FIRST AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE ANNIVERSARY SERMON. JULY 4 1777. WILLIAM GORDON
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:7037110 | Year Printed: 1777 |
| Place of Publication: Boston |
The Separation of the Jewish Tribes After theDeath of Solomon, Accounted for and Applied to the Present Day in a SermonPreached Before the General Court, on Friday, July the 4th, 1777. Being theAnniversary of the Declaration of Independency.By William Gordon Boston: J. Gill, Printer to the General Assembly, 1777.The first Fourth ofJuly Oration. Gordon, the chaplain of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, chose an apt metaphor for his Independence Day Sermon, the first to be held inBo...ston since Congress had issued the Declaration the previous year. Accordingto newspaper accounts, Gordon preached his "excellent Discourse" inthe late morning, after which the General Court invited General Heath and otherContinental officers to drink toasts as naval and land guns in the harbor firedsalutes. The evening was given over to fireworks on Boston Common (BostonGazette, 7 July 1777, p. 3)Urging all toremain steadfast against the British and recalling the earliest days of thefight, when “we were without an army, without money and without ammunition… Thesword being drawn and the ground stained with blood, ” housed in a customchemise and half morocco slipcase.“Much of the mostimportant and characteristic writing of the American Revolution” appeared inpamphlets such as this momentous first edition of William Gordon’s Sermon, delivered on July 4, 1777 in commemoration of the Declaration of Independence(Bailyn, Ideological Origins, 4). Gordon was “a vigorous partisan ofindependence and in 1775 was made chaplain to both houses of the ProvincialCongress assembled at Watertown… He delivered the election sermon before theGeneral Court on July 19, 1775 and the first independence anniversary sermon onJuly 4, 1777” (DAB IV:426). Addressing the Massachusetts-Bay House ofRepresentatives, Gordon spoke only days before Britain’s capture of FortTiconderoga dealt a near-crushing blow to the beleaguered Americans. Inelectrifying imagery he recalls the earliest days of the Revolution, when “wewere without an army, without money and without ammunition… The sword beingdrawn and the ground stained with the blood of its inhabitants, the peopleoffered themselves willingly in the cause.” Despite uncertain victory, Gordonurges all to hold fast to the Declaration of Independence, and reject not only“kings but tyranny, and as ever to retain the supreme authority in the people…Take heed therefore my brethren, and stand fast in that liberty wherewith youhave been made free” (emphasis in original). Gordon later authored the “firstfull-scale history” of the Revolution in his 1788 History of the Rise, Progressand Establishment of the Independence of the United States (Howes G256). Firstedition: “perhaps the first anniversary sermon, commemorative of the signing ofthe Declaration of Independence, printed” (Evans 15317). With half title.Containing “Hymn by Dr Watts… sung upon the occasion” at rear. Sabin 28009. Sewn & uncut, as issued. Unbound
