The Religious Regards We Owe to Our Country

Mr. COLMANS ELECTION SERMON On Wednesday, May 28th. 1718.

Massachusetts. At a COUNCIL held in the Council Chamber in Boston, upon Thursday May 29. 1718.

J. WILLARD Secr.

p. iTo the Honourable Sir WILLIAM ASHURST-Kt. AND JOHN BARRINGTON SHUTE Esq

HAVING in the following Discourse presumed to mention your Honourable Names, as distinguish'd among the Generous Friends and Patrons of my dear Country, to whom should I now Inscribe it but to Your Selves, if indeed it may be seemly and excusable to tender You such a mite of respect and gratitude.

p. iiTHE Subject is such as must needs be acceptable to worthy and Superior Persons, born and rais'd for the good of others, whose Ambition it is to be extensive Blessings to the World, and who like the Orbs of Light that roll over us are dispensing their benign Influences to distant Regions.

GRATITUDE to our Benefactors is one of the first points of Justice and Honesty: But if a private Benefit and personal Obligation demand a most grateful Acknowledgment, how much more those of a common and publick nature to a People; which like the light and rain of Heaven are of unknown extent, and of inestimable price.

I OWE this Duty therefore to my Country, to render You the best and most public Thanks I am able for all the Services and Benefits You have done it, and to ask your continued kind concern on all Occasions for a PROVINCE, whose distinguishing Loyalty and dutiful Affection to the KING's most Excellent Majesty, and the Protestant Succession in His Illustrious HOUSE, has already commended it unto your just and noble Regards.

p. iiiI hope You will have the Prayers of an Obliged pious People, and that their GOD will think upon You for Good according to all that you have done, or may yet do for them; and which is much more, according to all you may have done, or shall do, for the Religious and Civil Interests of GREAT BRITAIN, where it has pleased the DIVINE PROVIDENCE to make You some of the Ornaments and Blessings of your Age.

THAT You may still live so, is the Prayer of

GENTLEMEN

Your most Humble Obliged and Obedient Servant Benjamin Colman.

p. 1An ELECTION SERMON▪

Think upon me, my GOD, for Good; according to all that I have done for this People.

A VERY short, but a very serious, pathetical and pleasant Prayer this▪ Happy the man that is able to make it, and happy the People among whom there are many that can solemnly make it. It is an Appeal to God respecting the faithful love and religious regards we bear to our Country, and to the Interests of God in it. It is a lifting up our hand to Heaven, and swearing by Him that liveth and ruleth there, and to him to whom we owe and shou'd bear true Faith and allegiance for ever and ever; that in our respective places we do and will live and act for Him and his People. It is in effect to say (and how awful is such an Oath to God) so think upon me my God for Good, as I think upon this People with a sincere desire of their Good. Who of us now dare assume the Words before the LORD, our King and our Judge? And yet who of us is there that may be Excusable before him if we are p. 2not able to do it? The man whose Conscience tells him that he bears an honest heart to his Country and the Religion of God in it, he may humbly make the Prayer and take the Comfort of it.

LET us now consider the Man that first made it, the Time and the Occasion of his making it, and then the Prayer by it self.

1. THE great & good Man that made it was Nehemiah, who was twelve years Governour of Judea under Artexerxes King of Persia. He was a very pious and excellent Ruler, a Man that came to seek the Welfare of the Children of Israel. His whole story discovers a very deep Tincture of serious Piety in his Soul, that he was a man of much Devotion and very frequent and solemn in Prayer. The spirit of Moses and Joshua and Samuel and David, and of Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah and Josiah rested upon him in this respect.

WE may profitably observe what bro't him to his Government, and with what Disposition of Mind he came, and on what Motives. He came not for Honour, or Riches, for he had eno' of these before, and knew, when he had eno', and had a heart large eno' not only to use 'em for his own Comfort, but to spend 'em for the public Good. He had been the Kings Cup-bearer; an Office of high Honour and great Favour, and the Profit was to be sure equal to the Dignity of the Post. By this he stood in the Presence of the King, and attended at his p. 3Table in the Month of his Waiting, and gave the Wine into his Hand.

p. 3NEITHER did he come to enjoy Ease and Pleasure. He might have had more of these at the Court. They that dwell in Kings Palaces go in soft Cloathing, live sumptuously and fare deliciously every day. The danger there is of surfeiting in soft pleasures. It may be that Nehemiah the rather left it for that Reason. And for what, in Exchange, did he forsake the Voluptuous scene? for Jerusalem in its Ruines! and the Remnant of the Captivity in great affliction and Reproach? This was what well became his Vertue and Devotion. He preferred the very dust of Zion to the Gardens of Persia, the broken Walls and Gates of Jerusalem to the Palaces of Shushan. He had ◊ather come to repair these than to dwell a◊ ease in them.

IN a word, as the Case was truly Extraordinary, and so the Reason of Nehemiahs seeking the Government of Judah, even the Melancholy account that was given him of the present State of Jerusalem; so in a very Extraordinary manner he prepared himself for the service of his Country; He sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted and prayed to the God of Heaven; and his most excellent Prayer which he prayed on this Occasion is recorded in the first Chapter of this Book. Now it must be acknowledged that the like Solemnity is not necessary in every Commission for the Government p. 4of a Province; No, far otherwise; it may be much rather esteem'd a Circumstance of life calling for a devout Thanksgiving to God: But only let there be an Acknowledgement of the Divine Providence governing our Changes and chusing for us our respective Offices; let us have a sense of our Dependance on God, our Obligations to him and our Accountableness, and let us be humbly seeking his Presence, Influence and Help always, without which we shall never discharge the Duties of the most Inferior Trust.