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

53. Overcoming Evil With Good [1801]

--53-OVERCOMING EVIL WITH GOOD Stanley Griswold HARTFORD I 8 0 I STANLEY GRISWOLD (I763-I8I5). A Yale graduate in I786 and Congregational clergyman at New Milford, Connecticut, Griswold led a checkered life and died of a fever at Shawneetown, Illinois Territory. He was expelled from the pulpit in I797, allegedly because of his disbelief in human depravity and for preaching universal salvation. But his political views were more likely the cause, since he favored democr~cy and Thomas Jefferson and was even said to support the French Revolution-all of which made him odious to the Connecticut clergy. Griswold retreated to Walpole, New Hampshire, to edit one of the new Republican papers there, the Political Observatory. After two years he was appointed secretary of the Michigan Territory, and he disappeared into the Western wilderness. Later he moved to Ohio, where he served as an appointed United States senator for six months in I8o9-I810. The final five years of his life were spent riding a judicial circuit in the Ohio and Wabash valleys, although it is uncertain whether or how he had learned the law. The sermon reprinted here-which is at once eloquent, profound, and conciliatory-was part of the Wallingford, Connecticut, celebration of the election of Jefferson to the presidency in I8oI; it was one of the events that sent Griswold packing out of the ministry and out of Connecticut. The acrimonious flavor of the political religion of the time can be surmised from this and the previous two sermons of John M. Mason and Tunis Wortman. Governor John Reynolds described Griswold as "a correct, honest man-a good lawyer-paid his debts, and sang David's Psalms" (Reynolds, The Pioneer History of Illinois [I8p], p. 337). 1 530 My respectable audience, I came not hither to preach a system of party-politics, nor to excite nor indulge ravings of faction. I came in obedience to what I conceived to be the duty of a Christian and a patriot, to contribute my most earnest endeavors toward healing the unhappy divisions of our country. Unfortunately some individuals are to be expected to be beyond cure, especially from such remedies as I shall apply, having drank down the poisonous virulence of party too copiously to admit of an easy recovery. But the citizens at large I cannot consider by any means in this predicament. They have ever been honest, are still honest , and desire nothing but to be honest. If unhappily any individuals be past cure, the lenient remedies of the gospel, which I purpose to apply on this occasion, upon such will be thrown away. And for such nothing seems to remain but the severer applications of reproof and rebuke, which our Saviour occasionally exhibited to some in his day, while he spake to the multitudes with the greatest mildness and affection. The method I have judged most proper to attain the object suggested , is to address a few considerations more particularly to the injured -those of every denomination and description of sentiment in our country, who may have suffered wrongfully-who have received wounds, and whose wounds have not yet forgotten to smart. On such the peace and tranquility of our country, I conceive, very greatly depend. Their conduct and the course they adopt are to have no inconsiderable share in determining, whether this country is to settle down in quietness, and harmony to be restored to its citizens -or whether it is yet to be agitated and shaken to its centre by the outrages of party. Far would I be from impeaching the prudence, the patriotism or the christianity of any who hear me. But it must be confessed, that we are all men, and men of like passions. Hence the necessity of repeatedly calling to remembrance the maxims of sound wisdom and the wholsome precepts of religion. If by suggesting any of these I might contribute in some small degree to the felecity of my country, 1 5F OVERCOMING EVIL WITH GOOD 1 533 I could easily forego the ambition of appearing a political preacher on this occasion, and should consider myself well rewarded for any calumnies which are past, or for any which are yet to come. For pursuing the object proposed, the gospel of the benevolent Jesus affords themes in abundance. I have chosen that cluster of directions recorded[:] ~Bless them who persecute you; bless and curse not. Rejoice with them...