Gazette Of The United States

The Address of the Congregational Ministers of the city of New-Haven.

To the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES.

SIR,

The Congregational Ministers of the city of New-Haven, beg leave to make their most respectful address to the President of the United States. We presume that we join with the whole collective body of the congregational Pastors and Presbyterian Ministers throughout these States, in the most cordial congratulations of themselves, of their country, and of mankind, on your elevation to the head of the combined American Republic.

As Ministers of the blessed JESUS, the Prince of Peace, we rejoice, and have inexpressible pleasure in the demonstrations you have given of your sincere affection towards that holy religion, which is the glory of christian States, and will become the glory of the world itself, at that happy period, when Liberty, public Right, and the veneration of the MOST HIGH, who presides in the Universe with a most holy and benevolent Sovereignty, shall triumph among all the Nations, Kingdoms, Empires, and Republics on earth.—

We most sincerely rejoice in the kind and gracious Providence of ALMIGHTY GOD, who hath been pleased to preserve your life, during your late dangerous sickness, and to restore you to such a degree of health, as gives us this opportunity to express our joy, and affords us the most pleasing hopes that your health may be firmly established.

We pray the Lord of Hosts, by whose counsels and wisdom you have been carried triumphantly and gloriously through the late war, terminating in the establishment of American Liberty, and perhaps in the liberty of all nations, that he would be pleased ever to have you under his holy protection, continue you a blessing to Church and State, support you under your arduous cares, and perpetuate that estimation and honor, which you have justly acquired of your country. May this new and rising Republic become, under your auspices, the most glorious for population, perfection of policy and happy administration of government that ever appeared on earth. And may you, Sir, having finished a course of distinguished usefulness, receive the reward of public virtue in the kingdom of eternal glory.

EZRA STILES,
JAMES DANA,
JONATHAN EDWARDS,
SAMUEL WALES,
SAMUEL AUSTIN, jun.

City of New-Haven, Oct. 17, 1789.

To which the PRESIDENT was pleased to return the following Answer.

To the Congregational Ministers of the City of New-Haven.

GENTLEMEN

The kind congratulations contained in your address, claim and receive my grateful and affectionate thanks.—Respecting, as I do, the favourable opinions of men distinguished for science and piety, it would be false delicacy to disavow the satisfaction, which I derive from their approbation of my public services, and private conduct.

Regarding that deportment, which consists with true religion, as the best Security of temporal peace, and the sure mean of attaining eternal felicity, it will be my earnest endeavour (as far as human frailty can resolve) to inculcate the belief and practice of opinions which lead to the consummation of those desirable objects.

The tender interest which you have taken in my personal happiness, and the obliging manner in which you express yourselves on the restoration of my health, are so forcibly impressed on my mind as to render language inadequate to the utterance of my feelings.—If it shall please the Great Disposer of Events to listen to the pious supplication, which you have presented in my behalf, I trust the remainder of my days will evince the gratitude of a heart devoted to the advancement of those objects, which receive the approbation of Heaven, and promote the happiness of our fellow-men.

My best prayers are offered to the Throne of Grace for your happiness, and that of the congregations committed to your care.

G. WASHINGTON.

City of New-Haven, October 17th, 1789.