us, as the only means to prevent our ruin. May we strengthen the hands of the civil government here, and have all our exertions tempered with the principles of peace and order, and may we by precept and example encourage the practice of virtue and morality, without which no people can be happy.
It only remains now, that we dedicate the Tree of Liberty.
We do therefore, in the name and behalf of all the true SONS of LIBERTY in America, Great-Britain, Ireland, Corsica, or wheresoever they are dispersed throughout the world, dedicate and solemnly devote this tree, to be a TREE of LIBERTY—May all our councils and deliberations under it’s venerable branches be guided by wisdom, and directed to the support and maintenance of that liberty, which our renowned forefathers sought out and found under trees and in the wilderness. [16]—May it long flourish, and may the SONS of LIBERTY often repair hither, to confirm and strengthen each other.—When they look towards this sacred ELM, may they be penetrated with a sense of their duty to themselves, their country, and their posterity:—And may they, like the house of David, grow stronger and stronger, while their enemies, like the house of Saul, grow weaker and weaker. AMEN.
Harvard graduate and Congregationalist minister in Hingham on the east coast of Massachusetts, Daniel Shute took an active interest in colonial grievances against British policy but appears on the whole to have been a moderate in his views on the necessity for independence. He is said to have “stood aside and watched the Revolution run its course,” but the little we know of him today does not suggest that his parishioners classified him as a Loyalist. In any event, after independence had been won and government under the Articles of Confederation had proved ineffective, Shute stood well enough in the eyes of his neighbors for the town of Hingham to name him a delegate to the Massachusetts Convention called to approve or reject the new federal constitution drawn up in Philadelphia. He supported adoption and spoke strongly in favor of its provision forbidding the application of religious tests in choosing persons for public office. Shute in this sermon is addressing the Governor, Council, and House of Representatives in the annual Election Day Sermon. As is typical for such efforts, he rehearses the values and commitments of the community through the explication of a biblical text so as to edify and instruct the decision makers of the community. Shute’s effort is a good example of the breadth of concern and consistency in quality of these sermons.
Province of MASSACHUSETTS-BAY.
In COUNCIL, 26th May, 1768.
Ordered, That ISAAC ROYALL, BENJAMIN LINCOLN, and ROYALL TYLER, Esquires, be a Committee to wait on the Rev’d Mr. DANIEL SHUTE, and return him the Thanks of the Board for his Sermon preached Yesterday, before the Great and General Court, being the Day appointed by the ROYAL CHARTER for the Election of Councellors for the Province; and that they desire a Copy of the same for the Press.
A. OLIVER, Sec’y.
AN ELECTION SERMON
EZRA X. 4
ARISE; for this matter belongeth unto thee; we also will be with thee; be of good courage, and do it.
He whose happiness can admit no accession, and whose perfect rectitude excludes every degree of malevolence, must design the happiness of those creatures he calls out of nothing into existence; to suppose the contrary is inconsistent with absolute perfection, and implies the worst of characters.
[6] The communication of happiness being the end of creation, it will follow, from the perfections of the creator, that the whole plan of things is so adjusted as to promote the benevolent purpose; to which the immense diversity in his works; the gradation in the species of beings that we know of, and many more perhaps than we know of, and the somewhat similar gradation in the same species, arising from their make, their connections, and the circumstances they are placed in, are happily subservient. And every creature in the universe, according to its rank in the scale of being, is so constituted, as that acting agreeably to the laws of its nature, will promote its own happiness, and of consequence the grand design of the creator.
Agreeably hereto, all beings in the class of moral agents are so formed, that happiness will result to them from acting according to certain rules prescribed by the creator, and made known to them by reason or revelation. The rules of action, conformity to which will be productive [7] of happiness to such beings, must be agreeable to moral fitness in the relation of things; in perfect conformity to which the rectitude, and happiness of the creator himself consists. And such is the connection and dependency of things, that happiness will result from conformity to these rules, not only to individuals, but likewise to the whole; for the beneficial effects of such conformity are reciprocal.—It naturally tends to promote the order and harmony of the moral system, and so the general good.
The plan of the creator being thus manifestly adapted to promote the happiness of his creation, his conduct herein becomes a pattern to his creatures that are rational moral agents, and the rule of their duty, according to their measure; for all moral obligation on such, indubitably, arises from the will of God, as there is so exact a coincidence between his will, and the relative fitness of things; so that the nearer they resemble him, the nearer they will come to the perfect standard of right action, and the nearer they come [8] to this the more happiness will be produced.
It being so evidently the will of God, from the general constitution of things, that the happiness of his rational creatures should be promoted, all such are under moral obligation in conformity thereto, according to their ability, to promote their own, and the happiness of others.
The nature of the human species, therefore, being so adapted to society as that society will afford vastly more happiness to them, than solitary existence could do, indicates the will of their creator, and makes it morally fit that they should associate. From the make of man, the disadvantages of a solitary, and the advantages of a social state, evidently appear. A state of separation from the rest of the species will not admit the exercise of those affections and virtues, in which, from his natural constitution, his happiness very much consists; but in connection with others there will be opportunity for the exercise of them. As [9] each individual living in a separate state would be preventive of the happiness for which men were evidently formed; and as this happiness can be obtained only in a social state, to form into society must be not only their interest, but their duty.
The instinct, or propensity, implanted in the human species leading them, as it were mechanically, to that to which they are morally obliged, is an instance of the creator’s goodness as it facilitates the performance; and in the same proportion it does so, must make their neglect the more inexcusable.
Mankind being formed into society, the moral obligation they are under to civil government will appear from the same principle, as being necessary to secure to them those natural rights and privileges which are essential to their happiness. Life, liberty, and property, are the gifts of the creator, on the unmolested enjoyment of which their happiness chiefly depends: yet they are such an imperfect set of beings that they are liable to have [10] these invaded by one another: But the preservation of them in every fit method is evidently their duty. The entering into society lays the foundation of a plan for securing them; but this plan will be incomplete without the exertion of the united power of the whole for their mutual safety. The exertion of this power for that purpose, correspondent to the everlasting rules of right, is what is, here, intended by civil government; and as this is a method the best adapted, in their power, to secure the rights and privileges necessary to their happiness, to go into it is morally fit, and evidently the will of their creator.
Whatever mankind are obliged to perform