The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Editor’s Note to the 1998 Edition
• Editor’s Note
• Bibliographic Note
• Chronology: 1688–1773
• I: Benjamin Colman, Government the Pillar of the Earth
• 2: Joseph Sewall, Nineveh’s Repentance and Deliverance
• 3: Elisha Williams, the Essential Rights and Liberties of Protestants
• 4: George Whitefield, Britain’s Mercies, and Britain’s Duties
• 5: Charles Chauncy, Civil Magistrates Must Be Just, Ruling In the Fear of God
• 6: Samuel Davies, the Mediatorial Kingdom and Glories of Jesus Christ
• 7: Samuel Dunbar, the Presence of God With His People
• 8: Jonathan Mayhew, the Snare Broken
• 9: John Joachim Zubly, an Humble Enquiry
• 10: John Allen, an Oration Upon the Beauties of Liberty
• 11: Isaac Backus, an Appeal to the Public For Religious Liberty
• Chronology: 1774–1781
• 12: Samuel Sherwood, Scriptural Instructions to Civil Rulers
• 13: John Wesley, a Calm Address to Our American Colonies
• 14: Anonymous, a Constitutional Answer to Wesley’s Calm Address
• 15: Moses Mather, America’s Appeal to the Impartial World
• 16: Samuel Sherwood, the Church’s Flight Into the Wilderness: an Address On the Times
• 17: John Witherspoon, the Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men
• 18: John Fletcher, the Bible and the Sword
• 19: Abraham Keteltas, God Arising and Pleading His People’s Cause
• 20: Jacob Cushing, Divine Judgments Upon Tyrants
• 21: Samuel Cooper, a Sermon On the Day of the Commencement of the Constitution
• 22: Henry Cumings, a Sermon Preached At Lexington On the 19 Th of April
• Chronology: 1782–1788
• 23: Anonymous, a Dialogue Between the Devil, and George Iii, Tyrant of Britain
• 24: A Moderate Whig [stephen Case?], Defensive Arms Vindicated
• 25: George Duffield, a Sermon Preached On a Day of Thanksgiving
• 26: Samuel Mcclintock, a Sermon On Occasion of the Commencement of the New-hampshire Constitution
• 27: William Smith, a Sermon Preached Before a Convention of the Episcopal Church
• 28: Samuel Wales, the Dangers of Our National Prosperity; and the Way to Avoid Them
• 29: Joseph Lathrop, a Sermon On a Day Appointed For Publick Thanksgiving
• 30: Nathanael Emmons, the Dignity of Man
• 31: Elizur Goodrich, the Principles of Civil Union and Happiness Considered and Recommended
• 32: Samuel Langdon, the Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States
• 33: Elhanan Winchester, a Century Sermon On the Glorious Revolution

Editor’s Note to the 1998 Edition

Reissue of Political Sermons of the American Founding Era in a two-volume edition allows inclusion of a comprehensive index to the work, one ably prepared by Linda Webster. The only other substantive addition to the original is a note identifying the seventeenth-century provenance of Item 24, entitled Defensive Arms Vindicated (at pages 712–713 , herein).

Demand for the book has been steady over the years since first publication in 1991. This is gratifying to the editor, and doubtlessly reflects the importance of the subject matter and intrinsic interest of the material itself. More than this, however, the demand suggests that readers thirst for learning about the relatively unknown eighteenth-century religious and philosophical underpinnings of our American public order, at the time of the founding, and as it continues into the present. It may be that these documents intimate a kind of secret history, one yet to be fully written.

Ellis Sandoz