Political Sermons of the American Founding Era

Episode 2 - Nineveh's Repentance and Deliverance

JOSEPH SEWALL (1688-1769). A Harvard graduate of 1707, Sewall spent a long and generally serene ministry at Old South Church in Boston, where he preached beyond his eightieth year. He was a strong Calvinist, yet he became a friend of George Whitefield, who preached in Sewall’s pulpit during several visits to Boston. He was offered the presidency of Harvard in 1724, but he declined it after a peevish attack by Cotton Mather. He preached the artillery sermon in 1714 and the election sermon in 1724, and he was awarded a D.D. by the University of Glasgow in 1731. With his classmate Reverend Thomas Prince, he edited The Compleat Body of Divinity from collected papers of Samuel Willard (1726). His own papers were not collected, but Sibley’s Harvard Graduates (vol. 5), lists twenty-nine writings by him. Here is a fast-day sermon preached before the Massachusetts governor, the council, and the house of representatives on December 3, 1740. Always ready to look for underlying causes and strongly attached to his province, Sewall readily supported the patriot cause and permitted his meeting house to become a shrine of the American cause. In Charles Chauncy’s words, Sewall “was a strenuous asserter of our civil and ecclesiastical charter-rights and privileges. . .. He knew they were the purchase of our forefathers at the expence of much labor, blood, and treasure. He could not bear the thought of their being wrested out of our hands. He esteemed it our duty, in all wise, reasonable, and legal ways, to endeavour the preservation of them. . . ” (Chauncy, Discourse Occasioned by the Death of . . . Joseph Sewall (Boston, 1769], page 26)

Episode 1 - Government, The Pillar of the Earth

BENJAMIN COLMAN ( 1673-1747 ). One of the prominent clergymen of his day, Colman became in 1699 the first pastor of Boston's Brattle Street Church, where he found himself at odds with Increase and Cotton Mather because of his views that deviated from strict Congregationalism. His B.A. and A.M. degrees were from Harvard, and he was awarded an S.T.D. by the University of Glasgow. In 1724 he declined the presidency of Harvard, but he served as one of its trustees ( 1717-28 ) and remained an overseer, in addition to his ministry at Brattle Street Church, until his death. A prolific author with more than ninety published titles to his credit, he was a supporter of the evangelical movement stirred by the Great Awakening and was a commissioner of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England and for Parts Adjacent. Thrice married, Colman was survived by his third wife, Mary Frost. The sermon reprinted here was preached at the Thursday Lecture in Boston on August 13, 1730. The following is his sermon “GOVERNMENT, THE PILLAR OF THE EARTH”

Foreword by Ellis Sandoz

During the founding era of the United States, particularly from the 1730s through the 1800s but peaking around the American Revolution (1760s–1780s), political sermons formed a vital part of public discourse, especially in New England. Ministers, often from Congregational and Presbyterian traditions, delivered these addresses on occasions like election days, thanksgivings, fasts, or significant events, blending biblical exegesis with commentary on civil affairs. Known as the "pulpit of the American Revolution" or associated with the "Black Regiment" (a British term for patriot clergy in black robes), these sermons shaped political rhetoric and mobilized colonists. Preachers framed resistance to British policies as a religious duty, drawing on scripture to justify opposition to tyranny while condemning passive obedience to unjust rulers. Influential figures like Jonathan Mayhew, Samuel West, John Witherspoon, and Samuel Sherwood argued that God ordained government for the protection of liberty and the common good, but rulers who violated natural rights or divine law forfeited their authority. They invoked providence, portraying the American cause as divinely favored—evidenced by historical deliverances and the colonists' moral superiority—while urging virtue, repentance, and unity to secure blessings.