Election Sermon

Mr. Hemmenway's ELECTION SERMON, DELIVERED

TWENTY-SIXTH of MAY

Commonwealth of MASSACHUSETTS. In the HOUSE of REPRESENTATIVES, May 26, 1784.

SAMUEL A. OTIS, Speaker.

AN ELECTION SERMON.

Vth Chap. to the GALATIONS, 13 Ver.

"For brethren ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another."

WHEN Moses, being called by God from an obscure state of life, to stand before a court, and deliver the message of Heaven to them, would have excused himself, alledging that "He was not eloquent," his false modesty was frowned upon; his pleas were all over-ruled; and he was animated to his great work, with a promise of special assistance from God: "I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say."

p. 6THIS instance may, I think, encourage us to hope for divine assistance, whenever we are by the providence of God called to undertake services for which we may seem too unequal. It is this hope emboldens me now to appear in this place: and it is also hoped that the present attempt, undertaken in obedience to authority, may be favorably accepted, or at least excused.

ON this occasion, it will not, I presume, be expected, or desired, that I should attempt to go beyond my own line, or affect to discourse as a connoisseur in politics; but that I assist as a CHRISTIAN MINISTER at the solemn acts of religious worship which are this day publicly offered by a CHRISTIAN STATE to the supreme King of nations, whose ordinance civil government is; from whom all the authority of rulers and all the rights of subjects are originally derived; to whom the mutual duties of all orders of men are to be ultimately referred; and by whose blessing alone, communities, as well as individuals, can be happy.

THE knowledge of ourselves is confessedly a capital and fundamental point of true wisdom. "The proper knowledge of mankind is man." And of this there is no branch which more deserves the attention of every one, than to understand our duty on the one hand, and our rights and privileges on the other. For want of clear and just apprehensions of these things, some have been ready to imagine that there is a kind of p. 7opposition between duty and right; or in other words, that the bonds of duty are a restraint and abridgment of liberty; and that liberty is a licence to do whatever we please.—Hence different men have inclined to different extremes. Some by urging the obligations of duty in such a manner as tends to beget and cherish a spirit of bondage, and by laying heavy burdens on the consciences of men in things where God has left them free, have intrenched on the rights and liberties of mankind. Others, in their unguarded zeal for liberty, have relaxed the bonds of duty, and have given and taken too much encouragement to licenciousness, "using liberty for an occasion to the flesh."

p. 7BUT our duties, and our rights or privileges, if rightly stated, are so far from interfering, or being inconsistent, that they mutually infer, establish, and support each other.

THE apostle, in the words now read, appears to have had both the mentioned extremes distinctly in his view. As there were some who, by endeavouring to impose the observance of the abrogated ordinances of the Jewish law, incroached on the rights and liberty of christians, St. Paul asserts these their rights, reminds his christian brethren that Christ had made them free, and exhorts them to stand fast in their liberty to which they were called, and not be entangled with a yoke of bondage. At the same time he cautions them against the opposite extreme, p. 8of abusing liberty for an occasion to the flesh; or of indulging themselves in a carnal licentious life; and then directs them "by love to serve one another," and not think such mutual subjection to be any way unsuitable the honor they were called to, of being the Lord's free men.

BUT whatever may be the special occasion of the words, and however we may expound them in reference to that occasion, we may, I think, be allowed to consider them as applicable to all those liberties which belong to us either as men, or as citizens, or as christians. GOD has called us to liberty in all these different respects; and the gospel furnishes us with a good warrant to assert and claim these our rights. And though the main design of the sacred writers be to instruct us in the great concernments of our eternal salvation; yet they have also given us to understand, that liberty, in a more general sense, is our indefeasible right. Christianity is indeed alike favorable to the liberty of subjects, and the rightful authority of rulers; and is the best security and support of both in their proper consistency with each other. And we are more beholden to the oracles of GOD than to the schools of philosophy, for just and generous notions of the rights of mankind.—A christian, besides his peculiar spiritual privileges, holds his natural and civil liberty by a stronger handle than any other, and can maintain it to better advantage. He has by the gospel, a new covenant right to the common privileges of humanity, as well as to those p. 9special ones he is entitled to as a child and heir of GOD. That state of liberty to which he is called, and which he is authorized to claim and maintain, comprehends those natural and civil rights which belong to him as a man, or as a member of the commonwealth, as well as those special privileges which appertain to him as a subject of the kingdom of heaven. If I should therefore take occasion to offer some considerations on LIBERTY in this general view, the argument would, I conceive, be not foreign to my text, nor unsuitable to the present solemnity, nor unworthy of the attention of this grave and respectable audience.