Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730–1805: In Two Volumes

Bibliographic Note

Bibliographic Note No systematic bibliographic essay can be undertaken here, but some brief comments on the sources may be helpful to the reader. A bibliography of generally relevant writings is included in Ellis Sandoz, A Government of Laws: Political Theory, Religion and the American Founding (Baton Rouge, La., 1990), a study that is in many respects a companion to the present volume. Extensive bibliographic information on the religious writings of the period and on pertinent secondary works can be gleaned from the notes to Harry S. Stout, The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York, 1986); and to Donald Weber, Rhetoric and History in Revolutionary New England (New York, I988), a work attentive to the politics-religion issues. The Great Awakening in America, its significance and aftermath, is best presented by Alan Heimert, Religion and the American Mind from the Great Awakening to the Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., I966); and by Heimert and Perry Miller, eds., The Great Awakening: Documents Illustrating the Crisis and Its Consequences (Indianapolis, I967); valuable also is William G. McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition (Boston, I967) and the same author's 'The Great Awakening as the Key to the Revolution," in Jack P. Greene and William G. McLoughlin, Preachers & Politicians: Two Essays on the Origins of the American Revolution (Worcester, Mass., I977). Important also is Weber, Rhetoric and History, Chap. I and passim. Still fundamental is Herbert Osgood, The American Colonies in the Eighteenth Century, 4 vols. (New York, I924) (see the third volume, especially at pp. 407-90); and Carl Bridenbaugh, Mitre and Sceptre: Transatlantic Faiths, Ideas, Personalities, and Politics, z689-Z775 (New York, I962); and the same author's The Spirit of '76 (New York, I976). Also, from the abundant literature on Jonathan Edwards, Sr., who was pivotal in the Awakening, may be mentioned Alan Heimert's book cited above, and Norman Fiering, Jonathan Edwards's Moral Thought and Its British Context (Chapel Hill, N. C., I981); also Nathan 0. Hatch and XXXlll XXXlV BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE Harry S. Stout, eds., jonathan Edwards and the American Experience (New York, I988). The key bibliographic works for early American history utilized in making this collection include the following standard works: Joseph Sabin, Wilberforce Eames, and R.W.G. Vail, Bibliotheca Americana. A Dictionary of Books relating to America from its Discovery to the Present Time, 29 vols. (New York, I868-I936); Charles Evans and Clifford K. Shipton, American Bibliography. A Chronological Dictionary of All Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America from the Genesis ofPrinting in z639 down to and including the year z82o. With bibliographical and biographical notes, I4 vols. (Chicago, New York, and Worcester, Mass., I903-I959); Richard P. Bristol, Supplement to Charles Evans' American Bibliography, 2 vols. (Charlottesville, Va., 1970). The some 5o,ooo items listed in the Evans and Shipton and Bristol works are revised and corrected in Clifford K. Shipton and James E. Mooney, National Index of American Imprints through z8oo; the Short-title Evans, 2 vols. (Worcester, Mass., 1969). In turn, this work serves as the index for the vast Readex microprint edition: Clifford K. Shipton, ed., Early American Imprints, z63g-z8oo (Worcester , Mass. and New York, 1955-1983), which provides copies of all extant American publications (except newspapers and broadsides) of between 1639 and 18oo. The principal sources for the biographical notes preceding each sermon are reference books which are not cited unless directly quoted. Since most of the authors included in the volume were clergymen of New England or the Middle Atlantic region and-with the notable exception of many Awakening evangelists such as the Baptists Isaac Backus and John Leland-graduates of one of the early colleges, the following reference works were relied upon especially: Frederick Lewis Weis, New England Clergy and the Colonial Churches of New England (Lancaster, Mass., 1936); the same author's Colonial Churches and the Colonial Clergy of the Middle and Southern Colonies, z6o7-I776 (Lancaster , Mass., 1938); John L. Sibley and Clifford K. Shipton, Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 17 vols. (Boston, 1873-1975); Franklin B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, 6 vols. (New York, 1885-1912); William B. Sprague, Annals ofthe American Pulpit, 9 vols. (New York, 1857-1869); James McLachlan and Richard A. Harrison, BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE XXXV Princetonians: A Biographical Dictionary, 3 vols. to date (Princeton, N.J., I976-I98I). Of considerable help...