Dr. David W. Hall, pastor of the Midway Presbyterian Church, Powder Springs, Georgia, returns today with the fourteenth in our series of Election Day Sermons. As a collection, these sermons present the reader with a great opportunity to explore the theology of the church-state relation. When speaking of elections and elected officials in the government, what is right and proper for a pastor to say from the pulpit? And do the standards exhibited in these sermons remain valid to our day and time? Has what is lawful and proper changed in any way? Clearly there are many questions and we pray that our presentation of this series will help you begin to think through these matters. 

“Civil Magistrates Must be Just, Ruling in the Fear of God”
by Charles Chauncy (May 27, 1747)

Charles Chauncy (1705-1787) was one of the most influential pastors in Boston during his life. He received his theological training at Harvard and served as pastor of First Church for nearly 60 years. He wrote numerous pamphlets between 1762-1771 against the British proposal to impose a Bishop in America. This sermon preached in 1747, addressed to rulers (the Governor, the council, and the Massachusetts House of Representatives), called them to be just and frequently to recall their subordination to God. Original punctuation has been preserved. He drew upon an often used text from 2 Samuel 23—a passage that was a slam dunk for pastors comparing candidates to unchanging norms. He began: “there are none in all the Bible, applicable to civil rulers, in their public capacity, of more solemn importance.”

Viewing these as the last sentiments of David, Chauncy’s outline was:

1. There is a certain order among mankind, according to which some are entrusted with power to rule over others.
2. Those who rule over others must be just, ruling in the fear of God.
3. The whole will then be applied to the occasions of the day.

In his first section, an apology for government in general, Chauncy observed: “Order and rule in society, or, what means the same thing, civil government, is not a contrivance of arbitrary and tyrannical men, but a regular state of things, naturally resulting from the make of man, and his circumstances in the world.” Human sin necessitated this. As both Calvin and Madison had noted, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” While government in general was ordained by God, the particulars could and did vary.

Government was “not a matter of mere human prudence, but of moral necessity. It does not lie with men to determine at pleasure, whether it shall or shall not take place; but, considering their present weak, exposed and dependent condition, it is unalterably right and just there should be rule and superiority in some, and subjection and inferiority in others: And this therefore is invariably the will of God; his will manifested by the moral fitness and reason of things.”

However, under the second head, the manner of rulers was prescribed. The first quality (and the one with the most discussion in this sermon) was for ruler to be just. One of Chauncy’s full elaborations of justice was:

They should do it by appearing in defense of their liberties, if called in question, and making use of all wise and suitable methods to prevent the loss of them: Nor can they be too active, diligent or laborious in their endeavors upon this head: Provided always, the privileges in danger are worth contending for, and such as the people have a just right and legal claim to. Otherwise, there may be hazard of losing real liberties, in the strife for those that are imaginary; or valuable ones, for such as are of trifling consideration.

They should also express this care, by seasonably and faithfully placing a proper guard against the designs of those, who would rule in a despotic manner, to the subversion of the rights naturally or legally vested in the people.

They were to be just in their use of power (not encroaching due liberties) and also just in regard to “the laws by which they govern.” He articulated this second rung of justice as “They should not, when upon the business of framing and passing acts, suffer themselves to be swayed by any wrong bias, either from self-will, or self-interest; the smiles or frowns of men greater than themselves; or the humor of the populace: But should bring the proposed laws to a fair and impartial examination.” He warned against “framing mischief by a law.” Just rulers would also punish evildoers and maintain honest economic standards.

Surely with the book of Proverbs’ admonition toward just weights and measures in mind, Chauncy also applied:

And if justice in rulers should show itself by reducing the things that are bought and sold to weight and measure, much more ought it to be seen in ascertaining the medium of trade, as nearly as may be, to some determinate value. For this, whether it be money, or something substituted to pass in lieu of it, is that for which all things are exchanged in commerce. And if this, which is of such universal use in the affair of traffic, be a thing variable and uncertain, of one value this week, and another the next, it is difficult to conceive, how justice should take place between man and man, in their dealings with one another.

Justice also called for right execution of laws and for the appointment of just persons to carry out those just laws. Justice was called for in terms of debt—not a light matter; and justice was to be a guarantor of liberties. Not only could liberties be threatened by those of high office, but Chauncy also warned about excessive populism: “The men who strike in with the popular cry of liberty and privilege, working themselves, by an artful application to the fears and jealousies of the people, into their good opinion of them as lovers of their country, if not the only stanch friends to its interests, may, all the while, be only aiming at power to carry every thing according to their own sovereign pleasure: And they are, in this case, most dangerous enemies to the community.”

A ruler could, thus, err in many ways. The standards for office were high, according to the Hebrew standards and to those of early America. Chauncy put it this way:

If it is their business to act as executioners of justice, they must faithfully inflict the adjudged sentence: In doing of which, though there may be room for the exercise of compassion, especially in the case of some sort of debtors; yet the righteousness of the law may not be eluded by needless, much less fraudulent delays, to the injury of the creditor.

In fine, whatever their trust is, whether of less or greater importance, they must exercise it with care, fidelity, resolution, steadiness, diligence, and an entire freedom from a corrupt respect to men’s persons, as those who are concerned for the honor of government, and that its laws may take effect for the general good of the community.

He charged the General Court to apply themselves to these standards of justice. He further reminded his listeners that they were responsible to God, specifically telling them “that they are accountable to that Jesus, whom God hath ordained to be the judge of the world, for the use of that power he has put into their hands.” The latter part of this sermon provides a discussion of the fear of the Lord, with the injunction that rulers were to keep that in mind in their activities and decisions. This aspect was salutary as follows: “But no restraints are like those, which the true fear of God lays upon men’s lusts. This habitually prevailing in the hearts of rulers, will happily prevent the out-breaking of their pride, and envy, and avarice, and self-love, and other lusts, to the damage of society; and not only so, but it will weaken, and gradually destroy, the very inward propensities themselves to the various acts of vice. It naturally, and powerfully, tends to this: And this is the effect it will produce, in a less or greater degree, according to the strength of the religious principle, in those who are the subjects of it.”

Chauncy’s sermon wraps up with specific charges to the rulers to apply these standards. Somehow, I doubt that the need for fear of God as discussed above, or the requirement to be just, has been altered by time or circumstance.

A printed copy of this sermon is available in my 1996 Election Day Sermons and is also available in Ellis Sandoz, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998). The sermon is online at: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N04742.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext.

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

Our good friend and guest author, Rev. David W. Hall, returns today with another installment in our Election Day Sermon Series. Today’s post concerns a sermon by the Rev. John Witherspoon [1723-1794], a noted Presbyterian pastor who had the unique distinction of being intimately involved in the formation of both the United States government and the establishment of the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Witherspoon rightly can be spoken of as a founding father of both institutions. He was a delegate from New Jersey to the Second Continental Congress (May 5, 1775) and was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776). Later, in May of 1789, he served as the convening moderator for the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A

“The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men”
by John Witherspoon (May 17, 1776)

John Witherspoon (1723-1794) emigrated to America in 1768 to become the sixth president of the College of New Jersey after Samuel Finley’s death. According to James Smylie, Witherspoon was “embroiled in American politics almost immediately upon disembarking.”[1] His Princeton, which later officially embraced Westminster Calvinism, became a clinic for republican ideas; it was perhaps as important for the transmission of Calvinistic ideas into the America of the eighteenth century as Harvard had been in the seventeenth.

Witherspoon’s republican views had a decisive influence on James Madison and other founding fathers. After graduation in 1771, Madison was torn as to whether to pursue a career in law or the ministry, and he spent an additional year reading moral philosophy, Hebrew, and theology under Witherspoon.[2] His days at the College of New Jersey led him to cross paths with many of the patriots who would lead America to independence. Evaluating Witherspoon’s role in heating up American patriots, L. H. Butterfield infers that, “the ties between Presbyterians in Scotland and America just before the Revolution are shown to be even firmer and more intimate than had been realized.”[3]

Reared in a Scottish Calvinistic home in Gifford, East Lothian, he apparently came to love the teachings of the Genevan Reformer. His mother, a descendent of John Knox, had him reading the Bible at age four, and he was catechized in the Westminster Confession.[4] His father was a minister who constantly read the sermons of earlier French Huguenot and Calvinist ministers.[5] Preserving the tradition of his Scottish forebears, he warned against trusting in human prowess. Such Reformation beliefs would become more widely known in America because According to Scotland-born Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, he exceeded any preacher in Scotland: “Indeed I have heard few preachers in the course of my life that were equal to him. . . . His sermons are loaded with good sense” and elegance.[6] His fiery and articulate preaching moved many towards the Revolution. One contemporary promised that from his Princeton post, no one would “have it more in his power to advance the Cause of Christian Liberty by forming the Minds of Youth . . .”[7]

The sermons and discussions from 1760 to 1775 reveal the formative impact of Huguenot ideals on the American Revolution. Upon arrival, Witherspoon immediately inhaled the exhilarating air of American resistance and rapidly became a major public figure. In July 1774, colonial delegates met to seek New Jersey’s independence. Although Witherspoon was not present in person, following that meeting he published his first American essay, Thoughts on American Liberty. In it, Witherspoon called for a congress to hold the people together, stating that self-defense was appropriate.[8] En route to the Continental Congress that same year, John Adams spent several days in Princeton, having dinner with President Witherspoon and attending church where he “heard Dr. Witherspoon all day. A clear and sensible preacher [though] the scholars [students] sang as badly as the Presbyterians at New York.”[9] Meeting privately with Adams, Witherspoon assured him that the Princeton students were all “sons of liberty.”

Like Calvin before him, Witherspoon believed in human depravity, tracing sinful nature of all humans to the fall of Adam, the covenantal (federal) head of the human race. Adam’s fall led to corruption in the human race that required restrictions on both the governed and the governors. According to Witherspoon, whose theology differed little from that of early Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay preachers and governors, the scriptural texts taught that not “one man, or a few men . . . but all without exception” are fallen.[10] In his “Lectures on Divinity,” Witherspoon noted, “What is the history of the world but the history of human guilt? And do not children from the first dawn of reason show that they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.”[11]

The political task, for Witherspoon (and later it seems for Madison) was to “tame the savage” and “restrain the profligate . . . to bridle the fury of human inclination, and hinder one man from making a prey of another.” Madison would later refer to this as the “political depravity of man.” Smylie recognizes that Madison sought “a constitutional system which would qualify all human pretension to power—private and public, civil and ecclesiastical—because of human nature.” [12]

The Continental Congress formed its Articles of Association (note the continuity of Althusian “association”), and meanwhile in New Jersey, committees of correspondence called for a “General Assembly,” a name with roots in Witherspoon’s Scottish Presbyterianism and Genevan republicanism. When a congress of New Jerseyans met in Trenton in May of 1775, nine of the nineteen delegates from Witherspoon’s county were associated with Princeton, further confirming the strong influence of these Witherspoon Presbyterians.

Witherspoon became an increasingly vocal advocate of American independence, on one occasion absenting himself from a Princeton Board of Trustee’s meeting in order to lobby a group in a local tavern to support the Revolution.[13] However, he was at his rhetorical peak on the designated fast day in May 1776, when he delivered his bold sermon, “The Dominion of Providence over the Passion of Men.”[14] From his Princeton pulpit, he laid out the intellectual and religious matrix of the revolutionary movement and clarified the meaning of the phrase “providence” as the patriots understood it.

In that sermon, he explained that even “the ambition of mistaken princes, the cunning and cruelty of [oppression], and even the inhumanity of brutal soldiers” was part of God’s providence. Even the wrath of man ended up serving God. Witherspoon preached that “Nothing can be more absolutely necessary to true religion, than a clear and full conviction of the sinfulness of our nature and state.”[15] Witherspoon certainly did not believe that the Enlightenment had retired the Genevan doctrine of depravity. Man’s inhumanity to others was a clear proof of “the corruption of our nature.” Others could, he said, “if they please, treat the corruption of our nature as a chimera; for my part, I see it everywhere, and I feel it every day.” Human depravity gave rise to all the disorders of society, including the impending war and violence. The “lust of domination” was violent, universal, and radical.

After grounding his sermon on Calvin’s notion of limited human ability instead of on Rousseau and Paine’s optimism about human nature, Witherspoon taught that regardless of human activity, it was God’s will that counted. Human activity was ineffectual. The “Supreme Ruler” often turned the plans and counsels of rebels onto themselves, as he was doing to the British and had done in the pages of Scripture. He saw God’s providence in the British victory over the Spanish Armada (1588), in his prevention of Oliver Cromwell[16] from sailing to New England, and in the settling of so many Protestant refugees in New England. With such examples from history and Scripture, Witherspoon encouraged his listeners to look to God’s continued expression of his providence.

He concluded by noting that peace often required resistance, declaring: “You are all my witnesses, that this is the first time of my introducing any political subject into the pulpit. At this season, however, it is not only lawful but necessary, and I willingly embrace the opportunity of declaring my opinion without hesitation, that the cause in which America is now in arms, is the cause of justice, of liberty.” He defended the action of the colonies, saying, “The confederacy of the colonies has not been the effect of pride, resentment, or sedition.”[17] He also warned that where civic liberty declined, eventually so did religious liberty. The two, he thought, went hand in hand. Witherspoon later wrote, “There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire.”[18] He also proclaimed, “He is the best friend to American liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion.” His final sentence in this sermon was: “God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable, and that the unjust attempts to destroy the one, may in the issue tend to the support and establishment of both.”

Reviews of his powerful sermon ranged from an English comment (“more piety than politics”) to Scottish charges that Witherspoon had “considerably promoted if not primarily agitated” the unrest; another called him, “Dr. Silverspoon, Preacher of Sedition in America.”[19]

Shortly after delivering this sermon, Witherspoon would join the Third Continental Congress in Philadelphia in time to support Richard Henry Lee and John Adams in calling for independence. As a member of the Continental Congress (1776-1782), Witherspoon signed the Declaration of Independence. Later, Witherspoon also designed the original seals for the Navy and the Treasury Departments.[20] In 1780, he served as a state senator in New Jersey. It was Witherspoon who suggested the printer for Congress’ printing of the Bible (fellow Scottish immigrant and Presbyterian Robert Aitken), and one of his final acts was to write the Thanksgiving Proclamation from Congress in November 1782.[21]

One historian viewed Witherspoon as right for his times, hinting that the moment no longer required a revivalist such as Whitefield, nor did the day demand a deep thinker like Edwards. The times called for a cultured man of affairs, and Witherspoon filled that bill.[22] At Princeton’s proving ground of Calvinistic democracy, his advice to students was, “Govern always but beware of governing too much.”[23] He went so far as to apply the doctrine of separation of powers not only to departments within a particular government, but moreover as applicable between the very forms of government[24] as an argument that governmental form should be mixed (that “one principle may check the other”).

That Witherspoon’s influence bore rich fruit may be seen from the fact that from his quarter-century tenure at Princeton, six of his students served in the Continental Congress, one (Madison) became president, ten held cabinet positions, twelve were governors in a day when there were far fewer governors, 30 became judges, 21 were Senators, and 39 served as U. S. Representatives, with numerous others holding state and county legislative positions.[25] Nine of the 55 participants in the 1787 Constitutional Convention were former Princeton students.

A print copy is available in Ellis Sandoz, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998). An online version is posted at: http://www.constitution.org/primarysources/witherspoon.html.

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

[1] James H. Smylie, “James Madison, Religion, and the Constitution,” unpublished paper, 3.

[2] Merrill D. Peterson, ed., James Madison: A Biography in His Own Words (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 22.

[3] L. H. Butterfield, ed., John Witherspoon Comes to America: A Documentary Account Based Largely on New Materials (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Library, 1953), xii.

[4] James H. Nichols suggests that Witherspoon selectively borrowed from Lockean notions. (James H. Nichols, “John Witherspoon on Church and State,” Calvinism and the Political Order, George L. Hunt, ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965), 132.) What this and other similar notes fail to acknowledge, however, is that Calvinist theorist Johannes Althusius structured his entire political scheme around “association” as early as 1603.

[5] Martha Lou Stohlman, John Witherspoon: Parson, Politician, Patriot (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 17.

[6] L. H. Butterfield, ed., John Witherspoon Comes to America: A Documentary Account Based Largely on New Materials (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Library, 1953), 34.

[7] L. H. Butterfield, ed., John Witherspoon Comes to America: A Documentary Account Based Largely on New Materials (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Library, 1953), 22.

[8] Martha Lou Stohlman, John Witherspoon: Parson, Politician, Patriot (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 99.

[9] Cited Martha Lou Stohlman, John Witherspoon: Parson, Politician, Patriot, 102.

[10] James H. Smylie, “Madison and Witherspoon: Theological Roots of American Political Thought,” The Princeton University Library Chronicle, XXII, 3 (Spring, 1961), 120.

[11] Cited James H. Smylie, “Madison and Witherspoon: Theological Roots of American Political Thought,” 119.

[12] James H. Smylie, “Madison and Witherspoon: Theological Roots of American Political Thought,” The Princeton University Library Chronicle, XXII, 3 (Spring, 1961), 120.

[13] Martha Lou Stohlman, John Witherspoon: Parson, Politician, Patriot (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 109.

[14] The references to this sermon are taken from Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805 (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), 529-558.

[15] Witherspoon also noted that true religion was revived at the Reformation. Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805 (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), 543.

[16] A. W. M’Clure, Lives of the Chief Fathers of New England, vol. 2 (Boston: Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, 1846), 61.

[17] Martha Lou Stohlman, John Witherspoon: Parson, Politician, Patriot (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 112.

[18]  Witherspoon, Works, III, 37, quoted by Sandoz, op. cit., 214.

[19] Martha Lou Stohlman, John Witherspoon: Parson, Politician, Patriot (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 115.

[20] Martha Lou Stohlman, John Witherspoon: Parson, Politician, Patriot (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 132.

[21] Martha Lou Stohlman, John Witherspoon: Parson, Politician, Patriot (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 143. See also James H. Smylie, “America’s Political Covenants, the Bible, and Calvinists,” Journal of Presbyterian History 75:3 (Fall 1997), 153-164.

[22] James Hastings Nichols, “John Witherspoon on Church and State,” Calvinism and the Political Order, 130.

[23] Martha Lou Stohlman, John Witherspoon: Parson, Politician, Patriot (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 89.

[24] Notwithstanding, Witherspoon decried “pure democracy” as excessive and as “subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”

[25] James H. Smylie, “James Madison, Religion, and the Constitution,” unpublished paper, 7. Stohlman lists thirteen governors, three Supreme Court judges, 20 U. S. Senators, 33 U. S. Representatives, one Vice President (Burr), and one President (Madison). Stohlman, op. cit., 172

“The Dangers of Our National Prosperity; And The Way To Avoid Them”
by Samuel Wales (May 12, 1785)

Samuel Wales (1748-1794), a son of the manse, graduated from Yale, began his ministry at the age of 21, and later served as the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Milford, CT. Although his life was fairly short, in addition to being a pastor, he also taught at Yale. Epilepsy forced his early retirement, and he was disabled within a year of delivering this stirring sermon. He was known for his oratory, brilliance, and abilities; this sermon also shows his wisdom.

This sermon, based on Deuteronomy 8:11-14, was preached to the Connecticut General Assembly about nine years after the Declaration of Independence. It calls on God’s people to remember the Cause of any blessings. He believed that this OT passage applied to all people and particularly to those in America, who had recently seen an historic victory. Wales wishes to warn against presumptiveness or thinking that citizens are self-made.

The first half of the sermon seeks to identify temptations that come with prosperity. The second half wishes to “exhibit, in a very concise manner, that line of conduct which we ought to pursue, in order to secure through the divine favour the continuance of those blessings which we now enjoy.” From the outset, he affirmed: “Indeed never should it be forgotten that all the measures of civil policy ought to be founded on the great principles of religion; or, at the least, to be perfectly consistent with them: otherwise they will never be esteemed, because they will be contrary to that moral sense of right and wrong which God has implanted in the breast of every rational being.”

While extolling the greatness of God’s deliverance, notwithstanding, he noted that “security in happiness is not the lot of humanity.” Still the largest fear is the “want of religion.” Sounding like Calvin a few centuries earlier, he warned: “When we are favoured with a profusion of earthly good, we are exceedingly prone to set our hearts upon it with an immoderate affection, neglecting our bountiful Creator from whom alone all good is derived. We bathe and bury ourselves in the streams, forgetting the fountain whence they flow.”

This wise preacher noted:

We are much more inclined to murmur at God’s justice in adversity than to acknowledge his goodness in prosperity; more ready to view God as the author of evil than as the author of good. In the distresses of the late war, though they were most evidently brought upon us by the instrumentality of men, we were nevertheless much more ready to impute them to the hand of God, than we now are to acknowledge the same hand in the happiness of peace, and the other rich blessings of his providence and grace. When our wants are very pressing, we are willing, or pretend to be willing to apply to God for relief. But no sooner is the relief given than we set our hearts upon the gift, and neglect the giver; or rather make use of his own bounty in order to fight against him.

He stood with Moses in warning people not to forget the Lord or to love the creature more than the Creator. “Scarcely a prosperous period in their history can be pointed out,” he noted, “which was not followed by a decay of piety, and a corruption of morals.” The sermon then cites numerous OT examples of this, with Wales applying the OT to his audience: “Is it not a sad truth, that since the commencement of the late war, and especially since the restoration of peace, the holy religion of Jesus, that brightest ornament of our world, is, by many less regarded than it was before? And are not the sacred institutions of the gospel more neglected and despised? Are not the friends of Christianity treated with more disregard?”

Of the “evils which may be called symptoms and effects of irreligion,” he cited:

• Injustice to the best and most deserving friends of our country. This second evil, fueled by poor examples influenced others to be immoral: “And if our public conduct may be adduced by knaves and sharpers, as an example and pretext of injustice, will it not have a greater tendency to promote this evil than all our laws will have to prevent it? Too many are there of that smooth-speaking class of people, who mean to get their living out of others; who, whenever they can run into debt, consider it as so much clear gain.”
• Lack of true patriotism, which he defined as “a real concern for the welfare of our whole country in general.” “Genuine patriotism of the best kind,” Wales preached, “is peculiar to those only who are possessed of a principle of true virtue.” He elaborated on this: “That want of patriotism, of which we speak, produces very different effects in persons who are in different situations of life. It is nearly the same thing with selfishness. It often leads the ambitious and aspiring to seek their own promotion by very improper means. It leads them into a mad pursuit of low popularity, to the violation of honour and honesty and to the neglect of the public good.”
• Disrespect for civil rulers. While “Tyranny and despotism are undoubtedly very great evils,” Wales warned that “greater still are the dangers of anarchy.”
• Luxury and extravagant spending.

Wales realized that “Human nature is the same in every age, and similar causes will produce similar effects.”

The first remedy suggested by Wales to the General Assembly was that they identify these vices above and seek both to avoid them and to turn from them, not forgetting what the Lord had done.

Second, these people were to “use our best endeavours to promote the practice of virtue and true religion.” While distinguishing that America was not a theocracy, nor that every nation should follow all the Mosaic statutes, nevertheless, true religion was still critical: “The practice of religion must therefore be considered as absolutely essential to the best state of public prosperity, it must be so, unless we may expect happiness in direct opposition to the constitution of nature and of nature’s God. ‘Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.’ This is the course of nature, this is the voice of heaven, this is the decree of God.”

Third, Wales urged his audience to pray for outpourings of the Holy Spirit.

As a fairly young preacher himself (aged 37), he sagaciously called: “Young states are like young men; exceedingly apt, in imagination, to anticipate and magnify future scenes of happiness and grandeur, which perhaps they will never enjoy. It has lately become very fashionable to prophesy about the future greatness of this country; its astonishing progress in science, in wealth, in population and grandeur.”

His sentiment climaxes with this paragraph:

So, although we have gained that for which we most ardently wished, an happy period to the late war, yet we can by no means be certain but that some far greater evils are now before us. We may be over-run and ruined both for time and eternity by a torrent of vice and licenciousness, with their never-failing attendants, infidelity and atheism. We may be left to destroy ourselves by intestine divisions and civil wars: or we may be visited with such sickness and pestilence as would soon produce a far greater destruction than any war of what kind soever. God has many ways, even in the present world, to punish the sins both of individuals and of nations. He has ten thousand arrows in his quiver, and can always direct any or all of them unerring, to the victims of his wrath. No possible concurrence of circumstances can screen us from the notice of his eye or the power of his hand. Never, never, can we be secure but in the practice of true virtue and in the favour of God.

This sermon totaled nearly 10,500 words length. Readers may wish to consult a printed version, which is available in Ellis Sandoz, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998). Moreover, an online version is posted at: http://consource.org/document/the-dangers-of-our-national-prosperity-and-the-way-to-avoid-them-by-samuel-wales-1785-5-12/.

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