Introduction
Simeon Howard’s June 7, 1773 sermon to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in Boston, a volunteer colonial militia unit, exhorts Christians to “stand fast” in their liberty, asserting that they are obliged to resist oppression and defend their rights, especially “the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,” which they are to employ in the service of their Savior, their families, and their own happiness. It is a bold sermon that calls men to defend vigorously by word and deed the divine gift of liberty. Howard rebukes the apathetic and remiss men who neglect to defend it, and he corrects the erroneous claim that Christians are forbidden to resist injuries and encroachments with force, while praising the courage, prudence, and vigilance of the men who cherish and protect it. Opposing the oppressor, he argues, is an act of faithfulness and benevolence.
He provides evidence from Scripture, natural rights philosophy, and history to support his claims, resulting in an argument that is highly congruent with those made by other American founders such as Jonathan Mayhew, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, and George Washington. A Christian reader in pre-revolutionary America would find a strong Christian defense in support of the political theory that animated the American Revolution. Yet the sermon warrants careful consideration by the Christian today, as well, for “it has been found in all ages and places” that “unreasonable and wicked men” attempt to injure the liberties of innocents, “and that same practice is still to be expected, while human nature continues what it is.”11. Simeon Howard, “A Sermon Preached to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in Boston,” in American Political Writing during the Founding Era, 1760–1805, ed. Charles S. Hyneman and Donald S. Lutz (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1983), 1:186, 190. Howard here quotes Galatians 5:1 (KJV). Quotations of Howard are cited at the end of the relevant paragraph. All other citations are in line.
Howard opens with a quotation of Galatians 5:1, from which he extrapolates that, just as Christ freed Christians from the ceremonial law of the Jews, so “the inference holds good in the case of any other real and valuable liberty which men have a right to.” As men are created with agency, they are free from the arbitrary and illegitimate power of other men, and as Howard will argue later in his sermon, submitting to the power of an oppressor robs men of their ability to do the work Christ has assigned to them.22. Howard, 186.
He constructs his argument in three parts, which he outlines at the opening of his sermon: the definition of the liberty upon which he expounds, the practical conditions necessary for men to defend it, and the obligations men are under to stand fast. For the most part, this essay mirrors that structure. Howard adds a fourth part in which he applies his three-part argument to the circumstances extant in Boston in 1773. The contemporary reader would be wise to consider how it might apply now, 253 years later.33. Howard, 186–87.
Liberty Defined
Howard acknowledges that liberty “is used in various senses,” and so places parameters around his use of the word: “I mean by it here, only that liberty which is opposed to external force and constraint, and to such force and constraint only, as we may suffer from men.” This liberty is the freedom from arbitrary interference upon “all those advantages which are liable to be destroyed by the art or power of men; every thing that is opposed to temporal slavery,” be it freedom of movement or association, the acquiring, owning, and disposing of property, or the wholeness of one’s body, and like things to which men have a right. All these things are gifts from “the benevolent and impartial Father of the human race,” who has granted “to all naturally an equal right to this blessing.”
Howard, citing Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, asserts that God has provided men liberty “to pursue his own happiness in whatever way, and by whatever means he pleases, without asking the consent or consulting the inclination of any other man, provided he keeps within the bounds of the law of nature.” In the state of nature, or the absence of formal government, all men are accountable to God alone, who has provided the faculty of reason through which men are to discern the law of nature and apply its strictures to their conduct. The liberty of man, therefore, “is not a state of licentiousness, for the law of nature which bounds this liberty, forbids all injustice and wickedness, allows no man to injure another in his person or property, or to destroy his own life.” The liberty Howard describes prohibits murder, rape, theft, and, under the broad heading of “all injustice and wickedness,” other crimes and sins, including harming oneself. These prohibitions under the law of nature coincide with commands, or obligations, which Howard explains in the third part.44. Howard, 187.
Scripture and history, however, reveal that not all men observe these prohibitions. Liberty, thus defined, is imperiled by men who either do not know the law of nature or lack the virtue to restrain themselves. Extending his state of nature framework, Howard continues: “experience soon taught that, either thro’ ignorance of this law, or the influence of unruly passions, some were disposed to violate it, by encroaching upon the liberty of others; so that the weak were liable to be greatly injured by the superior power of bad men, without any means of security or redress.” Still following Locke, Howard points out that the risk of injury from wicked men “induced a number of individuals to combine together for mutual defence and security.” This view of the origin and purpose of government as the defender of natural rights accords with the consensus of American political theorists in the founding era, as does the claim that entering civil society requires some degree of liberty to be curtailed, limited to that which men “have expressly given up for the good of the whole society,” most notably in the form of taxes surrendered to fund the government and obedience to laws promulgated to protect the rights of all members of society. In society, then, liberty is bounded by both the law of nature and the civil laws of the commonwealth, which, when justly constituted, aim only at “the good of the whole society.” To summarize, the liberty Howard discussed is the freedom God has given man to pursue happiness on earth within the bounds of the law of nature and the laws of one’s civil society.55. Howard, 187–88. Congress asserts in the Declaration of Independence that “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.”
To Stand Fast
To preserve the gift of liberty, Howard exhorts men to resist attempts made against it by “unreasonable and wicked men,” who are “found in all ages and places.” The train of depredations begins with Cain and continues on, such that “if from the great number of historical books that have been written, we should leave out those parts that relate to their encroachments upon one another, their injuries and injustice, most of the huge volumes would shrink to a very small size.” Given this perilous condition, men ought to prepare themselves to resist injuries “in the best and most effectual manner they can.” He offers practical steps men should take to increase their capacity to stand fast, but before preparing men for action, he provides guidance on the proper escalation of resistance. He does not, in other words, let loose the dogs of war before training men’s minds and souls for righteous and judicious action.66. Howard, 188, 190.
Determining “the best and most effectual manner” requires prudence. One must fit the means to the circumstances. As the goal of liberty is the quiet enjoyment of God’s blessings, men are to avoid violence and war as far as possible. Such restraint requires moderation to temper spiritedness, even when it has been stoked by injustice, for “both religion and humanity strongly forbid the bloody deeds of war, unless they are necessary.” Killing and destruction, the inseparable companions of war, are contrary to the highest purposes of human life and must only be employed when no other means will suffice. Howard therefore counsels man to first resist threats or encroachments through the “gentle methods” of reason, persuasion, and avoidance “if he can; and if by such means he can prevent the injury, he is to use no other.”
As Howard preached, the Americans were in the waning days of over a decade of attempts to persuade the king to restore their rights through petitions, letters, remonstrances, demonstrations, and tea parties. Other than the events that “once crimsoned the stones of the street” in Boston, blood had not been shed. The maxim to seek peace applies equally to individuals as to peoples, and if resolution through speech is reasonably to be hoped for, words are the only instruments one ought to use.77. Howard, 194, 190, 206.
Yet “the experience of all ages has shewn, that those, who are so unreasonable as to form designs of injuring others, are seldom to be diverted from their purpose by argument and persuasion alone.” Prudence decrees that moderation be coupled with vigilance to ascertain the true nature of a threat; he who seeks to rob one at knifepoint has already declared himself to live by a law other than those of God and man and should be regarded with the same degree of wariness with which one would hold a wild beast.88. John Locke, “The Second Treatise,” in Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 272–74. The “unruly passion” that induces the predatory men to attempt their injustices is likely to “persist… till they have gratified” their desire. This leaves the intended victim with the alternatives of resistance or, through surrender, “to be robbed of his liberty or his life.”
The gifts of God are not so lightly to be surrendered, Howard argues: “Nature certainly forbids this tame submission and loudly calls for a more vigorous defence.” The right to life is accompanied by the duty to self-preservation, “one of the strongest” and most “universal” principles of human existence. It allows for “every thing that is necessary to self-defence,” including “opposing force to force, and violence to violence.” This corollary is so clear that Howard says he “need not attempt to prove it,” but he still does, responding to unnamed objectors who claim that Christianity “forbids all violent resisting of evil, or defending ourselves against injuries in such a manner as will hurt, or endanger those who attack us.” How, after all, can the Prince of Peace countenance war?99. Howard, 190–91.
John the Baptist does not instruct the soldier in Luke 3:14 to cease his profession; Jesus implies that His servants would have been justified in using force to protect Him 1010. Howard, 191–93. Howard cites Luke 3:14, John 18:36, Acts 10, Romans 12:18, and Revelation 11:7, 12:7, 14:19–20, 17:14, and 19:14–21. He had sought to establish a temporal kingdom; Peter, whom God had commanded the centurion Cornelius to seek and hear, does not forbid practicing arms; Paul instructs the Romans to seek peace as much as it is within their power, leaving room for war if higher obligations require it; and several passages in Revelation prophesy that Christians will fight and defeat Christ’s enemies “by an amazing slaughter of their persecutors.” Christ and His apostles, presented with opportunities to produce a general condemnation of war and violence, do not.
Still, other New Testament passages seem to condemn violence, especially “our Saviour’s own words in his sermon on the mount. I say unto you that ye resist not evil—love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, etc.,” and Paul’s instructions that one ought “recompence to no man evil for evil.—Avenge not your selves.” Howard examines these passages and provides four points to explain the true meaning intended by Christ and the apostle. First, Jesus describes “small injuries,” such as a slap, a seized cloak, and a forced walk of a mile, to which charity and prudence may command one to surrender. The price of using violence to remedy these insults and petty depredations outweighs the cost of the injuries. “But it does not follow,” Howard claims, “that because we are forbidden to resist such slight attacks, we may not defend ourselves when the assault is of a capital kind.”
When Christ provides discrete examples, His disciples should not extrapolate to create an inapt universal precept. Just as Christ’s command to “give to him that asketh thee” should not be taken to mean “to give to every idle fellow all he may think fit to ask,” neither should Christ’s admonition be taken as a universal prohibition against violent defense of self and others. Further, the use of force to defend oneself “is a quite different thing from rendering evil for evil.” The use of force to defend against serious injuries, when other means have proven or are reasonably thought to be inadequate, comes from the intent to preserve one’s “own happiness,” not “malice and revenge.” The defender seeks to avoid the hurt himself, not to injure the assailant; if the assailant is hurt, it comes not from “ill will” against him. Indeed, Howard argues, “necessary self-defence, however fatal it may prove to those who unjustly attack us, implies no principle inconsistent with that love to our enemies which Christ enjoins.” While engaging in defense, one may nevertheless “bear good-will towards them, wish them well, and pray God to befriend them: All which we doubtless ought to do in respect to our bitterest enemies.” This framework considers the obligations one has to God, to oneself as an agent of God, and to one’s enemy. The Christian obligation to love one’s neighbor requires actions appropriate to meet the threat with the least cost and the proper inward disposition toward the attacker.1111. Howard, 193–94. Howard cites Matthew 5, Romans 12:17, 19.
Though one may turn to violence too quickly, through deficient courage and vigilance one may also fail to use violence when necessary. Howard expands the principles of an individual acting in self-defense to include a collection of individuals, which also expands the beneficiaries of standing fast from the individual worthily preserving his own happiness to the courageous people defending their weaker neighbors and other innocents. Good men must be willing to do what is necessary, and so an admonition against remissness is warranted. In a passage that anticipates the claim in the Declaration of Independence that “mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves,” Howard warns that “a people may err by too long neglecting such means, and shamefully suffer the sword to rust in its scabberd when it ought to be employed in defending their liberty.” Should they become complacent or timid, submitting to the “unjust demands” of a “grasping and oppressive power,” their liberty will be sapped bit by bit until it “is irrecoverably gone.”
The people should resist the first unjust encroachment offered by such power, even at the cost of war, which “though a great evil, is ever preferable to such concessions, as are likely to be fatal to public liberty.” Just as the knife-wielding thief might proceed from armed robbery to rape or murder, the oppressive power might begin with slight but unjust economic usurpations and proceed to more severe forms of depredation. Howard exhorts men to prevent such escalation by resisting the first encroachment with appropriate force.1212. Howard, 194–95.
As he encourages the use of force when it becomes necessary, Howard also counsels men to “set reasonable bounds,” lest they cease to be the innocent party and “become as guilty as their first aggressors.” The goals of resistance are “nothing more than repelling the injury, obtaining reparations for damages sustained, and security against future injuries.” Though violence may be warranted in response to the threat or reception of injury, a people is not entitled to a disproportionate response. Violence, like all human action, remains governed by the law of nature and follows the maxim Howard provided for all resistance: no more than is necessary. With violence thus governed by reasonable bounds and clear ends, the sermon shifts to preparing a people to stand fast.
Here, Howard describes the conditions required for men to be ready to stand fast. Fond of practical lists, both easy to apprehend and simple to remember, he provides five points for political and martial readiness. The first three interlock seamlessly: a people ought to “endeavor to be united and at peace among themselves,” “cultivate a general disposition to submit to government,” and “take care that their internal government be free and easy.” Tyrants, “sensible of” Christ’s maxim that “every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation,” muse on their designs to “first divide the people… into parties” and “then easily bring them under our power.”
The people should avoid petty factions so they remain ready to unite in the common defense. Like disunity, rebellion, and sedition, animated by what Locke deems “every little mismanagement in publick affairs” and the Declaration calls “light and transient causes,” undermine the ability of government to protect its citizens, as well as violate Howard’s principle of proportionate response. Citizens should recur to the tools of reason and persuasion, not sedition, to resolve minor inconveniences and mistakes by the government, and support their defender in its primary purpose. To help prevent civil errors, they should participate in their government, which promotes “a spirit of liberty” and invests them in the defense of their society. In turn, the government should not lay “unreasonable burdens and restraints” upon the people, lest their taxes and chains smother the people and prevent them from becoming “valiant and martial.” This point about citizen valor and martial character introduces the next—and perhaps most shocking—condition of readiness to stand fast.1313. Howard, 195–97.
Howard asserts that “a people who would stand fast in their liberty, should furnish themselves with weapons proper to their defence, and learn the use of them.” He does not mention the duties of the government here, instead asserting that the people ought to arm “themselves” with “weapons proper to their defence” and “learn the use of them.”1414. Howard, 197.
By arming themselves, the ability of the people to perform their duty to preserve themselves and others does not depend on the beneficence, competence, or justice of their rulers alone. They will have the equipment necessary to assist their government in protecting the liberty of its citizens from foreign adversaries and domestic criminals, and they will possess arms sufficient to oppose the government if it forsakes its purpose and turns to tyranny.
The prudence of the people will determine what types of arms they should acquire. They should put themselves on as equal a footing as possible with the threats they could face, which means, to the extent that they can, matching the equipment of foreign enemies and their own government. This sermon, being delivered to a volunteer citizen artillery militia, provides a clue as to the discernment of Americans concerning preparedness to perform their defensive duties. Finally, acquisition and possession of appropriate arms prove necessary but not sufficient. The people must be skilled in their use; they must train to fight.
A people may be reluctant to learn how to fight. Howard says that they must overcome their hesitation and prepare for the real threat posed by human wickedness. Though a people may wish to practice piety, virtue, and commerce in peace and freedom, following the commandment not to covet anything of another’s, the condition of man, as described in Scripture and borne out in history, necessitates martial preparedness:
It is indeed an hard case, that those who are happy in the blessings of providence, and disposed to live peaceably with all men, should be obliged to keep up the idea of blood and slaughter, and expend their time and treasure to acquire the arts and instruments of death. But this is a necessity which the depravity of human nature has laid upon every state. Nor was there ever a people that continued, for any considerable time, in the enjoyment of liberty, who were not in a capacity to defend themselves against invaders, unless they were too poor and inconsiderable to tempt an enemy.
This visceral passage builds upon the case Howard has constructed thus far, challenging Christians to eschew squeamishness and prepare themselves for the harsh duties which may be required of them to preserve peace. Better to comprehend and prepare for the arts of blood and slaughter, to know what fighting and killing really mean, in times of peace than to hope to rise to the occasion under duress.1515. Howard, 197–98.
The difficulty of acquiring the military art and preparing for the severity of war tempts many peoples to rely on “a STANDING ARMY: a number of men paid by the public” for their defense. Rather than risk both the sin of injudicious application of violence and the harm they may incur in battle, they pay professionals. Howard discourages this due to the tendency for vice to proliferate among professional soldiers and the risk they pose to the people, should the ruler who employs the soldiers call upon them to assist him in “oppressing and enslaving” the people. A “safer way” is to lodge the means of defense “in the body of the people, to a well-regulated and well-disciplined militia.”
The people have the common good in mind, as it is their own lives, property, families, and neighbors they shall be called upon to protect. This strong incentive, coupled with the rigors of their ordinary occupations, such as farming, produces the “strength of body and firmness of mind” necessary to oppose oppressors. To prevent lassitude on the one hand and anarchic vigilantism on the other, the people should make the militia subject to the government. Americans in general agreed with this position and lodged the powers to raise, train, equip, and call forth the militia in Congress, the executive, and the states.1616. Howard, 197–200. Article I, sec. 8; Article II, sec. 2. Congress further defined these powers with two militia laws in 1792 and numerous other laws thereafter.
Maintaining “the general practice of religion and virtue” stands as the fifth and final condition necessary for a people to stand fast in their liberty. Against those who claim Christian hope for bliss in the next life saps their will in this life, Howard claims that “the truest fortitude is ever to be found where the passions and affections are in subjection to the laws of God,” while hope of His “favour will naturally inspire a brave and undaunted resolution” in war.
In summary, Howard recommends that a people equip themselves to stand fast in their liberty by seeking national unity, supporting a free government, participating in the politics of their society, arming and training themselves, and cleaving to religion and morality. These sentiments were already circulating in Boston and throughout the colonies, and they would come to fruition as the Americans formed their own congress in 1774, began fighting for the restoration of their rights (after a decade of petitions) in 1775, and ultimately declared their independence. Howard anticipates these developments in his closing, but first explains the specific duties which impel men to stand fast in their liberty.
Obligations
Having defined liberty, justified the defense of it with evidence from scripture and political philosophy, and explained the conditions conducive to resisting encroachment, Howard turns to the “obligations men are under to defend that liberty which providence has conferred upon them.” Here is the heart of the sermon, in which the theoretical arguments that precede mature into the duties Christian men fulfill to God, themselves, their families, posterity, and mankind.1717. Howard, 201.
Men owe their first duty to God. Here Howard includes himself by use of the first-person plural, arguing that liberty is “a trust committed to us by heaven: we are accountable for the use we make of it.” They are to avoid the example of the servant “in our Lord’s parable” who wasted the talent his master had provided. As liberty is a gift of greater worth than a talent, he who through inattention, indolence, or cowardice, suffers it to be wrested from him, is little less criminal. Should a person, for instance, whose ability and circumstances enable him to do good in the world, to relieve his distressed brethren, and be an example of charity and other virtues, tamely yield up all his interest and become an absolute slave to some unjust and wicked oppressor, when he might by a manly resistance have secured his liberty, would he not be guilty of great unfaithfulness to God, and justly liable to his condemnation?
The first obligation men are under to stand fast in their liberty, then, is to God, who bestows the gift of liberty with the expectation that men will use it to do His work. For those men with the ability to maintain their liberty, and with it their capacity to do good, help their neighbors, and demonstrate charity, the virtues of courage, vigilance, justice, and prudence coincide with obedience. The cultivation of these virtues creates opportunities for men to love their neighbors. Strong, free, prosperous men can make judicious use of their property to feed the hungry and clothe the naked; they can make use of their power to enforce justice and defend the weak. Surrendering their liberty to oppressors, on the other hand, reduces their capacity to do good and puts them at risk of becoming “ministers of sin through the compulsion of their masters,” meaning they could be impressed into service of an unjust regime that persecutes and exploits the poor and lowly. Standing fast in liberty is therefore an act of obedience that facilitates protection of the weak, almsgiving, and upholding justice while impeding acts of sin.1818. Howard, 201.
After expounding on the duty to God, Howard turns to the intertwined duties to oneself and family. Men are bound to preserve themselves and take care of their temporal happiness, which, though it requires compliance with other duties, is most readily attained through the proper use of liberty. Submission to oppressors, on the other hand, exposes one to “every evil that the malice of man and devils can inflict.” By preserving his liberty, including his life and property, a man maintains his ability to fulfill his duties to those in his care, as “every man is bound both by the law of nature and revelation to provide in the best manner he can, for the temporal happiness of his family,” who depend on him for their safety, education, and prosperity.1919. Howard, 202.
Howard pays special attention to the inheritance of future generations. While expressing gratitude “for the care our progenitors took for us,” he entreats men “in the best manner we can, to provide for the happiness of posterity.” He, like Washington, who uses the same phrase in his July 2, 1776 General Orders, anticipates the “unborn millions” whose fate will depend, in part, on the courage or cowardice of their ancestors.2020. Washington writes to his troops that “the fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army.” George Washington, “General Orders, July 2, 1776,” in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 5, 16 June 1776–12 August 1776, ed. Philander D. Chase (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1993), 180. This is an obligation laid upon men by their Creator: “Heaven has made us their guardians, and intrusted to our care their liberty, honour, and happiness.” He said earlier the fell deeds of “blood and slaughter” are difficult for faithful, content, peaceful men to contemplate. What better could induce those men to shoulder their rifles than the prospect of innocent infants and children subjected to “the iron scepter of tyranny?”2121. Howard, 202.
Finally, having explained the foregoing obligations, Howard notes that resisting the oppressor serves the “happiness of mankind in general” by weakening the strength of evil men. Every wound inflicted by the righteous upon the wicked reduces their ability to extend their cruelty. “It is therefore an act of benevolence,” Howard says, “to oppose and destroy the power which is employed in injuring others,” especially since abandoning the helpless to the “slavery” that is “subjection to wicked men” exposes them to the “temptations of vice” and “the loss of all virtue and religion.”2222. Howard, 202. Howard cites the confirmation of “experience,” which he fortifies with poetry: “The conqer’d also, and inslav’d by war shall with their freedom lost all virtue lose and fear of God,” from Paradise Lost.
In sum, Howard presents a broad and comprehensive case that men have “not only the right but the duty to defend that liberty, with which providence has made them free.” Freedom is to be enjoyed, yet equally to be protected. In doing so, men may act in fulfillment of the summary of the law.
Present Considerations
Howard approaches his conclusion, as good preachers ought to do, with observations about the circumstances of the day, to which the faithful may apply his lessons. He warns “all,” but clearly means the king, “against invading the liberty of others,” lest “he” put “himself into a state of war.” He encourages the Christian minister to inculcate “upon his hearers” the “duty for men to resist encroachments,” without filling “the minds of people with groundless prejudices against their rulers,” but showing them “their real danger” and exhorting “them to such exertions as are necessary to avoid it.”
He then exhorts the people to possess the “arts of war” and praises the militia for the preparation they have done to this end, dismissing the conceit that America’s geographical advantages and the protection of Great Britain make American arms superfluous. He offers the pregnant warning that even if Great Britain’s protection can be counted upon, and gathering evidence suggests that it cannot, “it would be shameful for so numerous a people as this, and a people of so much natural strength and fortitude, to be, thro’ inattention to the art of war, incapable of bearing a part in their own defence.” Americans should instead prepare to defend themselves, aspiring to attain the “military skill and valour” of Alexander and Caesar, though they should “detest the principles from which they acted,” which led them to become “public robbers and murderers.” Without himself fomenting armed rebellion, Howard challenges his “hearers” to examine their condition and consider what they may be obliged to do.2323. Howard, 203–08.
He concludes with two bracing paragraphs. The first reminds Americans that “religion is the main concern of man, and a necessary qualification for a good soldier.” Christianity, Howard argues, “beyond any thing else, inspires with the love of liberty, with fortitude and magnanimity; and this alone can enable them to meet death with a rational composure and tranquility of mind, which is an enemy before which the bravest soldier must fall at last.” Knowledge of death with assurance of salvation provides the best chance for man to perform with excellence in the face of the terrors of war. But though Howard earlier listed virtue and religion as indispensable conditions for standing fast, their primary purposes are not instrumental. Religion is, of course, man’s most important pursuit. With his final words, he points to a more valuable kind of liberty… a liberty, which consists in being free from the power and dominion of sin, through the assistance of the divine spirit, concurring with our own pious, rational and persevering endeavors. Whatever our outward circumstances may be, if we are destitute of this spiritual liberty, we are in reality slaves, how much soever we may hate the name; if we possess it we are free indeed; And our being free in this sense, will give us the best grounds to hope for temporal freedom, through the favour of heaven; and, at length, gain us admission into the regions of perfect and uninterrupted liberty, peace and happiness.
Howard’s sermon exhorts Christian men, and specifically his American audience, to use the gifts of God well: to defend them bravely, balancing the urgency of temporal life, with its duties, toils, and happiness, with the eternal goal of man.2424. Howard, 208.
