A Sermon On The Second Coming of
Christ
Called Unto Liberty, John Hargrove:
Founding Era Sermons
John Hargrove
(1750–1839). The practice of delivering sermons in the Capitol in
Washington began in Thomas Jefferson’s administration and continued
for decades until after the Civil War (see Anson Stokes, Church and
State in the United States, 1:499–507). All denominations were
included in the invitations to preach, and the President, cabinet
members, senators, representatives, and the general public attended.
The sermon reprinted here, A Sermon, on the Second Coming of Christ
and on the Last Judgment, delivered on Christmas Day, 1804, was at
least the third sermon preached by John Hargrove in the Capitol. He
had preached on the day after Christmas in 1802, with President
Jefferson and about forty senators and representatives and sixty
other people in attendance. Interest was such that he was invited to
preach again the following evening. The mystical and eschatological
teachings of the Church of the New Jerusalem, a denomination sprung
from the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), were of evident
interest to Hargrove’s audience. The Baltimore church where he was
pastor was the first of the denomination founded in the country
(1792). Dr. Joseph Priestly, Jefferson’s mentor in things religious,
was attracted to the Swedenborgian doctrines of final things, and
the matter of Christ’s divinity and resurrection were points of
debate between him and Jefferson. (See Robert Hindmarsh, Letters to
Dr. Priestly [1792]; and D. W. Adams, ed., Jefferson’s Extracts from
the Gospels [1983], pp. 14–25, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson,
Second Series.) In general, all this was in line with the newly
aroused interest in the relationship between republicanism and
religion.
John Hargrove was born
in Ireland and came to America in 1769. He worked as a land surveyor
and as a master weaver, and he published The Weavers Draft Book and
Clothiers Assistant (1792; repr. 1979), the first book of its kind
published in America. He was ordained a minister in the Methodist
Episcopal Church in 1776 and became a member of the first faculty of
Cokesbury College in Abington, Maryland, in 1788. While few details
of his life are known, it appears that he converted to the
Swedenborgian sect after going to Baltimore to study these teachings
with the intention of refuting them. In any event, in 1799 he became
the first Swedenborgian minister ordained in the United States and
was the pastor of the Church of the New Jerusalem in Baltimore until
1830. He died there in 1839.
Preface
The numerous and
valuable improvements in all the arts and sciences, which have so
rapidly succeeded each other during the last half century,
contribute to convince the men of the Lord’s New Church that a new
order of things has taken place in the spiritual world, and is
thence daily manifesting its happy effects in the natural world; for
the natural world is only a world of effects; but the spiritual
world is a world of causes.
It is likewise a
pleasing and sure presage of increasing knowledge and liberality,
that on all such occasions, it is seldom enquired whether these
improvements were first suggested by a Whig or a Tory, a Jew or a
gentile: To which we may also add, that the bloody and infernal
swords of religious intolerance and persecution, are now, probably,
for ever sheathed, through the mild, but extensive climates of these
United States; for here we have no Inquisition—no Bastile.
And yet it is a fact,
that whenever any theological idea or system which is apparently new
is announced, or submitted to the consideration of the Christian
world, “a hue and cry” of heretic, and blasphemer is immediately
resounded and reverberated; and the most hostile and illiberal
opposition manifested against all such annunciations, even by many
who positively refuse to examine the premises'!
Such ignorant and
bigoted opposers to the growing state of gospel knowledge, should
reflect, however, that there is a sure promise left unto the church
of God, that “The path of the just shall be as the shining light,
that shineth more and more unto the perfect day”; or as it is
elsewhere expressed, that in the latter days “The light of the moon
shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be
seven fold, even as the light of seven days.” Hence, when he who was
the “Light of the World” appeared on earth “in the likeness of
sinful flesh,” he plainly and positively declared that (over and
above what he then had revealed) he had “many more things” to
announce, which, at that period they were “not able to bear”; but
that nevertheless, the time should come, when a brighter
dispensation of gospel truths should be afforded us, particularly
respecting the true nature of the holy trinity, or object of
Christian worship. (See St. John’s Gospel 21st chapter, 12th and
[25]th verses.)
Now this blessed
period the men of the New Jerusalem Church are fully persuaded hath
already taken place: A period which in its future progress will
effect the happy downfall of mystic Babylon; and a full and final
judgment and rejection of those principles of superstition and
infidelity which have brought the church to the consummation of its
first period.
Whatever effect the
following discourse may have, towards hastening the progress of the
period alluded unto, is not for me to determine; but this I can say,
that it would not have made its appearance so soon from the press,
had I not received the following letter, from a member of congress a
few days ago; which on this occasion I have respectfully solicited
and also obtained leave to insert, without any alteration.
Washington,
30th January, 1805.
Sir,
I have to lament that
when you was lately in Washington, I was unable to procure an
introduction to you; and consequently had not the pleasure of a
conversation, which might have superseded the necessity of this
application: I attended at the Capitol when you preached the last
sermon at that place, when I was ravished and delighted with your
expositions of the doctrines of the gospel; but being as novel as
reasonable, I was unable to impress them on my mind in such a way as
to be able to systematize them; I have therefore to request (if it
can be done without inconvenience to yourself), that you would
furnish me with a copy of the sermon. I shall leave this place about
the 4th of March for the southward, previous to which, I should be
gratified to hear from you. Meanwhile I beg leave to subscribe
myself, with sentiments of high consideration your obedient humble
servant,
J. B. Earle
The receipt of this
letter, I say, produced in my mind, not only a desire to comply with
the request of my honorable though unknown correspondent; but
impressed me also, with a presumption, that were I to print off and
circulate an ample edition of the discourse alluded to, it would
probably prove equally pleasing to many other sincere inquirers
after religious knowledge. Such as it is, therefore, it is now
presented before a candid and enlightened people; not to court
contention however, God is my witness; but with the fond hope that I
may contribute, in some small degree, to arrest infidelity, and
dissipate superstition; and that it may have this happy influence,
is, and ever shall be, the fervent and sincere prayer of Baltimore, 14th Feb. 1805.
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