# Samuel Davies defends liberty



## RamistThomist (Jul 29, 2005)

I didn't know whether to put this in "Politics" or what, but since in my mind liberty and faith go together, and more people would see it, I decided to put it in Defending the Faith.

Samuel Davies, "When [our enemies] would enslave the freeborn mind and compel us meanly to cringe to usurpation and arbitrary power; . . . what is then the will of God? Must peace then be maintained? Maintained at the expense of property, liberty, life, and everything dear and valuable? . . . No; in such a time even the God of Peace proclaims by His providence, "To arms!" *Then the sword is, as it were, consecrated to God; and the art of war becomes a part of our religion. *Then happy is he that shall reward our enemies, as they have served us. Blessed is the brave soldier; blessed is the defender of his country and the destroyer of his enemies. . . . But, on the other hand, "Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully; and cursed is he that keepeth back his sword from blood." . . . This denunciation, like the artillery of heaven, is leveled against the mean, sneaking coward who, when God, in the course of His providence, calls him to arms, refuses to obey and consults his own ease and safety more than his duty to God and his country." 

(Samuel Davies, "The Curse of Cowardice" (1758), in The Annals of America (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968), 2:23-24. The quotation is from Jeremiah 48:10. For ref, see Baldwin, 126.)


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