Renewing American Leadership - PO Box 29 - Lincoln, Virginia 20160 5 It is interesting that the one specific Capitol sermon mentioned in the CVC is a newspaper account of the Rev. David Austin’s July 4, 1801 sermon. The CVC text accompanying a facsimile of a newspaper article reads, "Mr. Austin's Discourse was a sermon reported on in the Alexandria Advertiser on July 27, 1801.” Rev. Austin, who did gain Thomas Jefferson as a follower, was removed from his church in Elizabeth, New Jersey and by the Presbytery because of his millennialist preaching. Considered fanatical, he thought he had been called upon by God to usher in the millennium, and even assembled thousands for the day that he said Christ would return. He thought the Jews must be restored first to a “new Jerusalem,” which he thought was New Haven, CT, and then Washington, DC. If a single preacher were to be chosen to highlight in the CVC in an attempt to embarrass Christians today, it would be David Austin.