An Excellent Sermon
Preached in St. Paul’s Church, New-York.
Before
the Right Hon. Lord General Howe, the Commodores, Generals, Colonels, and all
the other inferior officers belonging to the British army there residing.
By
the Rev. Mr. Thomas Lewis O’Beirne, chaplain to the Hon. Lord Howe.
Upon
the first Sunday after the attempt to burn New-York, being the 22nd of
September, 1776.
From
Jeremiah xii, 15
And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them out, I will return
and have
A Sermon
From
Jeremiah xii. 15.
“And
it shall come to pass, after I have plucked them out, I will return, and have
compassion on them, and will bring them again every man to his heritage, and
every man to his land.”
Was
it then reserved for a stranger to your persons, and your altars, to address you
on this happy restoration of your public worship, this solemn re-establishment
of religious assembly? Was it to have then the good fortune of one, to whom you
are
unknown, but by your suffering, to be among the first of the ministers of
God, to bring the comfort and consolation of his word to an afflicted and
persecuted people? To tell them he has not forgotten his “loving kindnesses of
old,” that however he seemed resolved to
“chasten them in his displeasure, to cast off his altar and abhor his
sanctuary, to cause the solemn feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten,“ and “in
the indignation of his wrath to object the King and the priests;” that however
he suffers “their city to be left desolate and broken down, and every house to
be shut up so that no man may come in.” Yet that he will “return again in
his mercy at the appointed time to have compassion upon his afflicted, to
comfort his oppressed,” and to “bring them again every man to his land; to
say to the prisoners, Go forth! and to them that are in darkness, show
yourselves! to restore their princes as at the first, and their councellors as
at the beginning; and again to give them priests according to his heart”? Let
it be my first care to bless His name, for having permitted me to join with your
returning clergy in the discharge of his pleasing office. They also will add
their praise to mine. You, my brethren, will not be wanting in gratitude and
thankfulness to the God of your redemption, and the united voices of priests and
people will be “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for
the salvation of the Lord.” His ways are inscrutable, but his goodness certain
and without bounds.
Who that was witness of the cruel and disastrous deed of the
night before last, could promise himself, that you should be assembled this day
in the house of God, to praise him for your wonderful deliverance? Who could
have hoped that this temple could remain a monument of the returning favor of
Heaven, amidst the horror of the ruins through which you must have passed to
approach it? Which of you could have said to himself, that he should see these
doors opened once more for the
reception of the faithful, “though as yet but as the shaking of an olive tree,
and the gleaning grapes where the vintage is done?” Or hear these walls, so
long silent and unfrequented, filled again with the praises of Him, and to whose
name you have raised them? Is not this the Lord’s doing? Is not this our God,
for “whom we have waited? We have waited for Him, He hath saved us, and we
will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”
Suffer
me, however, to check, for a moment, the ferment which these different
sensations of joy and grief, so rapidly succeeding each other within these few
days past must naturally have raised in your breast. When the heart, long
oppressed, and closed to affliction, is suddenly opened to the impressions of
joy, only to be overwhelmed as
suddenly with an additional weight of sorrow and dismay, the tumult within must
be too violent to leave much room for calm and useful reflections. It shall
therefore be my business to endeavor to suggest such thoughts as appear suitable
to this extraordinary occasion, and regulate your present affections, in a
manner that best becomes the disciples of Christ. This has not been, and I am
confident never will be, the pulpit of contention or strife. No “prophets,
prophesying lies in the name of the Lord, who sent them not,” shall never turn
it into a stage for sedition. The words of truth and life will never be
perverted here in promoting violence and bloodshed, under pretense of consulting
the interests of the God of peace, to cause the religion of the lowly, mild and
meek Jesus, to speak the language of ambition, slaughter and revenge; or to
consecrate and deliver out, in His name, the sword that is to be plunged by his
followers into each others breasts. Thanks be to the Lord “we have not so
learned through Christ!” We will
neither abuse His mercy and long forbearance ourselves, but by thus daring to
prostitute His awful name; nor shall we presume to deal with the bolts of His
vengeance against others, whom His justice may arraign as guilty of such a
profanation. I repeat it again, our only business will be to suggest such
reflections as should engage the
minds of Christians on this occasion; to exhort you to turn your thoughts to
yourselves; to consider the redemption that has been wrought in your favor, and
the disposition with which you should receive these instances of the Divine
mercies.
The
first consideration that arises from the subject is, the grateful sense you
should entertain of the goodness of God.
The
immediate impressions of gratitude for the present benefits are strong, lively,
and affecting. We feel them with warmth; we express them with rapture. But it
happens too frequently that we enjoy them with indifference, and, by degrees,
totally forget the gracious hand that conferred them. While we are in danger,
and fears upon us, “We call upon the name of the Lord.” Our sins and
transactions affect us in their consequences; and our future obedience, fidelity
and gratitude, are fervently pledged in hopes of immediate protection and
relief. But when the first sense of our delivery is past, when our enemies are
suppressed, and the danger removed, we are too apt to forget the resolutions we
formed in the hour of distress; our passions and evil habits too frequently
return with our former security; the God of our salvation is forgotten, with
ingratitude, neglect, and disobedience.
And
can it be possible, that you should ever suffer the remembrance of the Divine
mercies, thus extended to you, to be blotted from your minds? It were doing
wrong to those that have suffered with the perseverance, the loyalty and
attachment to their sovereign, which have distinguished the friends of
government in this colony, even to suppose it. And I should hope, that they who
have endured so long and painful a trial, rather than renounce their loyalty or
the religious principles on which that loyalty is chiefly founded, will never
hereafter be guilty of any action, or pursue any conduct, that can disgrace them
as good subjects, or as virtuous Christians.
But
while I thus exhort you to persevere in your grateful acknowledgments
to the God of your redemption, let me not neglect a point of equal
importance to you, equally acceptable to Him. The use, which in His gracious
Providence He designs we should make of the misconduct of others,
or of the punishments which our sins may brought on ourselves, is
frequently pointed out in the Scriptures. His visitations He sets up as marks to
caution us against the rocks and shelves on which folly and vice have already
caused so many to be wrecked! and
willfully to run against them, is to slight the Divine mercy; is an aggravation
of all our former guilt and justly exposes us to still more severe effects of
the wrath of Heaven. The Psalmist, enumerating the various calamities inflicted
on the Israelites for their incredulity and disobedience, mentions, as a source
of additional miseries to this stiff-necked people, that they neglected to
profit by their own fatal experience, or the dreadful examples they daily saw
before their eyes, of the Lord’s indignation. They refused to humble
themselves beneath the Divine chastisement, but continued to provoke their
Deliverer by fresh proofs of ingratitude. ”The wrath of God came down upon
them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel: For all this, they sinned still;
therefore their days did He consume in vanity, and their years in troubles.”
Entering into these views, my brethren, consider with me the steps that have led
your country into its present calamities; you will be the better enabled to
check them in a future, at least to decline and avoid them yourselves. The
excesses of others will teach you a lesson with prudence and moderation to
regulate your conduct.
“My
son, fear thou the Lord, and the King, and meddle not with them nor with them
that are given to change;”
was the excellent rule laid down by the wisest
of men. Against those who transgress it, he denounces a sudden and inevitable
destruction. Whatever they may promise themselves, however they may seem to
prosper for a time, ruin, infallible ruin, awaits them when they least expect
it; nor is it possible to foresee the miseries that they may entail on
themselves;
“their calamity shall rise suddenly, and who knoweth the ruin
of them both?”
The words are remarkable, but they are dictated by wisdom,
and supported by experience. It has happened from your former prosperous state,
and the present calamities of this province, from which you happily begin to
respire, that no nation upon earth can
form a better judgment upon this important question than yourselves; and I have
before me, in this assembly, a living example, to which alone I need refer.
Call
then to mind the happy days you once enjoyed; when peace was in your dwellings,
and plenty in your streets. How different the scene to which I must call your
attention! Where shall we seek for that happiness that you once could boast of,
when every man sat under his vine and ate his bread with cheerfulness? Alas!
Nothing but dissentions , party rage, public enemities, and private animosities,
usurped her place, and brought with them a horrid train of mutual fears,
distrust, and endless jealousies. See your fields, once cultivated, the gardens
of America laid waste, and turned into licentious encampments, and desolating
scenes of war; in vain you looked up to justice for support; but her seats were
overthrown and trampled in the dust, her rulers dispersed and the people
abandoned; without laws, without magistrates, and without any formal government.
If
you went forth into the fields,
behold the slain with the sword; if you entered into the city behold she that
was full of inhabitants, and princes among the provinces, sitting solitary, and
become as a disconsolate childless widow. Both the prophet and the priest went
about in a land they knew not; your friends dealt treacherously with you and
became your enemies, while you were gone into captivity because of affliction,
and because of great servitude.
From
what cause your sufferings may have arisen, this is not the time or place to
consider. Whatever the principles of your persecutors may be, their unrelenting
malice is but too notorious; and they have added to all their former excesses, a
deed of atrociousness which must open the eyes of the most infatuated; must
totally alienate even the small numbers which may have hitherto been deluded
into some favorable opinion of their cause. To what a scene were you witness the
night before last; when just escaped from the storm and imaging yourselves
arrived at the port of rest, laboring to collect together the small remains of
your fortune that had escaped the general wreck; meeting once more, and
embracing, after so long and painful a separation, the objects of your tenderest
affections or solacing yourselves with hopes of being speedily re-united to
those who were yet detained in bondage from you; congratulating your friends on
their mutual deliverance, and the prospect that was opening to you of returning
peace, quiet and security. In this dawn of your hopes and expectations, to awake
at the midnight hour, and find your city in flames! To see your all perishing
before your eyes, and to know that your destroyers were secretly among them,
spreading the ruin, and exulting in the success of their infernal scheme!
This
was not the sudden act of a languished and flying enemy, perpetrated in the
peevish moment of disappointment and defeat, or contrived to favour their
escape. No, several days have had elapsed since their flight, and quiet seemed
to have revisited you under the banner of your deliverers. Even the base
incendiaries returned among you wearing the mask of peace. We hoped that they
had repented of their excesses, had been convinced of their folly and madness,
and meant to embrace the proffered clemency of their sovereign, who was willing
to forget the ungrateful revolt against his authority. But they cried: Peace,
Peace, when there was no peace. The blow they were meditating was most
dangerous, from its being thus concealed, they glorified in striking it home,
and nothing, under heaven, but the activity of your British friends could have
prevented the whole city’s falling a victim to the determined malice. Yes, my
friends, ye were witnesses of it. Ye saw the treacherous adherence of these
pretended guardians of your rights and possessions, who came to rescue you from
the tyranny of oppression, armed with firebrands, and under cover of the
darkness, wrapping your city in flames. Ye saw the brave and generous servants
of your king, that king, whom you have so often heard represented as a tyrant
who sends forth fleets and armies to enslave, ravage, destroy; flying to the
assistance of their fellow subjects, in the midst of the flames at the hazard of
their lives, exerting every nerve to preserve your dwellings and possessions,
and tearing from the hands of the dark incendiaries the instruments they had
prepared for your destruction. Had it pleased heaven, that success could have
been answered their zeal, so many families, once blessed with comfort and
affluence, would not have been turned out on the world naked, helpless, and
stripped of their all.
The
seminary of indigent merit where poverty found a resource against ignorance, and
where charity reclaimed thousands from idleness and dissipation to virtue and
industry, would yet have stood.*
*In
the fire of Saturday, September 21, a thousand houses, nearly one fourth of the
city, were laid in ashes. Trinity Church, the public charity school, the
rector’s house, and a Lutheran Chapel, were among the buildings that were
consumed. The loss sustained in houses et cetera by the corporation of Trinity
Church amounts at a moderate computation, to thirty thousand pounds, New-York
currency.
The
mansion of your worthy and revered minister, whose absence you still regret, and
the possessions appropriated for the support of your clergy, would not have
perished, and added to the distresses they have already suffered on your account
and their own. But ye smitten and afflicted, who beheld your destruction coming
down on you like a whirlwind, your own industry, and the labor of your
ancestors, swept off in the space of a moment, whither could you have fled from
the rage of your enemies? Not even the temples of the Lord were sacred from
their fury; His altars could afford you no sanctuary. The mother of your
churches, the ornament of your worship, the first edifice which the piety of
your ancestors had raised to the God of their fathers, in gratitude for his
mercies in a strange land, were marked out for certain destruction. Some child
of perdition claimed to himself the merit of this daring sacrilege, and involved
the antient and venerable pile in the same ruin with which they designed to
extirpate all the monuments of your religion, every vestige of your antient
splendor and glory.
In
this scene of universal danger and distress, to what can the ministers of God exhort you? “What manner of spirit were we of,” if we
suffered from any expressions that may have fallen from us to be interpreted
into a breach of charity, the crown of Christian virtues; or into a design to
sharpen the virulence of party, or increasing animosities that have already too
fatally destroyed the peace of your Jerusalem. To minister some consolation in
your sufferings, as becometh the teachers of the Gospel, who must be unworthy
indeed of the character they bear, not to feel for the afflictions of their
brethren, who look to them for comfort and instruction; to set before you the
loving kindnesses of the Lord, and the redemption he had wrought in your favor,
and to exhort you to make every becoming return for His mercies and love, to
point out to you and to warn you against abuses that have brought ruin upon your
country, this has been our only aim. If we have succeeded, all our wishes are
satisfied, and we shall have the consolation to think that you will sanctify
this day, as becometh Christians, by prayer and thanksgiving: by repentance for
past sins, and resolutions of an amendment of life; by practicing the duties of
that religion, for the interests of which you have manifested such zeal and
attachment; by laying aside all malice, hatred, and desire of revenge, by
committing your cause to the justice of God, and waiting with resignation for
the further accomplishment of His gracious designs. He who can still the raging
of the seas, knows best how to restore peace and tranquillity to your distracted
country. May He correct the hearts and enlighten the understandings of your
infatuated brethren, who still refuse to contribute their endeavors towards
healing these unhappy disputes. And while their example proves a warning to you,
and while in their conduct, you consider the excesses to which those may be
transported, who once passed the antient bounds of law and settled government,
may God give you grace to attach yourselves the more firmly to our happy
constitution, both in church and state.
Humbly,
and with all due prostration of heart, I will venture to affirm, that your cause
is His own. It is the cause of peace, loyalty,
and sound reason, exposed to the attempts of misguided men, whom He seems
to have given over to a blindness of heart that hurries them into all the
violence and artifice of sedition, frenzy and rebellion. Fear not them, my
friends, but in His own time He will order all things sweetly. In the meantime
learn to resign yourselves to whatever means He may be pleased to employ for to
that end, and humble yourselves beneath this chastising, but fatherly hand.
Would God I could say that the danger was past! But treachery, perhaps, still
lurketh among you. Let every man, therefore, be careful and vigilant. Nature
requires, and religion approves that we should make use of the means which
Providence hath put in our power for our protection and safety.
But
let this be your chief dependence, that He who is with you, is greater than they
who are against you. He, from whom alone your safety depends, neither slumbers
nor sleeps. Though your enemies may hope, that the darkness will cover them, the
darkness is no darkness with Him. He will not let them have their desire, nor
shall their mischievous imagination prosper. Finally brethren, be of one heart
and one mind, and the Lord will bring you again: every man to his heritage, and
every man to his land.
I
must not finish as if I meant to disappoint your expectations, and not to adopt
a conclusion which I am convinced you have already anticipated. The allegiance
they had sworn to their lawful sovereign, and the affectionate attachment to his
virtuous character, compels your clergy to shut these doors, rather than omit
the dutiful addresses, which the church enjoins them daily to offer to Heaven
for his safety. Let us therefore conclude the service of this day, when the
dofreem [?] of your worship is restored to you, by uniting together with one
heart, and one voice, to implore the divine favor and protection for our
sovereign lord, King George; that God would be pleased to give him length of
days, and increase of happiness; to prosper all his undertakings for the good of
his people and to bless him with what his actions prove, and his words assert to
be, the favorite wish of his heart; the restoration of harmony, the
re-establishment of order and happiness in every part of his dominions.
FINIS
[From
a copy held by New York Public Library which is a photocopy of the original
which appears to have been worn around the edges of the pages.]
[Stamp in Front:
The New York Public Library
Bequest
of Wilberforce Eames, 1937]
Rebellion
Sermon
Lord Howe
Jane O'Beirne
Corections & Explanations
The Trial of Michael O'Beirne 1794
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