Trinity Church (Original Location) - Election Day Sermons

10 Summer St

Trinity Church parish was founded in 1733 at this spot. This was the last in the trinity of Episcopal churches to be built in Boston in Colonial times. Destroyed by fire in 1872 and rebuilt in Copley Square. Its famous for its Richardsonian Romanesque architecture and La Farge murals. The original location is pinned here and now part of Downtown Crossing.

Little is recorded about the history of the church during the Revolutionary war aside from the fact that most of its parishioners remained Tories or Loyalists. (For more info on what it was like for a Tory during the Seige of Boston see King’s Chapel and Hollis St Church)

There was an election day sermon given by Samuel Parker in 1793. He, like other ministers, gave special sermons called Election Day sermons to address the regions recently elected rulers. The annual election sermon was a Puritan phenomenon that lasted for well over two hundred years, from 1634 through 1884. It was one of the means by which church and state, the sacred and the profane were twined so tightly together in colonial New England. The election sermon served as a centering and ritualized observance of the purpose of the entire Puritan enterprise. Election sermons were published and made widely available.

Ministers included Addington Davenport (1740-1746); William Hooper (1747-1767); William Walter (1767-1776); Samuel Parker (1779-1804); John Sylvester John Gardiner (1805-1830).

Parishioners included Peter Faneuil, Charles Apthorp, Philip Dumaresq, William Coffin, Thomas Aston Coffin, Leonard Vassall, Samuel Hale Parker. In 1789 George Washington worshipped at the church.

What fruitage did these spiritual leaders produce? Mt 7:15-20. Consider John 17:16 vs Acts 20:29, 30. What would Jesus have said seeing this?

-Source Links-

https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/1964

https://www.jstor.org/stable/42973502

https://wallbuilders.com/sermon-election-1793-massachusetts/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Church,_Boston_(Summer_Street)

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/siege-of-boston-map.htm