The New England Pulpit and the American Revolution: When American Pastors Preached Politics, Resisted Tyranny, and Founded a Nation on the Bible

After mountains of research in colonial sermons, archives, and other publications, Dr. Baldwin relates how the pulpits of colonial America rang constantly with teaching on all aspects of the public square: good rulers, good laws, good forms of government, the blessings of liberty. We especially hear of those that became the battle cries of American independence:Most significant was the conviction that fundamental law was the basis of all rights. God ruled over men by a divine constitution. Natural and Christian rights were legal rights because a part of the law of God. The peculiar privileges of Englishmen were guaranteed by the constitution. Every part of the government was limited in power by the constitution. Any act contrary to the constitution was illegal and therefore null and void. . . .No single idea was more fully stressed, no principle more often repeated, through the first sixty years of the eighteenth century, than that governments must obey law and that he who resisted one in authority who was violating that law was not himself a rebel but a protector of law.These probing insights and countless more like them lines these pages, frequently quoting the sermons and writings of early American pastors. This book is a testimony to the nearly-lost foundations that we have, and a convicting call to revive the traditions of preaching which laid those foundations. Its message is desperately needed today. Read more