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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
In the eighteenth century, both in the Dutch Republic and in the colonies of New England, collective repentance and social reconciliation with God were institutionalized in great common rituals. In both polities, Fast and Thanksgiving Days were proclaimed by civil authority, and these occasions brought people together into churches to hear ministers interpret their common situation. These rituals were the main way in which the New England colonies and the Dutch Republic expressed their unity as political communities. It was this aspect of these sermons that made them of interest to nineteenth-century American and Dutch historians. In the nineteenth-century Kingdom of the Netherlands, N. C. Kist, the first holder of the newly instituted chair of Church History at Leiden University, finished his career with his two-volume Neêrlands Bededagen en Biddagsbrieven, offering both an interpretation and an antiquarian overview of all the Fast Days proclaimed in the Netherlands. In the United States, William de Loss Love published his exquisite The Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England in 1895, similarly offering both an antiquarian list of all Fast and Thanksgiving Days and an analysis. Kist was deeply involved with the nation-building project of the early nineteenth-century Kingdom of the Netherlands. De Loss Love, the first chaplain of the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, was as inspired by modern nationalism as Kist was. Both scholars interpreted the Fast-day ritual as an indication of the high moral purpose and commitment to the nation of their ancestors.
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6 I have read all printed Dutch Fast-day sermons preserved in the Royal Library of The Hague, and the University Libraries of Amsterdam and Leiden. These three libraries possess most of the Dutch printed sermons, if the period 1750–1800, for which a bibliography of sermons exists, is any indication: Bosma, Jelle, Woorden van eengezond verstand: de invloed van de Verlichting op de in het Nederlands uitgegeven preken van 1750 tot 1800 (Kampen, 1997)Google Scholar.
7 Kerkelijk Placaatboek, 5 vols (’s-Gravenhage, 1722–1807), III: 26.
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9 Municipal Archive of Haarlem: Stadsarchief, Burgemeestersresoluties, 9 February 1742.
10 Municipal Archive of Amsterdam: Archief van de Portugees-Israelitische Gemeente, no. 66.
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12 All proclamations are published in Kist, Neêrland’s Bededagen.
13 Kist, Neêrland’s Bededagen, II: 259–60.
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15 Kist, Neêrland’s Bededagen, II: 366–7.
16 Ibid., II: 382.
17 Ibid., II: 373. My translation.
18 Ibid., II: 394.
19 Ibid., II: 402.
20 Ibid., II: 403.
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32 Jacob Duché, The American vine: a sermon, preached in Christ-Church, Philadelphia, before the Honourable Continental Congress, July 20th, 1775. Being the day recommended by them for a general fast throughout the united English colonies of America, Early American Imprints. First series, no. 14012: 29.
33 John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men: A Sermon Preached at Princeton, on the 17th of May, 1776. Being the General Fast Appointed by the Congress through the United Colonies: To which is added, an address to the natives of Scotland residing in America, Early American Imprints. First series, no. 15224.
34 Ibid., 30.
35 Ibid., 51.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 David Osgood, Reflections on the Goodness of God in Supporting the People of the United States through the Late War, and Giving Them so Advantageous and Honourable a Peace: A Sermon Preached on the Day of Annual and National Thanksgiving December 11, 1783, Early American Imprints. First series, no. 18670: 33.
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46 Perry Miller, the dean of Puritan studies, noticed die change I am trying to describe as well: see his article ‘From the Covenant to the Revival’, in Nelson R Burr, ed., Religion in American Life 1 : The Shaping of American Religion (Princeton, 1961), 322–68, arguing that until the revolution, ministers had supposed that men would persistently sin, and so would have to be recurrently summoned to communal repentance. With the revolution, political action had succeeded, and they inferred that Americans were virtuous and could look to the future. The evangelical scholar Mark Noll describes the same changes in his article, The American Revolution and Protestant Evangelicalism’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23 (1993), 615–38, without the benefits of the concepts ‘moral community’ or ‘nationalism’.
47 Joseph Belcher, Two Sermons Preached in Dedham, N.E.: The first on a day set apart for prayer with fasting, to implore spiritual blessings on the rising generation. The other (some time after) in private, to a considerable number of young persons in the aforesaid town, Early American imprints. First series, no. 1443.
48 Increase Mather, The Duty of Parents to Pray for their Children: opened & applyed in a sermon, preached May 19, 1703, Early American imprints. First series, no. 1132; 1133: 39.
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55 Isaac du Puy, Leerrede over Ps V:ij op den algemeenen dank- vast- en bededag den 14 February 1781, uit het Fransch vertaald door Johan Derk Baron van der Capellen (Zwolle, 1781).
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