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

20. Divine Judgments Upon Tyrants [1778]

- - 2 0 - DIVINE JUDGMENTS UPON TYRANTS Jacob Cushing BOSTON I 7 7 8 jACOB CUSHING (I730-I8o9). A Harvard graduate (I748) and the minister at Waltham, Massachusetts, from I752 onward, Cushing was a lively personality and an effective minister. He stayed close to the Bible in his preaching and so managed to satisfy conservatives as well as liberals. He was modest, reasonable, and methodical. He kept a voluminous diary in which all of the minutiae of his long life were carefully recorded. He was on good terms with the eminent of Massachusetts politics, including John Hancock, James Bowdoin, and Thomas Cushing. He delivered the convention sermon in I789, and the Dudleian lecture at Harvard in I792 (not printed). Harvard conferred a doctor of divinity degree upon him in I807. Of Cushing's fifteen published sermons, this one of April 20, I778, is the sole political sermon, a fiery denunciation of inhumane acts of two brigades of British soldiers in Lexington, Massachusetts, on April I9, I775. 6o8 Di'fline jutlgmtnll u}cn tyrantr : .Anti e~mpafJ,n t1 the 1pprejfed. A s E R M 0 N, PREACHED AT LEXINCTONJ A P a 1 L :toth, 1771. la commemoratien of th~ MURVEROUS JYAR and RAPINE, inhumanly perpetrated, by two brigades of Britijh trcops, in that town and neighbourhood, on the NINJ!TEENTH of APRIL, 1775· Bv JACOB CUSHING, A.M. P.t.sToR of the CauRca in WALTHAM. Amrtli11g 11 tbtir tlutls, amrtli,gly lu v..•i/1 repay, fury to his tui'7.11fj'arits, rtcompm" to hit t1Jitniet. 1SA u a lix. 18. Say 11 them that art ifa jtt~rfu/ heart, be Jiron!, fear ,ot ; hehold ! your Gat/ will c~me