I was thinking today about Samuel Langdon, President of Harvard College, and the sermon he preached before the Massachusetts legislature in May of 1775. Some at the time were wondering if disputes over taxes were worth all the sacrifice might result from a revolt the British government. Langdon assured the members of the legislature that fighting had been made necessary by a growing cultural divide between the colonists and the leadership in Britain. He claimed that “The general prevalence of vice has changed the whole face of things in the British government.” He also raised the issue of what the pursuits of the British leadership were. His answer was that they now sought “titles of dignity without virtue” and sought “vast public treasures continually lavished on corruption till every fund is exhausted, notwithstanding the mighty streams perpetually flowing in.” That sounds kind of familiar doesn’t it? Langdon knew that the corrupt politicians in London would never be satisfied. They had virtually bankrupted England and now saw the American colonies as a proverbial golden goose which they could use to enrich themselves and their friends.

Langdon had cited as his text for the sermon Isaiah 1:2. In the NIV the passage reads, “Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: ‘I have reared up children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.’” He saw England’s problem as the rebellion against God of its leadership. Americans at the time were as likely to see their struggle for independence as a moral crusade as they were to see it as a tax revolt. There was a reason for that. 

The pulpits of America had not been silent. The church in America had truly been doing what the left always claims it does. They had been speaking truth to power. They had been challenging the corrupt leaders of England for over 20 years and now things were coming to a head. One of the things that is left out of most of our history books is how important a role America’s religious leaders played in the build up to the revolution. Sermons in that era were often printed in their entirety in the newspapers and were the topic of almost everyone’s casual conversation. And, for over 20 years the pastors, priests, and rabbis of America had castigated the leadership of England for its moral failures.

Langdon, in his sermon, said that the British government’s claim that Britain’s immense debt was because of the Seven Years War, which was partly fought in America, (often patently accepted as valid in current textbooks) was a mere dishonest pretext. According to Langdon, the claim that Britain’s “immense debt” was because of its “defense of the American colonies” was false. He saw the real root of England’s money problems in the political and moral corruption of her elites and their corruption and oppression of her people. He insisted that no amount of increased taxation would ever be able to keep up with the immoral lusts and greed of England’s leadership. He said, “The demands of corruption are constantly increasing, and will forever exceed all the resources of wealth which the wit of man can invent or tyranny impose.” The only solution, he argued, was for the government in London to eliminate its “vast unnecessary expenses.” 

Langdon went on to claim that if true moral reform were to sweep through England and rid it of “all those vices which bring misery and ruin upon individuals, families, and kingdoms’ then and only then could the “public debt, great as it is…in a few years be cancelled by a growing revenue.” Later, after the war, even without revenues from America, England would regain its prosperity. In the event, Langdon proved somewhat prophetic. Moral and political reform was a big part of what brought England back from financial profligacy.

America has also now developed both moral and political corruption which demands revenues that no amount of taxation can ever provide. Where are our Landons sounding the alarm? Moral and political reform must sweep this country or its corruption will lead to its collapse. We must act. We must have the courage of a Samuel Langdon and the courage of that Massachusetts legislature of long ago.