DISCOURSE IX.

ELECTION SERMON.

AND TO MAKE THEE HIGH ABOVE ALL NATIONS WHICH HE HATH MADE, IN PRAISE, AND IN NAME, AND IN HONOR; AND THAT THOU MAYEST BE AN HOLY PEOPLE UNTO THE LORD THY GOD. - Deut. xxvi. 19.

TAUGHT by the omniscient Deity, Moses foresaw and predicted the capital events relative to Israel, through the successive changes of depression and glory, until their final elevation to the first dignity and eminence among the empires of the world. These events have been so ordered as to become a display of retribution and sovereignty; for, while the good and evil hitherto felt by this people have been dispensed in the way of exact national retribution, their ultimate glory and honor will be of the divine sovereignty, with a "Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord, be it known unto you, but for mine holy name's sake."

However it may be doubted whether political communities are rewarded and punished in this world only, and whether the prosperity and decline of other empires have corresponded with their moral state as to virtue and vice, yet the history of the Hebrew theocracy shows that the secular welfare of God's ancient people depended upon their virtue, their religion, their observance of that holy covenant which Israel entered into with God on the plains at the foot of Nebo, on the other side Jordan. Here Moses,

the man of God, assembled three million of people, the number of the United States, recapitulated and gave them a second publication of the sacred jural institute, delivered thirty-eight years before, with the most awful solemnity, at Mount Sinai. A law dictated with sovereign authority by the Most High to a people, to a world, a universe, becomes of invincible force and obligation without any reference to the consent of the governed. It is obligatory for three reasons, viz., its original justice and unerring equity, the omnipotent Authority by which it is enforced, and the sanctions of rewards and punishments. But in the case of Israel he condescended to a mutual covenant, and by the hand of Moses led his people to avouch the Lord Jehovah to be their God, and in the most public and explicit manner voluntarily to engage and covenant with God to keep and obey his law. Thereupon this great prophet, whom God had raised up for so solemn a transaction, declared in the name of the Lord that the Most High avouched, acknowledged, and took them for a peculiar people to himself; promising to be their God and Protector, and upon their obedience to make them prosperous and happy." He foresaw, indeed, their rejection of God, and predicted the judicial chastisement of apostasy — a chastisement involving the righteous with the wicked. But, as well to comfort and support the righteous in every age, and under every calamity, as to make his power known among all nations, God determined that a remnant should be saved. Whence Moses and the prophets, by divine direction, interspersed their writings with promises that when the ends of God's moral government should be answered in a series of national punishments, inflicted for a succession of ages, he would, by his irresistible power and sovereign grace, subdue the hearts of his people to a

a Deut. xxix. 10, 14; xxx. 9, 19.

free, willing, joyful obedience; turn their captivity; recover and gather them "from all the nations whither the Lord had scattered them in his fierce anger; bring them into the land which their fathers possessed; and multiply them above their fathers, and rejoice over them for good, as he rejoiced over their fathers." Then the words of Moses, hitherto accomplished but in part, will be literally fulfilled, when this branch of the posterity of Abraham shall be nationally collected, and become a very distinguished and glorious people, under the great Messiah, the Prince of Peace. He will then "make them high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honor, and they shall become a holy people unto the Lord their God."

I shall enlarge no further upon the primary sense and literal accomplishment of this and numerous other prophecies respecting both Jews and Gentiles in the latter-day glory of the church; for I have assumed the text only as introductory to a discourse upon the political welfare of God's American Israel, and as allusively prophetic of the future prosperity and splendor of the United States. We may, then, consider

I. What reason we have to expect that, by the blessing of God, these States may prosper and flourish into a great American Republic, and ascend into high and distinguished honor among the nations of the earth. "To make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honor."

II. That our system of dominion and civil polity would be imperfect without the true religion; or that from the diffusion of virtue among the people of any community would arise their greatest secular happiness: which will terminate in this conclusion, that holiness ought to be the

a Deut. xxx. 3.

end of all civil government. "That thou mayest be a holy people unto the Lord thy God."

I. The first of these propositions will divide itself into two branches, and lead us to show,

1. Wherein consists the true political welfare and prosperity, and what the civil administration necessary for the elevation and advancement of a people to the highest secular glory.

2. The reasons rendering it probable that the United States will, by the ordering of Heaven, eventually become this people. But I shall combine these together as I go along.

Dominion is founded in property, and resides where that is, whether in the hands of the few or many. The dominion founded in the feudal tenure of estate is suited to hold a conquered country in subjection, but is not adapted to the circumstances of free citizens. Large territorial property vested in individuals is pernicious to society. Civilians, in contemplating the principles of government, have judged superior and inferior partition of property necessary in order to preserve the subordination of society and establish a permanent system of dominion. This makes the public defence the interest of a few landholders only.

A free tenure of lands, an equable distribution of property, enters into the foundation of a happy state, so far, I mean, as that the body of the people may have it in their power, by industry, to become possessed of real freehold, fee-simple estate; for connected with this will be a general spirit and principle of self-defence-defence of our property, liberty, country. This has been singularly verified in New England, where we have realized the capital ideas of Harrington's Oceana.1

1 "The Commonwealth of Oceana," by James Harrington, Chief of the Commonwealth Club, was published in 1656, when Cromwell was in the

But numerous population, as well as industry, is necessary towards giving value to land, to judiciously partitioned territory. The public weal requires the encouragement of both. A very inconsiderable value arose from the sparse, thin settlement of the American aboriginals, of whom there are not fifty thousand souls on this side the Mississippi. The Protestant Europeans have generally bought the native right of soil, as far as they have settled, and paid the value ten-fold, and are daily increasing the value of the remaining Indian territory a thousand-fold; and in this manner we are a constant increasing revenue to the sachems and original lords of the soil. How much must the value of lands reserved to the natives of North and South America be increased to remaining Indians by the inhabitation of two or three hundred millions of Europeans?

Heaven hath provided this country, not indeed derelict, but only partially settled, and consequently open for the reception of a new enlargement of Japheth. Europe was settled by Japheth; America is settling from Europe: and perhaps this second enlargement bids fair to surpass the first; for we are to consider all the European settlements of America collectively as springing from and transfused with the blood of Japheth. Already for ages has Europe arrived to a plenary, if not declining, population of one hundred millions; in two or three hundred years this second enlargement may cover America with three times. that number, if the present ratio of increase continues with

meridian. The American Republic was born of the English Commonwealth. The lineage is clear; and this reference by President Stiles to Harrington's schemes is one of many beautiful illustrations of the fact, which come up to the surface along the current of literature, and remain, as buoys, to mark the channel down which have flowed the great hopes of former days to become the verities of our own. — - ED.