Massachusetts Provincial Congress (May 31, 1775) just three weeks after the victory of Fort Ticonderoga, invited Samuel Langdon,
President of Harvard College, to address them. He declared:
<We have rebelled against God. We have lost the true spirit of Christianity, though we retain the outward profession and form of it....By many, the Gospel is corrupted into a superficial system of moral philosophy, little better than ancient Platonism....
My brethren, let us repent and implore the divine mercy. Let us amend our ways and our doings, reform everything that has been provoking the Most High, and thus endeavor to obtain the gracious interpositions of providence for our deliverance....
If God be for us, who can be against us? The enemy has reproached us for calling on His name and professing our trust in Him. They have made a mock of our solemn fasts and every appearance of serious Christianity in the land...
May our land be purged from all its sins! Then the Lord will be our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble, and we will have no reason to be afraid, though thousands of enemies set themselves against us round about.
May the Lord hear us in this day of trouble....We will rejoice in His salvation, and in the name of our God, we will set up our banners!> 1775MP002
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1775MC001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Mecklenburg County Declaration of Independence, May 20, 1775. Raleigh (North Carolina) Register, April 30, 1819. Charles W. Eliot, LL.D., ed., American Historical Documents 1000-1904 (New York: P.F. Collier & Son Company, The Harvard Classics, 1910), Vol. 43, p. 166. America, Great Crises in Our History Told by Its Makers, A Library of Original Sources (Chicago: Veterans of Foreign Wars, 1925), Vol. III, pp. 184-185. Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972), pp. 387-388. John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution-The Faith of Our Founding Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, A Mott Media Book, 1987, 6th printing 1993), pp. 25-26. "Our Christian Heritage," Letter from Plymouth Rock (Marlborough, NH: The Plymouth Rock Foundation), p. 3. Stephen McDowell and Mark Beliles, "The Providential Perspective" (Charlottesville, VA: The Providence Foundation, P.O. Box 6759, Charlottesville, Va. 22906, January 1994), Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 2, 7.
1775MP002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Massachusetts Provincial Congress, May 31, 1775, in an address by Harvard President Samuel Langdon, reprinted by Plumstead, The Wall, pp. 364-373. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1977), pp. 277-278.