MAYHEW,
JONATHAN

(October 8, 1720–July 9, 1766), was a Congregational minister of West Church in Boston. In 1747, he graduated with honors from Harvard and in 1765, he was given the distinguished position of Dudlein Lecturer at Harvard. In 1765, reflecting the colonists’ feelings toward King George III’s hated Stamp Act, Jonathan Mayhew state in a sermon:

The king is as much bound by his oath not to infringe the legal rights of the people, as the people are bound to yield subjection to him. From whence it follows that as soon as the prince sets himself above the law, he loses the king in the tyrant. He does, to all intents and purposes, un-king himself.560

In 1749, in response to the English Parliament’s plan to impose the Episcopal Church as America’s State Church, Jonathan Mayhew delivered the sermon, Concerning Unlimited Submission to the Higher Powers, to the Council and House of Representatives in Colonial New England:

It is hoped that but few will think the subject of it an improper one to be discoursed in the pulpit, under a notion that this is preaching politics instead of Christ. However, to remove all prejudices of this sort, I beg it may be remembered that “all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”

Why, then, should not those parts of Scripture which relate to civil government be examined and explained from the desk, as well as others? …

It is evident that the affairs of civil government may properly fall under a moral and religious consideration … For, although there be a sense, and a very plain and important sense, in which Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world, His inspired apostles have nevertheless, laid down some general principles concerning the office of civil rulers, and the duty of subjects, together with the reason and obligation of that duty.

And … it is proper for all who acknowledge the authority of Jesus Christ, and the inspiration of His apostles, to endeavor to understand what is in fact the doctrine which they have delivered concerning this matter. …

Civil tyranny is usually small at the beginning, like “the drop of a bucket,” till at length, like a mighty torrent, or the raging waves of the sea, it bears down all before it, and deluges whole countries and empires.561

On January 30, 1750, Jonathan Mayhew delivered a sermon which on Romans 13:1–7:

The apostle’s [Paul] doctrine … may be summed up in the following observations, viz.:

That the end of magistracy is the good of civil society, as such.

That civil rulers, as such, are the ordinance and ministers of God; it being by His permission and providence that any bear rule and agreeable to His will that there should be some persons vested with authority in society, for the well-being of it. …

It is obvious then, in general, that the civil rulers whom the apostle speaks of, and obedience to whom he presses upon Christians as a duty, are good rulers, such as are, in the exercise of their office and power, benefactors to society. … 562