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Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805v. 1
Volume 1 & 2 set. Volume 1 is like new, it has no markings. Volume 2 is also in excellent condition but has some underlining
- GenresPolitics
1000 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1998
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May 16, 2021
Was America founded as a Christian nation? From the elite viewpoint (that of the Founding Fathers), it wasn't really--in creating the Constitution, the Founders were more influenced by political philosophy and history than by Christianity. Religiously, the Founders were also, generally speaking, more inclined towards Deism than either traditional or Evangelical Christianity. For political discourse, however, and for the population at large, Christianity was a primary influence. In Donald S. Lutz's study of the political literature of 1760-1805, he found that the Bible was *the* most cited book (followed by Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws), counting for a third of citations. And over 80% of the politically relevant pamphlets published in the 1770s and 1780s were either reprinted sermons or essays written by ministers. The story of America's founding cannot therefore be fully told without including the significant influence of Christianity.
The compilation of political sermons in this two-volume work gives a representative sample of these sermons as well as a few essays written by ministers. In this review, I will note some of the sermons and themes I found most interesting for the first volume - with a separate review written for the sermons and themes of volume two.
I found Elisha William's sermon "The Essential Rights and Liberties of Protestants" noteworthy for representing the minister's preaching of Lockean thought on government and the rights of man - a key theme repeated either briefly or at further length in many other sermons. The key themes of the state of nature, the rights of property, government as a contract to defend the rights of the people, are explained in what almost constitutes direct quotations from Locke. The sermon then goes on to explain another key theme of the time - the separation of church and state. As repeated throughout these sermons, the combination of temporal and spiritual power in Christian history was viewed as a corruption of both, and Christianity and the rights of conscience are better protected when church and state are separated.
The sermons of the 176os and 1770s I find particularly interesting as they represent the religious response to the events of the American Revolution - as well as representing the role of the minister in encouraging and promoting the revolution itself. (I actually wish there had been more of a focused selection on the sermons of the 1770s here). It's interesting to see the progression from sermons reverencing the King to sermons speaking against Parliament but not the King to sermons speaking against both Parliament and the King. In one sermon, the minister goes so far in professing the loyalty of America to Great Britain as to say that "There never was an American Jacobite, the very air of America is death to such monsters, never any grew there, and if any are transported, or import themselves, loss of speech always attends them" (p. 296).
The protestations against British tyranny don't always read well considering the tyranny the Americans themselves held over African Americans. The heavy rhetoric of liberty against tyranny over some relatively minor tax increases ring sometimes hollow when coming from people who themselves held actual slaves. Jonathan Mayhew's comment in a sermon responding to the repeal of the Stamp Act was particularly irksome: that with this repeal, "even our slaves rejoice, as tho' they had received their manumission" (p. 251).
A couple of other sermons/pamphlets that stood out to me: Samuel Sherwood's "The Church's Flight into the Wilderness," which explains how the American Revolution fulfills Revelation chapter 12, and the 1782 "A Dialogue Between the Devil, and George III, Tyrant of Britain" (Anonymous, and not actually a sermon), a fun and satirical read. It was also interesting to read John Wesley's "A Calm Address to Our American Colonies," which defended the British Government's policies vis-à-vis America. As Sandoz notes, the reason Methodism in America was not more adversely affected by this pamphlet is likely because the copies that arrived were destroyed by American Methodists themselves.
The compilation of political sermons in this two-volume work gives a representative sample of these sermons as well as a few essays written by ministers. In this review, I will note some of the sermons and themes I found most interesting for the first volume - with a separate review written for the sermons and themes of volume two.
I found Elisha William's sermon "The Essential Rights and Liberties of Protestants" noteworthy for representing the minister's preaching of Lockean thought on government and the rights of man - a key theme repeated either briefly or at further length in many other sermons. The key themes of the state of nature, the rights of property, government as a contract to defend the rights of the people, are explained in what almost constitutes direct quotations from Locke. The sermon then goes on to explain another key theme of the time - the separation of church and state. As repeated throughout these sermons, the combination of temporal and spiritual power in Christian history was viewed as a corruption of both, and Christianity and the rights of conscience are better protected when church and state are separated.
The sermons of the 176os and 1770s I find particularly interesting as they represent the religious response to the events of the American Revolution - as well as representing the role of the minister in encouraging and promoting the revolution itself. (I actually wish there had been more of a focused selection on the sermons of the 1770s here). It's interesting to see the progression from sermons reverencing the King to sermons speaking against Parliament but not the King to sermons speaking against both Parliament and the King. In one sermon, the minister goes so far in professing the loyalty of America to Great Britain as to say that "There never was an American Jacobite, the very air of America is death to such monsters, never any grew there, and if any are transported, or import themselves, loss of speech always attends them" (p. 296).
The protestations against British tyranny don't always read well considering the tyranny the Americans themselves held over African Americans. The heavy rhetoric of liberty against tyranny over some relatively minor tax increases ring sometimes hollow when coming from people who themselves held actual slaves. Jonathan Mayhew's comment in a sermon responding to the repeal of the Stamp Act was particularly irksome: that with this repeal, "even our slaves rejoice, as tho' they had received their manumission" (p. 251).
A couple of other sermons/pamphlets that stood out to me: Samuel Sherwood's "The Church's Flight into the Wilderness," which explains how the American Revolution fulfills Revelation chapter 12, and the 1782 "A Dialogue Between the Devil, and George III, Tyrant of Britain" (Anonymous, and not actually a sermon), a fun and satirical read. It was also interesting to read John Wesley's "A Calm Address to Our American Colonies," which defended the British Government's policies vis-à-vis America. As Sandoz notes, the reason Methodism in America was not more adversely affected by this pamphlet is likely because the copies that arrived were destroyed by American Methodists themselves.
Displaying 1 of 1 review