"The hedges of liberty are broken down": Duché's 1775 fast day sermon to the Continental Congress
And so it was on 20th July that the members of the Continental Congress gathered in Christ Church, Philadelphia, to hear Jacob Duché - Rector of Christ Church - preach on a text from Psalm 80, "Turn thee again, thou God of hosts, look down from heaven: behold, and visit this vine". The sermon's title identified the vine: 'The American Vine'. As with the vine in the psalm, the American Vine was blessed with goodly roots and soil, allowing it to flourish:
Our sober Ancestors brought over with them, not only the several useful arts and improvements, of which the natives were ignorant, but a treasure of infinitely greater value, even the charter of temporal freedom, and the records of eternal truth. The banners of Christian and British Liberty were at once unfolded, and these remote parts of the earth were thereby added to the Messiah's kingdom.
Now, however, the American Vine was assaulted, in like manner to the vine of the psalm: "The wild boar out of the wood doth root it up: and the wild beasts of the field devour it".
Our morning joys are past and a night of heaviness succeeds. The hedges of liberty, by which we hoped our vineyeard was secured, are broken down, and they that pass by the way, are seeking to pluck our grapes.
'Tis not indeed the wild boar out of the wood, or the wild beast of the field, that are ready to waste and devour it. 'Tis not now a foreign enemy, or the savages of our own wilderness, that have made the cruel and unrighteous assault - But it is even, thou, Britain, that with merciless and unhallowed hands, wouldst cut down and destroy this branch of thine own vine, the very branch, which Providence hath made strong even for thyself!
As was appropriate for a "day of public humiliation", Duché regarded what he termed "the flames of an unnatural war" an occasion for self-examination and repentance:
Injured and oppressed as we are, unmeriting the harsh and rigorous treatment, which we have received from such an unexpected quarter, let us, however, look up to an higher cause for the awful infliction; and whilst we are faithfully persevering in the defence of our temporal rights, let us humble ourselves before God, lay our hands upon our hearts, and seriously and impartially enquire, what returns we have made to Heaven for its past favours, and whether its present chastisements have not been drawn down upon us by a gross neglect of our spiritual privileges.
The conclusion of the sermon reflected on the call given by the civil magistrate - in this case, the Continental Congress - to join in prayer and fasting:
Let us adore, then, the divine wisdom and goodness, for putting it into the hearts of that Honourable Assembly, now entrusted with the great cause of American Liberty, to call upon the whole people, whom they represent, in the most solemn and affectionate manner, to join in deprecating the Divine displeasure, by one general act of religious humiliation. Heaven be praised, that they have hereby shewn their attention and zeal for our eternal as well as temporal welfare.
What is most striking about the sermon are the characteristics it shares with those sermons which encouraged loyalty to the Crown. We see the same emphasis on British liberty, as heirs of the Revolution of 1688; on civil war as an expression of divine judgement; on such division and conflict as an occasion for repentance; on the gift of a peaceable constitutional order; and on the rightful role of the civil magistrate in calling for such fast days.
Likewise, we might note how the proclamation of the Continental Congress, calling for a fast day on 20th July 1775, used wording very similar indeed to what which would be found in the 1776 Royal Proclamation for a General Fast:
The King: putting Our Trust in Almighty God ... send up Our Prayers and Supplications to the Divine Majesty;
The Continental Congress: the Great Governor of the World, by his supreme and universal Providence ... our joint supplications to the all-wise, omnipotent and merciful Disposer of all events;
The King: for averting those heavy Judgements, which Our manifold Sins and Provocations have most justly deserved;
The Continental Congress: unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins;
The King: to deliver Our loyal Subjects within Our Colonies and Provinces in North America from the Violence, Injustice, and Tyranny of those daring Rebels who have assumed to themselves the Exercise of Arbitrary Power;
The Continental Congress: securing the just rights and priviledges of the colonies ... the restoration of her invaded rights.
When Duché entered the pulpit of Christ Church Philadelphia on 20th July 1775, with the members of the Continental Congress assembled before him, it was a very traditional scene and message: a representative assembly, committed to the liberties of 1688-89, had issued a proclamation for a fast day, and was now hearing a sermon whose main characteristics were indistinguishable from those sermons delivered on fast days proclaimed by the Crown during the American War, and heard by the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
Here, in other words, was a traditionally Anglican scene. The constitutional context was different but, as with the changes to the state prayers in 1776, it is continuity, not revolutionary change, that is most evident.
(The painting is William Russell Birch, 'Second Street north from Market St. wth. Christ Church', 1828. Christ Church was built between 1727 and 1744, with the steeple added in 1754.)
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