnatural war, the cessation of hostilities, and the prospect of PEACE. May this great event excite and elevate our first, our highest acknowledgements to the sovereign monarch of universal nature, to the Supreme Disposer and Controller of all events; let this our pious, sincere and devout gratitude ascend in one general effusion of heartfelt praise and hallelujah, in one united cloud of incense, even the incense of universal joy and thanksgiving to God from the collective body of the United States.

And while we render our supreme honors to the Most High, the god of armies; let us recollect, with affectionate honor, the bold and brave sons of freedom, who willingly offered themselves, and bled in the defense of their country. Our fellow-citizens, the officers and soldiers of the PATRIOT ARMY, WHO, WITH THE Manlys, the Jones’s and other gallant commanders and brave seamen of the American navy, have heroically fought the war by sea and by land, merit of their once bleeding but now triumphant country, laurels, crowns, rewards and the highest honor. Never was the profession of arms used with more glory, in a better cause, since the days of JOSHUA, the son of Nun.

O WASHINGTON! How do I love thy name! So have I often adored and blessed thy God, for creating and forming thee, the great ornament of humankind! Upheld and protected by the Omnipotent, by the Lords of Hosts, thou hast been sustained and carried through one of the most arduous and most important wars in all history. If the world and posterity will, with admiration, contemplate thy deliberate, cool, and stable judgment, thy virtue, they valour and heroic achievements, as far surpassing those of a Cyrus, whom the world loved and adored. The sound of thy fame shall go out into all the earth, and extend to distant ages. Thou hast convinced the work, the beauty of virtue – for in thee this beauty shines with distinguished lustre. Those who would not recognize any beauty in virtue in the world beside, will yet reverence it in thee. There is a glory in thy disinterested benevolence, which the greatest characters would purchase, if possible, at the expense of worlds, and which may excite their emulation, but cannot be felt by the VENAL GREAT, who think everything, even virtue and true glory, may be bought and sold, and trace our every action to motives originating in self.

Find virtue local, all relation scorn

See all in self, and but for self be born.

But thou, O WASHINGTON, forgottest thyself when thou lovedst thy bleeding country. Not all the gold of ophir, nor a world filled with rubies and diamonds, could effect or purchase the sublime and noble feelings of thine heart in that single self-moved act, when thou renouncedst the REWARDS OF GENERALSHIP, and heroically tookest upon thyself the dangerous, as well as arduous office of our GENERALISSIMO – the this at a solemn moment, when thou didst deliberately cast the die, for the dubious, the very dubious alternative of a gibbet or a TRIUMPHAL ARCH. But, beloved, enshielded and blessed by he great MELCHISIDEC, the king of righteousness, as well as peace, thou hast triumphed gloriously. Such as been they military wisdom in the struggles of this arduous conflict, such the noble rectitude, amiableness and magnitude of thy character, something is there so singularly glorious and venerable thrown by Heaven about thee, that not only does thy country love thee, but our very enemies stop the madness of their fire in full valley, stop the illiberality of their stands, at thy name, as if rebuked from Heaven, with a touch not mine anointed, and do my HERO no harm. Thy fame is of sweeter perfume than Arabian spices in the gardens of Persia. A Baron de Steuben shall waft its fragrance to the monarch of Prussia: a Marquis de la Fayette shall waft it to a far greater monarch, and diffuse thy renown throughout Europe: (The author does not doubt but that the capital events in the mediatorial kingdom on earth, into which angels desire to look, especially those which respect the protestant Zion, are subjects of extensive attention in Heaven; and that characters of real and eminent merit in the cause of liberty and virtue, are echoed and contemplated with great honor in the celestial realms) listening angels shall catch the odour, waft it to heaven, and perfume the universe.

And now that our warfare is ended, do thou, o man of God, greatly beloved of the Most High, permit a humble minister of the blessed Jesus, who, though at a distance, has vigilantly accompanied thee through every stage of thy military progress, has watched thine every movement and danger with a heartfelt anxiety and solicitude; and who, with the most sincere and fervent wishes for thy safety and success, has not ceased day nor night to pray for thee, and to commend thee and thy army to God; - condescend to permit him to express his most cordial congratulations, and to share in the triumphs of thy bosom, on this great and joyous occasion. We thank the Lord of Hosts, that has given his servant to see his desire upon his enemies, and peace on Israel. And when thou shalt now at length revert from the fatigues of nine laborious campaigns, to the tranquil enjoyment, to the sweetness and serenity of domestic life, may you never meet the fate of that ornament of armies and of humanity, the great BELISARIUS; but may a crown of universal love and gratitude, of universal admiration and of the universal reverence and honor of thy saved country, rest and flourish upon the head of its VETERAN GENERAL and glorious defender; until, by the Divine Jesus whom thou hast loved and adored, and of whose holy religion thou art not ashamed, thou shall be translated from the world of war, to a world of peace, liberty and eternal TRIUMPH.

The time would fail me to commemorate the merits of the other capital characters of the army. To do this, and to pay the tribute of fraternal honor and respect to our glorious ALLIED ARMY, will belong to the future Homers, Livys and Tassos of our country; for none but Americans can write the American war. They will celebrate the names of a WASHINGTON and a ROCHAMBEAU, a GREENE and a LA FAYETTE, a LINCOLN and a CHARTELLUX, a GATES and a VIOMENIL, a PUTNAM and a duc de LAUZUN, a MORGAN, and other heroes who rushed to arms, and offered themselves voluntarily for the defense of liberty. They will take up a lamentation and drop a tear upon the graves of those mighty ones, those beauties of Israel, who have fallen in battle, from the day of Lexington to the victory of Yorktown. And while they commemorate those who have lived through singular sufferings, as those honorable personages – a LOVEL, a LAURENS, and a GADSDEN; the names of the illustrious martyr generals WARREN, MERCER, MONTGOMERY, DE KALB, WOOSTER, THOMAS, with a POLASKI, and others, will be recorded as heroically falling in these wars of the Lord.But I may not enlarge, save only that we drop a tear, or rather showers of tears, upon the graves of those other brave officers and soldiers, that fell in battle, or otherwise perished in the war. Oh! That my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears; that I might weep the thousands of our brethren, that have perished in prison ships – in one of which, the Jersey, then lying at New York, perished above eleven thousand the last three years! While others have been barbarously exiled to the east-indies for life! Come mourn with me all ye tender parents and friends, the fate of your dear – dear - . But these scenes are Too tender and distressing! Can we ever love Britain again? Can the tender, affectionate fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters; can the numerous bemoaning friends and relatives, and perhaps the espoused bosoms of the tender sex – can they, I say, ever forget the cruel mockings, scourgings, starvations, deaths, assassinations, of their dearest offspring and connections in British captivity? Can they forget the numerous thousands of their captivated countrymen instantly consigned to destruction, to dungeons, prisons, places of variolous infection and certain death? Will they be soothed by telling them this is the fate of war? As well may inquisitorial cruelties be soothed, by alleging they are salutary corrections, and necessary for the good of the church. Our enemies took occasion, from this fate of war, to reek their vengeance, and to lash us with a severity too unmerciful ever to be forgotten. Can we forget the conflagrations of Charlestown, Norfolk, Esopus, Fairfield, and other American towns, laid in ashes by a Tryon, and other incendiaries? Were these the kindnesses American brethren received from the hands of Britons, and their more cruel associates the Indians and loyalists? Can we forget the barbarous tragedy of colonel Haine, or the murder of captain Huddy, in violation of the most sacred laws of war and of national honor? Blush, oh Britain, for the slain of your national glory! Can we ever forget with what cruel and malicious delight they tortured, entowered, and insulted an American plenipotentiary, the illustrious LAURENS, although by the laws of honor and nations the person of an ambassador is sacred? Can we ever forget the cruel and infamous treatment of the honourable Mr. GADSDEN? - O Gadsden! How I reverence thy piety, thy firmness in captivity, thine intrepid and uncorrupted patriotism, thine enlightened politics, thy unremitted fervor and zeal in the cause of liberty! But how painful is it to recount the even less than ten thousand part of the series than ten thousandth part of the series of distresses, of sufferings, which we have been called to endure, in the pangs and throes of the parturition of the empire, in “effecting our glorious revolution, in rescuing millions from the hand of oppression, and in laying the foundation of a great empire.”

The PATRIOT ARMY merits our commemoration, and so do the great characters in the patriotic ASSEMBLIES and CONGRESS. Let America never forget what they owe to those first intrepid defenders of her rights, the honorable Mr. SAMUEL ADAMS, and the Hon. JAMES OTIS, Esq; add to these the Hon. Dr. JOHN WINTHROP, Hon. JAMES BOWDOIN, Esq; who, with others, were the marked objects of ministerial vengeance; who early stepped forth and heroically withstood tyranny, and alarmed their country with its danger; while venal sycophants were lulling us to rest, and hushing us into silence. His excellency Mr. President RANDOLPH, merits our grateful commemoration; and so do the governors RUTLEDGE, WARD, LIVINGSTON, HOPKINS, NASH, CLINTON, the Honorable Messieurs WYTHE, DYER, SHERMAN, PENDELTON, HENRY, ELLERY, the LEES, President HUNTINGTON, LYNCH, WITHERSPOON, WOLCOTT, governor PACA, governor HALL, LAW, MARCHANT, President M’KEAN, ELSWORTH, VANDYKE, JEFFERSON - Jefferson, who poured the soul of the continent into the monumental act of independence. These, and other worthy personages of this and other states, will be celebrated in history, among the cardinal patriots of this revolution. All the ages of man will not obliterate the meritorious name of his excellency, governor HANCOCK, as President of Congress at a most critical era, nor the meritorious names of that illustrious band of heroes and compatriots, those sensible and intrepid worthies who, with him, resolutely and nobly dared, in the face of every danger, to sign the glorious act of INDEPENDENCE. May their names live, be preserved, and transmitted to posterity with deserved reputation and honor, through all American ages. Those great civilians and ambassadors, the illustrious FRANKLIN, ADAMS, JAY, and LAURENS, have approved themselves equal to the highest negotiations in the courts of nations; been faithful to their country’s liberties, and by their great and eminent services have justly merited to have their names sent forward to immortality in history, with renown and unsullied glory.

Great and extensive will be the happy effects of this warfare, in which we have been called in Providence to fight out, not the liberties of America only, but the liberties of the world itself. The spirited and successful stand which we have made against tyranny, will prove the salvation of England and Ireland: and by teaching all sovereigns the danger of irritating and trifling with the affections and loyalty of their subjects, introduce clemency, moderation and justice into public government at large through Europe. Already have we learned Ireland and all other nations the road to liberty; the way to a redress of grievances, by open systematical measures, committees of correspondence, and military discipline of an armed people. Ireland has become gloriously independent of England. Nor will the spirit rest, till Scotland becomes independent also. It would be happier for the three kingdoms to subsist with parliaments and national councils independent of one another, although confederated under one monarch. The union of l707 has produced the loss and dismemberment of America. It is just possible, that within this age, some ill-fated counselor of another connection, might have arisen, and prompted majesty and parliament to sanguinary measures against America: but it is more than probable, that their enforcement would have been deferred, or procrastinated a century hence, or to a period when our accumulated population would have dictated wiser, milder measures, to the British court; and to America, by a gentle, fraternal connection, would have remained cemented to Britain for distant ages. But a Rehoboam counselor stepped in, et attum est de republica – the ten tribes are lost. Had it not been for the insidious and haughty councils of a Bute and a Mansfield, imbued with principles incompatible with liberty; with the unwieldly faction of their despotic connections in the empire, America and Ireland had remained united with Britain to this day. Chagrined and mortified by the defeat and dishonor brought upon them by Butean councils and dominion, as well as with their curtailed and unequal weight in parliament, Scotland, emulous of the glory of Ireland, will wish for and obtain a dissolution of the union, and resume a separate sovereignty. It must be the lenity, the wisdom, the gentle and pacific measures of an augustan age; that can conserve the remnant of the British Empire from this tripartite division.

Nor will the British Isles alone be relieved into liberty, but more extensive still will be the peaceable fruits of our righteous conflict. The question on the mare liberum and the mare clausum, heretofore discussed by the ablest civilians of the last century, will no more require the learned labors of a Milton, a Selden, a Grotius. This war has decided, not by the jus maritimum of rhodes, oleron or Britain, but on the principles of commercial utility and public right, that the NAVIGATION OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN SHALL BE FREE; AND SO PROBABLY WILL BE THAT OF ALL THE OCEANS OF THE GLOBE. All the European powers will henceforth, from national and commercial interests naturally become a united and combined guaranty, for the free navigation of the Atlantic, and free commerce with America. Interest will establish a free access for all nations to our shores, and for us to all nations. The armed neutrality will disarm even war itself of hostilities against trade; will form a new chapter in the laws of nations, and preserve a free commerce among powers at war. Fighting armies will decide the fate of empires by the sword, without interrupting the civil, social and commercial intercourse of subjects. The want of anything to take, will prove a natural abolition of privateering, when the property shall be covered with neutral protection. Even the navies will, within a century, become useless. A generous and truly liberty system of national connection, in the spirit of the plan conceived and nearly executed by the great HENRY IV of FRANCE, will almost annihilate war itself.

We shall have a communication with all nations in commerce, manners and science, beyond anything theretofore known in the world. Manufacturers and artisans, and men of every description, may, perhaps, come and settle among us. They will be few indeed in comparison with the annual thousands of our natural increase, and will be incorporated with the prevailing hereditary complexion of the first settlers: - We shall not be assimilated to them, but they to us, especially in the second and third generations. This fermentation and communion of nations will doubtless produce something very new, singular, and glorious. Upon the conquest of Alexander the Great, statuary, painting, architecture, philosophy, and the fine arts were transplanted in perfection from Athens to Tarsus, from Greece to Syria; where they immediately flourished in even greater perfection, than in the parent state. Not in Greece herself, are there to be found specimens of a sublimer or more magnificent architecture, even in the Grecian style, than in the ruins of Baalbeck and Palmyra. So all the arts may be transplanted from Europe and Asia, and flourish in America with an augmented luster: not to mention the augment of the sciences, from American inventions and discoveries – of which there have been as capital ones here, (American inventions: 1730. Reflecting Quadrant. By Mr. Thomas Godfry, at Philadelphia; 1745. Mercurial Inoculation. By Dr. Muirson; 1750. Electrical pointed Rods. By Dr. Franklin. 1762. Sand-Iron. By Dr. Jared Elliot. 1769. Quantity of Matter in Comets. By Professor Winthrop) the last half century, as in all Europe.

The rough sonorous diction of the English language may here take its Athenian polish, and receive its attic urbanity; as it will probably become the vernacular tongue of more numerous millions, than ever yet spake one language on earth. It may continue for ages to the prevailing and general language of north America. The intercommunion of the United States with all the world, in travels, trade and politics, and the infusion of letters into our infancy, will probably preserve us from the provincial dialects, risen into inexterminable habit before the invention of printing. The Greek never became the language of the Alexandrine, nor the Turkish of the Ottoman conquests; nor yet the Latin that of the Roman Empire. The saracenic conquests have already lost the pure and elegant Arabic of the Koreish tribe, or the family of Ishmael, in the corrupted dialects of Egypt, Syria, Persia and Indostan. Different from these the English language will grow up, with the present American population, into great purity and elegance, unmutilated by the foreign dialects of foreign conquests. And in this connection I may observe, with pleasure, how God, in His providence, has ordered that, at the reformation, the English translation of the Bible should be made with very great accuracy, with greater accuracy, it is presumed, than any other translation. This is said, allowing that some texts admit of correction. I have compared it throughout with the originals, Hebrew, Greek, and Syriac; and beg leave to judge, and testify it to be, a very excellent translation. Nor do I believe a better is ever to be expected in this imperfect state. It sustained a revision of numerous translators from Tyndale, to the last review by the bishops and other learned divines, in the time of James I, 180 years ago; and has never been altered since. It may have been designed by Providence for the future perusal of more millions of the human race than ever were able to read one book, and for their use to the millennial ages.

This great American revolution, this recent political phenomenon of a new sovereignty arising among the sovereign powers of the earth, will be attended to and contemplated by all nations. Navigation will carry the American flag around the globe itself; and display the thirteen stripes and new constellation at Bengal and Canton, on the Indus and Ganges, on the Whang-ho and the Yang-tse-kiang; and with commerce will import the wisdom and literature of the east. That prophecy of Daniel is now literally fulfilling – there shall be a universal traveling to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. This knowledge will be brought home and treasured up in America: and being here digested and carried to the highest perfection, may re-blaze back from America to Europe, Asia and Africa, and illumine the world with truth and liberty.

That great civilian Dr. John Adams, the learned and illustrious American ambassador, observes thus, “But the great designs of Providence must be accomplished; great indeed! The progress of society will be accelerated by centuries by this revolution. The Emperor of Germany is adopted, as fast as he can, American ideas of toleration and religious liberty: And it will become the fashionable system of Europe very soon. Light spreads from the dayspring in the west; and may it shine more and more until the perfect day.” - So spreading may be the spirit for the restoration and recovery of long lost national rights, that even the Cortes of Spain may re-exit, and resume their ancient splendor, authority and control of royalty. The same principles of wisdom and enlightened politics, may establish rectitude in public government throughout the world.

The most ample religious liberty will also probably obtain among all nations. Benevolence and religious lenity is increasing among the nations. The reformed in France, who were formerly oppressed with heavy persecution, at present enjoy a good degree of religious liberty, though by silent indulgence only. A re-establishment of the Edict of Nantes would honor the grand monarch, by doing public justice to a large body of his best and most loyal subjects. The Emperor of Germany, last year, published an imperial decree granting liberty for the free and unmolested exercise of the Protestant Religion within the Austrian territories and dominions. The inquisition has been in effect, this year, suppressed in Spain, where the king, by an edict of 3rd of November, 1782, proclaimed liberty for inhabitants of all religions: And by a happily conceived plan for literary reformation, the aurora of science will speedily blaze into meridian splendor in that kingdom. An emulation for liberty and science is enkindled among the nations, and will doubtless produce something very liberal and glorious, in this age of science, this period of the empire of reason.

The United States will embosom all the religious sects or denominations in Christendom. Here they may all enjoy their whole respective systems of worship and church government, complete. Of these, next to the Presbyterian, the Church of England will hold a distinguished and principal figure. They will soon furnish themselves with a bishop in Virginia and Maryland, and perhaps another to the northward, to ordain their clergy, give confirmation, superintend and govern their churches; the main body of which will be in Virginia and Maryland, besides a diaspora or interspersion in all the other states. The Unitas Fratrum, for above thirty years past, have had Moravian bishops in America; and I think they have three at present, though not of local or diocesan jurisdiction, their pastorate being the whole unity throughout the world. In this there ever was a distinction between the bohemian episcopacy, and that of the eastern and western churches; for in a body of 2000 ancient bohemian churches, they seldom had above two or three bishops. The Baptists, the Friends, the Lutherans, the Romanists, are all considerable bodies, in all their dispersions through the states. The Dutch, and Gallic, and German reformed or Calvinistic churches among us, I consider as Presbyterian, differing from us in nothing of moment, save in language. There is a considerable body of these in the states of New York, Jersey, Pennsylvania, and at Ebenezer in Georgia. There is a Greek church brought from Smyrna, but I think it falls below these states. There are Wesyans, Mennonites and others, all which make a very inconsiderableAmount, in comparison with those, who will give the religious complexion to America; which for the southern parts will be Episcopal, the northern Presbyterian. All religious denominations will be independent of one another, as much as the Greek and Armenian patriarchates in the East: and having, on account of religion, no superiority as to secular powers and civil immunities, they will cohabit together in harmony, and I hope, with a most generous benevolence. The example of a friendly cohabitation of all sects in America, proving that men may be good members of civil society, and yet differ in religion: this precedent, I say, which has already been intently studied and contemplated for fifteen years past by France, Holland, and Germany, may have already had an effect in introducing moderation, lenity, and justice, among European states. And who can tell how extensive a blessing this American Joseph may become to the whole human race, although once despised by his brethren, exiled and sold into Egypt? How applicable that in Genesis 49: 22; 26, Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over a wall. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him. But his bow abode in strength, the arms of his hands were made strong by the arms of the might God of Jacob. - The blessings of thy father, have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hill: they shall be on the head of

JOSEPH and on the crown of the head of him that was SEPARATED from his brethren. (Editor’s note: This Scripture was providentially George Washington’s presidential inaugural Scripture, when he placed his left hand upon it, while sworn into office, the Bible being opened at random, due to haste, to this God-chosen, Scriptural passage).

Little would civilians have thought ages ago, that the world should ever look to America for models of government and polity: little did they think of finding this most perfect polity among the poor outcasts, the contemptible people of New England, and particularly in the long despised civil polity of Connecticut; a polity conceived by the sagacity and wisdom of a WINTHROP, A Ludlow, HAYNES, HOPKINS, HOOKER, and the other first settlers, of Hartford, in 1636. And while Europe and Asia may hereafter learn that the most liberal principles of law and civil polity are to be found on this side of the Atlantic; they may also find the true religion here depurated from the rust and corruption of ages, and learn from us to reform and restore the church to its primitive purity. It will be long before the ecclesiastical pride of the splendid European hierarchies, can submit to learn wisdom from those, whom they have been inured to look upon with sovereign contempt. But candid and liberal disquisition will sooner or later have a great effect. Removed from the embarrassments of corrupt systems, and the dignities and blinding opulence connected with them, the unfettered mind can think with a noble enlargement and with an unbounded freedom, go wherever the light of truth directs. Here will be no bloody tribunals, no cardinals inquisitors-general, to bend the human mind, forceably to control the understanding, and put out the light of reason, the candle of the Lord, in man; to force an innocent Galileo to renounce truths demonstrable as the light of day. Religious liberty is peculiarly friendly to fair and generous disquisition. Here deism will have its full chance; nor need liberties more to complain of being overcome by any weapons, but the gentle, the powerful ones of argument and truth. Revelation will be found to stand the test to the ten thousandth examination.

There are three coetaneous events to take place, whose future is certain from prophecy, the annihilation of the pontificate, the reassembling of the Jews, and the fullness of the gentiles. That liberal and candid disquisition of Christianity, which will most assuredly take place in America, will prepare Europe for the first event, with which the other will be connected, when, especially on the return of the twelve tribes to the holy land, there will burst forth a degree of evidence hitherto unperceived, and of efficacy to convert a world. More than three quarters of mankind yet remain heathen. Heaven put a stop to the propagation of Christianity, when the church became corrupted with the adoration of numerous deities and images, because this would have been only exchanging an old for a new idolatry. Nor is Christendom now larger than it was nine centuries ago. The promising prospects of the propaganda side at Rome are come to nothing: and it may be of the divine destiny, that all other attempts for gospelizing the nations of the earth shall prove fruitless, until the present Christendom itself be recovered to the primitive purity and simplicity. At which time, instead of the babel confusion of contradicting missionaries, all will harmoniously concur in speaking one language, one holy faith, one apostolic religion, to an uncontroverted world. At this period, and in effecting this great event, we have reason to think, that the United States may be of no small influence and consideration. It was of the Lord, to send Joseph into Egypt, to save much people, and to show forth his praise. It is of the Lord, that a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars, should flee into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, and where she might be the repository of wisdom, and keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus. It may have been of the Lord, that Christianity is to be found in such great purity, in this church exiled into the wildernesses of America; and that its purest body should be evidently advancing forward, by an augmented natural increase and spiritual edification, into a singular superiority – with the ultimate subserviency to the glory of god, in converting the world.

When we look forward and see this county increased to 40 or 50 millions, while we see all the religious sects increased into respectable bodies, we shall doubtless find the united body of the congregational, consociated and Presbyterian churches, making an equal figure with any of them; or to say the least, to be of such magnitude as to number, that it will be to no purpose for other sects to meditate their eversion. This, indeed, is enterprised, but it will end in a labor. There is the greatest prospect that we shall become thirty out of forty millions. And while the avenues to civil improvement and public honors, will here be equally open to all sects, so it will be no dishonor hereafter to be a Presbyterian, or of the religious denomination which will probably ever make the most distinguished figure in this great republic. And hereafter when the world shall behold us a respectable part of Christendom, they may be induced by curiosity, with calmness and candor to examine, whether something of Christianity may not really be found among us. And while we have to lament our laodiceanism, deficient morals, and incident errors, yet the collective system of evangelical doctrines, the instituted ordinances, and the true ecclesiastical polity, may be found here in a great degree of purity. Europeans and some among us, have habituated themselves to a most contemptible idea of the New England churches – conceiving us to be only a colluvies of error, fanaticism, irregularity an confusion. They have taken this idea in part from our brethren in Britain, who have viewed us very much also in the same light, to this day. This on the contrary is the truth, that, allowing for offenses unavoidable, for imperfections and controversies, incident to the churches in their most regular state, our churches are as completely reformed, and as well modeled according to the Scripture plan, as can be expected till the millennium. Particularly these essential things may be found among them upon examination, that the churches or particular congregations are regularly formed, and duly uphold public worship every Lord’s day, and this ordinarily in a very decent, solemn manner; that the preaching of the Word, baptism and the Lord’s Supper are regularly and duly administered by the pastors: that the pastors are orderly and regularly set apart to the ministry, by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery, or of those who have regularly derived office power, in lineal succession, from the Apostles and Jesus Christ. We have no classical or synodical tribunals: yet we have ecclesiastical councils. And our church discipline, although not sufficiently attended to, is such that persons of evident scandal and immorality, and vicious ministers (of which God be thanked, there have been but few, very few indeed) cannot live long in our churches. With all our humbling imperfections, I know of no amendment necessary, as to our general system of church polity. Nothing of moment (unless it be grace); no doctrine, no ordinance or institution of the primitive churches, but may be found in general reception and observance among us. If we are condemned for having no tribunals or judicatories out of the church, which however is not true, let it be remembered that neither Christ, nor His apostles ever instituted any: and that in this respect, we are just in the same state, with regard to ecclesiastical polity as the 150 churches of the apostolic age (It has been computed that the churches of the apostolic age did not exceed 150 or 200 congregations in the whole world) and particularly the seven churches of Asia, in the time of St. John.

The invalidity of our ordinations is objected against us, and so of consequence the invalidity of all our official administrations. And now that we are upon the matter, give me leave to exhibit a true, though summary state of it, as the result of a very full, laborious, and thorough inquiry. It was the mistaken opinion of some of our first ministers in New England (than whom, there never was a more learned collection, for they embosomed all the theological and ecclesiastical erudition of all ages), it was, I

say, their opinion, that the power of ordination, of all church officers, was in the church, by their elders. They well knew, from ecclesiastical and Scripture antiquity, that the power of election was there; and they judged ordination the lesser act: but their great reason was, that the church might not be controlled by any exterior authority, whether Episcopal or presbyterial, and so no more be harassed by bishops courts, or any other similar tribunals. Our fathers held to an eldership, for they saw it in all antiquity, as well as the Bible: and it was their judgment, that elders should be ordained by elders of the same church. The most of the first forty churches had ruling elders; a few had not. These few created an early difficulty; on which our fathers early made a mistaken decision, that where there were no elders in the church, ordination might be done by the laying on of hands of delegated brethren. The introduction of ministers, already ordained, into the pastoral charge of a particular church, was at first done by lay brethren; and this was, from the beginning, improperly called ordination, how often soever repeated. A repetition of ordinations or baptisms, does not nullify the first regular administrations. All the first New England ministers were ordained before. Thus Mr. Wilson was first ordained by a bishop in England; then, in 1630, by governor Winthrop and others he was ordained teacher in Boston; he then ordained an elder: and upon the accession of Mr. Cotton, 1633, he was, by this elder and governor Winthrop, again, a third time, ordained and constituted pastor. So the learned and courtly Mr. Davenport was ordained by a bishop, then by the brethren, pastor of the church in New Haven, in 1639; and 1668, was again ordained, pastor of the first church in Boston, by elder Penn. Mr. Hooker was ordained a presbyter by a bishop in England, and then gain by the brethren at Newtown, 1633, who removed with his church to Hartford. Mr. Bulkley, of Concord, and Mr. Noyes, of Newbury, and others, expressly adhered to their former ordinations in England by the bishops, though not as bishops, but as presbyters.

(A few extracts from the first governor Winthrop’s entries in a manuscript diary, may evince that the ministers relied upon heir ordinations in England. At August 27, 1630, “We of the congregation kept a fast and close Mr. Wilson our Teacher, and Mr. Newel our elder, and Mr. Gager and Mr. Aspinwall, deacons. We used impositions of hands, but with this protestation by all, that it was only as a sign of election and confirmation, not of any intent that Mr. Wilson should renounce his ministry he received in England.” Mr. Gager died 20th September, and October 25th 1630, Mr. Colborne, who was chosen a deacon by the congregation a week before, was invested by imposition of hands of the minister and elder.”

November 22, 1632. “A fast was held by the congregation of Boston and Mr. Wilson, formerly their teacher, was chosen pastor, and – Oliver, a ruling elder, and both were ordained by imposition of hands, first by the teacher and two deacons – upon the elder, and then by the elder and the deacons upon the pastor.”

October 10, 1633. “Mr. Cotton was then chosen Teacher of the congregation of Boston and ordained by imposition of the hands of the presbytery. The pastor and two elders laid their hands upon their head, and the pastor prayed, and then, taking off their hands, laid them on again and speaking to him by name, did thereby design him to the said office – and did give him the charge of the congregation. – Then the neighboring ministers which were present did at the pastor’s notice give him the right hand of fellowship.”

October 11, 1633. “A fast at Newtown, where Mr. Hooker was chosen pastor and Mr. Stone teacher in such manner as before at Boston.”

Mr. Bulkley’s ordination was 1637. “The church of Concord kept a day of humiliation for the ordination of their elders and they chose Mr. Bulkley teacher and Mr. Jones pastor. Upon a question being moved by one sent from the church of Salem, it was resolved by the ministers there present, that such as had been ministers in England, were lawful ministers, notwithstanding their acceptance of the call of the bishops – but having come hither, they accounted themselves no ministers, until they were called to another church, and that jupon election they were ministers before they were solemnly ordained.”

Another specimen of the first New England ordinations we have in the church of Dedham. “April 24, 1639. John Hunting, one of the brethren, was ordained to the office of a ruling elder by fasting and prayer and the laying on the hands of Mr. John Allen, their pastor elect and two other brethren. The same day, Mr. John Allen was ordained to the office of pastor by prayer and the laying on of the hands of the ruling elder and two other brethren.” Mr. Allen had been ordained by a bishop: and he communicated ordaining power to the elder. He died 1671: and was succeeded in the pastorate by

Mr. Adams, who in 1673 was ordained by neighboring pastors only.)

But in general the induction of the ministers of the first churches, was performed by lay-brethren, and this was called ordination, but should be considered what in reality it was, only induction or installment of those who were vested with official power. These, as I said, were all ordained before by the bishops in England. Nor have I ever found, with certainty, more than one instance of lay-ordination, of a person, never before ordained, the last century, (and there are few but what I have examined) and this was done by the advice, and under the inspection of ministers ordained by the bishops in England, one of whom prayed at the solemnity of the consecration, and all gave their approbation and right hand of fellowship; which in my opinion, amounts to their performing the ordination themselves, they being present and assisting in the transaction. This was at Woburn, 1642. I believe there were two or three more similar ordinations of un-ordained candidates, before the ministers saw and corrected their error – which, indeed, was almost the only error, of moment, which the ministers went into the last century.

Immediately upon publishing the Cambridge platform, 1648, our brethren in England remonstrated against allowing lay-ordination. They alleged, that we had no example in Scripture of lay-ordination; that the sacerdotal gift or office-power, was conferred and given by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery, (I Timothy iv. 14)

and that we had examples of Presbyterian ordination in scripture, and not only that it was safest to proceed in this way, but that it was the only Scriptural ground. These arguments convinced our fathers, and they immediately set about to remedy the practice, which had hitherto, providentially, wrought no mischief, as the body of the pastors had been ordained by bishops. It instantly became a custom for some of the ordained ministers present to lay on hands in ordinations, it being for some time judged necessary, that the delegated brethren should join, in token of subjection of the church to the pastoral care of the minister. But at length it became a custom, so early as before 1660, that, at the desire of the church, the ordaining ministers performed the whole, both conferred office power on the pastor elect, by the laying on of hands, and committed the church to his pastoral charge, which, with the joint fellowship of the pastors and churches, finished the ordination. Thus ordinations were recovered into their right state and order, the last century, and before lay-ordinations had wrought any evil. Thus office-power, by Scripture-presbyters, continued to be transfused through the clergy. I have reason and even assurance to believe, that there was no candidate ordained in New England, before 1746, but whose ordination may be traced to the bishops in England. I have found no instance to the contrary, although I have searched and examined all the ordinations of the first half century here, and most of them for the first hundred years. And as to the wild and enthusiastic period between 1740 and 1750, though it gave birth to perhaps thirty little separate congregations, yet some have dissolved, others become regular, and the ten or a dozen now remaining, are more and more convinced of the duty of seeking ordination from among the standing ministers. And it is remarkable, that Mr. Thomas Dennison, now living, assisted, laid on hands, and gave the charge at the first ordination, in 1746, and at the three succeeding ordinations among the separates in New England, from whence all the ordinations in the churches of that description have proceeded. And although in the first, but not in the others, he acted as a brother delegated by the church, and in the others as an elder of another church, yet it is remarkable, I say, that he himself had been ordained, in 1743, by one, whose ordination I have traced to the Mathers, and other Boston ministers, and through them up to the bishop of Chester, and other bishops in England. It is probable the few separate churches remaining, will, in time, become regular, by seeking ordinations among the pastors of the standing churches, where the ordinations are indubitable.

For, as I have said, the ordination of our clergy is regular and Scriptural, and may be traced, in the line of presbyters, up to the apostolic age: and so in general may the ordinations, in this line, through the whole Christian world, especially in the great divisions of Lutherans, Calvinists, and Church of England. So wonderfully has Christ preserved the sacerdotal or presbyterian order in the church, that the succession in this line is without a doubt. The first ninety-four ministers who came over and settled New England, Long Island, and the Jerseys, before 1669, and chiefly before 1640 – These, I say, were all educated in the English universities, and were ordained in England. Some of whom, as Hooker, Davenpoert, Chauncy, Lee, Bulkley, Noyes, Norton, were men of universal reading in theological literature, and were profoundly versed in the writings of the Greek and Latin churches, in the councils and historians, the fathers, the writers of the middle ages, and the reformers – especially those miracles of human and divine learning, Chauncey and Lee. Of these ninety-four, one or two only were ordained by the puritans; as the fourteen, who came over after the ejection of 1662, were ordained by the bishops, or more probably by the Presbyterians in the protectorate; all the rest by the bishops. All these were ordained presbyters by the bishops in England: particularly the Rev. Mr. Richard Mather was ordained a presbyter by Dr. Morton, bishop of Chester, 1618. (Life of Dr. Increase Mather). The bishops did not intend to communicate ordaining powers; but they really intended to convey all the power of a Scripture-presbyter; and by the Scripture, we find this power conferred by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. (I Timothy iv. 14). If the succession in the line of bishops might have been interrupted at the reformation, yet not so in the line of presbyters. Office-power has unquestionably been preserved in England among presbyters, not only to the times of its subjugation to Rome by Austin the monk, but ages before even to Lucius, according to venerable Bede.And indeed we have it more directly to the apostolic age, without going through Rome, for bishop Jewel asserts truly, that the ancient churches of England were of Greek, that is, oriental derivation. We have in this manner an historical evidence, and assurance, that the New England ordinations in particular may be traced back to the holy apostles.

There is not an instance in the apostolic age, of bishops, priests, and deacons, being stated officers of more than a single congregation. I risk this historic assertion with the examination of the whole learned world; although I well know that, like the evidences of revelation, it has been examined a thousand times, with different judgments. Every congregation, regularly and fully organized, had them: as appears from Dionysius the areopagite, and St. Ignatius. The succession of bishops, who were only the first presbyters, as well as of the other elders, was preserved by ordinations performed by presbyters in or out of a church. And though ordinations were usually performed by three or more, yet if only one presbyter laid on hands, it was valid. Titus, a single elder, was left thus, to ordain elders in Crete. The church of Alexandria, founded by St. Mark, retained Presbyterian ordination, exclusive, for 300 years, as appears from Eutychius, the patriarch there in the ninth century, who wrote the originals of that church in Arabic, from which I have translated the following extract, viz.

“The ninth year of Claudius Caesar, while Mark, the evangelist, resided at Alexandria – Hananias being converted to Christianity, Mark baptized him, and constituted or ordained him chief father at Alexandria; and he became the first patriarch of Alexandria. Mark, the evangelist, likewise constituted and ordained twelve (Kashisha) – the title Kashics is given to the Coptic clergy to this day – presbyters with Hananias; who should abide with the patriarch: so that when there should be a vacancy in the patriarchate, they should elect one of the twelve presbyters, upon whose head the other eleven should impose their hands, bless him and create him patriarch; and then elect some eminent person, and constitute him a presbyter with themselves, in the room of him who was made a patriarch; so that there should always be twelve. Nor did this institution concerning the presbyters, cease at Alexandria, that they should create the patriarchs out of the twelve presbyters, until the times of Alexander, patriarch at Alexandria, who was of the number of the three hundred and eighteen (at the Council of Nice, A.D. 325). “For he forbade the presbyters afterwards to create a patriarch. And decreed, that upon the death of a patriarch, the bishops should assemble and ordain a patriarch. And he further decreed, that on a vacancy in the patriarchate, they should elect, either from the twelve presbyters, or from any other country, some eminent person, and create him patriarch. And thus evanished the ancient , by which the patriarch had been created by the presbyters, and there succeeded in its place his decree concerning the creation of the patriarchs by the bishops. Thus from Hananias to the time of Demetrius, who was the eleventh patriarch at Alexandria, there was no bishop in the provinces of Egypt; nor did any patriarchs before him, constitute bishops. But he being made patriarch, constituted three bishops. And he was the first Alexandrine patriarch who made bishops. Upon the death of Demetrius, Heraclas became patriarch, and constituted twenty bishops.”

Thus, in this most valuable piece or relict of ecclesiastical antiquity, we have preserved and transmitted to us a specimen and exemplar of a truly primitive and apostolic church. And herein we have a full proof, that while there were fifteen hundred pastors or Kashisha, yet there were no bishops in Egypt in the posterior appropriate sense of the Latin and Greek churches, until the fourth century: although the Christians had by that time become so numerous in Egypt, that in the most severe and memorable persecution under Maximianus, the predecessor of Constantine the great, one hundred thousand Christians were put to death here, and seven hundred thousand were sold for “slaves!” – a barbarity which satiated and glutted the malice of persecution, and wrought a conviction in the whole Roman empire, of the impossibility of subduing Christianity.

Correspondent to this idea of a church and its officers, was the form particularly of the church of Ephesus, and the seven churches of Asia, in the apostolic age; and the churches of New England; wherein at their primitive institutions, were originally two or more elders, besides the pastors and teachers, i.e. four presbyters: although, having generally, though not universally, dropped the ruling elders, they now more nearly resemble the church of Philippi, in having, at present, only bishops and deacons. It might, however, be well to resume the eldership as in the days of our ancestors.

Agreeable to this primitive idea of a church, was the church of Ireland, planted and formed, by that great light of Christendom, St. Patrick; who, (as Titus traveled Crete and ordained elders in every city) himself traveled Ireland, converted it to Christianity, and constituted 355 churches, and in each ordained a sect of elders, with a bishop at their head; as did Mark in Alexandria. Agreeable to that of the Irish poet in the Psalter of Cashel, which doubtless, while it retains the historical sentiments, loses its beauty in translation.

The blessed Patrick, with his priestly hands,
The rite of consecration did confer,
Upon the most religious of his clergy,
Three hundred and fifty-five in number.
He likewise, for the service of the church,
As many sacred structures did erect,
And presbyters ordained three thousand.”

This was A.D. 432. And it is remarkable, that this institution of the pious Patrick, continued for 400 years, until the Danish invasion. If the whole Christian world were to revert back to this original and truly primitive model, how far more simple, uniform, and beautiful, and even glorious, would the church universal appear, than under the mutilated artificial forms of the pontifical or patriarchal constitutions, of the middle and present ages? And how far more agreeable to the ecclesiastical polity instituted and delivered by the holy apostles? May this be exhibited and displayed in the American churches. Of this it gives me joy to believe there is the greatest prospect. The initial revival of this primeval institution is indeed already so well established here, where the Presbyterians hold so great a proportion in the American Republic, that there can be but little doubt, but that in the ordinary couse of events, our increasing and growing interest, without any interference with the other sects, will at length ascend to such a magnitude, kand become so great and respectable a part of Christendom, as to command the attention, contemplation and fraternal love of our brethren and fellow-Christians, of the church universal, and even of the world itself. And when the set time to favor Zion shall come in God’s good and holy providence, while Christendom may no longer disdain to adopt a reformation from us, the then newly gospelized heathen may light up their candle at America. In this country, out of sight of mitres and the purple, and removed from systems of corruption confirmed for ages, and supported by the spiritual janizaries of an ecclesiastical hierarchy, aided and armed by the secular power, RELIGION may be examined with the noble Berean freedom, the freedom of American-born minds: and revelation, both as to the true evangelical doctrines, and church polity, may be settled here, before they shall have undergone a thorough discussion, and been weighed with a calm and unprejudiced candor elsewhere. Great things are to be effected in the world before the millennium, which I do not expect to commence under seven or eight hundred years hence; and perhaps the liberal and candid disquisitions in America, are to be rendered extensively subservient to some of the most and glorious designs of Providence, and particularly in the propagation and diffusion of religion through the earth, in filling the whole earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. A time will come when six hundred millions of the human race shall be ready to drop their idolatry, and all false religion, when Christianity shall triumph over superstition, as well a deism and gentilism and mohometism. They will then search all Christendom for the best model, the purest exemplification of the Christian church, with the fewest human mixtures. And when God in his providence shall convert the world, should the newly Christianized nations assume our form of religion; should American missionaries be blessed to succeed in the work of Christianizing the heathen, in which the romanists and foreign protestants have very much failed, it would be an unexpected wonder, and a great honor to the United States. And thus the American Republic, by illuminating the world with TRUTH and LIBERTY, would be exalted and made high among the nations in praise, and in name, and in honor. I doubt not this is the honor reserved for us: I had almost said in the spirit of prophecy, the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.

“So the dread seer in Patmos waste who trod,
Led by the visions of the guiding God,
Saw the dim vault of heaven its folds unbend;
And gates and spires, and streets and domes, descend
Far down the skies; with suns and rainbows crowned,
The new formed city lights the world around.”

Having shown wherein consists the prosperity of a STATE; and what reason we have to anticipate the glory of the American empire: I proceed to show,

I. That her system of dominion must receive its finishing from religion; or that from the diffusion of virtue among the people of any community, would arise their greatest secular happiness: all which will terminate in this conclusion, that Holiness ought to be the end of all civil government – That thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord thy God.

On the subject of RELIGION we might be concise and transient, if indeed a subject of the highest moment ought to be treated with brevity.

It is readily granted that a state may be very prosperous and flourishing, without Christianity: witness the Egyptian, Assyrian, Roman and Chinese empires. But if there be a true religion, one would think that it might be at least some additional glory. We must become a holy people in reality, in order to exhibit the experiment never yet fully made in this unhallowed part of the universe, whether such a people would be the happiest on earath. It would greatly conduce to this, if Moses and Aaron, if the

MAGISTRACY and PRIESTHOOD, should co-operate, and walk together in union and harmony. The political effort of the present day, through most of the United States, is to disunite, divide and separate them, through fear, lest the United States, like the five vice-royships of new Spain, should be entangled and oppressed with the spiritual domination of European and Asiatic hierarchies. As if, by the title of minister or pastor, we might not as well be reminded of the ministers of Holland and Geneva, or the mild and peaceable pastors of the primitive church, as of the domineering prelates and other haughty intriguing dignitaries of the Roman church. Hence Aaron is spurned at a distance, and the LEVITES are beheld with shy contempt, as a useless, burdensome, dangerous tribe: and some of the states, for the only sin of being priests of the Most High God, they are inhibited all civil offices, and to a great degree, disfranchised of their civil immunities and rights of citizenship. I thank my God for this ordering of His holy providence (for I wish the clergy never to be vested with civil power) while I am considering the spirit and disposition of the public towards the church of God, indicated by such events. A general spirit reigns against the most liberal and generous establishments in religion; against the civil magistrates encouraging or having anything more to do about religion, than to keep the civil peace among contending sects: as if this was all that is to be done for religion by the friends of Jesus. And hence, in designating to the magistracy and offices of government, it begins to be a growing idea that it is mighty indifferent, forsooth, not only whether a man be of this or the other religious sect, but whether he be of any religion at all: and that truly deists, and men of indifferentism to all religion, are the most suitable persons for civil office, and most proper to hold the reins of government; and that to prevent partiality in governors, and emulation among the sects, it is wise to consign government over into the hands of those who, gallio like, have no religion at all. This is a machiavellian wisdom and policy! And hence examples are frequently adduced, of men distinguished truly for deism, perhaps libidinous morals, and every vice, yet of great abilities, it is said, great civilians, lawyers, physicians, warriors, governors, patriots, politicians: while as great or greater and more numerous characters, in the same departments, a Thuanus, a Grotius, a Paul, of Venice, a Sir Henry Wotton, a Sir Peter King, a Selden, a Newton, a Boyle, those miracles of wisdom and friends to religion and virtue; are passed by with transient coolness and neglect. I wish we had not to fear that a neglect of religion was coming to be the road to preferment. It was not so here in our fathers’days.

Shall the Most High send down TRUTH into this world from the world of light and truth, and shall the rulers of this world be afraid of it? Shall there be no intrepid DANIELS? - great in magistracy, great in religion! How great was hat holy man, that learned and pious civilian, when he shone in the supreme triumvirate, at the head of an empire of 120 provinces – venerable for political wisdom, venerable for religion!

If men, not merely nominally Christians, but of real religion and sincere piety, joined with abilities, were advanced and called up to office in every civil department, how would it countenance and recommend virtue? But, alas! Is there not too much laodiceanism in this land? Is not Jesus in danger of being wounded in the house of his friends? Nay, have we gone already such lengths in declension, that if even the Holy Redeemer himself, and his apostles, were to reappear among us, while unknown to be such, and importune the public government and magistracy of these states, to become nursing fathers to the church; is it not to be feared that some of the states, through timidity and fearfulness of touching religion, would excuse themselves, and dismiss the holy messengers, the heavenly visitants, with coldness and neglect; though importuning the spouse with an, open to me my beloved, my sister, my dove.

But after the present period of deism and skeptical indifferentism in religion, of timidity and irresolution in the cause of the great Emmanuel, perhaps there may arise a succession of civil magistrates, who will not be ashamed of the cross of Christ, nor of patronizing His holy religion; with a generous Catholicism and expanded benevolence towards all of every denomination, who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth; patronizing it, I repeat, not with the insidious views of a Hutchinsonian policy, but from a rational and firm belief and love of evangelical truth. Zion’s friends will rejoice in Zion’s welfare: and the religious, as well as civil patriot will shine in the faces of the future Moses’ and Joshuas of this land. So shone it in the first governor WINTHROP, and so shineth it in a WASHINGTON. Yea, I glory in believing and knowing, that there are many now in the public magistracy of this and the other states, who feel with that illustrious and most excellent governor, upon whom rested much of the spirit of Samuel and David, and of Jehosaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah, I mean Nehemiah the Tirshata, who, with Moses, esteemed the reproaches of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, who was of so pious, so noble, so patriotic a spirit, such a lover of his country and the true religion, that he preferred the very dust of Zion to the gardens of Persia, and the broken walls of Jerusalem to the palaces of Shushan.

Whenever religion is erected on the ruins of civil government; and when civil government is built on the ruins of religion, both are so far essentially wrong. The church has never been of any political detriment here, for it never has been vested with any civil or secular power in New England: although it is certain, that civil dominion was but the second motive, religion the primary one with our ancestors in coming hither and settling this land. It was not so much their design to establish religion for the benefit of the state, as civil government for the benefit of religion, and as subservient, and even necessary towards the peaceable enjoyment and unmolested exercise of religion – of that religion, for which they fled to those ends of the earth. And institution is not made for the laws, but the laws for the institution. I am narrating an historical fact, not giving a position or principle, which by shrewd politicians, may be abused to justify Scriptural tyranny, and to support the claims of the pontificate over all the civil states, kingdoms and empires in Christendom.

The American Nehemiah, the opulent and pious Governor WINTHROP I. and the other first magistrates of the several New England republics, were men of singular wisdom and exemplary piety. And, God be thanked, the senatorial assembly of the happiest of all the United States still embosoms so many Phinehas’ and Zorobabets, so many religious parrots, the friends of Jesus and his holy religion; and that the Messiah’s cause is here accompanied with civil government and the priesthood – allusively the two olive trees upon the right of the candlestick (the churches) and upon the left; the two golden branches, which through the two golden pipes, Moses and Aaron, empty the golden oil out of themselves, (Zech. iv. II) and diffuse their salutary influence of order and happiness through the community.

As to nominal Christianity, I have no doubt but that it will be upheld for ages in these states. Through the liberty enjoyed here, all religious sects will grow up into large and respectable bodies. But the congregational and Presbyterian denomination, however hitherto despised, will, by the blessing of heaven, continue to hold the greatest figure in America; and, notwithstanding all the fruitless labors and exertions to proselyte us to other communions, become more numerous than the whole collective body of our fellow protestants in Europe. The whole proselytism of New England in particular, for 60 or 70 years past, has not exceeded eight or ten thousand, while our augment in that term, by natural increase, has been half a million. The future difference in our favour will be far greater, even admitting a tenfold increase of proselytism. We anticipate, with pleasure, the growth and multiplication of our churches. God grant that we may not, like the seven churches of Asia, have a name to live, while we are dead. Happy will it be for us, should we become a holy people, zealous of good works. For it is undoubtedly the will of Heaven, and especially after the recent salvations of the Most High, that we should be a holy people unto the Lord our God.

It is greatly to be wished that these principles of our common Christianity, might be found in general reception among all the churches of these states.

The Trinity in unity, in the one undivided essence of the Great JEHOVAH.

The sacred Scriptures are of divine inspiration.

In the immense universe, two little systems of intelligences, or orders of being, have lapsed: and that unhappily we have the dishonor of being one of them.

The second person of the co-eternal Trinity, having assumed human nature, made a real atonement for sin, and by His vicarious obedience and sufferings, exhibited that righteousness and vicarious merit, by which alone we are forgiven and justified.

The Holy Ghost is equally a divine person with the Father and the Son; sharing with them divine, supreme, equal and undivided honors.

True virtue consists in a conformity of heart and life in the divine law; which is as obligatory upon Christians as if eternal life was suspended on perfect obedience.

The internal principle of holiness essentially consists in DIVINE LOVE, a disinterested affection for moral excellency, a delight in the beauty and glory of the divine character, that is, the supreme love of GOD. And connected with, and issuing from this, is a joyful acquiescence in His will, a rejoicing in His sovereignty, and universal dominion.

While salvation and pardon is of free grace, the retributions of eternity will be according to our works.

Whenever I find these principles, with others connected with them, and the real belief of them evinced by an amiable life, there I judge the essentials of Christianity to be found, and thither my charity and benevolence extends, with equal ardor and sincerity, e the religious denomination as it may. Of these, the doctrines of the DIVINITY of the Lord Jesus, and His real vicarious ATONEMENT, are the most important, the Jachin and Boaz, the pillar truths of the gospel.

This was the system of theology brought over from the other side of the flood, by our pious forefathers, now with God. The more this is realized in the state, the more will its felicity be advanced. For certainly the morals of Christianity are excellent. It enjoins obedience to magistracy, justice, harmony, and benevolence, among fellow-citizens, and what is more, it points out immortality to man. Politicians indeed usually consider religion only as it may affect and subserve civil purposes: and hence it is mighty indifferent to them, what the state of religion be, provided they can ride in the whirlwind, and direct the storm. Nothing is more common than to see them, in every country, making use of sects for their own ends, whom they, in their hearts, despise the ridicule with supreme contempt. Not so the Christian patriot, who, from his heart, wishes the advancement of Christianity, much less for the civil good than for the eternal welfare of immortal souls. We err much, if we think the only or chief end of civil government is secular happiness. Shall immortals, illuminated by revelation, entertain such an opinion? God forbid! Let us model civil society with the adoption of divine institutions, so as shall best subserve the training up and disciplining innumerable millions for the more glorious society of the church of the first born! Animated with the sublime ideas which Christianity infuses into a people, we shall be led to consider the true religion as the highest glory of a civil polity. The Christian institution so excelled in glory, that the mosaic lost all its glory. So the most perfect secular polity, though very excellent, would lose all its glory, when compared with a kingdom wherein dwelleth righteousness, a community wherein the religion of the divine Jesus reign in vigour and perfection.

Let us institute a comparison of religions in three different polities, which will sufficiently represent the state of the whole world. And may that spirit, which justly springs from such a comparison, animate all, whether in humble life, or in the most elevated stations among mankind. We may consider three contiguous empires of the same civil polity, all alike as to the social virtues, laws of justice, benevolence, and the morals of civil society – for I mean to institute a very liberal and candid comparison. On the one of these shall be established the idolatry of the BONZAS, as a specimen of all the idolatrous religions: Deism shall cover the second: and of the unidolatrous religions, I will select for the third, not the Mahometan, not the Jewish, but the Christian, in its purest apostolic form.

As to the first, the species of idolatry is indifferent, whether ancient or modern, that of the Druids or Zoroaster, of the Bramins or Romanists, or lastly, that of the great LAMA, of Potola, which is the most extensive, as well as most splendid, religion on earth, being the religion of the third of the human race. Let us select the last: it has for its basis, in common with all other idolatrous systems, adoration and worship, of some kind or other, to a hierarchy of celestial spirits as our intercessors and protectors under the supreme God. These have been, in all ages, the MAHUZZIM of Daniel; who predicts the apostacy of the church to the worship of Mahuzzim departed souls, invisible spirits as intercessors with God. This is the real basis of all idolatry, ancient and modern. These were the Baalim and the Heroes. And it is just indifferent, whether we sacrifice and pray to Hercules or to St. Paul, to the thirty thousand gods of Athens, or the saints of the calendar, as advocates with the Father of the Universe. Now let the inhabitants of an empire be resolved into religious assemblies and convocations, for the sacrificial worship of these inferior divinities, with a splendid ceremonial and priesthood. Who does not see, in these enlightened realms, that all this is religious delusion, a transfer of worship to the creature from the creator – who may well say, who hath required this at your hands?

If it be said that supreme worship is not rendered to the saints of the pontifical canonization: so neither was it by the ten tribes, all of whom, but eight thousand, kissed the calves and worshipped the numerous Baalim, Heroes, or demi-gods. Dr. Middleton has shown that the specific worship, with a change of names only, is paid at Rome to the modern canonized saints, as to the deified heroes of the ancient Romans and Greeks. The last effort of the philosophers against Christianity, was in the time of Julian; and they subordinated the whole system of ethnical worship to the worship of the Supreme Being, asserting that as Christians acknowledge the ministry of angels, so they held with the ministry of genii that of deceased and departed spirits, who must be supposed to retain a peculiar affection for their families,cities and kingdoms on earth; especially for those who should have referred themselves to their protection and intercession with the Deus O.M. the Supreme God. Thus they defended themselves upon the very same reasoning, as that upon which the Christian idolatry is defended. We are directed to ask the prayers of our fellow Christians on earth; and by parity why should we not ask their prayers in Heaven, where they must be supposed to have far greater influence? And if we are directed to treat one another, and especially great benefactors of our country, with public respect while here, why not by parity continue this respect and the symbols of honor to them in Heaven? What a beautiful gradation is there, it is said, in the ethnical and Christian worship or ascription of gratitude to inferior and powerful intercessors? And how does it tend to keep alive in our minds and impress them with glorious ideas of that grand, august, and beautiful system of agency and subordinate administrations, in the great government of the one Great Supreme? How beautiful the subordinate mediation of angels and saints, under the all-comprehensive mediation of the blessed JESUS, through whom all worship, adoration and homage is to ascend to the Sovereign of the Universe! Let us be assured, that the romanists think themselves to have great reason for the adoration of the superior powers.

Adjacent to this, n empire of the same excellent constitution, shall be overspread with DEISM exclusively. And to give the idea the most candid extent, perhaps beyond the desires of a Tindal, or even of a Shaftsbury, the amiable Confucius of deism, not to mention the smaller and more desultory geniuses of a Hume, or a Voltaire; neither of whom had any more taste or judgment in religion, or moral reasoning, than Cicero in poetry, or Cibber for the drama: I say, to give the fairest idea of perfect deism, let the people of this empire be resolved into occasional, abut not too frequent, worshipping assemblies for worshipping the god of nature, under the direction of the illuminated brethren, or of some right worshipful brother: and also to thank God for His goodness in this life, and for a certain prospect of a blessed immortality, if there should be any when, perhaps some noble minds, spirits of elevated and sublime genius, of bold, refined and independent sentiment, might descant upon the common principles of social virtue and benevolence. I have certainly done justice to deism; although we hear nothing of pardoning mercy, because truly we need none – such being the excellency and dignity of man, who, as Phocelides sayeth, is the image of God, that he well answers the end of existence, merits reward, and must hereafter be happy under the all-comprehending, the most benevolent administration of the universal FATHER. How pure and sublime is natural religion!

CHRISTIANITY shall be the establishment of the third territorial empire. And to preclude the sectarian prejudications from disturbing the clearness and calmness of the mental perception, let any one overspread it with the BIBLE Christianity, according to his own idea. I for myself might overspread the whole with the congregational churches; being not simply satisfied but sure, from a thorough perlustration of all ecclesiastical history, that they are nearly apostolical as to doctrine and polity. And let this justice further be done, that religion shall reign in the hearts and lives of the people at large: and that it be the great and harmonious endeavour of the ruling characters and influential personages through the state, both by example and precept, to support such a reign of virtue and holiness. All that is valuable and truly excellent in the other empires, is embraced; and in addition, we have discoveries, and offers, and assurances, great in the confession of all men, if true, and glorious beyond description, infinitely momentous indeed, and infinitely surpassing what is to be found in all the mythologies or moral systems around the globe. But I do not enlarge.

Ten thousand myriads of ages hence, in which of these three, would the civilian, the patriot, the man of religion, wish to have been found? In which to have acted his part?

For most certainly they are not indifferent – and in advancing its glory, to have exerted the talents and activity with which the Author of Nature had blessed him?

Which of these governments is it probable would most contribute to the secular welfare, and be attended with the greatest dignity, and even the greatest worldly splendor? But above all, which most subservient to eternity and its momentous concerns? In which, as a school of institution and discipline, should we enjoy the happiest advantages for immortality? Which of these empires would be the favorite of JESUS? Or is He indeed an unconcerned spectator of human affairs? If not, why should we doubt or hesitate to give the preference to the Christian Republic? If revelation be not true, it does us no hurt: we are as safe and as well off as others, having all their moral virtue. But if revelation be true, it is true exclusively, and therefore to be attended to at peril. This is no proof: but it is a reason for exciting our attention to its evidence, both in miracles and prophecy, as well as in a certain internal beauty and glory opened by Heaven upon a benighted world…

This, with a survey of the state of man in all ages, may show us that ethnic morals do not merit the high encomiums, the rapturous eulogies, which some have given them. Nor are deistical morals very promising. A world, a universe full of Rochesters and Chesterfields, what would it be? Characters, which may blaze their moment in an earthly court, but can never shine in the court above.

Modern deists – but why do I say modern, for the very fraternity is but of yesterday – the deists have more lately improved and adopted suicide and fate into their system; holding it in common with the Bramins of Asia, and the aulic chieftains in Africa. We might trace the matter of suicide through a tract of ages, from Calenus the Indian philosopher, who from the funeral pile laughed at Alexander the great, to that sublime genius, that deistical madman, who lately “stole away” out of life with his wife and four children at once, “closing the eyes of six persons, out of perfect humanity, and the most endearing fondness and friendship.” (William Beadle, who professing himself a deist, on the llth December 1782, cut the throats of his wife and four children, and then pistoled himself.)

Sir William Temple, Sale, and other learned deists, fond of depreciating Christian virtue by comparisons, have extolled and celebrated the Mahometan, Chinese and

other oriental morals, as far superior to the Christian. But the learned historiographer, Principal Robertson, asserts with historic verity, that upon the comparison of Europe in particular in its gentile and Christian ages, her morality will appear to have been greatly improved and meliorated, and that the ethnic morals fell far below the Christian. While we have to confess and lament the vice rampant in Christendom, we have reason to believe that the more Christianity prevails in a country, civil society will be more advanced, ferocious manners will give way to the more mild, liberal, just and amiable manners of the gospel.

Be it granted that in all countries are to be found men of integrity, honor, benevolence and excellent morals, even where vice has a prevalent reign, to the greatest excesses of a general licentiousness; yet supposing a community, nay, a kingdom, a world overspread with such characters, with the finest morals of a Socrates or a Confucius, what would be the moral state of such a country, in comparison with one overspread with the reign of the Christian morals? I mean in perfection.

How much soever we may admire the morals of Plato or Epictetus, they are not to be compared with those taught by Moses and the divine Jesus. Nor are we to conceive that civil virtue is the only end of civil government. As the end of God’s government is His declarative glory in the holiness and happiness of the universe; so all civil government ought to subserve the same end. The most essential interests of rational beings are neglected, when their secular welfare only is consulted. If therefore we defend and plead for Christianity, from its secular and civil utility only, and leave it here, we dishonor religion by robbing it of half, nay its greatest glories. It serves a higher purpose. For although it subserves the civil welfare infinitely beyond the morals of deism and idolatry, yet it also provides for the interests of eternity, which no other religion does. It opens to us the most grand and sublime discoveries concerning God, reconciliation with Him, and the reunion of this lapsed world with the immense universe. Discoveries momentous and interesting beyond conception! Without which we are left to perfect incertitude, if not totally in the dark with respect to eternity and its vast concerns.

Should we have recourse to the goodness of God; yet of all being angels would think, that man should be the last, to reason from the benevolence and goodness of the universal parent, to the impossibility of his offspring being involved in future ill, when from thence we might equally reason against the existence of present ill. If some distant seraph, who never knew nor heard of ill, should reason thus, it would be no marvel, perhaps: but that we, with all our sins and sufferings about us, should go into such reasonings, is the height of folly, the absurdity of absurdities! And why should that infinite goodness preserve the numerous millions that die in finished, though half punished vice, that did not preserve the lives of those upon whom the tower of Siloam fell – who did not avert the desolations of Lisbon, Naples, Herculaneum and Palermo? Cast thine eyes thither, O man, remember the battle, and do no more. (Job xli.8).

If instead of reasoning from the works and word of God, and thus ascending upwards into Deity, “we take the high priori road, and reason downwards ‘till we doubt of God.”

If by inductive reasonings from the perfections of God to what can and what cannot be, we should among other things, boldly conclude a TRINITY, and the incarnation of the eternal WORD absurd nullities, and yet it should appear in another state, that a crucified JESUS sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high; how would these mighty sensible characters, these find geniuses, these sublime, these foolish reasoners be disappointed? - May I be forgiven a very earnest solicitude here? – having myself passed through the cloudy darksome valley of skepticism, and stood on the precipice, from whence I was in danger of taking a juvenile leap into the irrecoverable depths of deism. For so rare are the FORBES’ and the JENNINGS, the instances of emancipated real infidels, that nulla vestigial retrorsum (no return from hence) my be inscribed on the temple of deism. Knowing these dangers, I pity from my heart, and almost bleed at every pore, for those who are caught in the vortex, and are captivated with the wiley satirical delusory and deficient reasonings of deism. Elevated with the pride of mental enlargement of a supposed untrammeled understanding, they ascent aloft above the clouds of prejudices into the Pisgah heights, from whence they fancy that they see all religions the same, that it, equally nothing but priestcraft and artificial error. Whereupon they complement themselves as endowed with a superiority of discernment in morals, with high sensibility, sentimental and liberal ideas, and charm themselves with other fine self-applied diction, which in truth only clothes the tedium, the weariness of half-discussed, unfinished inquiries; or perhaps the hope that at worst the want of certain knowledge may pass with God, if there is any, as a sufficient excuse for some of the doubtful levities of life.

But errors in judgment, it is said, will be of no account with God. In ten thousand matters they may not. We may trifle on many things; but on the things that respect eternity, the things of religion, it is too solemn, too dangerous to trifle. Although most religions are false and ridiculous, there may however be one, which we must renounce or trifle with at our peril. For, if revelation be true, as most assuredly it is, it is in Jesus only that we have eternal life. Infidels, and those excessively benevolent Christians, who consider all religions alike and equally ridiculous, do well, in their calmer moments to ponder those words of the eternal Judge, Matthew x.33. WHOSOEVER SHALL DENY ME BEFORE MEN, HIM WILL I ALSO DENY BEFORE MY FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN. Where then will a Judas, and a Beadle appear? Step forth, thou Herbert, the father of deism; come hither ye Bolingbrokes, Tindals, Collins’, Humes, Voltaires with all your shining abilities; and that disappointed group of self-opinionated deniers of the Lord that bought them, with that cloud of deluded followers, who would not that I should reign over them, - evanish from my presence, with alla the light of your boasted wisdom, into the blackness of darkness forever and ever! On what principles can the despised, the amiable Jesus withhold or recede from so awful a sentence, so tremendous a denunciation!

How infinitely happier they who, believing the record which God giveth of His Son, have received Him, and are become the sons of God? Is it nothing, is it a small thing to be initiated into the glorious idea of god and the Trinity revealed in the Scriptures to contemplate the hierarchy and government of the universe and the high dignity of that most illustrious personage, who is our intercessor, advocate and sovereign? Shall this light come into the world, and we neglect it? And shall it be said that these views do not animate a sublimer virtue than the motives taken from civil society? Shall the consideration of being citizens of a little secular kingdom or community, be equally animating with those taken from our being citizens of the august monarchical republic of the universe! But I must desist, with only observing that the United states are under peculiar obligations to become a holy people unto the Lord our God, on account of the late eminent deliverance, salvation, peace and glory, with which He hath now crowned our new sovereignty. (Deut. iv.34.)

I have thus finished the two heads upon which I at first proposed to discourse. And I shall not further trespass upon the patience of this very honorable auditory, by an application: but close with the addresses usual upon this anniversary solemnity.

To Governor TRUMBULL:

I beg leave in the first place, with the greatest honor, the most profound and dutiful respect, to address myself to his excellency the Governor of this State.

May it please your Excellency,

We account ourselves happy, most illustrious sire, that by the free election and annual voice of the citizens, God hath for so many years past called you up to the Supreme Magistracy in this commonwealth. And while we rejoice that this State embosoms numerous characters equal to the highest offices of government: yet should this day’s election fall again upon him, who, according to the interpretation of his name (Jonathan, Jehovah-natan) Jehovah hath given us, it would diffuse a joy through the United States. And should you now resign the chair, you would enjoy the reflection that you had been carried through a scene of the most distinguished usefulness, and loved to see the end of the war and establishment of American liberty and INDEPENDENCE.

It is observable, that, by a particular turn of genius and a peculiar discipline in early life, God often prepares great characters, for that future usefulness and eminence, for which they are designed in the world. This was conspicuous in the instances of Joseph, Moses, and Daniel: neither of whom in youth, thought that they were training up for the eminent spheres of action in which they afterwards moved.

Endowed with a singular strength of the mental powers, with a vivid and clear perception, with a penetrating and comprehensive judgment, embellished with the acquisition of academical, theological and political erudition, your excellency became qualified for a very singular variety of usefulness in life. Instituted in the sciences, the Hebrew literature, and theology, you were not only prepared for the sanctuary, but being export in all questions touching the law of your God, you became qualified to judge how we the Ministers of the Gospel under your government ought to behave ourselves in the house of God; while it has pleased God to call you up to other services in civil life. Thus the great Melchizedec was priest of the Most High God, and King of Salem. So Moses, though of the tribe of Levi and learned in all the wisdom of Egypt, was called of God to be King in Jeshurum.

An early entrance into civil improvement, and 50 years’ (1733 – elected representative; 1740 – elected into the council; 1766 – elected deputy Governor; 1769 – elected Governor) service of our country, with an uncommon activity and dispatch in business, had familiarized the whole rota of duty in every office and department, antecedent and preparatory to the great glory of your Excellency’s life, the last eight years administration at the head of this commonwealth; an administration which has rendered you the Pater Patriae, the father of your country, and our dulce decus atque tutamen.

We adore the God of our fathers, the god and Father of the spirits of all flesh, that He hath raised you up for such a time as this; and that He hath put into your breast a wisdom, which I cannot describe without adulation – a patriotism and intrepid resolution, a noble and independent spirit, an unconquerable love of LIBERTY, RELIGION and our COUNTRY, and that grace, by which you have been carried through the arduous labours of a high office, with a dignity and glory never before acquired by an American Governor. Our enemies revere the names of TRUMBULL and WASHINGTON. In honoring the state and councils of Connecticut, you, illustrious Sire, have honored yourself to all the confederate Sister States, to the congress, to the Gallic empire, to Europe and to the world, to the present and distant ages. And should you now lay down your office, and retire form public life, we trust that you may take this people to record, in the language, in which that holy patriot, the pious SAMUEL addressed Israel, and say unto us – I am old, and grey-headed – and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day. Behold, here I am, witness against me before the Lord: - whose ox have I taken? Or whose ass have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or of whose hand have I received any bribe, to blind mine eyes therewith? And I will restore it you. And they said, thou hast not defrauded nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken ought of any man’s hand. And he said unto them, the Lord is witness against you, and His anointed is witness this day, that ye have not found ought in my hand. And they answered, he is witness. (I Samuel xii.2).

May you receive a reward from the Supreme Governor of the Universe; which will be a reward of grace. For although your Excellency might adopt the words of that illustrious governor NEHEMIAH, and say, think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people (Nehemiah v.19) yet your ultimate hope for immortality, will be found in a more glorious merit, than that achieved by mortals, in the most illustrious scenes of public usefulness. May the momentary remnant of your days be crowned with a placid tranquility. And when you shall have finished your work on earth, may you be received to the rewards of the just, and shine in the general assembly at the first born through eternal ages. Amen.

To the LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL.

With great respect would I next address myself to his Honor, Lieutenant Governor Griswold, and the rest of the honorable COUNCILLORS of this State.

May it please your Honor, and the other Members of the honorable Council.

That senatorial order must be truly important, which stands upon the general voice and election of the public at large, because it must comprehend men of such public and conspicuous merit, as to be known among all our tribes, men of approved patriotism and wisdom, as well as popularity. We esteem it our happiness that our

GOVERNORS and our NOBLES proceed from ourselves. When we consider the trifling and inferior charters of the most of the counselors in the late royal governments, when compared with the solid wisdom of the council of this state, we may be convinced that the legislature, standing upon the free election of the people to be governed, bids fair to ensure more wisdom and incorruptibility, than if in the appointment of the most august sovereigns in the world.

We glory in it, that this state has at all times furnished gentlemen, in the appointment of the people, of abilities equal to every department and branch of common, whether legislative or executive. It is particularly happy, that men impressed with the feelings of the people, of great knowledge in laws and jurisprudence, in the civil polity, especially of this state, have hitherto been and still are, found at the council board, in the military departments, and in the highest judiciary tribunals of this commonwealth.

This state has ever preserved a grave, sensible and weighty council, in a pretty delicate situation, indeed, but of great prudence and influential wisdom. It is this council which combines and consolidates the whole commonwealth.

The general anniversary election dictates annually the general sense of the community. And while a rotation to a considerable degree, though not be constitution, yet by usage, and the mutability of human passions, and in the course of events, does in effect, take place, we have been happy however, and I hope, always shall be, in the retention of a number of ancient and venerable counselors, to transmit the wisdom and experience of their predecessors, and to give a steady and immutable complexion to the succession in the general assembly, especially as to the capital matters of law, liberty and government.

We glory in you, gentlemen, as our crown of rejoicing. We securely confide our liberties and safety, the civil, religious and literary welfare of this republic to your superintendence. We pray God, that in all your momentous deliberations and resolutions, you may be guided by the wisdom from above, by the mighty Counsellor, the

Prince of Peace. Amen.

To the House of REPRESENTATIVES

It is my duty in the next place, to pay the tribute of public honor to the respectable and numerous body of the lower house of assembly, the second branch in the honorable legislature and sovereignty of this State.

Mr. Speaker, and Gentlemen of the House of Representatives.

Your house is already formed standing on the free, local elections of a free people. Form the character of your constituents, we doubt not you bring with you the love of liberty, justice and public right. Assembled from all our tribes to consult the public good, so far as this is left to your judgment, you will act with well-informed wisdom and integrity; while so far as you know the minds of your constituents, may we not presume that you will hold it your duty to act and represent their judgments, be your own as they may. You have matters of high moment to attend to, and some of a very insidious nature. Besides matters of internal government, a liquidation of the expenditures of the war, finance, revenue, funds, are some of the subjects before this assembly. It is not impossible but you may perceive some hovering genius, something of an anti-American spirit flitting about, and at times alighting upon some within the walls of the Senate. Will you not hunt it down, and send it to the shades? May you all be inspired with a real, hearty and uncorrupted patriotism, and firmness in the cause of liberty and independence. Let an independent liberality of sentiment, and reverence for right and equity, reign in this branch of the Senate: that the world may see that the administration of the united branches, combined in the sovereignty of this state, is conducted with a certain plain, but noble dignity and majesty.

This assembly at every session for eight years past, has been full of the most anxious and weighty concerns, for our bleeding country. But this house is no more called to raise armies, or amidst the most complicated distresses, to devise means for their support. What a load, what a burden and weighty care has devolved upon this house through the war? But these conflicts are at an end. And you will be now called to the arts of peace, and to promote the welfare and aggrandizement of our country.

And while this honorable house is attending to the secular concerns of civil government, may we not humbly wish that you would not repudiate the idea of being nursing fathers to our spiritual Israel, the church of god within this State? Give us, gentlemen, the decided assurance, that you are friends of the churches, and that you are the friends of the pastors, who have certainly, in this trying warfare, approved themselves the friends of liberty and government. Your predecessors 100 years ago accounted this among their principal honors. They were solicitous to promote religion and learning, and to give suitable encouragement to both.

And in this connection will it be forgiven me, if I humbly recommend YALE COLLEGE to the smiles of government? Through the good hand of our God upon us, we may truly say, in the language of the sons of the prophets to Elisha, behold now, the place where we dwell is to strait for us. (2 Kings vi.x). May we not humbly ask of the public, that they would be pleased to build us another house, or the necessary edifices for the reception and accommodation of the youth, but about one third of the students being provided for in the present college edifice? Was I not so nearly connected with it, I might say with truth, what has often been told me by others, that there is not a state upon the continent, but would account such a feat of learning, in whose hands so ever it might be, as an illustrious ornament to their community.

A trust may be well executed, when the end of the trust is answered, although there may have intervened some mismanagements. Small bodies as well as great, not even Congresses and Assemblies, and may I not add not even this honorable assembly excepted, are not only frequently aspersed and censured, but have sometimes erred: - so perhaps have the governors of the college: when, however, upon a candid enquiry, it may be found, that in money concerns they have managed with an unexampled frugality, even to parsimony, that never was there more done to purpose with so small means in a literary institution – and that the college is at present in a pretty flourishing state. At my accession in 1778, the number of matriculated undergraduates in the four classes, was 119; and this current year they have been 251. There are ten colleges in the United States, from New England to Virginia inclusive: besides two intended ones in the Carolinas. The numbers of undergraduates in the most considerable are estimated as follows:

Founded. Undergraduates.

1636 Harvard College 150

1698 William and Mary College 100

1746 Jersey College 60

1755 Philadelphia College 30

1769 Dartmouth College 80

And in point of scholarship and literature, I hope we do not fall very far behind the other sister colleges in America.

How happy were its foundations and emoluments adequate to the civil and religious purposes of this institution? An enlargement of the public library, a complete apparatus for experimental philosophy, premiums for stimulating genius in every branch of literature, endowments of professorships, especially those of philosophy, law and medicine, would be of inconceivable benefit in the liberal education of youth. These things I doubt not will be effected in time: but the literati wish to see them accomplished in the present day.

The college has often since its foundation (A.D. 1700) experienced the liberality and smiles of the general assembly; for which it is always ready to return and repeat its thanks and gratitude. Some unhappy differences of sentiment (together with the war) have interrupted the dream of public munificence. But is there no balm in Gilead to heal the wound; is there no way to accommodate and adjust matters; so as to conciliate the friendship of the state towards its university?

The states of Holland, in the midst of their expensive wars in the cause of liberty, founded and endowed the university of Leyden. Should this state be pleased to endow two or three professorships, and appoint a board of civilians to elect the professors in concurrence with the present corporation, and see that the monies granted by the State were applied to the use to which they were appropriated by the general assembly – might not this give satisfaction?

But I trespass upon your patience. All the great interests of this State, whether as a separate sovereignty, or in its connection with the United States, are entrusted to you. A very weighty trust! You have a thousand pious prayers going up for you daily at the throne of grace. You have all the patriots saying, be strong O ZOROBBABELS: You have all the ministers inculcating obedience to you. And may you above all, have the influential guidance of unerring wisdom, to render you acceptable to the multitude of your brethren, to make you eminent blessings in your day, and reward you with immortality and glory in that world to come. Amen.

To the MINISTERS:

And now I turn myself to the PASTORS of the churches.

Reverend and beloved Brethren:

I have not assumed upon me to dictate to the civil magistracy, nor do I dictate to the sacerdotal order: albeit I might speak to the most of my brethren present, as being such a one in years, as Paul the aged. Condescend however, holy brethren, to receive a humble address from one, who loves the order with a sincere and fervent affection.

Permit me then to say, that, while we do not fail to inculcate obedience to the magistracy and laws, and recommend to our people the election of a pious magistracy; our principal work is not secular but spiritual and divine. Let us with the greatest assiduity devote ourselves to our Lord’s work, as ambassadors of the Prince of Peace. Let us preach the divinity and unsearchable riches of Christ, and salvation by His atonement; that theological system, which places the whole of redemption upon free grace – a grace free as to us, though merited by the holy Redeemer. Let us search the Scriptures for the real evangelical verity: and inquire, not so much for new theories in divinity, as what truths were known and realized in faith and life, by the primitive Christians of the apostolic age, and the three first centuries; and believe that no other system, no other doctrines are essentially necessary to carry men to Heaven in these ages, than those which enabled the myriads of holy martyrs to seal the testimony of Jesus with their blood.

There is but one true system of theology, and this has been equally known in all the Christian ages. For although great improvements and discoveries are daily making in philosophy and natural science, yet there have been no new discoveries in divinity, since the apostolic age. I do not mean merely no new revelation, but of the innumerable latent truths concealed in the Bible (and there are infinitely greater treasures hidden there than in nature) none have been perceived in later ages, but what have been as clearly discerned by the contemplative theologians of all ages. The sentiments are the same, though clothed in different diction. Philosophy, as I said, is improving, nor has the progress of civil society yet reached its summit: but divinity, I apprehend, has been long at a stand, having ages ago come to the highest perfection intended us at present by Heaven; which did not design any further improvement in it, from the sealing of the vision till the second coming of Christ. In the millennium these hidden treasures will be brought forth. But for the preceding period, divinity will be, and remain at a stand, except perhaps that towards the close of it, the prophecies will disclose themselves.

Religion has had and will have different fashions, even where it is still essentially the same. Previous to the tenth century, the writings of St. Augustin gave an extensive complexion to theology: afterwards Lombard’s collection of sentences or opinions of evangelical divines: but he was shoved into neglect by Aquinas, who reigned umpire till the reformation. Luther followed Augustin, and Calvin, Aquinas. The real theology of Melancthon, Calvin, archbishop Cranmer and Owen, was one and the same.

We despise the fathers and the pious and learned divines of the middle ages: pious posterity will do the same by us; and twirl over our most favorite authors with the same ignorant pity and neglect: - happy they, if their favorite authors contain the same blessed truths.

I rejoice that God has hitherto preserved a learned and evangelical ministry in these churches. The theology in general reception, comprehends all the excellent things of our common Christianity. And if some fancied discoveries should be burnt up in the day of the Lord, yet there will be left as great an abundance of precious stones, of the tried and pure gold of truth, as in any part of the world. Indeed we have gotten all the light of Christendom, and we need no more. We have enough: we are wealthy in sacred knowledge. We may spend long lives, in making ourselves masters of that vast treasure of sacred wisdom, which holy men of great light have attained. May I comprehend with all saints the height and depth of this knowledge, may my God possess me of this treasure, and I am content. All this knowledge , to the greatest extent of the human limit, has been gotten and acquired over and over again and again. Like other science, to every generation it seems new, while it is only possessing the knowledge familiar to our predecessors.

Moreover, charity, union and benevolence are peculiarly ornamental in the ministerial order. Let us cherish these amiable graces in ourselves and others. Let us be faithful. And the nearer we come to the solemn moment when we must render our account to god the Judge, and more may we be quickened and animated in the ministry; and think no labor, no assiduity too great, nothing too much to be done for the salvation of precious and immortal souls, nothing too much for the cause and kingdom of him who hath loved us to the death. May you, holy brethren, be strong in the grace which is in our Lord Jesus Christ: may the work, the pleasure of the Lord prosper in your hands: may you be honored of Jesus to turn many to righteousness. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, may you receive a crown of glory which

fadeth not away. Amen.

To the Assembly at Large

And now, my fellow citizens of this independent republic, my fellow Christians of every order and denomination in this assembly, and all you that fear God and hear me this day, given audience.

The Most High planned our fathers, a small handful in this Joshimon: and lo! we their posterity have arisen up to three millions of people. Deuteronomy x.22. Our ears have heard, and our fathers have old us, the marvelous things God did for them; but our eyes have seen far more marvelous things done for us, whereof we are glad and rejoice this day. Should our ancestors look down from the high abodes of paradise into this assembly, and attend to the things which we have been this day commemorating, methinks they might catch a sensation of joy at beholding the reign, the triumph of LIBERTY on earth! Hitherto has our bow abode in strength, and our arms been made strong by the hands of the mighty god of Jacob. And while amidst the festivity of this anniversary election, we congratulate one another and our country upon the cessation of hostilities, and that having fought the good fight, our warfare is ended: let us not fail to look through Providence up to the God of Providence, and give glory to GOD the Lord of Hosts, the God of our fathers, whom let us serve with a perfect heart and a willing mind.

Let us cultivate and cherish the virtues of the Divine as well as civil life, bearing in mind that we are all hastening to that period wherein all the glories of this world will be swallowed up and lost in the glories of immortality. Be it our great ambition, our incessant endeavor, to act our parts worthily on the stage of life, as looking for an hastening to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we be prepared for the solemnities of a far more august assembly than the most splendid assembly on earth. We are ardently pursuing this world’s riches, honors, powers, pleasures, - let us possess them, and then know that they are nothing, nothing, nothing. They serve a temporary gratification, vanish, and are no more. But we cannot be dissuaded from the pursuit. Death however, kindly ends it. Let us thing that we have two worlds to live for, proportion our attention to their respective interests, and we shall be happy forever. We shall then be prepared to shine in the assembly of the just at the right hand of the Sovereign of Life. How glorious to bear a part in the triumphs of virtue, the triumphs of the Redeemer, in the last day of the great and general assembly of the universe? How glorious to make a part of that infinitely honored and dignified body, which clothed with the Redeemer’s righteousness and walking in white robes, shall be led by the Messiah, thro’ the shining ranks of archangels, seraphims, and the innumerable hosts of the whole assembled universe, up to the throne of God, and being presented to and received by the triune Jehovah, shall be seated with Jesus in His throne at the summit of the universe, to the conspicuous view, and for the eternal contemplation of the whole intellectual world, as an everlasting monument of sovereign grace, Ephesians iii.10,11. to the intent that now unto the principalities and power is the heavenly places might be known, by the church, the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. To whom be glory in the church thro’ the never-ending succession of eternal ages. AMEN.

Winthrop's The Plantation in New England

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John Winthrop - January 12, 1587 - March 26, 1649

John Winthrop was a principal figure in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As an English Puritan lawyer, he led the first wave of English immigrants in 1630 who settled in the New World. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was the first major settlement after the Plymouth Colony. He served as Governor of Massachusetts Bay for twelve of the first twenty years of the colonies existence. Winthrop saw the Puritan colony as a 'city upon a hill' bringing inspiration and vision to the development of the new English colony. His family was a wealthy landowning merchants. He was trained as a lawyer and became Lord of the Manor at Groton in Suffolk.

Winthrop did not participate in the founding of the colony in 1628 but became involved with the colony the following year. King Charles I was anti-Puritan and began to suppress Nonconformist Protestants. Winthrop was elected to the post of Governor and traveled to the New World in April of 1630. Winthrop led a group of colonies ts to the North American continent who founded a number of local communities in Massachusetts Bay and the Charles River.

Winthrop served twelve terms as governor from 1629 until his death in 1649. He became a profound inflence upon the conservative religious community and a force for compatitive modernization. Winthrop clased with Thomas Dudley who was more conservative. He also clashed with liberals such as Roger Williams and Henry Vane.

His son John became a founder of the Connecticut Colony. The Plantation in New England is a most historical account of life in the early colonial period in America.

The grounds of settling a plantation in New England

First, The propagation of the Gospel to the Indians. Wherein first the importance of the work tending to the enlargement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and winning them out of the snare of the devil and converting others of them by their means.

Secondly, The possibility of attaining it, God having by his word manifested his will for the spreading of the Gospel to all nations, and intercourse of trade having opened a passage, and made a way for commerce with the East and West Indies and divers plantations of the Dutch and English being settled in several parts of those countries and the ill conditions of the times being likely to furnish those plantations with better members than usually have undertaken that work in former times.

1. The consideration of our own condition like unto theirs in times past.
2. The advantages and benefits we may receive from those parts challenging the rendering of spiritual things for their temporal.
3. The diligence of the Papists in propagating their Religion and suspicion and enlarging the kingdom of Antichrist thereby with all the manifest hazards of their persons and deep engagements of their estates. Reasons to be considered for justifying the undertakers of the intended plantation in New England and for encouraging such whose hearts God shall move to join with them in it:

First, It will be a service to the Church of great consequence to carry the Gospel into those parts of the world, to help on the coming in of fullness of the Gentiles and to raise a bulwark against the kingdom of Antichrist, which the Jesuits labour to rear up in those parts.

2. All other Churches of Europe are brought to desolation and of sins for which the Lord begins already to frown upon us, do threaten us fearfully, and who knows but that God hath provided this place to be a refuge for many whom he means to save out of the general calamity, and seeing the Church hath no place left to flee
into but the wilderness what better work can there be, than to go before and provide Tabernacles, and food for her, against she cometh thither.

3.This land grows weary of her inhabitants, so as man who is the most precious of all creatures is here more vile and base than the earth we tread upon, and of less price among us, than a horse or a sheep, masters are forced by authority to entertain servants, parents to maintain their own children, all towns complain of the burden of their poor though we have taken up many unnecessary, yea, unlawful trades to maintain them.

4.The whole earth is the Lord’s garden and he hath given it to the sons of men, with a general condition, Gen: l.28. Increase and multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it, which was again renewed to Noah, the end is double moral and natural that man might enjoy the fruits of the earth and God might have his due glory from the creature, why then should we stand here striving for places of habitation, (many men spending as much labour and cost to recover or keep sometimes an acre or two of land as would procure them many hundred as good or better in another country) and in the meantime suffer a whole Continent, as fruitful and convenient for the use of man to lie waste without any improvement.

5.We are grown to that height of intemperance in all excess of riot, as no man’s estate almost will suffice to keep sail with his equals, and he who fails herein must live in scorn and contempt, hence it comes that all arts and trades are carried in that deceitful and unrighteous course, as it is almost impossible for a good and
upright man to maintain his charge and live comfortably in any of them.

6.The fountains of learning and religion are so corrupted (as beside the unsupportable charge of the education) most children (even the best wits and fairest hopes) are perverted...

7.What can be a better work and more honorable and worthy a Christian than to help raise and support a particular church while it is in the infancy and to join his forces with such a company of faithful people as by a timely assistance may grow strong and prosper, and for want of it may be put to great hazard, if not wholely
ruined…The Lord revealeth his secrets to his servants the Prophets, it is likely he hath some great work in hand which he hath revealed to his prophets among us, whom he hath stirred up to encourage his servants to this plantation for he doth not use to seduce his people by his own Prophets, but commits that office to the ministry of false prophets and lying spirits…

Cotton Mather's Life of William Bradford

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From the Magnalia Christi Americana

…And the Lord accordingly brought them at last safe unto their desired haven: and not long after helped their distressed relations thither after them, where indeed they found upon almost all accounts a new world, but a world in which they found that they must live like strangers and pilgrims.

Among those devout people was our William Bradford, who was born Anno Domini 1588(9), in an obscure village called Austerfield, where the people were as un-acquainted with the Bible, as the Jews do seem to have been with part of it in the days of Josiah; a most ignorant and licentious people, and like unto their priest. Here, and in some other places, he had a com-fortable inheritance left him of his honest parents, who died while he was yet a child, and cast him on the education, first of his grand parents, and then of his uncles, who devoted him, like his ancestors, unto the affairs of husbandry. Soon a long sickness kept him, as he would afterwards thankfully say, from the vanities of youth, and made him the fitter for what he was afterwards to undergo. When he was about a dozen years old, the reading of the Scriptures began to cause great impressions upon him; and those impressions were much assisted and improved, when he came to enjoy Mr. Richard Clifton’s illuminating ministry, not far from his abode; he was then also further befriended, by being brought into the company and fellowship of such as were then called professors; though the young man that brought him into it did after become a prophane and wicked apostate. Nor could the wrath of his uncles, nor the scoff of his neigh-bours, now turned upon him, as one of the Puritans, divert him from his pious inclinations.

At last, beholding how fearfully the evangelical and apostolical church-form, whereinto the churches of the primitive times were cast by the good spirit of God, had been deformed by the apostacy of the succeeding times; and what little progress the Reformation had yet made in many parts of Christendom towards its recovery, he set himself by reading, by discourse, by prayer, to learn whether it was not his duty to withdraw from the communion of the parish-assemblies, and engage with some Society of the faithful, that should keep close unto the written word of God, as the rule of their worship. And after many distresses of mind concerning it, he took up a very deliberate and understanding resolution, of doing so; which resolution he cheerfully prosecuted, although the provoked rage of his friends tried all the ways imaginable to reclaim him from it, unto all of whom his answer was:

“Were I like to endanger my life, or consume my estate by ungodly courses, your counsels to me were very seasonable; but you know that I have been diligent and provident in my calling, and not only desirous to augment what I have, but also to enjoy it in your company; to part from which will be as great a cross as can befall me. Nevertheless, to keep a good conscience, and walk in such a way as God has prescribed in his Word, is a thing which I must prefer before you all, and above life itself. Wherefore, since ’tis for a good cause that I am like to suffer the disasters which you lay before me, you have no cause to be either angry with me, or sorry for me; yea, I am not only willing to part with everything that is dear to me in this world for this cause, but I am also thankful that God has given me an heart to do, and will accept me so to suffer for him.

Some lamented him, some derided him, all dissuaded him: nevertheless, the more they did it, the more fixed he was in his purpose to seek the ordinances of the gospel, where they should be dispensed with most of the commanded purity; and the sudden deaths of the chief relations which thus lay at him, quickly after convinced him what a folly it had been to have quitted his profession, in expectation of any satisfaction from them. So to Holland he attempted a removal.

Having with a great company of Christians hired a ship to transport them for Holland, the master perfidiously betrayed them into hands of those persecutors, who rifled and ransacked their goods, and clapped their persons into prison at Boston, where they lay for a month together. But Mr. Bradford being a young man of about eighteen, was dismissed sooner than the rest, so that within a while he had opportunity with some others to get over to Zealand, through perils, both by land and sea not inconsiderable; where he was not long ashore ere a viper seized on his hand – that is, an officer – who carried him unto the magistrates, unto whom an envious passenger had accused him as having fled out of England. When the magistrates understood the true cause of his coming thither, they were well satisfied with him; and so he repaired joyfully unto his brethren at Amsterdam, where the difficulties to which he afterwards stooped in learning and serving of a Frenchman at the working of silks, were abundantly compensated by the delight wherewith he sat under the shadow of our Lord, in his purely dispensed ordinances. At the end of two years, he did, being of age to do it, convert his estate in England into money; but setting up for himself, he found some of his designs by the providence of God frowned upon, which he judged a correction bestowed by God upon him for certain decays of internal piety, whereinto he had fallen; the consumption of his estate he thought came to prevent a consumption in his virtue. But after he had resided in Holland about half a score years, he was one of those who bore a part in that hazardous and generous enterprise of removing into New-England, with part of the English church at Leyden, where, at their first landing, his dearest consort accidentally falling overboard, was drowned in the harbour; and the rest of his days were spent in the services, and temptations, of that American wilderness.

Here was Mr. Bradford, in the year 1621, unanimously chosen the governour of the plantation: the difficulties whereof were such, that if he had not been a person of more than ordinary piety, wisdom and courage, he must have sunk under them. He had, with a laudable industry, been laying up a treasure of experience, and he had now occasion to use it: indeed, nothing but an experienced man could have been suitable to the necessities of the people The potent nations of the Indians, into whose country they were come, would have cut them off, if the blessing of God upon his conduct had not quelled them; and if his prudence, justice and moderation had not over-ruled them, they had been ruined by their own distempers…

For two years together after the beginning of the colony, whereof he was not governour, the poor people had a great experiment of “man’s not living by bread alone;” for when they were left all together without one morsel of bread for many months one after another, still the good providence of God relieved them, and supplied them, and this for the most part out of the sea. In this low condition of affairs, there was no little exercise for the prudence and patience of the governour, who cheerfully bore his part in all: and, that industry might not flag, he quickly set himself to settle propriety among the new-planters, they had sunk under the burden of these difficulties; but our Bradford had a double portion of that spirit…

The Christian Faith of George Washington

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Mary Ball Washington was a devoutChristian who taught her son George the importance of prayer and thereading of the Scriptures by the personal example of the manner inwhich she lived.

Washington's public and private paperscontain more than a hundred written prayers. His personal aides mayhave been the authors of a number of public prayers attributed tohim. Those prayers were explicitly Christian in nature. He wouldnever have signed or uttered a prayer without agreeing with thesentiment of the document.

He often added personal prayers whichwere drawn up by his aides. Washington affixed his signature to aletter composed by Alexander Hamilton to Comte de Rochambeau onFebruary 26, 1781. The letter declared: “This repetition of advicesjustifies a confidence in their truth” to which General Washingtonadds “which I pray God may be confirmed in its greatest extent.”

General Lewis of Augusta County,Virginia provides a reliable testimony to General Washington'spersonal prayer life in a letter dated December 14^th 1855.General Lewis testifies of a conversation between General Washingtonand Continental Army General Robert Porterfield which occurredshortly before General Washington's death. Porterfield's duties asbrigade inspector resulted in frequent interaction with GeneralWashington. Porterfield recounted his personal experiences at ValleyForge and the New Jersey campaign. Porterfield went to Washington'sprivate quarters in an emergency and found the Commander-in-chief onhis knees in prayer. After confiding with Alexander Hamiltonconcerning the occasion, Hamilton replied to General Porterfield:“such was his constant habit.”

George Washington acquired the habitfor times of personal prayer and supplication early in life.Washington's biographer, E.C. M'Guire noted that sources were stillalive when he wrote his biography.

Colonel B. Temple was an aide toGeneral Washington whom M'Guire quotes concerning recollections ofevents during the French and Indian Wars.

Washington would read the Bible to histroops and lead them in prayer when a chaplain wasn't available.Temple declared to M'Guire that:

“...on sudden and unexpected visitsinto his [General Washington's] marquee, he has, more than once,found him on his knees at his devotions.”

Washington frequently used Biblicalphrases having had an extensive knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures.This is not an inconsequential fact but strong evidence of hisChristianity. General Washington had a strong tender affection forMarquis de Lafayette whom he loved as if his actual son. The Generalmade seven separate references to passages from the Bible in apersonal letter to Lafayette. No aide was the author of thiscorrespondence.

Washington used nine Biblical allusionswhen composing a letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, RhodeIsland. His personal correspondence contains over 200 phrases fromthe Holy Scriptures and allusions to passages found in the Bible.

Among his favorite passages ofScripture is Micah 4:4 which he often quoted:

“But they shall sit every man underhis vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid; forthe mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken.”

In April 1789, Washington declared:

“The blessed Religion revealed in the Word of God will remain aneternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institutions may beabused by human depravity.”

He spoke of the infallible Bible as theWord of God as only a Christian would proclaim.

Deists do not believe the doctrines ofdepravity of humankind, the revelation of God through the HolyScriptures, nor effectual personal prayer to Divinity.

At the end of the American War forIndependence, General Washington sent a “Circular to the States”which contained a protracted list of blessings upon the fledglingnation. The letter ends: “and above all, the pure and benign lightof Revelation.”

“Revelation,” in the era in which Washingtonlived meant only one thing: The Holy Bible! Furthermore, itspecifically meant the Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the NewTestament.

Asstated before, deists do not believe that the Bible is the revelationof the Holy Spirit. Consequently, a deist would never utilize acapital R when using the word revelation.

Criticsof George Washington's Christian faith present the matter of hischurch attendance. Prior to the American War for Independence,Washington and his family may have attended church perhaps once amonth. A round trip to and from the Anglican Pohick Church of whichWashington was a member required a three hour journey. The ruralparish church was about nine miles from his home. An availableAnglican minister would hold divine services about once a month.

GeorgeWashington had close personal relationships with various clergymenbefore, after, and throughout the American War for Independence.Washington would correspond with and graciously open his home forvisitation to more than a hundred ministers.

Washingtonwas always keen to faithfully observe the sabbath and refused toperform work except for writing personal letters to friends.Furthermore, he gave his personal staff and servants the day off toattend church services. Whenever he and his family did not attendchurch; Washington chose to assemble the members of his family andread a sermon aloud while leading them in devotions.

Throughoutthe war, the General insisted that officers and men under his commandattend Divine services. Upon receiving command of the ContinentalArmy, Washington issued his first General Order on July 4, 1775.

“TheGeneral most earnestly requires, and expects, a due observance ofthose articles of war, established for the Government of the army,which forbid profane cursing, swearing and drunkenness [the first ofa number of orders he would issue concerning these vices]; and inlike manner requires and expects , of all officers, and soldiers, notengaged on actual duty, a punctual attendance on divine Service, toimplore the blessings of heaven upon the means used for our safetyand defense.”

Washingtonmade the effort to attend church himself but was not always able todo so when no service was in camp. Biographer E. C. M'Guire declaredthat:

“one of his secretaries, Judge Harrison, has often been heardto say, that 'whenever the General could be spared from camp, on theSabbath, he never failed riding out to some neighboring church, tojoin those who were publicly worshiping the Creator.'”

Throughouthis presidency, George Washington was accompanied by his wife Marthawho worshiped with him on Sunday mornings. President Washington'ssecretary, Tobias Lear declared:

“While President, Washingtonfollowed an invariable routine on Sundays. The day was passed veryquietly, no company being invited to the house. After breakfast, thePresident read aloud a chapter from the Bible, then the whole familyattended church together.”

Learrecounts what happened after returning from church. In the afternoonWashington was inclined to write his personal correspondence:

“...whileMrs. Washington frequently went to church again, often taking thechildren with her. In the evening, Washington read aloud to thefamily some sermon or extracts from a book of religious nature andeveryone went to bed at an early hour.”

Therewas a year in which the Washington's did not attend Divine Servicesafter the President retired to Mount Vernon. Apparently, theWashington's switched their attendance to Christ Church in Alexandriawhich began having weekly worship services. George Washington'sadopted daughter Nelly Custis testified:

“He [Washington] attendedthe church at Alexandria when the weather and roads permitted a rideof ten miles. In New York and Philadelphia [when he was President] henever omitted attendance at church in the morning, unless detained byindisposition...No one in church attended to the service with morereverential respect. My grandmother, who was eminently pious, neverdeviated from her early habits. She always knelt. The General, as wasthen the custom, stood during the devotional parts of the service.”

Thecontroversy concerning Washington's Christian beliefs arouse afterhis death. Accusations were made that he never partook of the Lord'sSupper.

It wasthe custom in colonial Virginia to offer the Holy Sacrament ofCommunion only at Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide (PentecostSunday). It was not uncommon for many Anglicans to receive communiononly once a year.

Furthermore,Bishop William Meade explained:

“...there was a mistaken notion, tooprevalent both in England and America, that it was not so necessaryin the professors religion to communicate [receive communion] at alltimes, but that in this respect persons might be regulated by theirfeelings...Into this error of opinion and practice General Washingtonmay have fallen.”

NellieCustis granddaughter of Washington wrote of her childhood at MountVernon.

“On Communion Sundays he [Washington] left the church withme, after the blessing, and returned home, and we sent the carriageback for my grandmother [Martha].”

Throughout the Colonial era,Communion services were as long as the worship service whichWashington attended. It was not unusual for two thirds of acongregation to leave an Anglican church before the Communion Servicecommenced.

In aletter dated December 14, 1855, General S. H. Lewis of AugustaCounty, Virginia quoted General Porterfield declaring:

“...he hadknown General Washington personally for many years ...I saw himmyself on his knees receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.”

Dr.James Richards followed Reverend Timothy Johnes as pastor whenGeneral Washington was in Morristown, New Jersey during the winterencampment of 1778-79. Dr. Richards recounts:

“...the report thatWashington did actually receive the Communion from the hands of Dr.Johnes was universally current during that period, and so far as Iknow, never contradicted. I have often heard it from the members ofDr. Johnes family, while they added that a note was addressed byWashington to their father, requesting the privilege.”

Consequently, Washington was a communicant in the Presbyterian Churchwhile the Continental Army was encamped in Morristown.

ReverendAlexander Hamilton, great-grandson of General Washington's aide tellsof events which occurred during the Hamilton family reunion. ReverendHamilton wrote of the reunion which occurred in New York City in1854. Continental Army General Phillip Schyler's daughter wasAlexander Hamilton's ninety-six year old widow. Mrs. Hamilton made ita special endeavor to accompany her seven year old great-grandson tovisit St. Paul's Church in New York City. She has something specialto tell the child and other members of her family. She wanted the boyto remember her recollections concerning her experience whilereceiving Holy Communion in 1789. After arriving at St. Paul's shetold the boy that she had been present in the church on theinauguration day of the first president of the United States. She waspresent in St. Paul's when President Washington received communion.She clearly impressed upon the child's mind that she personallywitnessed President Washington receive Holy Communion so that hewould be able to tell others.

ReverendAlexander Hamilton remembered her own words:

“If anyone ever tellsyou that George Washington was not a communicant of the Church, yousay that your great grandmother told you to say that she had knelt atthis chancel rail at his side and received with him Holy Communion.”

Thereare at least 270 recorded times when George Washington used the wordProvidence. Heutilized the term Providence referringindirectly to Almighty God. It is perfectly clear from hiscorrespondence and records that Washington did not speak of a vagueethereal impersonal deity. His personal world view concerning deitywas consistent with the God of the Bible. The Deity which GeorgeWashington worshiped intervened personally on behalf of the soldiersof the Continental Army and the American cause of independence. Heviewed God as the God of ancient Israel as recorded in the OldTestament.

Washingtonwrote to a Hebrew congregation of Savannah, Georgia:

“Maythe same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivering the Hebrewsfrom their Egyptian Oppressors planted them in the promised land –whose Providential Agency has lately been conspicuous in establishingthese United States as an independent Nation – still continue towater them with the dews of Heaven and to make the inhabitants ofevery denomination participate in the temporal and spiritualblessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.”

OnOctober 19, 1777, Washington wrote a letter to Major-General IsraelPutnam soon after the victory of Saratoga:

“Should Providence bepleased to crown our arms in the course of the campaign with one morefortunate stroke...I trust all will be well in His good time.”

MaryThompson is a research specialist at Mount Vernon. Peter Lillbackquotes Mary Thompson in his book Sacred Fireconcerning George Washington's spirituality.

“Iwould think that God and Providence are synonymous in Washington'smind. When you look at a number of the letters, it becomes obviousthat he feels Providence...is involved in what happens in theworld...When I found [in researching Washington's religious beliefs]...was that this was a man who believed that God took an activeinterest in people's lives...and that's not the belief of a Deist.”

GeorgeWashington's practice and religious views were influenced by theAnglican culture of colonial Virginia. It is crystal clear thatGeorge Washington was a devout believer in Orthodox Christianity.

This essay is edited and condensed from Peter Marshall's book The Light and the Glory, Appendix Two "The Christian Faith of George Washington"

Francis Asbury 1745-1816

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FrancisAsbury was born in 1745 to a poor family living near Hampstead Bridgein England. His mother and father were among the first converts ofJohn Wesley founder of Methodism. His parents became Christians afterthe death of his sister; Asbury's only sibling.

Hismother chose to surround her remaining child with the Scriptures,prayer, and the joyous singing of hymns. She graciously opened herhome to Christians whom she felt would be a good influence upon hercherished boy.

Asburydeclared:

“I abhorred mischief and wickedness, although my mateswere among the vilest of the vile for lying, swearing, fighting, andwhatever else boys of their age and evil habits were likely to beguilty of. From such society I very often returned home uneasy andmelancholy.”

Franciswas often ridiculed by his peers for his strong principles andconvictions. Furthermore, his peers mocked him for the manyChristians who were to visit his home. Methodism was considered acrazy new religion and adherents to the faith were often persecuted. He experienced cutting insults from his peers who jeered at him withtaunts calling him “Methodist Parson.”

Francisasked his mother keen perceptive questions concerning Methodism whenhe was thirteen years old. At his mothers request, a friend of thefamily took Francis to Wednesbury, England to attend a Methodistservice. Asbury experienced Methodism for himself and was impressedby the spontaneity of the service.

“Thiswas not the Church but it was better. The people were so devout, menand women kneeling down, saying 'Amen.' Now, behold! They weresinging hymns, sweet sound! Why, strange to tell! The preacher had noprayer book, and yet he prayed wonderfully! What was yet moreextraordinary, the man took his text and had no sermon book: thoughtI, this is wonderful indeed! It is certainly a strange way, but thebest way.”

Asburyand a Christian friend were praying in the loft of his father's barnwhen he gave his life to Jesus Christ trusting Him as Savior andLord.

Hefelt a strong call to participate in the fulfillment of Christ'sGreat Commission.

Althoughhe continued to work as a blacksmith's apprentice; at the age ofseventeen he became an itinerant preacher traveling throughout hisneighborhood.

Atthe age of twenty, Francis Asbury began ministering full-time;preaching in a circuit in Methodist churches throughout England.

JohnWesley called for Methodist preachers to emigrate to America. OnAugust 7, 1771, he answered Wesley's call and chose to immigrate toAmerica at the age of 21.

Wesleyboldly proclaimed, “Our brethren in America call aloud for help!”Francis Asbury chose to answer the call affirming the Scripture,“Here I am send me.”

FrancisAsbury was chosen to become one of two Methodist superintendents whenhe arrived in America. His title was changed to “bishop” whileserving in a leadership capacity in the Methodist Episcopal Church.It was under his leadership that Methodism grew in the youngfledgling nation. Asbury's life and conduct as well as his messagedefined the role of a Methodist itinerant preacher.

“Gointo every kitchen and shop; address all, aged and young, on thesalvation of their souls” became the motto to which he aspired. Athis urging, other Methodist preachers followed in his footsteps.

Hebecame a 'circuit riding preacher' who traveled throughout America onhorseback. He preached in the open air, homes, meeting houses, campmeetings, conventions, and spiritual revivals.

FrancisAsbury spent his life spreading Methodism throughout the youngnation. As an itinerant preacher, Asbury traveled constantly forforty-five years and traveled nearly three hundred thousand milesthroughout the nation. He traveled throughout the country mostly onhorseback and crossed the Appalachian mountains more than sixtytimes. Francis Asbury followed in the footsteps of his Lord andSavior of whom the Scriptures declare “foxes have homes, the birdsof the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to rest hishead.” Asbury had no home of his own and found shelter wherever hisLord would lead.

Therewere 300 Methodists and four ministers in America when Francis Asburyarrived on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean of the young nation in1771. Methodism spread to every state in the Union in 1816 when hedied. He preached more than 16,000 sermons and ordained over 4,000ministers. There were more than 214,000 Methodist in America when heleft the shores of America to step into the shores of heaven.

Most dear andtender friends:

Whose I am, andwhom under God I desire to serve; to build you up in holiness andcomfort hath been through grace my great ambition. This is that whichI laboured for; this is that which I suffered for: and in short, theend of all my applications to you, and to GOD for you. How do yoursouls prosper? Are they in a thriving case? What progress do you makein sanctification? Both the house of Saul grow weaker and weaker, andthe house of David stronger and stronger? Beloved, I am jealous witha godly jealously, lest any of you should lose ground in thesedeclining times: and therefore cannot but be often calling upon youto look to your standing, and to watch and hold fast, that no mantake your crown. Ah! How surely shall you reap in the end, if youfaint not! Take heed therefore that you lose not the things you havewrought, but as you have begun well, so go on in the strength ofChrist, and give diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end.

Do you needmotives? 1. How much are you behind hand? Oh,the fair advantages that we have lost! What time, what sabbaths,sermons, sacraments, are upon the matter lost! How much work have weyet to do! Are you sure of heaven yet? Are you fit to die yet? Surelythey that are under so many great wants, had need to set upon somemore thriving courses.

Secondly,Consider what others have gained, whilst we, it may be, sitdown by the loss: Have we notmet many vessels richly laden, while our souls are empty? Oh, thegolden prizes that some have won! While we have folded the hands tosleep, have not many of our own standing in religion, left us farbehind them?

Thirdly,Consider you will find little enough when you come to die:The wife among the virgins hasno oil to spare at the coming of the bridegroom; temptation and deathwill put all your graces to it. How much ado have many had at last toput into this harbour! Davidcried for respite till he had recovered a little more strength.

Fourthly,Consider how short your time for gathering in probably is?The Israelites gathered twice somuch manna against the sabbath as they did at other times, because atthat time there was no manna fell. Brethren, you know not how longyou have to lay in for. Do you ask for marks, how you may know yoursouls to be in a thriving case?

First, If yourappetite be more strong. Do youthirst after GOD and grace, more than heretofore? Do your care forand desires after the world abate? And do you hunger and thirst afterrighteousness? Whereas you were won't to come with an ill-will toholy duties, do you now come to them as hungry stomach to its meat?

Secondly, Ifyour pulses beat more even. Areyou still off and on, hot or cold? Or is there a more even spunthread of holiness through your whole course? Do you make good theground from which you were formerly beaten off?

Thirdly, if youdo look more to the carrying on together the duties of both tables.
Doyou not only look to the keeping of your own vineyards, but do youlay out yourselves for the good of others? And are ye filled withzealous desires for their conversion and salvation? Do you manageyour talk and your trade, by the rules of religion?

Doyou eat and sleep by rule? Doth religion form and mould, and directyour carriage towards husbands, wives, parents, children, masters,servants? Do you grow more universally conscientious? Is piety morediffusive than ever with you? Doth it come more abroad with you, outof your closets, into your houses, your shops, your fields? Doth itjourney with you, and buy and sell for you? Hath it the casting voicein all you do?

Fourthly, Ifthe duties of religion be more delightful to you. Doyou take more delight in the word than ever? Are you more in lovewith secret prayer, and more abundant in it? Cannot you be contentwith your ordinary seasons, but are ever and anon makingextraordinary visits to heaven? And upon all occasions turning asideto talk with God in some short ejaculations? Are you often darting upyour soul heavenwards? Is it meat and drink for you to do the will ofGOD? Do you come off more freely with GOD, and answer his calls withmore readiness of mind?

Fifthly, If youare more abundant in those duties which are most displeasing to theflesh. Are you more earnest inmortification? Are you more strict and severe than ever in the dutyof daily self-examination, and holy meditation? Do you hold the reinsharder upon the flesh than ever? Do you keep a stricter watch uponyour appetites? Do you set a stronger guard upon your tongues? Haveyou a more jealous eye upon your hearts?

Sixthly, If yougrow more vile in your own eyes. Doyou grow more out of love with men's esteem, and set less by it? Areyou not marvelous tender, of being slighted? Can you rejoice to seeothers preferred before you? Can you heartily value and love themthat think meanly of you?

Seventhly, Ifyou grow more quick of sense, more sensible of divine influences, orwithdrawings. Are you moreafraid of sin than ever? Are your sins a greater pain to you thanheretofore? Are your very infirmities your great afflictions? And thedaily working of corruption a continued grief of mind to you?

Imust conclude abruptly, commending you to GOD,and can only tell youthat I am
Yoursin the Lord Jesus,

F.A.

TheArminian Magazine, II
(Philadelphia,1790), 251-54

Artillery Sermon by Reverend Jacob Troute

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Artillery Sermons were periodicaddresses in which a clergyman would admonish the military on topicssuch as: “a defensive war in a just cause is sinless” and the sinof cowardice.

Aunified, Biblical world view founded upon the Sacred Scriptures wasthe rich soil that brought forth the liberties defended throughoutthe American Christian Revolution. The fruits of American liberty arethe products of Pastoral cultivation.

HistorianAlice Baldwin declared:

“The Constitutional Convention and thewritten Constitution were the children of the pulpit.”

This particular 'artillery sermon' wasdelivered on the eve of the Battle of Brandywine on September 10^th,1777 to the Continental Army under the command of General GeorgeWashington. Among the papers of Major John Shofinger was found thediscourse of Reverend Jacob Troute.

“They That Take theSword Shall Perish by the Sword”

“Soldiers,and countrymen, we have met this evening perhaps for the last time.We have shared the toils of the march, the peril of the fight, andthe dismay of the retreat, alike. We have endured the cold andhunger, the contumely of the internal foe, and the scourge of theforeign oppressor. We have sat night after night by the campfire. Wehave together heard the roll of the reveille which calls to duty, orthe beat of the tattoo which gave the signal for the hardy sleep ofthe soldier, with the earth for his bed and the knapsack for hispillow.

Andnow, soldiers and brethren, we have met in this peaceful valley, onthe eve of battle, in the sunlight that tomorrow morn will glimmer onthe scenes of blood. We have met amid the whitening tents of ourencampments; in the time of terror and gloom we have gatheredtogether. God grant that it may not be for the last time.

It is asolemn moment! Brethren, does not the solemn voice of nature seem toecho the sympathies of the hour? The flag of our country droopsheavily from yonder staff. The breeze has died away along the greenplaid of Chadd's Ford. The plain that spreads before us glitters inthe sunlight. The heights of Brandywine arise gloomy and grand beyondthe eaters of yonder stream. All nature holds a pause of solemnsilence on the eve of the uproar and bloody strife tomorrow.

“Theythat take the sword shall perish by the sword.”

Andhave they not take the sword?

Let thedesolate plain, the blood-sodden valley, the burned farmhouses,blackening in the sun, the sacked village and the ravaged town,answer. Let the withered bones of the butchered farmer, strewed alongthe fields of his homestead, answer. Let the starving mother, withher babe clinging to the withered breast that can afford nosustenance, let her answer, - with the death-rat-tle mingling withthe murmuring tones that marked the last moment of her life. Let themother and the babe answer.

It wasbut a day past, and our land slept in the quiet of peace. War was nothere. Fraud and woe and want dwelt not among us. From the eternalsolitude of the green woods arose the blue smoke of the settler'scabin, and golden fields of corn looked from amid the waste of thewilderness, and the glad music of human voices awoke the silence ofthe forest.

Now,God of mercy, behold the change. Under the shadow of a pre-text,under the sanctity of the name of God, invoking the Redeemer to theiraid, do these foreign hirelings slay our people. They throng ourtowns, they darken our plains, and now they encompass our posts onthe lonely plain of Chadd's Ford.

“Theythat take the sword shall perish the sword.”

Brethren,think me not unworthy of belief when I tell you the doom of theBritish is sealed. Think me not vain when I tell you that, beyond thecloud that now enshrouds us, I see gathering thick and fast thedarker cloud and thicker storm of Divine retribution.

Theymay conquer tomorrow. Might and wrong may prevail, and we may bedriven from the field, but the hour of God's vengeance will come!

Ay, ifin the vast solitudes of eternal space there throbs the being of anawful God, quick to avenge and sure to punish guilt, then the manGeorge Brunswick, called king, will feel in his brain and heart thevengeance of the eternal Jehovah. A blight will light upon his life –a withered and accursed intellect; a blight will be upon his childrenand on his people. Great God, how dread the punishment! A crowdedpopulace, peopling the dense towns where them men of money thrive,where the laborer starves; went striding among the people in allforms of terror; an ignorant and God-defying priesthood chucklingover the miseries of millions; a proud and merciless nobility addingwrong to wrong, and heaping insult upon robbery and fraud; royaltycorrupt to the very heart, and aristocracy rotten to the core; crimeand want linked hand in hand, and tempting the men to deeds of woeand death; - these are a part of the doom and retribution that shallcome upon the English throne and English people.

Soldiers,I look around upon your familiar faces with strange interest!Tomorrow morning we go forth to the battle – for need I tell youthat your unworthy minister will march with you, invoking theblessing of God's aid in the fight? We will march forth to thebattle. Need I exhort you to fight the good fight – to fight foryour homesteads, for your wives and your children?

Myfriends, I urge you to fight, by the galling memories of Britishwrong. Walton, I might tell you of your father, butchered in thesilence of the night in the plains of Trenton. I might picture hisgray hairs dabbled in blood. I might ring his death-shrieks in yourears. Shaefmyer, I might tell you of a butchered mother and sisteroutraged, the lonely farmhouse, the night assault, the roof inflames, the shouts of the troops as they dispatched their victims,the cries for mercy, and the pleadings of innocence for pity. I mightpaint this all again, in the vivid colors of the terrible reality, ifI thought courage needed such wild excitement.

But Iknow you are strong in the might of the Lord. You will march forth tobattle tomorrow with light hearts and determined spirits, though thesolemn duty - - the duty of avenging the dead – may rest heavy onyour souls.

And inthe hour of battle, when all around is darkness, lit by the luridcannon-glare and the piercing musket-flash, when the wounded strowthe ground and the dead litter your path, then remember, soldiers,that God is with you. The eternal God fights for you; He rides on thebattle-cloud. He sweeps onward with the march of a hurricane charge.God, the awful and infinite, fights for you, and you will triumph.

“Theythat take the sword shall perish by the sword.”

Youhave taken the sword, but not in the spirit of wrong or revenge. Youhave taken the sword for your homes, for your wives and your littleones. You have taken the sword for truth, justice and right, and toyou the promise is,be of good cheer, for your foes have taken thesword in defiance of all that men hold dear, in blasphemy of God theyshall perish by the sword.

Andnow, brethren and soldiers, I bid you all farewell. Many of us willfall in battle tomorrow, and in the memory of all will ever rest andlinger the quiet sense of this autumnal eve.

Solemntwilight advances over the valley. The woods on the opposite heightfling their long shadows over the green of the meadow. Around us arethe tents of the Continental host, the suppressed bustle of the camp,the hurried tramp of the soldiers to and fro, and among the tents thestillness and awe that mark the eve of battle.

When wemeet again, may the shadows of twilight be flung over the peacefulland. God in heaven grant it! Let us pray.

William McGuffey - McGuffey's Readers

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Reverend William Holmes McGuffey (1800- 1873) was a preacher, professor at the University of Virginia, andan educational reformer. Furthermore, he was president of OhioUniversity and department chairman at the Miami University of Ohio.As author of McGuffey's Reader,he became known as “TheSchoolmaster of the Nation.” WilliamMcGuffey was the gentleman responsible for creating the firstteacher's association in the Ohio Valley.

Thefirst edition of the McGuffey'sReaderwas published in 1836. It was the pillar of public educationthroughout America until 1920. 125 million copies of the McGuffey'sReadershave been sold as of 1963. Hence, it has become one of the mostinfluential textbooks in the history of American education.

Hedesigned his textbooks to “fit the child's education to the child'sworld.” Furthermore, McGuffey sought to build the child's characteras well as his or her vocabulary. One hundred and twenty-two millioncopies of the McGuffey's Readershave been sold within seventy-five years. His readers which promote atheistic Calvinist worldview continue to be used in some publicschools today. Since 1961, 30,000 Readershave sold each year. As found in the New England Primer,the McGuffey's Readersencourage the ideas of salvation, righteousness, and piety.

Otherthan the Holy Bible,the McGuffey's Readers “representthe most significant force in the framing of our national morals andtastes.”

McGuffeywrote these remarks in the forward of his reader:

“TheChristian religion is the religion of our country. From it arederived our prevalent notions of the character of God, the greatmoral governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded thepeculiarities of our free institutions.”

Furthermore,he declared:

“TheTen Commandments and the teachings of Jesus are not only basic butplenary.”

Fromthe Preface of theFourth Reader:

“Fromno source has the author drawn more copiously, in his selections,than from the sacred Scriptures. For this, he certainly apprehends nocensure. In a Christian country, that man is to be pitied, who atthis day, can honestly object to imbuing the minds of youth with thelanguage and spirit of the Word of God...”

JohnWesterhoff III in his work “McGuffey and His Readers”declared:

“Fromthe First to the Fourth Reader, belief in the God of the Old and NewTestament is assumed. When not mentioned directly, God is implied:'You cannot steal the smallest pin...without being seen by the eyethat never sleeps.' More typically, however, lessons make directreferences to the Almighty.: “God makes the little lambs bringforth wool, that we may have clothes to keep us warm...All that liveget life from God...The humble child went to God in penitence andprayer...All who take care of you and help you were sent by God. Hesent his Son to show you his will, and to die for your sake.”

“Whenwe investigate the content of McGuffey's Readers, three dominantimages of God emerge. God is creator, preserver, and governor.”

“EveningPrayer” is found inthe Eclectic FirstReader: Lesson 37.

“Atthe close of the day, before you go to sleep, you should not fail topray to God to keep you from sin and harm. You ask your friends forfood, and drink, and books, and clothes; and when they give you thesethings, you thank them, and love them for the good they do you. Soyou should ask your God for those things which he can give you, andwhich no one else can give you.”

“Youshould ask him for life, and health, and strength; and you shouldpray to him to keep your feet from the ways of sin and shame. Youshould thank him for all his good gifts; and learn, while young, toput your trust in him; and the kind care of God will be with you,both in your youth and in your old age.”

Thepreface to the 1837 EclecticThird Reader states:

“Inmaking [my] selections, [I have] drawn from the purest fountains ofEnglish literature...For the copious extracts made from the SacredScripture, [I make] no apology.”

“Indeed,upon a review of the work, [I am] not sure but an apology may be duefor [my] not having still more liberally transferred to [my] pagesthe chaste simplicity, the thrilling pathos, the living descriptions,and the matchless sublimity of the sacred writings.”

“Fromno source has the author drawn more copiously than from the SacredScriptures. For this [I] certainly apprehend no censure. In aChristian country, that man is to be pitied, who, at this day, canhonestly object to imbuing the minds of youth with the language andspirit of the Word of God.”

Extractsfrom McGuffey's EclecticThird Reader 1837:

1.The design of the Bible is evidently to give us correct informationconcerning the creation of all things, by the omnipotent Word of God;to make known to us the state of holiness and happiness of our firstparents in paradise, and their dreadful fall from that condition bytransgression against God, which is the original cause of all our sinand misery...

3.The Scriptures are especially designed to make us wise unto salvationthrough faith in Christ Jesus; to reveal to us the mercy of the Lordin him; to form our minds after the likeness of God our Savior; tobuild up our souls in wisdom and faith, in love and holiness; to makeus thoroughly furnished unto good works, enabling us to glorify Godon earth; and, to lead us to an imperishable inheritance among thespirits of just men made perfect, and finally to be glorified withChrist in heaven.”

Thecharacter of Jesus Christ is taught in the 21^stlesson of McGuffey's EclecticThird Reader.

"The morality taught by Jesus Christ was purer, sounder, sublimer and more perfect than had ever before entered into the imagination, or proceeded from the lips of men.”

TheNational Education Association honored Reverend William HolmesMcGuffey at his death. This resolution was issued on August 7, 1873,in Elmira, New York.

“Inthe death of William H. McGuffey, late Professor of Moral Philosophyin the University of Virginia, the Association feels that they havelost one of the great lights of the profession...in offices asteacher of common schools, college professor, college president, andas author of textbooks; his almost unequaled industry; his power inthe lecture room; his influence upon his pupils and community, hiscare for the pu8blic interests of education; his lofty devotion toduty; his conscientious Christian character – all these have madehim one of the noblest ornaments of our profession in this age, andentitled to the grateful remembrance of this Association and of theteachers of America.”

Elmira,New York, August 7, 1873.

Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom's Cabin

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Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896) was the daughterof prominent Presbyterian preacher Lyman Beecher of New England. Shewas also the sister of Henry WardBeecher a renowned preacher of his era. Harriet was a teacherwho authored the book Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Uncle Tom's Cabinwas published in serial from between 1851 and 1852. Harriet was awidely read author and an important part of the abolitionist movementpreceding the Civil War. Although she wrote thirty historical novelsand countless essays an poems which were primarily about coloniallife in New England; Uncle Tom's Cabinor Life Among the Lowlybecame her most famous work. It first appeared as serial installmentsin the National Eraan anti slavery newspaper. It is generally believed that UncleTom's Cabinaroused more popular sentiment in the states north of the Mason DixonLine than any other publication. The book sold 10,000 copies itsfirst week of publication. She became a celebrity in Great Britain,Europe and the United States after the publication of her book.

Publicsentiment in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law was stirred upthrough the publication of her book. The overseer “Simon Legree” in her story became the embodiment of cruelty of slaves throughoutthe southern states. “Tom,” the slave hero became the likeness ofthe oppressed slave with a pure loving compassionate heart.

WhenPresident Abraham Lincoln met Harriet, he declared to her:

“Soyou're the little lady who started this big war.”

Harrietdedicated herself to Jesus Christ at the tender age of fourteen afterlistening to a sermon delivered by her father.

“Assoon as my father came home and was seated in his study...I went upto him and fell in his arms, saying, 'Father, I have given myself toJesus, and He has taken me,' I never shall forget the expression ofhis face as he looked down into my earnest childish eyes...'Is itso?' he said, holding me silent to his heart as I felt the hot tearsfall on my head.”

Harrietwould rise each morning at 4:30 to commune with her Lord and Saviorbefore beginning her daily activities. She heartily enjoyed listeningto the birds, watching the sunrise, and sensing the gracious lovingpresence of God her redeemer. Her best known hymn was written whilemeditating on Psalm 139:17-18.

“Howprecious also are are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is thesum of them. If I should count them, they would be more in numberthan the sand; When I awake, I am still with You.”

Still,Still with Thee

Still,still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh,
Whenthe bird waketh, and the shadows flee,
Fairerthan the morning, lovelier than the day light,
Dawnsthe sweet conscientiousness, I am with Thee.
Alonewith Thee, amid the mystic shadows,
Thesolemn hush of nature newly born;
Alonewith Thee in breathless adoration,
Inthe calm dew and freshness of the morn,
Still,still with Thee, as to each newborn morning,
Afresh and solemn splendor still is given,
Sodoes this blessed consciousness, awaking,
Breatheeach day nearness unto thee and heaven.
Soshall it be at last, in that bright morning,
Whenhe soul awaketh and life's shadows flee.
Oin that hour, fairer than daylight dawning
Shallrise the glorious thought, I am with Thee

Itwas Harriet's faith in Christ which became the anchor which sustainedher throughout the personal storms she encountered in life.

Harrietwas a remarkable woman who raised seven children while managinghousehold and a career. She was an instructor in a college. Harriet'slife was filled with personal tragedy. Her son drowned while he was afreshman in college. Another son became an alcoholic and disappearedand a daughter became addicted to morphine which was administered asa pain-killer following childbirth.

ASelection from Uncle Tom's Cabin

SimonLegree is determined to recover two slaves who have escaped. Hedemands that Tom reveal whatever he knows of the two runaway femaleslaves.

“Themorning star now stands over the tops of the mountains, and gales andbreezes, not of earth, show the gates of day are unclosing.

Theescape of Cassy and Emmeline irritated the before surly temper ofLegree to the last degree; and his fury, as was expected, fell uponthe defenseless head of Tom. When he hurriedly announced the tidingsamong his hands, there was a certain light in Tom's eye, a suddenupraising of his hands, that did not escape him. He saw that he didnot join the muster of the pursuers. He thought of forcing him to doit; but, having had, of old, experience of his inflexibility whencommanded to take part in any deed of inhumanity, he would not, inhis hurry, stop to enter into any conflict with him.

Tomtherefore, remained behind, with a few who had learned of him topray, and offered up prayers for the escape of the fugitives.

WhenLegree returned, baffled and disappointed, all the long-workinghatred of his soul towards his slave began to gather in a deadly anddesperate form. Had not this man braved him, – steadily,powerfully, resistlessly, – ever since he bought him? Was there nota spirit in him which, silent as it was, burned on him life the firesof perdition?

'Ihate him!' said Legree, that night, as he sat up in his bed; 'I hatehim! And isn't he MINE? Can't I do what I like with him? Who's tohinder, I wonder?' And Legree clenched his fist, and shook it, as ifhe had something in his hands that he could not rend in pieces.

But,then, Tom was a faithful, valuable servant; and, although Legreehated him the more for that, yet the consideration was still somewhatof a restraint to him.

Thenext morning, he determined to say nothing, as yet; to assemble aparty, from some neighboring plantations, with dogs and guns; tosurround the swamp, and go about the hunt systematically. If itsucceeded, well and good; if not, he would summon Tom before him, and– his teeth clenched and his blood boiled – then he would breakthe fellow down, or – there was a dire inward whisper, to which hissoul assented.

Yesay that the interest of the master is sufficient safeguard for theslave. In the fury of man's mad will, he wittingly, and with openeye, sell his own soul to the devil to gain his ends; and will he bemore careful of his neighbor's body?

'Well,'said Cassy, the next day, from the garret, as she reconnoiteredthrough the knot-hold, 'the hunt's going to begin again, to-day!

Threeor four mounted horsemen were curvetting about, on the space front ofthe house; and one or two leashes of strange dogs were strugglingwith the negroes who held them, baying and barking at each other.

Themen are, two of them, overseers of plantations in the vicinity; andothers were some of Legree's associates at the tavern-bar of aneighboring city, who had come for the interest of the sport. A morehard-favored set, perhaps, could not be imagined. Legree was servingbrandy, profusely, round among them, as also among the negroes, whohad been detailed from the various plantations for this service; forit was an object to make every service of this kind, among thenegroes, as much of a holiday as possible.

Cassyplaced her ear at the knot-hole; and, as morning air blew directlytoward the house, she could overhear a good deal of the conversation.A grave sneer overcast the dark, severe gravity of her face, as shelistened, and heard them divide out the ground, discuss the rivalmerits of the dogs, give orders about firing, and the treatment ofeach, in case of capture.

Cassydrew back; and, clasping her hands, looked upward, and said, 'O,great Almighty God! We are all sinners; but what have we done, morethan all the rest of the world, that we should be treated so!'

Therewas a terrible earnestness in her face and voice, as she spoke.

'Ifit wasn't for you, child, she said, looking at Emmeline, 'I'd go outto them and I'd thank any one of them that would shoot me down; forwhat use will freedom be to me? Can it give me back my children, ormake me what I used to be?'

Emmeline,in her childlike simplicity, was half afraid of the dark moods ofCassy. She looked perplexed, but made no answer. She only took herhand with a gentle, caressing movement.

'Don't!'said Cassy, trying to draw it away; 'you'll get me to loving you; andI never mean to love anything, again!'

'PoorCassy!' said Emmeline, 'don't feel so! If the Lord give us libertyperhaps he'll give you back your daughter; at any rate, I'll be likea daughter to you. I know I'll never see my poor old mother again! Ishall love you, Cassy, whether you love me or not!'

Thegentle, childlike spirit conquered. Cassy sat down by her, put herarm around her neck, stroked her soft, brown hair; and Emmeline thenwondered at the beauty of her magnificent eyes, now soft with tears.

'O,Em! Said Cassy, 'I've hungered for my children, and thirsted forthem, and my eyes fail with longing for them! Here! Here!' she said,striking her breast, 'it's all desolate, all empty! If God would giveme back my children, then I could pray.'

'Youmust trust him, Cassy,' said Emmeline; 'he is our Father!'

'Hiswrath is upon us,' said Cassy; 'he has turned away in anger.'

No,Cassy! He will be good to us! Let us hope in him,' said Emmeline, –'I always have had hope'...

Thehunt was long, animated, and thorough, but unsuccessful; and, withgrave, ironic exultation, Cassy looked down on Legree, as, weary anddispirited, he alighted from his horse...

'Well,Tom!' said Legree, walking up, and seizing him grimly by the collarof his coat, and speaking through his teeth, in a paroxysm ofdetermined rage, 'do you know I've made up my mind to KILL you?'

'It'svery likely, Mas'r,' said Tom, calmly.

'Ihave,' said Legree, with grim, terrible calmness, 'done – just –that – thing, Tom, unless you'll tell what you know about these yergals!'

Tomstood silent.

'D'ye hear?' said Legree, stamping, with a roar like that of an incensedlion. 'Speak!'

'Ihan't got nothing to tell, Mas'r,' said Tom, with a slow, firmdeliberate utterance.

'Doyou dare to tell me, ye old black christian, ye don't know?' saidLegree.

Tomwas silent.

'Speak!'thundered Legree, striking him furiously. 'Do you know anything?'

'Iknow, Mas'r; but I can't tell anything. I can die!'

Legreedrew in a long breath; and, suppressing his rage, took Tom by thearm, and, approaching his face almost to his, said, in a terriblevoice, 'Hark'e, Tom! --ye think, 'cause I've let you off before, Idon't mean what I say; but, this time, I've made up my mind, andcounted the cost. You've always stood it out agin me: now, I'llconquer ye or kill ye! – one or t'other. I'll count every drop ofblood there is in you, and take 'em, one by one, till ye give up!'

Tomlooked up to his master, and answered, 'Mas'r, if you was sick, or introuble, or dying, and I could save ye, I'd give ye my heart's blood;and, if taking ever drop of blood in this poor old body would saveyour precious soul, I'd give 'em freely, as the Lord gave his for me.O, Mas;r! Don't bring this great sin on your soul! It will hurt youmore than 't will me! Do the worst you can, my troubles'll be oversoon; but, if ye don't repent, your won't never end!'

Likea strange snatch of heavenly music, heard in the lull of a tempest,this burst of feeling made a moment's blank pause. Legree stoodagast, and looked at Tom; and there was such a silence that the tickof the old clock could be heard, measuring, with silent touch, thelast moments of mercy and probation to that hardened heart.

Itwas but a moment. There was one hesitating pause, – one irresolute,relenting thrill, – and the spirit of evil came back, withsevenfold vehemence and Legree, foaming with rage, smote his victimto the ground...

Scenesof blood and cruelty are shocking to our ear and heart. What man hasnerve to do, man has not nerve to hear. What brother-man andbrother-Christian suffer, cannot be told us, even in our secretchamber, it so harrows up the soul! And yet, O my country! Thesethings are done under the shadow of thy laws! O, Christ! Thy churchsees them, almost in silence! …

'He'smost gone, Mas'r,' said Sambo, touched, in spite of himself, by thepatience of his victim.

'Payaway,till he gives up! Give it to him! – give it to him!' shoutedLegree. 'I'll take every drop of blood he has, unless he confesses!'

Tomopened his eyes, and looked upon his master. 'Ye poor miserablecrittur!' he said, 'there an't no more ye can do! I forgive ye, withall my soul! And he fainted entirely away.
'Ib'lieve, my soul, he's done for, finally,' Legree, stepping forward,to look at him. 'Yes, he is! Well, his mouth's shut up, at last, –that's one comfort!'

Yes,Legree; but who shall shut up that voice in thy soul? That soul, pastrepentance, past prayer, past hope, in whom the fire that never shallbe quenched is already burning!

YetTom was not quite gone. His wondrous words and pious prayers hadstruck upon the hearts of the imbruted blacks, who had been theinstruments of cruelty upon him; and, the instant Legree withdrew,they took him down, and, in their ignorance, sought to call him backto life, – as if that were any favor to him.

'Sartin,we's been doin' a drefful wicked thing! Said Sambo; 'hopes Mas'r'llhave to 'count for it, and not we.'

Theywashed his wounds, – they provided a rude bed, of some refusecotton, for him to lie down on; and one of them, stealing up to thehouse, begged a drink of brandy of Legree, pretending that he wastired, and wanted it for himself. He brought it back, and poured itdown Tom's throat.

'O,Tom!' Said Quimbo, 'we's been awful wicked to ye!'

'Iforgive ye, with all my heart!' said, Tom, faintly.

'O,Tom! Do tell us who is Jesus, anyhow?' said Sambo, – 'Jesus, that'sbeen a standin' by you so, all this night! – Who is he?'

Theword roused the failing, fainting spirit. He poured forth a fewenergetic sentences of that wonderus One, – his life, his death,his everlasting presence, and power to save.

Theywept, – both the two savage men.

'Whydidn't I never hear this before?' said Sambo; 'but I do believe! –I can't help it! Lord Jesus, have mercy on us!'

'Poorcritturs!' said Tom, 'I'd be willing to bar all I have, if it'll onlybring ye to Christ! O, Lord! Give me these two more souls, I pray!'

Thatprayer was answered!”

Uncle Tom's Cabinends with this declaration:

“Aday of grace is yet held out to us. Both North and South have beenguilty before God; and the Christian church has a heavy account toanswer. Not by combining together, to protect injustice and cruelty,and making a common capital of sin, is this Union to be saved, but byrepentance, justice and mercy.”

Leadership of American Clergy

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Jedidiah Morse made the followingdeclaration in his work Annals of the American Revolution:

“Theprayers and public discourses of the clergy,...who were friends totheir country, (and there were few who were not) breathed the spiritof patriotism; and as their piety and integrity had generally securedto them the confidence of the people, they had great influence andsuccess in encouraging them to engage in its defense. In this way,that class of citizens aided the cause of their country; and to theirpious exertions, under the Great Arbiter of human affairs, has beenjustly ascribed no inconsiderable share of the success and victorythat crowned the American arms.”

Thisdeclaration was made on December 6, 1774 by the Provincial Congressof Massachusetts under the leadership of John Hancock.

“Whenwe contemplate the friendship and assistance our ancestors - - thefirst settlers of this province - - received from the pious Pastorsof the Churches of Christ, ...we cannot but acknowledge the goodnessof Heaven in constantly supplying us with preachers of the Gospelwhose concern has been the temporal and spiritual happiness of thispeople; In a day like this, ...we cannot but place great hopes in anOrder of Men, who have ever distinguished themselves in theircountry's cause, and do therefore recommend to the Ministers of theGospel...that they assist us in avoiding that dreadful slavery withwhich we are now threatened by advising the people of their severalcongregations...”

Theleadership of the Christian clergy was the primary wellspring whichencouraged Americans throughout the various colonies to graciouslyvolunteer aid to Boston during the Port Bill. Alice Baldwin declared:

“Beginningin 1767 and continuing throughout the War, the ministers did all intheir power to encourage the non-importation agreements andmanufactures. There are many instances in each of the New Englandcolonies of all-day spinning bees held in the rooms and on the lawnsof the minister's homes...One good clergyman [Rev. Judah Champion ofLitchfield, Conn.] during the war felt so keenly the need of clothesfor the soldiers [in the cold northern winter] at Quebec that heexcused the women of the town from afternoon service and set them allto spinning on the Sabbath Day...Frequently before the end of the daythe minister would address the women and girls on the issues of thetime...In this manner the ministers showed knowledge of human natureby arousing competition between the town and town, and betweenchurches in the same town, and even between married and unmarriedwomen, as well as by making the whole affair a great social occasionthrough having the men come to supper and join in an evening of funwith music and singing of songs written by the 'Sons of Liberty.'

Themotivating force behind the organization of colonial militia were theclergymen. The 'minutemen' were formed from the male membership ofchurches and deacons would often become their drill masters.

RichardFrothingham wrote:

“Onthe days of drill the citizen soldiers sometimes went from the paradeground to the church where they listened to exhortation and prayer.”

Frothingham records the admonition what was given to the Minute-menby the Provincial Congress:

“Youare placed by Providence in the post of honor, because it is the postof danger;...The eyes not only of North America and the whole BritishEmpire, but of all Europe, are upon you. Let us be, therefore,altogether solicitous that no disorderly behavior, nothing unbecomingour character as Americans, as citizens and Christians, be justlycharged to us.”

OnApril 15^th,the Provincial Congress led by John Hancock proclaimed a Day ofFasting and Prayer:

“Incircumstances dark as these, it become us, as Men and Christians, toreflect that, while every prudent measure should be taken to ward offthe impending judgments;....at the same time, all confidence must bewith-held from the means we use; and without whose blessing that thebest human counsels are but foolishness - - and all created power,vanity. It is the happiness of his Church that, when the powers ofearth and hell combine against it, and those who should be nursingfathers become its persecutors - - then the Throne of Grace is ofeasiest access - - and its appeal thither is graciously invited bythe Father of Mercies, who has assured it that when his children askbread he will not five them stone.”

DeaconJohn Parker under the auspices of Reverend Jonas Clarke of a churchin Lexington, Massachusetts led the most historic band of minutemen.Deacon Parker had been a captain during the French and Indian War.The clergymen of Lexington had become the principal leaders in townmeetings discussing liberty and government since the Stamp Act of1765. Jonas Clark had become the author of almost every crucial statepaper representing the expression of sentiment in the town. Theprivate home of Reverend Jonas Clarke frequently became a meetingplace where men such as John Hancock and Samuel Adams would meet. Onthe evening of April 18^th1775, Samuel Adams and John Hancock were visiting Reverend Clarke.They were not aware that British troops would march to Lexington toseize and destroy military supplies and capture the two patriots. Ahouse guest of Reverend Clarke asked if the men of Lexington wouldfight if necessary. Reverend Clarke had preached to his congregationfor several years concerning the duty of self-defense and God giveninalienable rights.

Heconfidentially responded by declaring: “I have trained them forthis very hour; they would fight, and if need be, die, too, under theshadow of the house of God!” The men of Lexington were thoroughlyknowledgeable and well prepared in the Scriptures concerning theissues of the day. The first shots of the American War forIndependence occurred on the lawn of Reverend Clarke's church.

The Life and Public Service ofSamuel Adams written byWilliam Wells' records the story of the battle that occurred inLexington and Paul Revere's role in the historic event.

“Ifthe British went out by water, he would display two lanterns in theNorth Church Steeple, and if by land, one, as a signal that the newsmight be conveyed to Lexington, should the communication with thepeninsular be cut off. Having instructed a friend to that effect, hewas rowed across the Charles River. It was the young flood, the shipwas winding, and the moon rising. Landing in Charlestown, Reverefound that his signal had been understood, and rode towardLexington.”

“Afterseveral adventures on the way, in which he narrowly escaped capture,he reached the house of Mr. Clark about midnight, and gave the alarm.He was just in time to elude the vigilance of the British in Boston;for Earl Percy, having accidentally ascertained that the secret wasout, gave orders to allow no person to leave the town. Revere foundthe family at rest, and a guard of eight men stationed at the house,for the protection of Adams and Hancock. He rode up, and requestedadmittance, but the Sergeant replied that the family before retiringhad desired that they not be disturbed by any noise about the house.'Noise!' replied Revere, 'you'll have noise enough before long. TheRegulars are coming out.' He was then admitted.

“Aboutone o'clock on the morning of the 19^th,the militia were mustered on the green near the meeting-house, andmessengers sent for additional information. By two o'clock thecountrymen numbered one hundred and thirty. The guns were loaded withpowder and ball in the presence of Adams, Hancock, and Clark. One ofthe messengers returning with the report that no troops could beseen, and the weather being chilly, the men were dismissed withorders to appear again at the beat of the drum...”

“ColonelSmith had marched his column but a few miles, when the ringing ofbells and firing of guns satisfied him that the country was alarmed.He immediately detached six companies of light infantry, under thecommand of Major Pitcairn, with orders to press forward, and securethe two bridges at Concord, while he sent back for reinforcements. Bycapturing those whom he met upon the road, Pitcairn prevented thenews of his approach from going before him, until he came with in amile and a half of Lexington meeting-house, when a horseman, who hadsucceeding in eluding the troops, galloped into the village. Then,about seventy townspeople assembled as the drums beat, and at thesound of the British halted to load. The advance guard and grenadiersthen hurried forward at double quick, and when within five or sixrods of the Provincials, Pitcairn shouted, 'Disperse, ye villains! Yerebels, disperse! Lay down your arms! Why don't you lay down yourarms and disperse?' Most of the minute-men, undecided whether to fireor retreat, stood motionless, having been ordered by their commandernot to fire first. Some were joining the ranks, others leaving them,when Pitcairn in a loud voice gave the word to fire, at the same timedischarging his pistol. The order was obeyed at first by a few guns,which did no execution, and immediately after by a deadly dischargefrom the whole British force. A few of the militia, no longerhesitating, returned fire, but without serious effect. Parker, seeingthe utter disparity of forces, ordered his men to disperse. TheRegulars continued their fire while any of the militia remained insight, killing eight and wounding ten. The village green, where thisevent took place, had been aptly termed by the historian, 'a field ofmurder. Not of battle.'”

“Thefiring as soon over, and the royal troops remained masters of thefield; but the sacrifice of that little band revolutionized theworld. It was the first scene in the drama which was to carry with itthe destinies of mankind.”

“Adamsand Hancock, as the soldiers made their appearance, were persuaded toretire to the adjacent village of Woburn, their safety being regardedas of utmost importance. Passing through the fields, while thesunlight glistened in the dew of the fresh spring morning, Adams felthis soul swell with uncontrollable joy as he contemplated the mightyfuture, and with prophetic utterance of his country's dawningindependence, he exclaimed, 'Of what a glorious morning is this!...”

TheReverend Jonas Clark preached:

“From this day will be dated theliberty of the world!”

Nearlya month earlier, the Governor of Connecticut called upon the colonyto observe a:

“Day of public Fasting and Prayer...that God wouldgraciously pour our his Holy Spirit on us, to bring us to a thoroughrepentance and effectual reformation; ...That he would restore,preserve and secure the liberties of this, and all the other AmericanColonies, and make this land a mountain of Holiness and habitation ofRighteousness forever. - (and) That God would preserve and confirmthe Union of the Colonies in the pursuit and practice of thatReligion and virtue which will honour Him...”

Theday selected by Governor Jonathan Trumbell for a “Day of publicFasting and Prayer” was “Wednesday, the nineteenth Day of April”1775.

The Webster Bible

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Noah Webster's primer, TheElementary Spelling Book, wasaffectionately called “The Blue-backed Speller.” There were onehundred million copies of “The Blue-backed Speller” sold by theend of the 1800s. Webster actually gave America a language which theycould call their own. He accomplished this objective by standardizingAmerican English. Noah Webster was the premier Americanlexicographer.

DianeAckerman wrote the article, “He Put Words in Our Mouths” found inthe January 18, 1987 issue of Parade Magazine.In her article, She acknowledged:

[The Primer] “...not onlyregularized spelling, grammar, and usage but also gave Americanchildren a shared ethic and heritage. Through it, Webster became theschoolmaster to a nation.”

In theUnited States of America, only the Bible rivaled the Blue-backedSpeller in popularity. But Noah Webster considered the enhancementand readability of the Holy Bible to be the zenith of his work. Heconsidered this endeavor to be “the most important enterprise” ofhis life. He undertook the project with vigor and enthusiasm whichresulted in a new edition of the Holy Bible.“The Holy Biblecontaining the Old and New Testaments, in the common version. Withamendments of the language”was published in 1833.

Thepublisher's preface to the 1987 reprint of "The Webster Bible" declares that it:

"[It] is a precise tailoring of the majestic King JamesVersion especially for American readers. With reverent restraint,Webster produced an edition in which he preserved the integrity ofthe KJV but reshaped some phrases and updated some vocabulary –making it possible for Americans, young and old, to read God's Wordcomfortably and to understand its message clearly as never before.”

NoahWebster was a master of 26 languages which included Hebrew and Greek.He did not re-translate the King James Version of the Bible butclarified it and corrected its English. Webster extolled the KJV forits “many passages uniting sublimity with beautiful simplicity.”He refused to alter the general style of the KJV. The KJV – the“Common Version” was an old translation during Webster'slifetime. From the preface of his Bible one is instructed, “...inthe lapse of two or three hundred centuries, changes have takenplace, which, in particular passages, impair the beauty; and others,obscure the sense, of the original languages.”

Furthermore,Webster stated a profound insight which has continued to prompt everymajor project to translate the Bible till today.

“Wheneverwords are understood in a sense different from that which they hadwhen introduced, and different from that of the original languages,they do not present to the reader the Word of God.”

Veryfew people recognize Noah Webster's legacy which he bequeathed tothe fledgling nation of America. But some historians have takennotice and are aware of the inheritance we received from him.

“Although Webster's last labors weredirected toward the revision of his SpellingBook andDictionary, TheHoly Bible...withAmendments to the Languagewas the crowning work of his career, because it brought to completionhis learned philosophical studies and because it rounded out fullyhis cherished plan for giving to the United States a body ofliterature from which correct language could be derived. Just as hisown enthusiasm had effected improvements in education from theelementary school to the college, so his books embodied usefulinnovations from the humblest primer to the majestic Bible.”

HarryR. Warfel, NoahWebster: Schoolmaster to America(New York, 1966)

NoahWebster wrote textbooks on history, economics, geography, politics,linguistics, and medicine. He became the editor of two newspapers andwas the impetus to create American copyright laws. Webster was thefounder of Amherst College and practiced law.

Yet, “...in all hisalterations [of the Bible] Webster proceeded with conservativecaution for he approached the Bible with deep reverence and with theassurance of its inspired character.” declared biographer HarryR.Warfel.

We pay tribute to Webster by addressing him as the“Schoolmaster to a nation” but Webster was also a lay preacherwho “...taught patriotic nationalism supported by a fundamental,humanitarian Christian faith.” (Warfel).

Hewas prompted to improve the English text because he held a high viewof Scripture.

“TheBible is the chief moral cause of all that is good, and the bestcorrector of all that is evil, in human society; and the only bookthat can serve as an infallible guide to future felicity. With thisestimate of its value, I have attempted to render the English versionmore useful, by correcting a few obvious errors, and removing someobscurities...”

Webster,in the preface of his Bible, described the changes he made and why hemade them. The only corrections which he made replaced obsolete termswith terms which were currently in use. Furthermore, he removedmistakes in grammar and corrected major errors of translation.

Hereare examples of the changes Webster made:

Heexchanged hinderforlet; button for tache;advanced forstricken inyears; interestforusury; insaneformad;and cow forkine.

“Yeblind guides, which strain ata gnat, and swallow acamel” became “...strain outa gnat... .”

HolySpirit wasinserted for HolyGhost.

Theseimprovements and other advances which Webster introduced were adoptedand absorbed by the men who formulated the Revised Standard Version(1881 – 1885).

“Itis not without reason that Webster's work...helped to make thesuccess of the later work possible.” (Warfel).

Webster was thefirst one to change “For I know nothing bymyself” (I Cor. 4:4) to the more accurate “For I know nothingagainstmyself” (cf. This verse is the American Standard Version and Revised Standard Version.)

Noah Webster was responsible for the standardized usage of shalland will,should, and would.

“In this part of thework, the 'New England Grammarian' did yeoman service and ...theRevised Versions took over nearly every one of his changes, althoughno credit for his previous labors was given” (Warfel)

AmongWebster's minor rectifications was his insertion of words or phrasesreplacing archaic and unnecessary coarse expressions. He did thisfrom having a sensitivity to young readers and for the public readingof the Scriptures.

Embarrassedor amused children might giggle nervously as a passage from I Kings14:10 was read during family devotions or at the dinner table. Anembarrassed parent might respond my lecturing his children to havedue respect for God's Word.

Webstermade the judgment call to replace the earthy phrase with themales. This decisionhas been honored and adopted by most translators of subsequentrevisions of the Holy Bible.

NoahWebster was the first person to clarify the King James Version for apopular nonsectarian audience. He faced widespread resistance by somepersons who firmly believed that any change to the King James Versionwas repugnant. Other persons were suspicious of a revision committeeconsisting of one man. Although he received some scholarlyendorsements widespread distribution of his Bible did not occur.

Itwas Noah Webster's persistence and courage which opened minds toconsider alterations of the KJV for the purpose of clarificationwhich Webster sought.

Eventually,a major revision of the KJV would begin in England resulting in thepublishing of the Revised Version of 1881 – 1885. It was followedby the publishing of the American Standard Version in 1901. Themodest earlier publicity of Webster's Bible was eclipsed by thelarge-scale efforts of contemporary publishers.

"The Webster Bible" is a gift to the American people from a greatAmerican hero. Rosalie J. Slater points out that Noah Websterrecognized the importance of faith in Jesus Christ.

“Despitehis active participation in the educational, political, andscientific life of the nation, his own family life exemplified whatlove and discipline centered in Christ could accomplish in formingthe character of the next generation.”

[Fromthe preface to a facsimile edition of Noah Webster's first edition ofAn American Dictionaryof the English Language (SanFrancisco: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1980)]

Gleanedfrom the Publisher's Preface to TheWebster Bible

Noah Webster - "Schoolmaster of the Nation"

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Noah Webster (1758-1843) is the “Fatherof American Scholarship and Education.” Ithas been said that 'no single American has contributed so much toAmerican education as Noah Webster...”

Websterwas an educator, statesman, lexicographer and the “Schoolmaster ofthe Nation.”

He served his country as a soldier in the Continental Army during theAmerican War for Independence. Webster was elected and served nine termsin the Connecticut General Assembly. He served in the Legislature ofMassachusetts for three terms. While serving in the legislature ofMassachusetts, Webster sought to have funds appropriated foreducation. Furthermore, Webster also served as a judge.

Websterbelieved that government had a responsibility to:

“Disciplineour youth in early life in sound maxims of moral, political, andreligious duties.”

Throughoutthe 19^thCentury, Webster was known by more Americans than anyone exceptGeorge Washington. This was primarily due to his infamous“Blue-backed speller”and his “AmericanDictionary of the English Language.”Webster published self teaching textbooks through which he sought tomake America intellectually independent from Great Britain andEurope. He chose to produce educational materials which would impartthe principles which gave birth to the liberties we enjoy in America.Noah Webster realized that the quality of education in America wouldhave a profound effect upon the success of our Republican system ofgovernment. He knew that the responsibility to educate ones childrenrests upon the parents and the individual. He firmly believed thefoundation upon which sound education is established is found in theBible.

“Inmy view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of thefirst things in which all children, under a free government, ought tobe instructed.. No truth is more evident to my mind than that theChristian religion must be the basis of any government intended tosecure the rights and privileges of a free people.”

NoahWebster wrote his infamous “Blue-backed Speller” in 1783. Thetitle of his Primeris actually “TheElementary Spelling Book” which is affectionately spoken of as the “Blue-backedSpeller.” His American Spelling Bookwas first written in 1780 when he taught in New York.

Thissingle book did more for American education than any other singlebook except the Bible. The Spellerwas written to instill in the minds of the reader, “the firstrudiments of the language and some just ideas of religion, morals,and domestic economy.” A publishing record was set when a millioncopies of theBlue-backed Spellerwere purchased in a year for one hundred years. Americans throughoutthe country learned the letters of the alphabet, morality, andpatriotism from his dictionary, spellers, catechisms, and historybooks.

Thefundamental premise of the Spelleris that “God's word, contained in the Bible, has furnished allnecessary rules to direct our conduct.” His Spellercontaineda “MoralCatechism” whichcontained rules from Scripture upon which moral conduct was founded.The Blue-backedSpeller includeda catechism, a paraphrased account of creation from Genesis, and aconsiderably large section from the Sermon on the Mount. Includedin the Spellerareselections such as “He who came to save us, will wash us from allsin; I will be glad in his name.”

Webstercompleted his masterpiece “AnAmerican Dictionary of the English Language – with pronouncingvocabularies of Scripture, classical and geographical names” aftertwenty-six years of research and work. He mastered twenty-eightlanguages by the time he completed and published his dictionary in1828. The dictionary contained 70,000 entries and 20,000 newdefinitions. Webster created an English vocabulary that hadstandardized spelling for the first time in English speaking history.

Aselection from the Preface of his magnificent work proclaims:

“Inmy view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of thefirst things in which all children, under a free government ought tobe instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that theChristian religion must be the basis of any government intended tosecure the rights and privileges of a free people.

Tothat great and benevolent Being, who, during the preparation of thiswork, has sustained a feeble constitution amidst obstacles and toils,disappointments, infirmities and depression; who has borne me and mymanuscripts in safety across the Atlantic, and given me strength andresolution to bring the work to a close, I would present the tributeof my most grateful acknowledgments.

Andif the talent which He entrusted to my care, has not been put in themost profitable use in his service, I hope it has not been “keptlaid up in a napkin” and that any misapplication of it may begraciously forgiven.”

New Haven
Noah Webster

Themonumental work reflects the Christian character of a humble man whodiligently worked to create a scholarly work for the benefit ofAmerican citizens.

Hegenerously utilized scriptural references and defined words utilizing scripture. His dictionary contained the greatest number ofdefinitions based upon the Bible than any other secular volume. His1828 version of the AmericanDictionarycontained a luxuriant measure of the Holy Scriptures. The context ofa word to be used was clarified by verses from the Old and NewTestament.

Anexample of this clarification is in the definition of the word“faith.”

Being justified by faith. Rom. v.
Without faith it is impossible to please God. Heb. xi.
For we walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Cor. v.
With the heart man believeth to righteousness. Rom. x.
Your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. Rom.
Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God. Rom. xiv.
Children in whom is no faith. Deut. xxxii.

Thedefinition of the word “property” is given:

"Theexclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing;ownership. In the beginning of the world, the Creator gave to mandominion over the earth, over the fish of the sea and the fouls ofthe air, and over every living thing. This is the foundation of man'sproperty in the earth and all its productions...The labor ofinventing, making or producing any thing constitutes one of thehighest titles to property. It is of the greatest blessings of civilsociety that the property of the citizen is well secured.”

Providenceisdefined as:

"Thecare and superintendence which God exercises over hiscreatures...Some persons admit a general providence, but deny aparticular providence, not considering that a general providenceconsists of particulars. A belief in divine providence is a source ofgreat consolation to good men. By divine providence is understood byGod himself."

Unfortunately,thousands of Scriptures have been removed from secularizedcontemporary dictionaries that bear his name but reflect humanisticthought.

Webstercreated the “American Dictionary of the English Language,” a“Grammar,” his “Blue-backed Speller,” and “The WebsterBible.” He custom tailored the King James Bible for the Americanreader.

In1833, Webster translated the CommonVersion of the Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testament, withAmendments of the Language.Webster made the following declaration in the preface to his Bible:

TheBible is the Chief moral cause of all that is good, and the bestcorrector of all that is evil, in human society; the best book for regulating the temporal concerns of men, and the only book that canserve as an infallible guide to future felicity...It is extremelyimportant to our nation, in a political as well as religious view,that all possible authority and influence should be given to thescriptures, for these furnish the best principles of civil liberty,and the most effectual support of republican government.

Theprinciples of genuine liberty, and of wise laws and administrations,are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority. Theman, therefore, who weakens or destroys the divine authority of thatBook may be accessory to all the public disorders which society isdoomed to suffer.

Thereare two powers only, sufficient to control men and secure the rightsof individuals and a peaceable administration, these are the combinedforce of religion and law, and the force or fear of the bayonet.

Noah Webster
New Haven, 1833

Furthermore,he continued to write on several topics: religion, politics,education, music, economics, commercial interests, medical and socialcommentary, and science. Noah Webster was the first American topromote a Constitutional Convention and personally presented adocument to George Washington supporting the proposition which hecomposed. Through his efforts, copyright legislation was included inthe Constitution of the United States. He was largely responsiblefor Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution concerning copyrights.

Hebecame the founder of a college, served in state government,published a magazine and a newspaper.

Adedication to Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College appears on thesecond page of Webster's AmericanSpelling Book – Containing an easy Standard of Pronunciation.The GrammaticalInstitute of the English Language containedthe AmericanSpelling Book whichwas published in 1790.

Thededication to President Stiles declared:

“Thisfirst part of a Grammatical Institute of the English Language is,with permission, most humbly inscribed, as a testimony of myveneration, for the superior talents, piety and patriotism, whichenable him to preside over that seat of literature, withdistinguished reputation, which render him an ornament to theChristian Profession, and give him an eminent rank among theillustrious characters that adorn the revolution.”

Websterwrites in the preface to his dictionary published in 1848:

"Ifthe language can be improved in regularity, so as to be more easilyacquired by our own citizens and by foreigners, and thus be rendereda more useful instrument for the propagation of science, arts,civilization and Christianity...”'

“Andif the talent which (God) entrusted to my care, has not been put tothe most profitable use in his service, I hope it has not been 'keptlaid in a napkin,' and that any misapplication of it may begraciously forgiven.”

Concerningeducation, Webster declared:

“Educationis useless without the Bible.”

“TheBible was America's basic text book in all fields.”

“God'sWord, contained in the Bible, has furnished all necessary rules todirect our conduct.”

In1823, Webster wrote these words in his textbook:

“Itis alleged by men of loose principles, or defective views of thesubject, that religion and morality are not necessary or importantqualifications for political stations. But the Scriptures teach adifferent doctrine. They direct that rulers should be men who rule inthe fear of God, able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hatingcovetousness.

Butif we had no divine instruction on the subject, our own interestwould demand of us a strict observance of the principle of theseinjunctions. And it is to the neglect of this rule of conduct in our citizens, that we must ascribe the multiplied frauds, breeches oftrust, peculations and embezzlement of public property which astonisheven ourselves; which tarnish the character of our country; whichdisgrace a republican government; and which will tend to reconcilemen to monarchs in other countries and even our own.”

In1832, the Historyof the United States wasauthored and published by Noah Webster.

"Thebrief exposition of the constitution of the United States will unfoldto young persons the principles of republican government; and it isthe sincere desire of the writer that our citizens should earlyunderstand that the genuine source of correct republican principlesin the Bible, particularly the New Testament or the Christianreligion.

Thereligion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christand His apostles , which enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence'which acknowledges in every person a brother, or a sister, and acitizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to thiswe owe our free Constitutions of Government.

Themoral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought toform the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws...All themiseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition,injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despisingor neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.

Whenyou become entitled to exercise the right of voting for publicofficers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you tochoose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. Thepreservation of a republican government depends on the faithfuldischarge of this duty;

Ifthe citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office,the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for thepublic good so much as for selfish or local purposes;

Corruptor incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the publicrevenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of thecitizens will be violated or disregarded.
Ifa republican government fails to secure public prosperity andhappiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divinecommands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.”

In1832, Noah Webster wrote in Adviceto the Young:

“The'Advice to the Young,' ...will be useful in enlightening the minds ofyouth in religious and moral principles, and serve...to restrain someof the common vices of our country...To exterminate our popular vicesis a work of far more importance to the character and happiness ofour citizens than any other improvements in our system of education.”

Throughouthis life, Webster affirmed this following declarations:

“For this reason society requires that the education of youth should bewatched with the most scrupulous attention. Education, in a greatmeasure, forms the moral characters of men, and morals are the basisof government.”

“Educationshould therefore be the first care of a legislature; not merely theinstitution of schools, but the furnishing of them with the best menfor teachers. A good system of education should be the first articlein the code of political regulations; for it is much easier tointroduce and establish an effectual system for preserving morals,than to correct by penal statutes the ill effects of a bad system.”

“Thegoodness of a heart is of infinitely more consequence to society thanan elegance of manners; nor will any superficial accomplishmentsrepair the want of principle in the mind. It is always better to bevulgarly right than politely wrong.”

“Theeducation of youth [is] an employment of more consequence than makinglaws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation onwhich both law and gospel rest for success.”

“Republicangovernment loses half of its value, where the moral and social dutiesare...negligently practiced. To exterminate our popular vices is awork of far more importance to the character and happiness of ourcitizens, than any other improvements in our system of education.”

“Bytaking revenge, a man is even with his enemy, but by passing it over,he is superior.”

Websterwas a loving father to his seven children. Before his death in 1843,Noah Webster made this public profession of faith:

“Iknow whom I have believed, and that he is able to keep that which Ihave committed to Him against that day.”

Gleaned from "America's Providential History" by Mark A. Beliles & Steven K. McDowell.
Also: "America's God and Country - Encyclopedia of Quotations" by William J. Federer

Early Education in the American Colonies

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The Reverend John Cotton of Boston,Massachusetts willed half his property to establish a school toprovide an education to children who were disadvantaged or orphaned.The Boston Latin School became the first school that was establishedin America outside of the home.

The Christians throughout colonialAmerica recognized their God given responsibility to educate theirchildren. Furthermore, they also saw it as their responsibility toeducate the general public. In obeying Christ's command found in theGreat Commission of Matthew 28. They firmly believed the responsibility to 'disciple all nations' was accomplishedthrough “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.”

Matthew 28:19-20
“Go ye therefore, and teach allnations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son,and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoeverI have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto theend of the world. Amen.”

Between 500 and 1500 AD, the light ofthe Word of God had been hidden fromthe common people. The want of access to the truth of the Bible keptthe common man ignorant throughout the Middle Ages.

JohnWycliffe had access to the Scriptures and through his studies becameconvinced that “Scripture must become the common property of all.”It was actually Wycliffe who first declared that there might be a “agovernment of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

JohnWycliffe translated the Bible from Latin into English in 1382.Wycliffe became the “Morning Star of the Reformation” for hepreceded the men of the Protestant Reformation by one hundred andfifty years.

Aftertranslating the Bible into English, Wycliffe sought to implant thetruth of the Holy Scriptures in the hearts of men, women, andchildren throughout England. He distributed his Bible, books aboutthe Bible, and tracts throughout the whole of England.

Wycliffesent his followers which received the derogatory name of “Lollards”throughout the villages and towns of England to distribute his Biblesand Christian literature. The term “Lollard” was a label ofridicule which actually means 'idle babbler'. It was through theefforts of the Lollards that many people throughout England learnedto read the Scriptures for themselves.

ProfessorG.V. Lechler declares that the Lollards: “were, above all,characterized by a striving after holiness, a zeal for the spread ofscriptural truth, for the uprooting of prevalent error, and forChurch reform. Even the common people among them were men whobelieved; and they communicated, as by a sacred contagion, theirconvictions to those around them. Thus they became mighty.”

In the American colonies; almostevery child was educated due to the colonists firm conviction anddesire to have their children read the Scriptures. Parents understoodthe Biblical command of Deuteronomy 6:4-7 and Ephesians 6:4

Deuteronomy 6:4-7
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God isone LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart,and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, whichI command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shaltteach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them whenthou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, andwhen thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”

Ephesians 6:4 “
“And, ye fathers, provoke not yourchildren to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition ofthe Lord.”

American education was primarilycentered in the home during the first 150 to 200 years. Although homeeducation may have been supplemented by tutors and schools; educationwas the responsibility of parents and rested upon the home. This wasthe case until the child was around eight or nine years of age. Atthe age of eight or nine; children may have had tutors or attended aschool. Ministers were generally the tutors. If there were too manychildren in a neighborhood, a pastor would teach a group of childrenin his home. Hence, these 'schools' became the first grammar schoolsbeginning in the late 1600s. At the age of thirteen a child wouldenter an apprenticeship program or attend a college.

Luther, Tyndale, Calvin andpreachers of the Reformation became advocates for the education ofthe common folk. The strong desire to educate their children wasfound among the Pilgrims, Puritans, and Quakers. A primary reason whythe Pilgrims came to America was to escape the ungodly influence thateducation in Europe had upon their children.

Cotton Mather declared:

“Theschools of learning and religion (in Europe) are so corrupted as mostchildren, even the best and wittiest, and of the fairest hopes, areperverted, corrupted, and utterly overthrown by the multitude of evilexamples and licentious behavior in these seminaries.”

The first free common school inAmerica was established by the “Old Deluder Law” of1647.

HistorianJohn Fiske declared: “In 1647 the legislature of Massachusettsenacted a law with the preamble: 'It being one chief purpose of thatold deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of theScriptures,' it was therefore ordered that every township containingfifty families or householders should set up a school in whichchildren might be taught to read and write, and that every townshipcontaining one hundred families or householders should set up aschool in which boys might be fitted for entering Harvard college.”

TheOld Deluder Satan Lawof 1647 was passed by the legislatures of Massachusetts andConnecticut to prevent illiteracy. Furthermore, it was passed intolaw to preclude the abuse of power over the common man ignorant ofscriptures.

“Itbeing one chiefe project of that old deluder, Sathan, to keepe menfrom the knowledge of the scriptures, as in former time...

Itis therefore ordered...[that] after the Lord hath increased [thesettlement] to the number of fifty howshoulders, [they] shallforthwith appoint one within their towne, to teach all such childrenas shall resorte to him, to write and read...

andit is further ordered, That where any towne shall increase to thenumber of one hundred families of howshoulders, they shall sett up agrammar schoole for the university.”

Theparents of the children or general inhabitants would pay the wages ofthe teacher. The existence of 'public' schools although required bylaw, was not enforced. Furthermore, they were not under the authorityof a state board. The curriculum, methodology and administration ofthe 'public' schools was under local control of the parents in thecommunity. Throughout the following decades, 'public' schools wereestablished in other New England towns and villages. These schoolsactually involved a small percentage of the children being educated.The vast majority of children were educated in the home, church, andprivate sector.

SamuelBlumenfeld states that “by 1720 Boston had far more private schoolsthan public ones, and by the close of the American Revolution manytowns had no common schools at all.”

New York and Pennsylvania hadpublic schools as those in New England in urban areas but not in therural areas of the colonies.

Therewere no 'public' schools in the southern colonies until 1730 and by1776 there were only five public schools in the south.

Thehome was where the majority of children were educated throughout theAmerican colonies even during the American Revolution.

SamuelBlumenfeld declared: “Of the 117 men who signed the Declaration ofIndependence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution,one out of three had only a few months of formal schooling, and onlyone in four had gone to college. They were educated by parents,church schools, tutors, academies, apprenticeship, and bythemselves.”

New Guide to the English Tongue

2011-12-06T19:34:00.001-08:00

The New Guide to the English Tongue was published England in the year 1740. The book was published byThomas Dilworth and was universally adopted throughout the schools inNew England by 1765.

TheNew Guide to the English Tongue containedspelling, reading and grammar lessons and was “adornedwith proper Scriptures.”

The first lesson ofthe guide contained words have three letters or less.

No Man may put offthe Law of God.
The Way of God isno ill Way.
My Joy is in Godall the Day.
A bad Man is a Foeof God.

Thomas Dilworthdeclared that he sought to rescue:

“Poor creaturesfrom the Slavery of Sin and Satan by setting the word of God for aLantern to our feet and a Light to our Paths.”

The “Schoolmasterto America” - Noah Webster used only Thomas Dilworth's New Guideto the English Tongue and the Holy Bible in his earliest school.

New England Primer – 1690

2011-12-06T18:53:00.001-08:00

ThePilgrim's and Puritans had a profound belief that all must seek theWord of God in the Bible. Hence, they firmly believed in educatingtheir children to read. For this purpose hornbookswere created which consisted of the alphabet accompanied with a textfrom the Bible. The alphabet and Biblical text were mounted on aboard which was covered with a thin sheet of transparent animal horn.Eventually, children utilized the New England Primerwhich was printed in Boston in 1690.

By 1691, the Primer was entering it's second edition and was advertised by Benjamin Harris of Boston. The oldest extant copy of the New England Primer is dated 1737.

ThePrimer wasknown as the “LittleBible of New England” andis considered to be the most influential school book in the historyof American education. The Primerwas three by five inches and contained an eighty-eight pagedevotional. The NewEngland Primer was the school book of America during the end of the 1600's and early1700's. There were over three million copies of the Primerwhich were printed containing the alphabet and some scripture verses.Consequently, the actual manner in which the alphabet was taughtutilizing the Bible clearly indicates the Christian nature of thismost important book in the history of America.

A- In Adam's Fall

Wesinned all.

B- Heaven to find,

TheBible Mind.

C- Christ crucify'd

Forsinners dy'd.

D- The Deluge drown'd

TheEarth around.

E- Elijah hid

ByRavens fed.

F- The judgment made

Felixafraid.

G- As runs the Glass,

OurLife doth pass.

H- My Book and Heart

Mustnever part.

J- Job feels the Rod,

Yetblesses GOD.

K- Proud Korah's troop

Wasswallowed up.

L - Lor fled to Zoar,

SawFiery Shower

OnSodompour.

M- Moses was he

WhoIsrael's Host

Ledthro' the Sea.

N- Noah did view

Theold world & new.

O- Young Obadias,

David,Josias

Allwere pious.

P- Peter deny'd

HisLord and cry'd.

Q - Queen Esther sues

Andsaves the Jews.

R - Young pious Ruth,

Leftall for Truth.

S- Young Sam'l dear

TheLord did fear.

T- Young Timothy

Learntsin to fly.

V- Vasthi for Pride,

Wasset aside.

W - Whales in the Sea

GOD'sVoice obey.

X- Xerxes did die,

Andso must I.

Y- While youth so chear

Deathmay be near.

Z- Zaccheus he

Didclimb the Tree

OurLord to see.

This cherished prayer was included in the New England Primer:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take."

The prayer was originally recorded in the Enchiridion Leonis which is dated 1160 A.D.

William Penn (1644 - 1718)

2011-12-06T18:18:00.001-08:00

William Penn, the founder ofPennsylvania, was the son of Admiral William Penn of the BritishNavy. Admiral Penn was the British officer whodiscovered the island of Bermuda. He also helped to strengthen KingCharles II's throne in England.

Penn was a student at OxfordUniversity and studied law. Thomas Loe preached a sermon whichprofoundly affected the young twenty-two year old Penn. The title ofthe sermon which touched Penn's heart was “The Sandy FoundationShaken.”

WilliamPenn broke his father's heart by giving up a brilliant future when he became a Quaker and converted to the Christian truths he found in the Society of Friends. At that time, the Quakers were the object ofridicule and scorn throughout England.

The proclamation which follows is fromhis Treatise on the Religion of the Quakers:

“I do declare tothe whole world that we believe the Scriptures to contain adeclaration of the mind and will of God in and to those ages in whichthey were written; being given forth by the Holy Ghost moving in thehearts of holy men of God' that they ought also to be read, believed,and fulfilled in our day; being used for reproof and instruction,that the man of God may be perfect. They are a declaration andtestimony of heavenly things themselves, and, as such, we carry ahigh respect for them. We accept them as the words of God Himself.”

William Penn becamea Quaker preacher and author who suffered imprisonment over threetimes for the faith he had in Jesus Christ. Penn was imprisoned inthe Tower of London for eight months. At this time of imprisonment,Penn wrote his treatise “No Cross, No Crown.”

“No Pain, nopalm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown...”

“Christ's crossis Christ's way to Christ's crown. This is the subject of thefollowing discourse, first written during my confinement in the Towerof London in the year of 1668, now reprinted with great enlargementof matter and testimonies, that thou mayest be won to Christ, or ifwon already, brought near to Him. It is a path which God in hiseverlasting kindness guided my feet into, in the flower of my youth,when about two and twenty years of age."

"He took me by thehand and led me out of the pleasures, vanities, and hopes of theworld. I have tasted of Christ's judgments, and of his mercies, andof the world's frowns and reproaches. I rejoice in my experience, anddedicate it to thy service in Christ..."

"The unmortifiedChristian and the heathen are of the same religion, and the deitythey truly worship is the god of this world. What shall we eat? Whatshall we drink? What shall we wear? And how shall we pass away ourtime? Which way may we gather and perpetuate our names and familiesin the earth? It is a mournful reflection, but a truth which will notbe denied, that these worldly lusts fill up a great part of thestudy, care and conversation of Christendom."

“The false notionthat they may be children of God while in a state of disobedience tothis holy commandments, and disciples of Jesus though they revoltfrom his cross, and members of his true church, which is without spotor wrinkle, notwithstanding their lives are full of spots andwrinkles, is of all other deceptions upon themselves the mostpernicious to their eternal condition for they are at peace in sinand under a security in their transgression."

Furthermore, headmonishes one to:

“Read my “NoCross, No Crown.” There is instruction. Make your conversation withthe most eminent for wisdom and piety, and shun all wicked men as youhope for the blessing of God and the comfort of your father's livingand dying prayers. Be sure you speak evil of none, not of themeanest, much less of your superiors as magistrates, guardians,teachers, and elders in Christ.”

George Fox, thefounder of the Society of Friends, was accompanied by William Pennwho traveled and preached with Fox. During their travels, Penn becameacquainted with other Quakers and Christians of various denominationswho desired to worship God in the own ways.

William Pennrecords in his work Travels in Holland and Germany:

“As I have beentraveling, the great work of Christ in the earth has often beenpresented to my view, and the day of the Lord hath been deeplyimpressed upon me, and my soul and spirit hath frequently beenpossessed with an holy and weighty concern for the glory and name ofthe Lord and the spreading of his everlasting truth.”

Penn's father hadbeen a courageous office in the King's Navy and upon his death; KingCharles owed him a very large amount of money. King Charles chose torepay the debt with a land grand in America since he was short onfinances.

William Penn, asheir of his father's estates, received a grant from King Charles IIin 1681. All of the land between Maryland and New York was granted toPenn as payment for the debt. In the year that followed; William Pennreceived from the Duke of York, the region of land which is now theState of Delaware.

Penn planned onnaming the territory Sylvania which means 'woodland' but KingCharles changed the name to Pennsylvania. Since the Society ofFriends were those people who helped to establish the state,Pennsylvania became known as The Quaker State.

The quotation whichfollows is from a letter Penn wrote to a friend on January 1, 1681:

“Make andestablish such laws as shall best preserve true Christian and civilliberty, in all opposition to all unchristian....practices.”

“I eyed the Lordin obtaining it and more was I drawn inward to look to Him, and toowe it to His hand and power than to any other way. I have soobtained it, and desire to keep it that I may not be unworthy of Hislove. God that has given it to me through many difficulties, will, Ibelieve, bless and make it the seed of a nation.”

William Penndesired to make friends of the Indians who inhabited the regionwhere he sought to establish his colony. Among his first acts was toestablish friendship with the Indians and insisted on purchasing theland from them. His colony was never attacked by the Indiansaccording to historical records for he sought to be just and fair indealing with the Indians.

He wrote to thisletter to the Indians on August 18, 1681 before coming to the colony:

“My friends:

There is one greatGod and Power that hath made the world and all things therein, towhom you and I and all people owe their being and well-being, and towhom you and I must one day give an account for all that we doe inthe world; This great God hath written His law in our hearts by whichwe are taught and commanded to love and help and doe good to oneanother and not to doe harm and mischief one unto another...

“Now this greatGod hath pleased to make me concerned in my parts of the world, andthe king of the country where I live, hath given unto me a greatprovince therein, but I desire to enjoy it with your love andconsent, that we may always live together as neighbors and friends,else what would the great God say to us, who hath made us not todevour and destroy one another, but to live soberly and kindlytogether in the world...

I have great loveand regard toward you, and I desire to gain your love and friendshipby a kind, just and peaceable life, and the people I send are of thesame mind, and shall in all things behave themselves accordingly...

I shall shortlycome to you myself at which time we may more freely and largelyconfer and discourse of these matters. Receive those presents andtokens which I have sent to you as a testimony to my goodwill to youand my resolution to live justly, peaceably and friendly with you.

I am your lovingfriend, William Penn.

The famous Frameof Government for his new colony was written on April 25, 1682.Penn's wisdom expressed in the charter profoundly influenced thecharters of the other colonies. His Frame of Government was toestablish:

“...laws as shall best preserve true Christian and civilliberty in opposition to all unchristian licentious and unjustpractices, whereby God may have his due, Caesar his due, and thepeople their due...”

“The originatorand descent of all human power [is] from God.. first, to terrify evildoers; secondly, to cherish those who do well..."

"Government seems tome to be a part of religion itself – a thing sacred in itsinstitutions and ends..."

"Government, likeclocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are madeand moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Whereforegovernments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Letmen be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it will be ill,they will cure it...”

"That, therefore,which makes a good constitution must keep it, - namely men of wisdomand virtue, - qualities that, because they descend not with worldlyinheritance, must be carefully propagated by a virtuous education ofyouth."

"[It is thereforeenacted] that all persons...having children...shall cause such to beinstructed in reading and writing, so that they may be able to readthe Scriptures and to write by the time they attain to 12 years ofage.”

As a Quaker, Pennexperienced a great deal of persecution for his faith. He sought toestablish a colony as a land of religious freedom which would betolerant to Christians of every denomination.

William Pennprinted broadsides and leaflets in six different languagesadvertising his colony of religious toleration inviting persecutedChristians across Europe to emigrate to Pennsylvania. Quakers, Mennonites, Moravians, Lutherans, Schwenkfelders, and Dunkards(Church of the Brethren) came to Pennsylvania from Sweden, England,Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Germany.

He sought toestablish a city which he named Philadelphia - “The City ofBrotherly Love” where Christians could work together in love.As a devout Quaker, William Penn believed that true religion was notof ceremonial rituals held each Sunday. To him true religion wasfaith in Christ which was the foundation for a daily walk throughlife and inspiration.

His Prayer forPhiladelphia is inscribed on plaque which is on the wall ofPhiladelphia City Hall for all to read: Penn delivered his Prayerfor Philadelphia in 1684:

“And thou,Philadelphia, the Virgin settlement of this province named beforethou wert born, what love, what care, what service and what travailhave there been to bring thee forth and preserve thee from such aswould abuse and defile thee.”

“O that thoumayest be kept from the evil that would overwhelm thee. That faithfulto the God of thy mercies, in the Light of Righteousness, thou mayeststand in the day of trial, that thy children may be blest of the Lordand thy people saved by His Power.”

William Penn issuedhis Charter of Privileges in 1701 which he granted to theprovince of Pennsylvania:

"Almighty God beingthe only Lord of Conscience...and Author as well as object of allDivine Knowledge, faith and worship, who only doth enlighten theminds and persuade and convince the understanding of people, I dohere by grant and declare:

All persons livingin this province, who confess and acknowledge the One Almighty andEternal God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, andthat hold themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably andjustly in civil society, shall in no wise be molested or prejudicesfor their religious persuasion or practice.

And that allpersons who also profess to believe in Jesus Christ the Savior of theWorld, shall be capable to serve this government in any capacity,both legislatively or executively.

No people can betruly happy, though under the greatest employment of civil liberties,if abridged of ...their religious profession and worship."

William Pennbelieved that true godliness enabled men to live better lives in theworld seeking to mend a broken world.

“True Godlinessdoesn't turn men out of the World, but enables them to live better init, and excites their endeavors to mend it.”

He wrote to Peterthe Great, Czar of Russia:

“If thou wouldstrule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that thou must be ruledby him...Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled bytyrants.”

Not knowing if hewould ever see his wife and children again, William Penn wrote:

My dear Wife andChildren:

My love, whichneither sea nor land nor death itself can extinguish or lessen towardyou, most endearly visits you with eternal embraces, and will abidewith you forever; and may the God of my life watch over you and blessyou, and do good in this world and forever!

Some things areupon my spirit to leave with you in your respective capacities, as Iam to the one a husband and to the rest a father, if I should neversee you more in this world.

My dear wife,remember thou wast the love of my youth and much the joy of my life;the most beloved as well as the most worthy of all my earthlycomforts; and the reason of that love was more thy inward then thyoutward excellencies, which yet were many.

God knows, and thouknowest it, I can say it was a match of Providence's making and God'simage in us both was the first thing, and the most amiable andengaging ornament in our eyes. Now I am to leave thee, and thatwithout knowing whether I shall ever see thee more in this world;take my counsel into thy bosom and let it dwell with thee in my steadwhile thou livest.

First: Let the fearof the Lord and a zeal and love to his glory dwell richly in thyheart; and thou wilt watch for good over thyself and thy dearchildren and family, that no rude, light, or bad thing be committed;else God will be offended, and He will repent Himself of the good Heintends thee and thine...”

And now, mydearest, let me recommend to thy care my dear children; abundantlybeloved of me as the Lord's blessing, and the sweet pledges of ourmutual and endeared affection. Above all things endeavor to breedthem up in the love and virtue, and that holy plain way of it whichwe have lived in, that the world in no part of it get into my family.

I had rather theywere homely than finely bred as to outward behavior; yet I lovesweetness mixed with gravity and cheerfulness tempered with sobriety.Religion in the heart leads into this true civility, teaching men andwomen to be mild and courteous in their behavior, an accomplishmentworthy indeed of praise.”

On title page ofhis Book of Psalms, William Penn wrote:

"Set forth andallowed to be sung in all churches, of all the people together,before and after morning and evening prayer, and moreover in privatehouses for their godly solace and comfort, laying apart all ungodlysongs and ballads: which tend only to the nourishing of vice andcorruption of youth.”

In his sermon “ASummons or call to Christendom – In an earnest expostulation withher to prepare for the Great and Notable Day of the Lord that is atthe Door” William Penn declared:

“For in JesusChrist, the light of the world, are hid all the treasures of wisdomand knowledge; redemption and glory; they are hid from the worldlyChristian, from all that are captivated by the spirit and lusts ofthe world: and whoever would see them (for therein consists thethings that belong to their eternal peace) must come to Christ Jesus the true light in their consciences, bringing their deeds to Him,love Him and obey Him; whom God hath ordained a light to lighten theGentiles and for His salvation to the ends of the earth.”

The 1819,Biographical Review of London described William Penn:

"[William Penn]Established an absolute toleration; it was his wish that every manwho believed in God should partake of the rights of a citizen; andthat every man who adored Him as a Christian, of whatever sect hemight be, should be a partaker in authority.”

William Penn'swisdom was “derived from the book of the gospel statutes.” Herecognized the basis of good government as Christian character.

John Calvin - Huguenots

2011-12-05T22:13:00.001-08:00

A year after Luther's translation ofthe New Testament into German; Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples publishedthe New Testament in the French language. Lefevre's translation ofthe New Testament was published in 1523 two years prior toTyndale's English translation. By 1530, the whole Bible was availableand became known as the Antwerp Bible. PierreRobert Olivetan published another translation in 1535 which was revivedin 1557 and became the basis for the Geneva Bible.

In 1534, John Calvin, a FrenchProtestant, was twenty-five when he met with his cousin RobertOlivetan and Lefevre – translator of the Bible. After leaving theRoman church in Noyon, France, he was briefly put into prison.Assuming a disguise, Calvin chose to live in Paris upon his releasefrom prison and worshiped secretly in homes and wooded grovesutilizing passwords. He eventually fled to Germany and then to Genevawhich is situated near Lake Leman in Switzerland.

Geneva, Switzerland officially voted tobecome Protestant as a result of the preaching and influence ofUlrich Zwingli. Zwingli became the founder of the Protestant movementin Switzerland while Luther founded the Protestant church inGermany. Zwingli served as chaplain to the Swiss army. Tragically, hedied in a battle in 1531.

Calvin wrote his infamous Institutesof Christian Religion in 1536.The Council of Geneva ordered John Calvin to do something which hefelt he could not obey without violating his conscience. He wasbanished from Geneva upon which he traveled to Strasbourg where hebecame the pastor of a congregation which was comprised of Frenchrefugees. He continued to pastor the church in Strasbourg for threeyears and met a French refugee named Idelette whom he married.

Calvinwas invited by the Council to return to Geneva in 1541 where heauthored “Ecclesiastical Ordinances” TheEcclesiastical Ordinances included policies for physical health,safety of citizenry, education, sanitation requirements, and policiesfor jails.

RosalieSlater states in her work “Teaching and LearningAmerica's Christian History”

“Nowriting of the Reformation era was more feared by Roman Catholics,more zealously fought against and more hostilely pursued, thanCalvin's Institutes.”

J. H.Merle d'Aubigne wrote in his History of the Reformation:

“The renovationof the individual, of the church, and of the human race, is histheme...”

“The reformationof the sixteenth century restored to the human race what the middleages had stolen from them; it delivered them from the traditions,laws, and despotism of the papacy; it put an end to the minority andtutelage in which Rome claimed to keep mankind forever; and bycalling upon man to establish his faith not on the words of a priest,but on the infallible Word of God, and by announcing to every onefree access to the Father through the new and saving way – JesusChrist, it proclaimed and brought about the hour of Christianmanhood.”

“An explanation is, however,necessary. There are philosophers in our days who regard Christ assimply the apostle of political liberty. These men should learn that,if they desire liberty outwardly, they must first possess itinwardly...”

“There are, no doubt, many countries,especially among those which the sun of Christianity has not yetilluminated, that are without civil liberty, and that groan under thearbitrary rule of powerful masters. But, in order to become freeoutwardly, man must first succeed in being free inwardly...

“The liberty which the Truth bringsis not for individuals only; it affects the whole of society.Calvin's work of renovation, in particular, which was doubtless firstof all an internal work, was afterwards destined to exercise a greatinfluence over nations.”

The citizens of Geneva, throughCalvin's encouragement,worked hard to make their city a model ofBiblical government.

Calvin established the first Protestantuniversity known as the Geneva Academy. Theodore Beza became therector of the academy. Geneva became a haven for French Huguenotsseeking refuge from the tyranny in France. Furthermore, it became arefuge and haven for Protestants throughout Europe. Geneva became atraining center for French Huguenots and European protestants seekingrefuge. Huguenot is a Germanword which means “Confederate.”

The Huguenotsexperienced severe oppression and persecution but continued to thriveuntil 1553. In 1553, five Huguenots were burned at the stake. Thisevent actually failed in the attempt to quench the Protestantmovement in France. Within four years a third of all Frenchmen(300,000) were Protestants.

After two years passed, a Confessionof Faith of the Reformed Churches wascomposed by a national synod meeting in Paris. Consequently, the Popeissued an edict which made reading the Bible illegal!

Threeyears would pass and in 1562 the number of Protestant Churches grewfrom 300 to 2000 throughout France. The French Huguenots formed apolitical alliance to protect their religious freedom because ofsevere violations against their freedom of worship.

30,000Protestants were massacred as they worshiped on St. Bartholomew's Dayin 1572. The French Huguenots became convinced of the need to defendthemselves by force if necessary. The Biblical foundation of theirposition was articulated in Vindicae Contra Tyrannos(A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants)which was published in1579. It is believed that Philippe DuPlessisMornay was the author of Vindicae. Hisreasoning was drawn from the wellspring of Calvin's writings. Thedocument also became a precedent for the American colonists duringthe American War for Independence.

Francewas plunged into civil war between Protestants and Catholics andfinally ended with the Edict of Toleration of 1598. Theedict guaranteed both political and religious freedom to certainpartitioned areas of France.

J. H.Merle d'Aubigne declared:

“Lastly, Calvin was the founder of thegreatest of republics. The pilgrims wholeft their country in the reign of James I and, landing on the barrenshores of New England, founded populous and mighty colonies, are hissons, his direct and legitimate sons; and that American nation whichwe have seen growing so rapidly boasts as its father the humblereformer on the shores of the Leman.”

An oldHuguenot song proclaims:

“Spirit who made them live, awaken theirchildren, so that they may know how to follow them.”

Johannes Gutenberg (1400 – 1468)

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Johannes Gutenberg (1400 - 1468) was a German who was responsible for creating the movable type printing press. Hisinvention helped revolutionize Western Europe during the Middle Ages. The printing press prepared the way for the rapid dispersion of thoughtsand ideas through the printed medium. It was the invention of themovable type printing press which became the technology that made theReformation possible.

The Gutenberg printing press assuredthat the light of truth would not be put out by neither civil norecclesiastical governments. Before the invention of the movable typeprinting press; it would take scribes over a year to hand copy oneBible. Hence, Bibles were scarce and expensive. The printing presswas instrumental in spreading knowledge which liberated men andwomen. Within ten years of the invention of the press; the totalnumber of books increased from 50,000 to 10 million.

Charles Coffin declared:

“Through theenergizing influence of the printing press, emperors, kings, anddespots have seen their power gradually waning, and the peoplebecoming their masters.”

The 42 line Mazarin Bibleis known today as the Gutenberg Bible, was the first book of anysignificance which was printed on Gutenberg's printing press. Hewrote the following comments in 1455.

“Godsuffers in the multitude of souls whom His word can not reach.Religious truth is imprisoned in a small number of manuscript bookswhich confine instead of spread the public treasure. Let us break theseal which seals up holy things and give wings to Truth in order thatshe may win every soul that comes into the world by her word nolonger written at great expense buy hands easily palsied, butmultiplied like the wind by an untiring machine.”

“Yesit is a press, certainly, but a press from which shall flow ininexhaustible streams the most abundant and most marvelous liquorthat has ever flowed to relieve the thirst of men. Through it, Godwill spread His word; a spring of pure truth shall flow from it;like a new star it shall scatter the darkness of ignorance, and causea light hithertofore unknown to shine among men.”

Yale College

2011-11-22T23:16:00.001-08:00

Collegiate School at Saybrook, Connecticut was founded on October 16, 1701 by ten Congregational ministers. It was moved from Saybrook to New Haven, Connecticut and renamed after Elihu Yale (1649-1721). Consequently, the ten Congregational ministers who founded Yale had been unhappy with the growing liberalism which had taken root in Harvard. The ten ministers donated forty books for the library of the new school.

The General Court passed an Act which authorized the creation of the new college. The Act declared that the new college be an institution where:

"Youth may be instructed in the Arts and Sciences who through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Publick employment both in Church and Civil State."

The first classes held in Collegiate School occurred in the residence of Reverend Abraham Pierson who became the school's first rector.

Elihu Yale was and American born English merchant who became governor of the East India Company. He donated his library and goods from his personal fortune which amounted to $2,800. This generous amount of $2,800 was the equivalent to the annual income of about fourteen doctors.

It was in 1745 that the school was moved from Saybrook to New Haven and renamed Yale.

On November 11, 1701, the trustees of the school stated the purpose for which the school was created.

"To plant, and under ye Divine blessing to propagate in this wilderness, the blessed Reformed, Protestant Religion, in ye purity of its Order, and Worship."

Specific rules were enumerated by the founders concerning the students at Yale College.

"Whereunto the Liberal, and Religious Education of Suitable youth is under ye blessing of God, a chief, & most probably expedient...we agree to...these Rules:

1. The said rector shall take Especial Care as of the moral Behavior of the Students at all Times so with industry to Instruct and Ground Them well in Theoretical Devinity...and [not to] allow them to be Instructed and Grounded in any other Systems of Synopses...To recite the Assemblies Catechism in Latin...[with] such Explanations as may be (through the Blessing of God) most Conducive to their Establishment in the Principles of the Christian protestant Religion.

2. That the said Rector shall Cause the Scriptures Daily...morning and evening to be read by the Students at the times of prayer in the School...Expound practical Theology...Repeat Sermons...studiously Indeavor[ing] in the Education of said students to promote the power and Purity of Religion and Best Edification and peace of these New England Churches.

Students who are enrolled at Yale were required to:

"All scholars shall live religious, godly and blameless lives according to the rules of God's Word, diligently reading the Holy Scriptures, the fountain of light and truth; and constantly attend upon all the duties of religion, both in public and secret."

Private prayer was required of all students.

The primary goal of the college as outlined by the founders of Yale was clearly set forth:

"Every student shall consider the main end of his study to wit to know God in Jesus Christ and answerably to lead a Godly, sober life."

The Yale Charter of 1745 clarified the intention and goal of the college.

"Which has received the favorable benefactions of many liberal [generous] and piously disposed persons, and under the blessing of Almighty God has trained up many worthy persons for the service of god in the state as well as in the church."

Around the year 1800, a faculty member Benjamin Silliman wrote:

"It would delight your heart to see how the trophies of the cross are multiplied in this institution. Yale College is a little temple: prayer and praise seem to be the delight of the greater part of the students."

Benjamin Silliman was a well-known science educator and editor. He served on the faculty at Yale during the era of President Timothy Dwight 1795-1817.

Tragically, the original high ideals of the founders of Yale have faded into obscurity.

Cyrus and Nettie McCormick

2011-11-22T21:53:00.001-08:00

"I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13

Cyrus Hall McCormick Sr., (February 15, 1809 – May 13, 1884) was a believer in Christ who made his greatest contribution to society in the workplace. He was born in 1809 on the McCormick farm in Woodridge, Virginia on the west side of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Shenandoah Valley. Mary Ann Hall and Robert Hall McCormick had three siblings: Leander J. McCormick, William Sanderson McCormick, and Cyrus.

A speaker in a little church in Virginia proclaimed, “I want everyone who is on Christ's side to stand up.” Cyrus McCormick did not stand as his neighbors and members of the congregation stood to their feet. After the meeting, he went home and went to bed. His father entered his room and spoke these words to Cyrus: “Son, don't you know that by being quiet you are rejecting Christ?” Cyrus hadn't considered that possibility when examining his decision not to stand. He went to the home of his close friend Billy McClung. It was well known throughout the community that Bill was a Christian.

“Billy, how can I know Jesus?” he asked his friend. Billy told him to confess his sins to Christ and ask his forgiveness, right the wrongs which he may have done to other people and make a commitment to follow Jesus Christ. On the following Sunday service, Cyrus McCormick stood up in church declaring before the congregation that he had given his life to Jesus.

His father, Robert Hall McCormick valiantly sought to invent a mechanical device through which he could harvest wheat. He worked for sixteen years on a horse-drawn reaper but was unsuccessful. Although his father's attempts to create a reaper failed, his son Cyrus invented a mechanical reaper which succeeded in his endeavor.

"Turn the hogs loose in the grain, Son. Ain't no way we're going to save it now. Might as well at least fatten them on it."

This would be the tragic response of his disheartened father as the grain began to spoil.

Reaping wheat was hard tiresome work and he helped his father during the harvest season. Even though the entire family helped with the harvest; the wheat began to turn and go bad. Young Cyrus new that farmers needed machinery equipment which could reap the wheat quickly before it would turn bad.

Throughout the year he investigated the necessary steps to solve the problems which arose experimented with solutions. Cyrus McCormick was twenty-two when he invented the McCormick Reaper. Cyrus 'carried the torch' of his father's project and developed a mechanical reaper in two months.

He first designed a reaper which horses would pull beside it so as not to trample the grain. The McCormick Reaper had a paddle wheel would press the wheat against a cutting knife. Even though the stalks may have fallen, the wheel would lift them up for cutting. The cutting blade of the reaper had teeth like those of a saw blade that would slide in a side to side motion. The blade of his reaper moved in a set of 'fingers' that held the stalks in place as they were cut. He constructed a platform for the cut stalks so that the heads of grain would align in the same direction. The platform would keep its relative position by swinging even in a bumpy wheat field. Field hands would walk beside the reaper to rake off the stalks in order to tie them in bundles. The stalks that were being cut were separated by a flat board from the grain which was left standing. A heavy wheel carried the machine and powered all the movable parts at a constant speed. A smaller wheel supported the cutting knife.

It was successfully demonstrated during tests in 1831 and the McCormick Reaper was patented on June 21, 1834. Although he was issued a patent; it merely give him standing in court. Several people stole his ideas and he fought legal battles concerning his invention throughout his life. He rightly assumed the best course of action was to manufacture a better product at an inexpensive price which was more competitive than other reapers. Cyrus McCormick became an important influential businessman through the development factories and franchises.

A biographer declared that it was impossible to separate Cyrus McCormick's religious life from his business practice for his Christian principles

His favorite passage found in the Bible was the eighth chapter of Romans which promises that nothing can separate Christians from the love of God. What Cyrus McCormick believed and what he did were related; “He was a man of faith and works” and “felt that he was born into the world with certain things to do.”

The thing which Cyrus McCormick sought to do was to combat hunger. Hutchinson, his biographer declared that McCormick “believed that religion was a remedy for all the ill of life.” Cyrus McCormick 'contributed generously to the Church and was instrumental in increasing its influence and membership.”

Cyrus and Leander moved to Chicago and established a large centralized facility to manufacture agricultural farm implements in 1847. In 1849, the two brothers were joined by their third brother William. Savvy innovative business practices resulted in increased sales and as railroads were developed they experienced a wider distribution of their products to more distant markets.
The brothers trained a network of salesmen who were able to demonstrate proficiently the operation of the Reaper in the field.

William H. Seward spoke of the McCormick reaper owning to it “the line of civilization moves westward thirty miles each year.”

Among the most famous advertisements for the company was an epic painting created by Emanuel Leutze.

The slogan was “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way with the McCormick Reapers in the Van.”

He overcame the misfortune of losing his patent fourteen years after inventing the reaper. The loss of his patent opened up competition. He became the inventor and founder of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company which eventually became International Harvester Company in 1902.

When the “Panic of 1837” occurred, he went bankrupt through the failure of banks. He sought to expand his market in 1851 by selling his machine to farmers in Europe.

He received several honors which compensated for the lack of recognition and praise from fellow Americans. In 1856, his factory produced more than four thousand reapers a year and he became world famous. McCormick was elected a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences for 'having done more for the cause of agriculture than ay other living man.' McCormick helped to introduce mechanization to the agricultural industry. His invention was responsible for harvesting more food to feed a multitude of people throughout the world. There were thirty-six countries throughout the world which produced wheat by using his Reaper. The McCormick Reaper has been described as "the liberator of the land-serf in twenty countries, and the bread-machine of one half of the human race.”

It freed workers for employment in the fledgling Industrial Revolution in America. Unfortunately, it freed men to serve in the Union Army during the Civil War. The invention of the McCormick Reaper made farming much more efficient and resulted in a global shift from farm labor to factory work in the metropolitan areas of the world. The McCormick Reaper won the Grand Medal at the Paris exhibition in 1855.

Nancy Fowler McCormick was nicknamed Nettie. Nettie was born on February 8, 1835 in Brownsville, New York. Her father, a merchant who owned a store in town was killed in an accident seven month's after Nettie was born. He was tragically killed in an accident involving a skittish horse. After his unfortunate death, her mother continued to operate the store until she died in 1842 when Nettie was seven years old. Nettie's grandmother Maria Fowler of Clayton, New York raise the little girl and her brother Eldridge.

Nettie was twenty-one years old when she became acquainted with Cyrus McCormick in 1856 while she was visiting some relatives in Chicago, Illinois. Cyrus realized that Nettie was the woman whom he wanted to marry and cherish her throughout his life. There were twenty-five years difference between Nettie and Cyrus but forty-five year old Cyrus was certain that Nettie was the one special woman in his life.

Cyrus worked hard throughout his life and made his fortune through the invention of his reaper. He was forthright with Nettie and declared to his beloved Nettie:

“I do not think there is a man in the world who would strive more to please you than I should do--no one whose disposition and manner would be more under your control and influence than mine as your husband."

Cyrus McCormick married Nancy Maria Fowler (1846-1912) on January 26, 1858. She was twenty-three years old when she chose to marry Cyrus. She gave Cyrus these children:

Cyrus Hall McCormick II (1859-1932) was born in Morristown, New Jersey.

Cyrus Hall McCormick III (1889-1970) was Nettie's grandson through Cyrus Hall McCormick II and would become Chairman of the company.

Mary Virginia McCormick (1861-1941)

Robert McCormick (1863-1910)

Anita McCormick (1866-1954) who married Emmons Blaine (1857-1892).

Alice McCormick (1870-1945)

Harold Fowler McCormick (1872–1941), married Edith Rockefeller. She was the youngest daughter of John D. Rockefeller. Their son, Harold Fowler McCormick, Jr. (1898-1973) was the great uncle of Robert R. McCormick.

Stanley F. McCormick (1874-1947) worked for the company but retired in 1906 at an early age after developing schizophrenia. Katherine, his wife was a suffragette who funded Gregory Pincus's research to develop the first birth control pill.

When her third child Robert died in 1865; Nettie blamed herself and mistakenly felt that God was punishing her for her sin of slothfulness and procrastination. Nettie struggled with feelings that God was dealing harshly with her for she had two more miscarriages and a daughter died in infancy. Two of her remaining five children became afflicted with mental illness.

Nettie earnestly sought to be a good wife and promised that she would “always sympathize with my dear husband. I will support him. I will be his guardian angel. Do as he wishes.”

Nettie was often lonely for Cyrus' business responsibilities took him away from home. She sincerely believed that duty was more honorable than enjoyment and confidentially wrote in her journal “It sounds very easy, but it is not easy to be really good--and always put forth the best effort--to study wise words, to say the right thing in the right place. This is not easy.”

Nettie was a very serious even as a child. She kept a journal of introspection, self examination and soul searching. She wondered if she too would die at a young age having lost both of her parents as a child. She was determined to make her life count for something for life was too short. She was reminded of Jesus Christ's parable of the talents which was a daily reminder to her; “to whom much is given, much will be required.”

As a child, Nettie chose to live her life in the service of God and her the people whom He brought into her life. She didn't believe that the primary goal of her life was pursuing personal happiness.

She wasn't interested in the frivolities of youth and chose to dedicate her life to daily serve her God. Her youth would not be spent not in idleness but in preparing for the business of life. This is an entry in Nettie's diary: "How my bark [boat] hurries down the dark stream of time!"

Nettie enjoyed singing in her church choir and played the melodeon. She became very active in the church thanking God for the opportunity to be in Sunday school which she attended regularly. Nettie felt the suffering which others who were less fortunate than herself experienced. At seventeen years of age, she attended the Troy Female Seminary and wrote to her brother:

"It has been very, very cold here today--Oh my heart bleeds for those who are turned out of house and home this stinging cold night."

Nettie had a deep longing to accomplish something wonderful in the service of humanity and thence scorned the fashionable pleasures enjoyed by other women in society.

"Usefulness is the great thing in life--to do something for others leaves a sweeter odor than a life of pleasure."

Nettie McCormick realized the importance of the roles of parenting in the development of a child's life. Since she had been orphaned at the age of seven; she was keen to realize the importance of these roles. She tried to be a good mother to her children and realized they would watch her learning from her example.

She and Cyrus would need to love the Christian lives for their children to see and emulate. As parents, their words and actions would shape the lives of their children.

"Now the clay is soft and the vessel may be molded for honor or dishonor."

Nettie and Cyrus McCormick required obedience from their children believing that disobedience was a flower of evil seed that lies in fallen human nature.

Cyrus McCormick was a staunch believer in Christ committed to fulfill his Lord's Great Commission. He helped D. L. Moody in 1869 by generously providing $10,000 to assist Moody in creating the Chicago Young Men's Christian Association [YMCA].

Tragically, the Chicago factory burned on October 23,1871 in the Great Fire that swept through Chicago.

It was Nettie who insisted that Cyrus rebuild the factory although he considered retiring. She became the inspiration and power behind the man who encouraged Cyrus to maintain supremacy in the manufacture of Reapers. Nettie selected the necessary building materials, consulting with architects and oversaw the construction of the new manufacturing facility. The new factory opened its doors on February 3, 1873 and as Cyrus' health declined; she assumed control over business affairs and their mutual philanthropic ventures.

McCormick donated $100,000 to finance the transfer Hanover Seminary to Chicago. In Chicago, the seminary was renamed McCormick Theological Seminary. His wife Nettie would fund the construction of buildings, furnishings and maintain the necessary repairs of the seminary as well as provide scholarships. Nettie McCormick felt that investing in young men who would preach the gospel was of utmost importance. Nettie and her sons would establish an endowment in 1905 through which the president of the seminary would receive a salary. The McCormick family generously gave a contribution of more than four million dollars to the seminary. Tusculum College of Tennessee was a southern school in the mountains which Cyrus funded. Nettie developed an interest in which she encouraged the development of curriculum to teach domestic science and manual training in schools throughout the south. Furthermore, she assisted in the establishment of Christian churches as well as Sunday schools in the south. Her desire to assist in the training of young people became the door through which she chose to support the work of John Mott as he traveled throughout the world for the Student Volunteer Movement. It was John Mott who proclaimed that Nettie was 'Christianity in action.'

This generous Christian philanthropist gifted with ability in science and technology to innovate utilized his skill to serve his fellow man. He was guided by his Calvinist faith and possessed the character traits of self-denial, sobriety, thriftiness, efficiency, and morality. His talent for high production while maintaining low consumption of resources created a surplus of wealth which he invested for the advancement of the Kingdom of God. At a very early age in his life Cyrus McCormick held the conviction that fighting hunger was a noble task of a Christian.

Cyrus McCormick owned the Herald and Times newspapers of Chicago, Illinois. He wrote numerous editorials in which he called for the North and South to reconcile with each other. He would attempt to explain the viewpoints of both side fairly and objectively. When the Civil War began he visited both sides seeking to be a peace-maker trying to “bring the severed nation back together.' McCormick proposed a peace-plan in which would be established a Board of Arbitration between the two conflicting regions of the country which would examine the causes of the conflict and identify 'a just basis on which both sides could agree to disband their armies and reestablish peace.”

Casson declared that “He actually believed that he could establish peace.” Furthermore, he was a staunch supporter of Church Unity through which he believed would strengthen those persons who worked toward peace in which he called for “mutual forbearance and the pursuit of those things which tend to peace.”

Cyrus McCormick was a pioneer in the concept of an international means by which the production and distribution of food could be controlled in an orderly manner to benefit the hungry and needy.

Cyrus McCormick sought to pass on his faith in Christ to his son before his death in 1884. His son, Cyrus Jr. became the first chairman of Moody Bible Institute. When he died Nettie realized her large fortune was a trust to be used for the Lord's work.

Nettie McCormick's generous philanthropy reached various project and interests. She financially supported an ailing wife of an Italian immigrant pastor. Furthermore, she provided funds for the dental work of a son of a director of college projects. Money was sent to the director of an orphanage in Tennessee enabling him to 'lay down' his work 'for a while and go away from home.”

Nettie generously gave generous financial gifts to educational institutions such as Moody Bible Institute and Princeton. A gift of $25,000 was given to construct the first building of Alborz College in Teheran, Iran. She send a financial gift for a hospital in Siam and for theological education in Korea. Between 1890 and 1923, Nettie McCormick donated $8 million dollars (over $160 million by today's equivalency) to hospitals, disaster and relief agencies, churches, youth activities and educational institutions. Through her gracious generosity, Nettie became the leading benefactress of the Presbyterian Church in America.

"The Glory of My Master" Nettie declared to a close confidant and friend, "Yes, money is power, as you have said, but I have always tried not to trust in it, but rather use it for the glory of my Master."

Nettie McCormick's simple faith in Jesus Christ was her strength and she became the great woman she aspired to become as a young girl.

"We plan--and God steps in with another plan for us, and He is all wise and the most loving friend we have always helping us."

Cyrus McCormick died in Chicago in 1884. Tragically, he had been an invalid during the remaining three to four months of his life. His grandson, Cyrus Hall McCormick III inherited the mantle of industrial responsibility.

Tragically the McCormick factories became the site of urban labor strikes which led to the infamous Haymarket Square Riots which occurred in 1886 two years after Cyrus' death. It has been said that the reason for the strike was that the workers were earning only $9 a week.

Eventually, Cyrus McCormick III met J. Pierpoint Morgan and became president of International Harvester Corporation.

The invention of the McCormick reaper had a profound impact upon the world economy. In Cyrus' lifetime, his Reaper was utilized in 36 wheat producing nations with a result of increasing their productivity and in contrast decreasing world hunger. The McCormick Reaper has been described as "the liberator of the land-serf in twenty countries, and the bread machine of one half of the human race.” The positive result of utilizing the McCormick Reaper was a substantial decrease in the cost of bread which enabled more people to purchase basic food stuff.

The introduction of the McCormick Reaper became the introduction of the mechanization of agriculture. He perfected a mechanical farm instrument and established a corporation from the marketing and sale of his machines.

Cyrus McCormick hated hunger and eliminating hunger became his life's work.

“He picked up the task of feeding the hungry masses – the Christly task that had lain unfulfilled for eighteen centuries, and led the way in organizing it into a system of international reciprocity.”

Cyrus McCormick and Abraham Lincoln were both born in 1809 and on farms in the south. They struggled through the youth in adversity and both came to prominence in Illinois. Both Cyrus McCormick and Abraham Lincoln sought to preserve the Union. It was the McCormick Reaper which enabled Abraham Lincoln to feed his army throughout the Civil War. McCormick and Lincoln were both emancipators: one freed us from famine and hunger while the other freed men from slavery. McCormick and Lincoln are both buried in Illinois. These two men would bear heavy tasked and both worked diligently for the common good of mankind.

Cotton Mather's Life of William Bradford

2011-11-21T22:31:00.001-08:00

Excerpts from the Magnalia Christi Americana

…And the Lord accordingly brought them at last safe unto their desired haven: and not long after helped their distressed relations thither after them, where indeed they found upon almost all accounts a new world, but a world in which they found that they must live like strangers and pilgrims.

Among those devout people was our William Bradford, who was born Anno Domini 1588(9), in an obscure village called Austerfield, where the people were as un-acquainted with the Bible, as the Jews do seem to have been with part of it in the days of Josiah; a most ignorant and licentious people, and like unto their priest. Here, and in some other places, he had a com-fortable inheritance left him of his honest parents, who died while he was yet a child, and cast him on the education, first of his grand parents, and then of his uncles, who devoted him, like his ancestors, unto the affairs of husbandry. Soon a long sickness kept him, as he would afterwards thankfully say, from the vanities of youth, and made him the fitter for what he was afterwards to undergo. When he was about a dozen years old, the reading of the Scriptures began to cause great impressions upon him; and those impressions were much assisted and improved, when he came to enjoy Mr. Richard Clifton’s illuminating ministry, not far from his abode; he was then also further befriended, by being brought into the company and fellowship of such as were then called professors; though the young man that brought him into it did after become a prophane and wicked apostate. Nor could the wrath of his uncles, nor the scoff of his neigh-bours, now turned upon him, as one of the Puritans, divert him from his pious inclinations.

At last, beholding how fearfully the evangelical and apostolical church-form, whereinto the churches of the primitive times were cast by the good spirit of God, had been deformed by the apostacy of the succeeding times; and what little progress the Reformation had yet made in many parts of Christendom towards its recovery, he set himself by reading, by discourse, by prayer, to learn whether it was not his duty to withdraw from the communion of the parish-assemblies, and engage with some Society of the faithful, that should keep close unto the written word of God, as the rule of their worship. And after many distresses of mind concerning it, he took up a very deliberate and understanding resolution, of doing so; which resolution he cheerfully prosecuted, although the provoked rage of his friends tried all the ways imaginable to reclaim him from it, unto all of whom his answer was:

“Were I like to endanger my life, or consume my estate by ungodly courses, your counsels to me were very seasonable; but you know that I have been diligent and provident in my calling, and not only desirous to augment what I have, but also to enjoy it in your company; to part from which will be as great a cross as can befall me. Nevertheless, to keep a good conscience, and walk in such a way as God has prescribed in his Word, is a thing which I must prefer before you all, and above life itself. Wherefore, since ’tis for a good cause that I am like to suffer the disasters which you lay before me, you have no cause to be either angry with me, or sorry for me; yea, I am not only willing to part with everything that is dear to me in this world for this cause, but I am also thankful that God has given me an heart to do, and will accept me so to suffer for him.

Some lamented him, some derided him, all dissuaded him: nevertheless, the more they did it, the more fixed he was in his purpose to seek the ordinances of the gospel, where they should be dispensed with most of the commanded purity; and the sudden deaths of the chief relations which thus lay at him, quickly after convinced him what a folly it had been to have quitted his profession, in expectation of any satisfaction from them. So to Holland he attempted a removal.

Having with a great company of Christians hired a ship to transport them for Holland, the master perfidiously betrayed them into hands of those persecutors, who rifled and ransacked their goods, and clapped their persons into prison at Boston, where they lay for a month together. But Mr. Bradford being a young man of about eighteen, was dismissed sooner than the rest, so that within a while he had opportunity with some others to get over to Zealand, through perils, both by land and sea not inconsiderable; where he was not long ashore ere a viper seized on his hand – that is, an officer – who carried him unto the magistrates, unto whom an envious passenger had accused him as having fled out of England. When the magistrates understood the true cause of his coming thither, they were well satisfied with him; and so he repaired joyfully unto his brethren at Amsterdam, where the difficulties to which he afterwards stooped in learning and serving of a Frenchman at the working of silks, were abundantly compensated by the delight wherewith he sat under the shadow of our Lord, in his purely dispensed ordinances. At the end of two years, he did, being of age to do it, convert his estate in England into money; but setting up for himself, he found some of his designs by the providence of God frowned upon, which he judged a correction bestowed by God upon him for certain decays of internal piety, whereinto he had fallen; the consumption of his estate he thought came to prevent a consumption in his virtue. But after he had resided in Holland about half a score years, he was one of those who bore a part in that hazardous and generous enterprise of removing into New-England, with part of the English church at Leyden, where, at their first landing, his dearest consort accidentally falling overboard, was drowned in the harbour; and the rest of his days were spent in the services, and temptations, of that American wilderness.

Here was Mr. Bradford, in the year 1621, unanimously chosen the governour of the plantation: the difficulties whereof were such, that if he had not been a person of more than ordinary piety, wisdom and courage, he must have sunk under them. He had, with a laudable industry, been laying up a treasure of experience, and he had now occasion to use it: indeed, nothing but an experienced man could have been suitable to the necessities of the people The potent nations of the Indians, into whose country they were come, would have cut them off, if the blessing of God upon his conduct had not quelled them; and if his prudence, justice and moderation had not over-ruled them, they had been ruined by their own distempers…

For two years together after the beginning of the colony, whereof he was not governour, the poor people had a great experiment of “man’s not living by bread alone;” for when they were left all together without one morsel of bread for many months one after another, still the good providence of God relieved them, and supplied them, and this for the most part out of the sea. In this low condition of affairs, there was no little exercise for the prudence and patience of the governour, who cheerfully bore his part in all: and, that industry might not flag, he quickly set himself to settle propriety among the new-planters, they had sunk under the burden of these difficulties; but our Bradford had a double portion of that spirit…

The leader of a people in a wilderness had need to be a Moses; and if a Moses had not led the people of Plymouth Colony, when this worthy person was their governour, the people had never with so much unanimity and importunity still called him to lead them. Among many instances thereof, let this one piece of self-denial be told for a memorial of him, wheresoever this history shall be considered: The Patent of the Colony was taken in his name, running in these terms: “To William Bradford, his heirs, associates and assigns.” But when the number of freemen was much increased, and many new townships erected, the General Court there desired of Mr. Bradford, that he would make a surrender of the same into their hands, which he willingly and presently assented unto, and confirmed it according to their desire by his hand and seal, reserving no more for himself than was his proportion, with others, by agreement. But as he found the providence of Heaven many ways recompensing his many acts of self-denial, so he gave this testimony to the faithfulness of the divine promises: “That he had forsaken friends, houses and lands for the sake of the gospel, and the Lord gave them him again.” Here he prospered in his estate; and besides a worthy son which he had by a former wife, he had also two sons and a daughter by another, whom he married in this land.

He was a person for study as well as action; and hence, notwithstanding the difficulties through which he passed in his youth, he attained unto a notable skill in languages: the Dutch tongue was become almost as vernacular to him as the English; the French tongue he could also manage; the Latin and the Greek he had mastered; but the Hebrew he most of all studied, “Because,” he said, “he would see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in their native beauty.” He was also well skilled in History, in Antiquity, and in Philosophy; and for Theology he became so versed in it, that he was an irrefragable disputant against the errors, especially those of Anabaptism, which with trouble he saw rising in his colony; wherefore he wrote some significant things for the confutation of those errors. But the crown of all was his holy, prayerful, watchful, and fruitful walk with God, wherein he was very exemplary.

At length he fell into an indisposition of body, which rendered him unhealthy for a whole winter; and as the spring advanced, his health yet more declined; yet he felt himself not what he counted sick, till one day; in the night after which, the God of heaven so filled his mind with ineffable consolations, that he seemed little short of Paul, rapt up unto the unutterable, entertainments of Paradise. The next morning he told his friends, “That the good Spirit of God had given him a pledge of his happiness in another world, and the first-fruits of his eternal glory;” and on the day following he died, May 9, 1657, in the 69th year of his age – lamented by all the colonies of New-England, as a common blessing and father to them all.
Men are but flocks: Bradford beheld their need,
And long did them at once both rule and feed.

(The epitaph of Governour William Bradford)

“Let the Right Hand of the Lord Awake!”

National Thanksgiving Proclamation - 1795

2011-11-21T20:26:00.001-08:00

President George Washington issued theNational Thanksgiving Proclamation on January 1, 1795.

“It is an especial manner our dutyas a people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, toacknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God, and toimplore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experienced.

Deeply penetrated with this sentiment,I, George Washington, President of the United States, do recommend toall religious societies and denominations, and to all personswhomsoever within the United States, to set apart and observeThursday, the 19^th day of February next, as a day ofpublic thanksgiving and prayer,

and on that day to meet together andrender sincere and hearty thanks to the great Ruler of nations forthe manifold and signal mercies which distinguish our lot as anation;

particularly for the possession ofconstitutions of government which unite and, by their union.Establish liberty with order; for the preservation of our peace,foreign and domestic; for the reasonable control which has been givento a spirit of disorder in the suppression of the late insurrection,and generally for the prosperous condition of our affairs, public andprivate,

and at the same time humbly andfervently beseech the kind Author of these blessings graciously toprolong them to us;

to imprint on our hearts a deep andsolemn sense of our obligations to Him for them; to teach us rightlyto estimate their immense value; to preserve us from the arrogance ofprosperity, and from hazarding the advantages we enjoy by delusivepursuits,

to dispose us to merit the continuanceof His favors by not abusing them, by our gratitude for them, and bya corresponding conduct as citizens and as men to render this countrymore and more a safe and propitious asylum for the unfortunate ofother countries; to extend among us true and useful knowledge.

To diffuse and establish habits ofsobriety, order, and morality and piety, and finally to impart allthe blessings we possess or ask for ourselves to the whole family ofmankind.

In testimony whereof, I have causedthe seal of the United States of America to be affixed to thesepresents, and signed the same with my hand. Done at the city ofPhiladelphia the first day of January 1795.”

George Washington

Zorach v. Clauson – United States Supreme Court

2011-11-21T19:56:00.001-08:00

In 1952, Justice William O Douglasdelivered the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the caseof Zorach v. Clauson, 343 US 306 307 313.

“The First Amendment, however doesnot say that in every respect there shall be a separation of Churchand State. Rather, it studiously defines the manner, the specificways, in which there shall be no concert or union or dependency oneon the other.

That is the common sense of thematter. Otherwise the state and religion would be aliens to eachother – hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly....

Municipalities would not be permittedto render police or fire protection to religious groups. Policemenwho helped parishioners into their places of worship would violatethe Constitution. Prayers in our legislative halls; the appeals tothe Almighty in the messages of the Chief Executive; the proclamationmaking Thanksgiving Day a holiday; 'so help me God' in our courtroomoaths – these and all other references to the Almighty that runthrough our laws, our public rituals, our ceremonies, would beflouting the First Amendment. A fastidious atheist or agnostic couldeven object to the supplication with which the Court opens eachsession: God save the United States and this Honorable Court.'”

We are a religious people and ourinstitutions presuppose a Supreme Being...When the state encouragesreligious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities byadjusting the schedule of public events to sectarian needs, itfollows the best of our traditions.

For it then respects the religiousnature of our people and accommodates the public service to theirspiritual needs. To hold that it may not would be to find in theConstitution a requirement that the government show a callousindifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those whobelieve in no religion over those who do believe...

We find no constitutional requirementmakes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion and tothrow its weight against the efforts to widen the scope of religiousinfluence. The government must remain neutral when it comes tocompetition between sects...

We cannot read into the Bill of Rightssuch a philosophy of hostility to religion.”

Second Annual National Day of Thanksgiving - 1864

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President Abraham Lincoln, on October21, 1864, issued the second annual Day of National Thanksgivingwhich was observed on the lastThursday of November.

“AsI do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid, that on thatoccasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust, and fromthence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to thegreat Disposer of events for a return of the inestimable blessings ofpeace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleasedHim to assign as a dwelling-place for ourselves and for our posteritythroughout all generations.”

First Annual National Day of Thanksgiving - 1863

2011-11-20T23:03:00.001-08:00

A formal proclamation of the firstannual National Day of Thanksgiving passed by an Act of Congress wasissued by President Abraham Lincoln on October 3, 1863.

“No human counsel hath devised, norhath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are thegracious gifts of the most high God, who, while dealing with us inanger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy...

I do, therefore, invite my fellowcitizens in every part of the United States, and those who aresojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the lastThursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to ourbeneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens...[It is] announced inthe Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations areblessed whose God is the Lord...It has seemed to me fit and properthat God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged,as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people.”

Abraham Lincoln

National Fast Day – March 30, 1863

2011-11-20T22:48:00.001-08:00

President Abraham Lincoln issued anhistoric Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day onMarch 30, 1863.

“Whereas,the Senate of the United States devoutly recognizing the SupremeAuthority and just Government of Almighty God in all the affairs ofmen and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President todesignate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation:

Andwhereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own theirdependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sinsand transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope thatgenuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognizethat sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven byall history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is theLord:

And,insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individualsare subjected to punishments and chastisement in the world, may wenot justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which nowdesolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for ourpresumptuous sins to the needful end of our national reformation as awhole people?

Wehave been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We havebeen preserved there many years in peace and prosperity. We havegrown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

Butwe have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand whichpreserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthenedus; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts,that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom andvirtue of our own.

Intoxicatedwith unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel thenecessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to theGod that made us!
Itbehooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, toconfess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now,therefore, in compliance with the request and fully concurring in theview of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and setapart Thursday, the 30^thday of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting andprayer.

I dohereby request all the people to abstain on that day from theirordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places ofpublic worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy tothe Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious dutiesproper to that solemn occasion.

Allthing being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly inthe hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry ofthe nation will be heard on high and answered with blessing no lessthan the pardon of our national sins and the restorations of our nowdivided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unityand peace.

Inwitness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal ofthe United States to be affixed. By the President: Abraham Lincoln

Richard Henry Lee 1732 – 1794

2011-11-20T22:20:00.001-08:00

RichardHenry Lee (1732-1794) was a member of the Virginia House ofBurgesses, a delegate to the First Continental Congress, a signer ofthe Declaration of Independence, and a United States Senator.

TheJournals of Congress recordthat Richard Henry Lee, Samuel Adams, and General Daniel Roberdeaurecommended a resolution on November 1, 1777. The resolution was toset apart:

“Thursday,the 18^thof December next, for solemn thanksgiving and praise, that with oneheart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelingsof their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of theirDivine Benefactor; and that, together with their sincereacknowledgments and offerings, they may join the penitent confessionof their manifold sins, whereby they had forfeited every favor, andtheir humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, throughthe merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them outof remembrance.”