EDITOR'S PREFATORY NOTE.

PRESIDENT STILES was one of the most learned and high-minded men of his time. He was familiar with the lore of the Hebrew and Christian Church. He conversed and corresponded in Hebrew, Latin, and French, with facility, and was learned in the Oriental literature and antiquities connected with Biblical history. He taught in astronomy, chemistry, and philosophy. He and his friend Dr. Franklin were among the earliest statisticians in America, and his studies in this science exhibit the most comprehensive and enlightened views. That he was a thorough antiquary is manifest in his history of the Three Tyrannicides, and that he was a true son of New England appears in his saying that the day of the "martyrdom" of King Charles I. "ought to be celebrated as an anniversary thanksgiving that one nation on earth had so much fortitude and public justice as to make a royal tyrant bow to the sovereignty of the people."

By an extensive foreign correspondence he kept up with the progress of knowledge and discovery, to which he himself contributed. That he was a zealous and an understanding friend of civil and religious liberty, a man of practical knowledge and observation, a sagacious student of men and things, is apparent in his discourse on "Christian Union," 1760, as well as in this remarkable sermon of 1783, on the "United States elevated to Glory and Honor." Chancellor Kent said, at the Commencement at Yale College, in 1831: "President Stiles's zeal for civil and religious liberty was kindled at the altar of the English and New England Puritans, and it was animating and vivid. A more constant and devoted friend to the Revolution and independence of this country never existed. Take him for all in all, this extraordinary man was undoubtedly one of the purest and best gifted men of his age. Though he was uncompromising in his belief and vindication of the Protestant faith, he was nevertheless of the most

charitable and catholic temper, resulting equally from the benevolence of his disposition and the spirit of the gospel." The Rev. Dr. Channing said of Dr. Stiles: "This country has not perhaps produced a more learned man. . . . . . His virtues were proportioned to his intellectual acquisition. In his faith he was what is called a moderate Calvinist; but his heart was of no sect. . . . . . He desired to heal the wounds of the divided Church of Christ, not by a common creed, but by the spirit of love. . . . . . He wished to break every yoke, civil and ecclesiastical, from men's necks. To the influence of this distinguished man in the circle in which I was brought up, I may owe in part the indignation which I feel towards every invasion of human rights. In my earliest years I regarded no other human being with equal reverence." Nor did his zeal as a scholar lessen his fidelity as a pastor and preacher in his ministry at Newport, then second only to Boston in commerce.

Ezra Stiles, son of Rev. Isaac Stiles, was born in North Haven, Connecticut, December 10, 1727; graduated at Yale in 1747; delivered a Latin oration, in 1753, in memory of Dean Berkeley, and another at New Haven, in February, 1755, in honor of Dr. Franklin, with whom he had a life-long friendship. He was minister at Newport, Rhode Island, from 1755 to the beginning of the war of the Revolution, in 1777; became pastor of the North Church in Portsmouth, but was soon appointed President of Yale College, an office which he adorned; and died May 12th, 1795. The present edition of his Election Sermon is reprinted from the edition of 1783, at New Haven. It was reprinted in London, as a literary curiosity, in all the luxury and splendor of large paper and bold type. - Sparks's American Biography, xvi. 78; Sprague's Annals, i. 470, 479; Dr. Park's Life of Hopkins.

DISCOURSE IX.

ELECTION SERMON.

AND TO MAKE THEE HIGH ABOVE ALL NATIONS WHICH HE HATH MADE, IN PRAISE, AND IN NAME, AND IN HONOR; AND THAT THOU MAYEST BE AN HOLY PEOPLE UNTO THE LORD THY GOD. - Deut. xxvi. 19.

TAUGHT by the omniscient Deity, Moses foresaw and predicted the capital events relative to Israel, through the successive changes of depression and glory, until their final elevation to the first dignity and eminence among the empires of the world. These events have been so ordered as to become a display of retribution and sovereignty; for, while the good and evil hitherto felt by this people have been dispensed in the way of exact national retribution, their ultimate glory and honor will be of the divine sovereignty, with a "Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord, be it known unto you, but for mine holy name's sake."

However it may be doubted whether political communities are rewarded and punished in this world only, and whether the prosperity and decline of other empires have corresponded with their moral state as to virtue and vice, yet the history of the Hebrew theocracy shows that the secular welfare of God's ancient people depended upon their virtue, their religion, their observance of that holy covenant which Israel entered into with God on the plains at the foot of Nebo, on the other side Jordan. Here Moses,

the

the man of God, assembled three million of people, number of the United States, - recapitulated and gave them a second publication of the sacred jural institute, delivered thirty-eight years before, with the most awful solemnity, at Mount Sinai. A law dictated with sovereign authority by the Most High to a people, to a world, a universe, becomes of invincible force and obligation without any reference to the consent of the governed. It is obligatory for three reasons, viz., its original justice and unerring equity, the omnipotent Authority by which it is enforced, and the sanctions of rewards and punishments. But in the case of Israel he condescended to a mutual covenant, and by the hand of Moses led his people to avouch the Lord Jehovah to be their God, and in the most public and explicit manner voluntarily to engage and covenant with God to keep and obey his law. Thereupon this great prophet, whom God had raised up for so solemn a transaction, declared in the name of the Lord that the Most High avouched, acknowledged, and took them for a peculiar people to himself; promising to be their God and Protector, and upon their obedience to make them prosperous and happy." He foresaw, indeed, their rejection of God, and predicted the judicial chastisement of apostasya chastisement involving the righteous with the wicked. But, as well to comfort and support the righteous in every age, and under every calamity, as to make his power known among all nations, God determined that a remnant should be saved. Whence Moses and the prophets, by divine direction, interspersed their writings with promises that when the ends of God's moral government should be answered in a series of national punishments, inflicted for a succession of ages, he would, by his irresistible power and sovereign grace, subdue the hearts of his people to a

a Deut. xxix. 10, 14; xxx. 9, 19.

free, willing, joyful obedience; turn their captivity; recover and gather them "from all the nations whither the Lord had scattered them in his fierce anger; bring them into the land which their fathers possessed; and multiply them above their fathers, and rejoice over them for good, as he rejoiced over their fathers." Then the words of Moses, hitherto accomplished but in part, will be literally fulfilled, when this branch of the posterity of Abraham shall be nationally collected, and become a very distinguished and glorious people, under the great Messiah, the Prince of Peace. He will then "make them high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honor, and they shall become a holy people unto the Lord. their God."

I shall enlarge no further upon the primary sense and literal accomplishment of this and numerous other prophecies respecting both Jews and Gentiles in the latter-day glory of the church; for I have assumed the text only as introductory to a discourse upon the political welfare of God's American Israel, and as allusively prophetic of the future prosperity and splendor of the United States. We may, then, consider

I. What reason we have to expect that, by the blessing of God, these States may prosper and flourish into a great American Republic, and ascend into high and distinguished honor among the nations of the earth. "To make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honor.”

II. That our system of dominion and civil polity would be imperfect without the true religion; or that from the diffusion of virtue among the people of any community would arise their greatest secular happiness: which will terminate in this conclusion, that holiness ought to be the

a Deut. xxx. 3.