Professor Ellis Sandoz, many years ago, assembled "Political Sermons of the American Founding Era" in two volumes. This collection is now available online at the Liberty Fund Library.
A reading of some of these is an enlightening experience. There are sermons on the role of Divine Providence, Election Day Sermons, and one by Bishop James Madison (cousin of the "Father" of the Constitution and President James Madison).
These volumes are priceless reminders of those generations preceding and following the framing of the American Constitution. They are stirring reminders of the true nature of liberty, and its Source.
Aside from the Sandoz collection, Liberty Fund's Online Library is a tremendous source for all who wish to arm themselves with truth for the current battle of ideas.
Glad to see some are interested. Where do i get that resource?
The political side is secondary to the spiritual, yet insofar as conservatism goes, an increasing number of conservatives seem to suppose it came out of bottle, and that the effects of a living (not institutionalized) Christianity and its evangelicalism were and are not crucial to the real greatness of a nation. And more importantly, to the salvation of souls.
Early on, in a pamphlet for Europeans titled Information to Those Who Would Remove to America (1754), Benjamin Franklin wrote, in part:
“...serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced. Atheism is unknown there; Infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or an Infidel. And the Divine Being seems to have manifested His approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness by which the different sects treat each other, and by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been please to favor the whole country.
Alexis de Tocqueville commented,
“The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.” - Democracy in America, Volume I Chapter XVII (1835)
Os Guinness comments that,
“while America has never officially been a “Christian Republic,” for much of its history the Christian faith has been a leading contribution to its unofficial civil religion.”