Our guest author, Dr. David W. Hall, has set himself a difficult task today in considering this sermon by the Rev. Benjamin M. Palmer. Looking past the grievous aspects of this sermon, namely Palmer’s brief defense of race-based slavery, we have here an effort to discover what profit there might be in this sermon, to sift it such that we can consider Palmer’s argument apart from what would otherwise cause us to cast it aside, unread. This presentation also puts a high demand upon the reader, to engage with our author in considering a work that would otherwise be most disagreeable. And ultimately, we also have to grapple with the question of how could men like Palmer, who knew the Scriptures far better than most today, and who spoke so convincingly of their faith in Christ as Savior and Lord, still be so wrong on such a rudimentary issue? How too do we avoid the sin of pride in thinking ourselves superior? Were these deeply flawed men alive today, would they be aghast at how we live our lives while claiming the name of Christian?

“National Responsibility Before God”
by Benjamin Palmer  (June 13, 1861)

The impressive pastor in the West in the mid-19th century was Benjamin Morgan Palmer (1818-1902). He had been trained at Amherst, the University of Georgia, and Columbia SC) Theological Seminary. Prior to moving to New Orleans in 1856 (until his death in 1902), Palmer had pastored in Savannah and Charleston (1843-1856) at large churches. Palmer, the Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in New Orleans, LA, preached this sermon on a Fast Day declared by the Confederate States in 1861.

He viewed a day of fasting and repenting as both biblical and necessary. Selecting 2 Chronicles 6:34 as his text, he obviously thought that the American south was in a position parallel to the earlier Hebrew republic, employing raw language from the outset: “Our late Confederates, denying us the right of self-government, have appealed to the sword and threaten to extinguish this right in our blood. Eleven tribes sought to go forth in peace from the house of political bondage: but the heart of our modern Pharaoh is hardened, that he will not let Israel go.” Not only was the sectarian division grievous to Palmer, but he also called for repentance for intemperance, Sabbath-breaking, and other sins.

His message was thus divided into these headers.

1. We bewail then, in the first place, the fatal error of our Fathers in not making a clear national recognition of God at the outset of the nation’s career. Palmer lamented the ignoring of the previous centuries that valued religion and warned against a “perilous atheism.”
2. We have sinned against God in the idolatry of our history, and in the boastful spirit it has naturally begotten. “Never,” Palmer preached, “was such a debt of gratitude for providential blessings contracted by any people, as that due to God from the American nation. He further condemned the intolerance brought against those who would not pronounce the “Shibboleth of Federalism.”
3. Another form of national sin has been a too great devotion to party, coupled with the flagrant abuse of the elective franchise. Democracy itself, he knew, was “the utopia of dreams.” With rhetorical panache, this pulpit prince summoned: “For the love of God and Country, let us strive to bring back the purer days of the republic: when honest merit waited, like Cincinnatus at his plow, to be called forth for service, and before noisy candidates cried their wares at the hustings like fishwomen in the market—when a ribald press did not thrust its obtrusive gaze into the sanctities of private life, and the road to office did not lead through the pillory of public abuse and scandal—and when the votes of the people only expressed their virtuous and unbiased will.”
4. As a nation, we have sinned in a grievous want of reverence for the authority and majesty of law. On this sin, he inveighed: “In a republic, the sovereign is the people; and the laws they obey are the expressions of their own will. To trample upon these is, therefore, to trail their own sovereignty in the mire, to abdicate their own power, to extinguish the national life by shameful felo-de-se.”
5. As a people, we have been distinguished by a groveling devotion to merely material interests. He elaborated this way: “A nation loses its tone when it becomes intensely utilitarian. When noble deeds are weighed in the scales of merchandise; and expediency stands behind its counter to measure off virtue . . . and weigh honor by the pound avoirdupois. The American devotion to material interests is by no means inexplicable.”

Whether one agrees with all aspects of this interpretation or not, the rhetoric was stirring.

In conclusion, permit me to say that the present is by far the most important and glorious struggle through which the nation has ever passed. The parallel which has been drawn between it and the contest of the Revolution has not been seen in its full significance by many even of those who have suggested it; certainly not by those who have derided it in terms of measureless contempt. The principles involved in this conflict are broader and deeper than those which underlay that of the Revolution, rendering it of far greater significance to us and to our posterity and to mankind at large. Our fathers fought for no abstract rights as men, but for chartered rights as Englishmen. They claimed that the fundamental principle of English liberty was invaded, when the Colonies were taxed without representation. They were abundantly able to pay the duty which was stamped upon the Royal paper, and the tax levied upon the tea which they threw into the harbor of Boston: but they were not able to submit to any infraction of their Constitutional rights.

Palmer admired those who “resisted unto blood,” and made this distinction: “But our Revolution rests upon the broader principle laid as the corner stone of the American Constitution: ‘that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; and that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was formed, it is the right of the People to alter, or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.’

The crucial issue of the day, as he saw it, “which now unites our whole population as the heart of one man, is whether ten millions of people have not the inherent right to institute such a government, ‘as to them shall seem most likely to secure their safety and happiness.’” Palmer asserted that the denial of that self-government “lays the foundation of a despotism under which we cannot consent to live, for it was distinctly repudiated in the Declaration of 1776.”

His wording was designed to stir the souls of his listeners:

We should be unworthy of our Fathers, if we flinched from maintaining to the last extremity the one, great, cardinal principle of American constitutional freedom. I could perhaps manage to live, if Providence had so ordained, under the despotism of the Czar, for it is not wholly irresponsible: the order of the Nobles would be interposed between me and the absolute will of the Autocrat. I could perhaps submit even to the Turk; for he is held in check by fear of his own Janizaries. But I will not—so help me God!—I never will submit to the despotism of the mob. It is not the occupant of the White House who is the tyrant of today; but the starving millions behind the throne. Hence the wild outburst of revenge and hate, which now astonishes the world. . . . May a merciful God help them of the North! They have sowed the wind, they must reap the whirlwind. They cannot retrieve the past, they must drive on and meet the future: perhaps to experience the fate of Acteon, and be eaten up by their own hounds.

Palmer, while lamenting the division of the nation into two states was not surprised in view of the preceding half century of legislative and political struggle. Further sounding the good predestinarian that he was, Palmer concluded: “The separation of North and South was as surely decreed of God, and has as certainly been accomplished by the outworking of great moral causes, as was the separation of the Colonies from their English mother; as the genesis of the modern nations of Europe, out of the destruction of ancient Rome. In effecting this separation, the most glorious opportunity has been missed of demonstrating the power of our Republican principles, the progress of American civilization, and the effective control of the Gospel over human passions. In past ages, the sword has been the universal arbiter, and every issue has been submitted to the ordeal of battle.”

This Fast day sermon is available online at: http://cdm.bostonathenaeum.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16057coll14/id/87325. It is also published in my 2012 Election Sermons on Kindle.

By Dr. David W. Hall, Pastor
Midway Presbyterian Church

Taken from Twenty Messages to Consider Before Voting

“Defensive Arms Vindicated”
by Stephen Case (June 17, 1782)

Stephen Case’s 1783 “Defensive Arms Vindicated” alluded to John Knox, even citing specific page numbers.[1] In  Case’s same sermon, Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex was cited twice (once with reference to Rutherford’s original Question 32 about warrant for popular revolt), as was the later Jus Populi.[2]

At the outset, Case pays tribute to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense for having had some value; however, he did not believe that a sufficient apologetic had been proffered for resistance, armed if necessary. As a first principle, he believed that “self preservation and defence is right and lawful, because it is congenite [ed., consistent] with, and irradicated in every nature that hath a self which it can preserve.” The battles on American soil would not have been as protracted, he thought, had it not been for “monsters in nature [who] are malignant in religion; and as great perverters of the law of nature as they are subverters of municipal laws, and everters of the laws of God.”

He defended the patience of Americans, but asserts that when they finally took up arms—after many petitions and peaceful efforts—they merely followed the patterns of other nations. To buttress this line of argument, he drew upon the well-known political disciples of Calvin. Case (although the original oration was delivered in June 1782 and unsigned, except by “a Moderate Whig”) esteemed Rutherford’s work as “unanswerable,” and viewed these Scottish authors as “learned patrons and champions for this excellent privilege [armed resistance] of mankind.” He also cited Westminster Assembly member Stephen Marshall’s “Meroz Cursed” sermon.[3]

He thought it a duty—unless his peers were “Passive slaves”—to resist tyranny whenever one is “by a good providence of God, called thereunto; and this we must do, if we would not be found betrayers of the liberties of our country and brethren, together with the ruin of our poor posterity, which, if we should neglect to do, we shall be instruments of delivering up these inestimable blessings into the devouring jaws of tyranny; which if we should be tame enough to do, shall we not bring on us the curse of Meroz and the curse of our brethren’s blood, crying for vengeance on the heads of the shedders thereof, and upon all who being in a capacity came not to their rescue.”

He outlined his argument as below—interestingly, in a fashion typical to the Reformers. One may see the fine distinctions in this as logically similar to a Just War argument.

• I do allow that the ordinance of majestracy, which is of God, is not to be resisted; no, not so much as by disobedience or non-obedience; nay, not so much as mentally, by cursing in the heart, Eccles. x. 20. But a person clothed therewith, abusing his power, may be so far resisted; but tyrants, or magistrates turning tyrants, are not God’s ordinances; and there is no hazard of damnation for refusing to obey their unjust commands; but rather, the hazard of that is in walking willingly after the commandment, when the statutes of Omri are kept . . .
• I do allow that rebellion is a damnable sin, except where the word is taken in a lax sense, as Israel of old is said to have rebelled against Rehoboam, and good Hezekiah against Senacherib, which was a good rebellion and a clear duty. Being taken there for resistance and revolt, in this sense, the Americans rising in arms may be called rebellion, for it is right and lawful, to all intents and purposes, to rebel against tyrants, as all are who offer, or attempt, to govern contrary to the laws of the land; for where law ceases, tyranny begins. But because the word is generally taken in an evil sense, many do not make the proper distinction between a lawful rebellion against tyrants, and an unlawful one against lawful authority.
• I do allow passive subjection, in some cases, even to tyrants, when the Lord lays on that yoke; . . . but I do not say passive obedience, which is a mere chimera, invented in the brains of such sycophants and jack asses as would make the world slaves to tyrants. Whosoever suffereth, if he can shun it, is an enemy to his own being, and is a first cousin to a self-murderer; for every natural thing must strive to preserve itself against what annoyeth it; and also, he sins against the order of God who, in vain, hath ordained so many lawful means for the preservation of our being, if we suffer it to be destroyed, having power to help it.
• I do abhor all war of subjects, professedly declared against a lawful king, who governs and rules according to law; as also all war against lawful authority, founded upon, or designed for maintaining principles inconsistent with government, or against policy and piety; . . .
• I do disallow all war, without real necessity and great wrongs sustained; and that it ought not to be declared or undertaken upon supposed grounds, or pretended causes; and so the question is impertinently stated by the tories, whether or not it be lawful for subjects, or a party of them, when they think themselves injured, or to be in a capacity, to resist or oppose the supreme power of a nation?
• I condemn all rising to revenge private injuries, whereby a country may be covered with blood, for some petty wrongs done to some persons great or small. I also abhor all revengeful usurping of the magistrates sword, to avenge ourselves for personal injuries . . .
• I do also disclaim all rising in arms for trifles of our own things, or small injuries done to ourselves, but in a case of pure necessity, for the preservation of our lives, religion, laws, and liberties, when all that is dear to us as men and christians, are in hazard. So I am not for rising in arms to force any people to be of any particular religion, but to defend my own, and my country’s religion and liberties, from unjust force and violence, against kings and tyrants, that may encroach thereon.
• Further from the rules of government it may be argued several ways. First. That power which is contrary to law, evil and tyrannical, can tie none to subjection; but if it oblige to any thing, it ties to resistance. But the power of a king against law, religion, and liberty, is a power contrary to law, evil and tyrannical, therefore, &c.
• From the very end and true design of government, which must be acknowledged by all to be the glory of God and the good of mankind; yea all that have been either wise or honest have always held that the safety of the people is the supreme law
• From the obedience required to government it may be argued thus: First. If we may flee from tyrants then we may resist them; but we may flee from tyrants therefore we may resist them.
• From the resistance allowed in all governments, it may be argued thus: If it be duty to defend our religion, lives and liberties, against an invading army of cut throats, Turks, Tartars, &c. without or against the king’s warrant, then of course, it is and must be duty to defend the same against home bred tyrants, except we would subscribe ourselves home born slaves;
• The 12th point, with 18 subpoints may be considered, if the reader wishes to see more of this sermon. Available online at: http://www.consource.org/document/defensive-arms-vindicated-by-stephen-case-presumably-1782-6-17/

A printed version is also available in Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805 (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991).

At one point, citing the massive On the Republic by Bodin, Case’s summary seems ineluctable: “If a king turn tyrant, he may lawfully, at his subjects request, be invaded, resisted, condemned, or slain by a foreign prince”—hence, if a “foreign prince may lawfully help a people, oppressed by their own sovereign, then people may resist themselves, if they be able; but the former is true, therefore the latter. The consequence cannot be denied, for foreigners have no more power or authority over another sovereign, than the people have themselves.”

Both full of Scripture and full of references to political history, this is one of the sturdiest messages of the period. And the relief behind this political sculpture is the history of Calvinistic political thought.

The panels of Geneva’s Reformation wall monument are all represented in this homily. This single sermon contained references to Knox (three times), George Buchanan (twice), William of Orange, Admiral Coligny, the French Huguenots;[4] and to cap off the Hall of Fame, Case even referred to one of Peter Martyr’s commentaries.[5] Thus, not only were the ideas of the Reformers still vital, but their writings were deemed authoritative enough to be cited in popular religious discourse several centuries later.[6]

Sounding very similar notes to Calvin’s earlier political melodies, Case asserted that private citizens were not justified in seeking revenge, but that self-defense was a “privilege of nature,” not an act usurping rightful jurisdiction. He summarized his thesis this way: “all laws permit force to be repelled by force; and the great and first law of nature allows self-defense.”[7] Case’s history of resistance holds forth many of the same examples as the works of Beza, Buchanan, and Knox. Case clearly knew Reformation sources very well. He brought up the 1550 Magdeburg Confession (relied upon by Knox, Calvin, Beza, and others) as teaching that resistance was permitted [meaningless] whenever Caesar should attempt “to root out religion, and subvert our liberties.”[8]

By Dr. David W. Hall, Pastor
Midway Presbyterian Church

Taken from Twenty Messages to Consider Before Voting

[1] Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805 (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), 756, 673.

[2] Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805 (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), 720, 755, 731, 758.

[3] Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805 (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), 721, 759. Nathaniel Whitaker also drew on this text for his 1777 sermon (which was dedicated to George Washington), “An Antidote Against Toryism.” See Daniel C. Palm, ed., On Faith and Free Government (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), 154.

[4] Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805 (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), 722, 724, 749.

[5] Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805 (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), 756. The reference is to Martyr’s commentary on 2 Chronicles.

[6] Harry S. Stout, The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 259-281 provides an excellent survey of the impact of sermons during the critical 1764-1776 period.

[7] Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805 (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), 726.

[8] Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805 (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), 748.

We are pleased to have guest author Dr. David W. Hall back with us today in another of the Election Day Sermon series. We are also pleased to announced that many of these messages have been gathered into a book which will soon be available. The book is titled TWENTY MESSAGES TO CONSIDER BEFORE VOTING. Commending this new volume, Rev. Joel Beeke writes that “The eighteenth century was an age of revolution, and the pulpits of American churches were not silent on issues of national import. David Hall allows us to hear again the vigorous voices of our forefathers, who distinguished between church and state yet called for civil government that fears the Lord and turns away from evil. This book is must reading for our critical times.”

“The Republic of the Israelites, An Example to the American States”
by Samuel Langdon (June 5, 1788)

Samuel Langdon (1723-1797) graduated from Harvard in 1740 (along with Samuel Adams). After serving as a chaplain and as a pastor, Langdon became Harvard’s President in 1774, two years before the Declaration. He also was a delegate to the New Hampshire state convention in 1788. His sermon, “The Republic of the Israelites, An Example to the American States,” drawing heavily on the Old Testament and preached as an election day sermon to the New Hampshire legislature in 1788, is an example of the vitality of Calvinism at the founding of America.

Calvinistic and Old Testament (OT) themes are prominent in Langdon’s sermon. In good Calvinistic form, he spied a full-blown republic in the OT. He maintained that “the national senate was instituted for the assistance of Moses as captain-general and judge of the nation, and this was a plain intimation that in all succeeding times such a senate was necessary for the assistance of the supreme magistrate.” Langdon also based the appointment of courts and effective judicial administration on OT models.

He continued: “A government, thus settled on republican principles, required laws; . . . But God did not leave a people, wholly unskilled in legislation, to make laws for themselves: he took this important matter wholly into his own hands, and beside the moral laws of the two tables, which directed their conduct as individuals, gave them by Moses a complete code of judicial laws.” In many respects, this formulation was hardly changed at all from the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641.

Similar to the post-Reformation tracts by Calvin’s disciples, Langdon traced the contested history of republican evolution, arguing that Greek models of government paled in comparison to the Hebrew originals. Even the pinnacle of Greek republicanism was “far from being worthy to be compared with the laws of Israel, as to the security of life, liberty, property, and public morals.” While elective power belonged to the people, Langdon affirmed, in good Calvinistic style, that such power “is delegated by them to every magistrate and officer; and to the people all in authority are accountable, if they deviate from their duty, and abuse their power.” Even the president depended upon “the choice of the people for his temporary and limited power” and was subject to impeachment for misconduct.

Langdon concluded by summoning the New Hampshire legislature in tones Calvin could have used to the Genevan Council of Two Hundred. He asked them to preserve religion and heed the revelation from heaven. If that were done, New England would continue her glory. In conclusion this American Farel warned, “if our religion is given up, all the liberty we boast of will soon be gone; a profane and wicked people cannot hope for divine blessings, but it may be easily foretold that ‘evil will befall them in the latter days.’ While I thus earnestly exhort you to religion, it must be understood as equally an exhortation to every branch of morality; for without this all religion is vain.” That is how most American founders understood separation of church and state, and many of these seeds had been previously tended in Genevan gardens.

Between the Great Awakening in the 1740s and the Declaration of 1776, the pulpit in America was also prominent in shaping American notions of liberty, a liberty which was rooted in a divinely created order. We cannot fully understand these early orations on this vital topic without understanding their biblical framework. These sermons were not only proclaimed but were also frequently published as pamphlets and distributed to civil magistrates and ministers.[1] The numerous, annual occasions of these public discourses provide a rich resource for direct political insights into the period. These also carried commercials for a larger theological message.[2]

As part of his conclusion, Langdon opined:

Examples are better than precepts; and history is the best instructor both in polity and morals. I have presented you with the portrait of a nation, highly favoured by Heaven with civil and religious institutions, who yet, by not improving their advantages, forfeited their blessings, and brought contempt and destruction on themselves. If I am not mistaken, instead of the twelve tribes of Israel, we may substitute the thirteen States of the American union, and see this application plainly offering itself, viz., That as God in the course of his kind providence hath given you an excellent constitution of government, founded on the most rational, equitable, and liberal principles, by which all that liberty is secured which a people can reasonably claim, and you are impowered to make righteous laws for promoting public order and good morals; and as he has moreover given you by his Son Jesus Christ, who is far superior to Moses, a complete revelation of his will, and a perfect system of true religion, plainly delivered in the sacred writings; it will be your wisdom in the eyes of the nations, and your true interest and happiness, to conform your practice in the strictest manner to the excellent principles of your government, adhere faithfully to the doctrines and commands of the gospel, and practice every public and private virtue.

As one of the “improvements, he applied: “The power in all our republics is acknowledged to originate in the people: it is delegated by them to every magistrate and officer; and to the people all in authority are accountable, if they deviate from their duty, and abuse their power. Even the man, who may be advanced to the chief command of these United States, according to the proposed constitution; whose office resembles that of a king in other nations . . . even he depends on the choice of the people for his temporary and limited power, and will be liable to impeachment, trial, and disgrace for any gross misconduct. On the people, therefore, of these United States it depends whether wise men, or fools, good or bad men, shall govern them; whether they shall have righteous laws, a faithful administration of government, and permanent good order, peace, and liberty; or, on the contrary, feel insupportable burdens, and see all their affairs run to confusion and ruin.”

This sermon is available in printed form in both my 1996 Election Day Sermons, as well as in Ellis Sandoz, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998). A summary of this classic sermon, with references to Supreme Court citations of it, is accessible online at: http://www.belcherfoundation.org/moral_law.htm. A dramatic summation is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDx2mWm7JuQ.

By Dr. David W. Hall, Pastor
Midway Presbyterian Church

Taken from Twenty Messages to Consider Before Voting

[1] For more on the tradition of these early homilies, see my Election Day Sermons (Oak Ridge, TN: Kuyper Institute, 1996), 9-26.

[2] Several collections of political sermons exist. A variety of libraries contain some of the great manuscripts. If one can locate a copy of John Wingate Thornton’s The Pulpit of the American Revolution (Boston, 1860), more of these early sermons can be reviewed. Others are contained in Frank Moore’s The Patriot Preachers of the American Revolution (1860), Bernard Bailyn’s Pamphlets of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1965), and in two recent releases by Liberty Press in Indianapolis: American Political Writing during the Founding Era, 1760-1805, Charles S. Hyneman and Donald S. Lutz, editors (1983) or Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805, Ellis Sandoz, editor (1991). One would also do well to consult Harry S. Stout’s The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York: Oxford, 1986) or Donald Weber’s Rhetoric and History in Revolutionary New England (New York, 1988).