13614.
No. 17. John Witherspoon’s The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men is reprinted from the third volume of The Works of the Reverend John Witherspoon, 2d ed., 4 vols. (Philadelphia, 1802). See also the annotated edition of Witherspoon’s important Lectures on Moral Philosophy, ed. Jack Scott (Newark, N. J., 1982); also Garry Wills, Explaining America (New York, 1981); B. J. Lossing, Biographical Sketches of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence (New York, 1848); and David C. Whitney and David S. Lovejoy, Founders of Freedom in America (Chicago, 1964).
No. 18. John Fletcher’s A Vindication of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s “Calm Address” . . . (1776) may be found in Works, 7 vols. (London, 1774–87), reprinted in a London edition in 1815 and a New York edition in 1849.
No. 21. A chapter is devoted to Samuel Cooper in Weber, Rhetoric and History, 113–32; and there is a biography: Charles W. Akers, The Divine Politician: Samuel Cooper and the American Revolution in Boston (Boston, 1982). Some 146 sermons by Cooper are extant, the bulk of them in the Cooper Papers at the Huntington Library.
No. 30. A great many of Nathanael Emmons’s sermons were collected with his theological writings and published in Jacob Ide, ed., Works of Nathanael Emmons, D.D., 6 vols. (n.p., 1842–50; 2d ed., 1861–63). Ide was Emmons’s son-in-law and both editions include memoirs by him and E. A. Park.
No. 32. Samuel Langdon’s election sermon of 1775, entitled Government Corrupted by Vice, and Recovered by Righteousness, is reprinted with an introduction and editorial annotation in Plumstead, ed., The Wall and the Garden, 347–73.
No. 34. On the American pamphlets of Richard Price, see the annotated volume by Bernard Peach, ed., Richard Price and the Ethical Foundations of the American Revolution (Durham, N.C., 1979). On the debate with Edmund Burke triggered by the sermon here reprinted, see Robert B. Dishman, ed., Burke and Paine on Revolution and the Rights of Man (New York, 1971).
No. 36. On Israel Evans, see John Calvin Thorne, A Monograph on the Reverend Israel Evans (1902; rpr. New York, 1907).
No. 37. John Leland was the supposed author of The Yankee Spy (1794), which is reprinted in Hyneman and Lutz, eds., American Political Writing, II: 971–89. A collection of his works, including the present piece, is L.F. Greene, ed., Writings of Elder John Leland (1845; rpr. New York, 1969). Important correspondence passed between the Baptist leader and James Madison, bearing on the genesis of both the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom and the First Amendment liberties in the Bill of Rights; see William T. Hutchinson, Robert A. Rutland, et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison, 17 vols. to date (Chicago and Charlottesville, Va., 1962– ), VIII: 295–96; X: 516, 540–42; XI: 185, 304, 386, 408, 414, 415, 424, 442–43.
No. 42. Jonathan Edwards, Jr., is the subject of a chapter in Weber, Rhetoric and History.
No. 44. An excellent bibliography for Noah Webster is provided at the end of the article on him by William Vartorella in American Writers Before 1800. The Webster Bible is available in a recent reprint of the New Haven, 1833 edition (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1987).
No. 47. John Thayer’s autobiographical An Account of the Conversion of the Reverend John Thayer, lately a Protestant minister, who embraced the Roman Catholic Religion at Rome, on the 25th of May, 1783 (6th ed.: Wilmington, N.C., 1789) is of considerable interest and aroused widespread comment.
No. 52. Tunis Wortman’s publications also include An Oration on the Influence of Social Institutions Upon Human Morals and Happiness, Delivered Before the Tammany Society (1796) and An Address to the Republican Citizens of New York on the Inauguration of Thomas Jefferson (1801). A good sketch of his life is given by Nelson S. Dearmont in American Writers Before 1800.
POLITICAL SERMONS OF THE AMERICAN FOUNDING ERA, 1730–1805
| 1688 | In the Glorious Revolution, James II (House of Stuart) abdicates the throne under great pressure because of his policies and Roman Catholic faith. |
| 1689 | The Declaration of Rights (Feb. 13), Toleration Act (May 24), and English Bill of Rights (Dec. 16) are adopted. |
| 1690 | John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is published, as well as his Two Treatises of Government. |
| 1692 | In the period of the Salem witch trials, 20 people (14 women) are executed. |
| 1693 | The College of William and Mary is started in Williamsburg, Virginia, by the Anglicans; the second oldest institution of higher education in America, it is one of nine religion-based colonial colleges. |
| 1697 | Official repentance following the Salem witch trials; an offer of compensatory indemnities to aggrieved families for unjust punishment is made by the Massachusetts General Court. |
| 1698 | Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government, which derives Locke’s position from the Bible and religious premises, is published in London and widely read in America. |
| 1699 | John Locke’s three essays on religious toleration, published separately at various times during the 1690s, are published together. |
| 1701 | Yale College is founded by conservative Congregationalists. |
| 1702 | Cotton Mather publishes the most famous of his some 400 works, Magnalia Christi Americana; or, The Ecclesiastical History of New England. |
| 1706 | Francis Makemie, the father of Presbyterianism in America, organizes his first American presbytery. |
| 1707 | The first session of the Baptist Association, meeting in Philadelphia, involves five churches. |
| 1708 | Members of various Calvinist sects from the German Rhineland begin to arrive in large numbers in Pennsylvania. |
| 1709 | Publication of Bishop Benjamin Hoadley’s The Origin and Institute of Civil Government helps popularize John Locke’s thinking and helps make ministers in America a major conduit for Locke’s ideas. |
| 1728 | Jewish colonists erect the first American synagogue in New York. |
| 1729 | Benjamin Franklin purchases The Pennsylvania Gazette, the most popular newspaper of the colonial era. |
| 1730 | *GOVERNMENT THE PILLAR OF THE EARTH, Benjamin Colman |
| 1731 | Benjamin Franklin forms the Library Company in Philadelphia, the first circulating library in America—later to be used by members of the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention. |
| 1733 | Georgia (Savannah) is founded by General Oglethorpe. Georgia is the last of the 13 original American colonies to be settled. |
| 1736 | John and Charles Wesley, founders of Methodism, return from Georgia. |
| 1738 | George Whitefield, the great revivalist, makes his first trip to America. |
| 1740 | NINEVEH’S REPENTANCE AND DELIVERANCE, Joseph Sewall |
| 1741 | The purifying Calvinism of Jonathan Edwards, Sr., vies with a more common religious liberalism exemplified by his contemporary Benjamin Franklin. Edwards this year delivers his famous “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” sermon, which is widely reprinted. |
| 1742 | Whitefield makes his second trip to America. (He will return five more times to evangelize: 1744–48, 1751–52, 1754–55, 1763–65, and 1769–70.) The Great Awakening, or revival, is led by Whitefield, Gilbert and William Tennent, Joseph Bellamy, Jonathan Edwards, Sr., Jonathan Dickinson, James Davenport, and others. The Great Awakening “clearly began a new era, not merely of American Protestantism but in the evolution of the American mind” (Alan Heimert & Perry Miller). |
| 1744 | THE ESSENTIAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OF PROTESTANTS, Elisha Williams |
| Benjamin Franklin is prominent in the formation of the American Philosophical Society, the first learned society
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