A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE HIS EXCELLENCY FRANCIS BERNARD, ESQ; GOVERNOR, HIS HONOR THOMAS HUTCHINSON, ESQ; LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, THE HONORABLE HIS MAJESTY'S COUNCIL... OF THE PROVINCE OF THE MASSACHUSETTS-BAY IN NEW ENGLAND, MAY 27TH, 1767. BEING THE ANNIVERSARY FOR THE ELECTION OF HIS MAJESTY'S COUNCIL FOR THE PROVINCE.
Boston: Green and Russell, 1767. 60pp, but lacking the half title. Stitched and untrimmed. Title and last several leaves heavily foxed. Else Good+.
A fine Sermon delivered soon after the repeal of the Stamp Act and just before enactment of the equally execrated Townshend Acts. Bridge warns that rulers have the duty to promulgate "only such laws as...are fit for the government of rational, intelligent, moral agents, all equal and upon a par, antecedent to any political combinations among men;" and not to abuse their God-given trust "by serving the purposes of ambition, usurpation and tyranny...But I must not enlarge."
Whatever the form of government, all men "have a natural right" to enjoy freedom: "every man protected in his just rights, sitting under his own vine, and under his own fig tree...and none to make him afraid." Careful to be conciliatory, he praises English rule, even Parliament, "which, tho' liable to mistakes, has yet been attentive to the good of the nation and kingdom, and her colonies and dependencies." He praises God that the "late transactions" did not proceed "to that extremity which many feared, and which would have terminated in...the ruin of the colonies."
FIRST EDITION. Evans 10569. Vail N.E. Election Sermons 20. Lapham Newberry Library 73. Item #34249
Price: $350.00