A Time for Remembering

1. When there at any time arise, either in the civil or ecclesiastical order, MEN of eminent wisdom, goodness, power and usefulness among a people of GOD, we must consider, it is the LORD their GOD, that made, accomplished and raised them up, and this in special favor to that particular people.

2. That when such a people are in a remarkable manner brought out of the hands of those that vexed them, to a place or state of ease and liberty; the gracious conduct of the LORD their GOD, is herein to be religiously observed and acknowledged by them.

3. It behooves such a people so treated of GOD, to remember all his signal operations, both of judgment and of mercy, both to them and their fathers, to view them as acts of faithfulness and righteousness to them, and consider the special and great obligations arising from them.

4. And lastly, it becomes their public teachers to remind them therefore of all these things, and from thence to reason with them before the LORD about their answerable carriage [i.e., behavior] towards Him.

“And here I cannot forbear observing, that there never was any people on earth, so parallel in their general history to that of the ancient ISRAELITES as this of NEW ENGLAND. To no other country of people could there ever be so directly applied a multitude of Scripture passages in the literal sense, as to this particular country: that excepting miracles and changing names, one would be ready to think, the greater part of the OLD TESTAMENT were written about us; or that we, though in a lower degree, were the particular antitypes of that primitive [early] people.

However, I’m sure, that upon the present occasion, I may justly turn the text into a like address, in the Name of GOD, to this Great and General Assembly, comprehensive both of rulers and people of every order; and say–“It is the LORD that advanced your primitive civil and ecclesiastical LEADERS, and that brought up your FATHERS out of the land of their affliction; now therefore, stand still, that I may reason with you before the LORD, of all the righteous acts of the LORD, which He did to YOU and to your FATHERS!

And how extremely proper is it, upon the close of the FIRST CENTURY of our settlement in this chief part of the land, which will now within a few weeks expire,* to look back to the beginning of this remarkable transaction, and first commemorate the righteous and signal works of GOD towards us, both in our own days and in the days of our fathers; and then consider the great and special obligations they have laid upon us, with the nature of our carriage towards Him for the time past, and our interest and wisdom for the future.

“Give ear therefore O my People to my Law: incline your Ear to the Words of my Mouth! I will utter things of old, which we have heard and known and our Fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their Children; shewing to the Generation and Century coming on, the Praises of the LORD, and his Strength, and his Wonderful WORKS that He has done. For He established a Testimony in JACOB, and appointed a Law, a Law of Gratitude in ISRAEL, which He commanded our Fathers, that they should make known the WORKS of GOD to their Children: that the Generation to come might know them, even the Children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their Children; that they might also set their Hope in GOD, and not forget his Works, but keep his Commandments.”

And here we must own, that very many have been the wondrous WORKS which the LORD our GOD has wrought for us: they cannot be reckoned up in order before Him: if I would declare and speak of them they are more than can be numbered. We may now therefore only touch on some of the most material; those of the most important, public and comprehensive nature.

“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”

“It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors.”

“ The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

• “[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.” –John Adams in a letter written to Abigail on the day the Declaration was approved by Congress

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” –October 11, 1798

“The highest glory of the American Revolution, said John Quincy Adams, was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY.” comments Adams made in a July 4, 1837 oration.

• “Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [the Fourth of July]?” “Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity”?–1837, at the age of 69, when he delivered a Fourth of July speech at Newburyport, Massachusetts

John W. Whitehead analyzes the Supreme Court’s historic understanding of the relationship between Christianity and government in the United States:

“In 1892 the United States Supreme Court made an exhaustive study of the supposed connection between Christianity and the government of the United States. After researching hundreds volumes of historical documents, the Court asserted ‘these references add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a religious people…a Christian nation.’ Likewise in 1931, Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland reversed the 1892 decision in relation to another case and reiterated that Americans are a ‘Christian people’ and in 1952 Justice William O. Douglas affirmed ‘we are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.'”