Scripture, I will freely admit, is
not something I’m terribly familiar with. I would say likewise of sermons. The
language of the pulpit has never been a part of my day-to-day life as it had
been for others, and so at times it feels a little strange to me to write at
length and sincerely about things like sin, salvation, grace, and the soul. To
be certain, I find – have long found, will continue to find – religion a
fascinating topic of study. The intricacies of doctrine and dogma, the
significance of denominational distinctions, and the relationship between faith
and policy have often proven exceedingly fruitful avenues of investigation over
the course of my experience as a student of history. But the fact remains that
writing about these things with what passes for authority almost never ceases
to give me pause. I have written about them before, of course, where and when I
felt the situation called for it. But this latest series in particular, which
sought to analyze a sermon in which the Bible was quoted often and at length,
represented a degree of immersion in all things theological to which I am not
normally accustomed. To that end, let me say that if my academic treatment of
something certain of my readers consider to be very personal was ever cause for
offense, rest assured that was not my intention. I write about things that
interest me, and Jonathan Mayhew’s Discourse
Concerning Unlimited Submission interests me very much. That being said,
there are of course things he communicated in that sermon – remarks in favor of
or against certain doctrines or denominations – which might still easily be
considered rude, condescending, or insensitive to members of certain faiths or
creeds. By repeating them or exploring them I certainly didn’t intend to give
them credence, though I’m sure at times it appeared as though I did. Again, if
this at any point became cause for discomfort, I do sincerely apologize.
Obviously, in spite of my relative
lack of comfort with writing about matters of faith, and the potential for
unease among my audience that certain quotations thereof might have served to
elicit, I did choose to explore Mayhew’s Discourse
all the same. The reason for this, as I said, is because it interests me.
Though delivered before the first shot was fired at Lexington and Concord in
1775, before the Stamps Act Crisis in 1765, and before even the Seven Years War
– arguably the single event to which the American Revolution most owes its
occurrence – the sermon heard in Boston’s Old West Church on the morning of January
30th, 1750 engaged in almost exactly the same kind of philosophical
enquiry that deeply colored these later events. This circumstance is rendered
yet more amazing by the fact that the topic of Mayhew’s homily had almost
nothing to do with the questions and queries that would so powerfully animate
the Patriot opposition during the 1760s and 1770s. Discourse is not concerned with taxation, the relative power of
Parliament and the colonial assemblies, or the nature and extent of the
contemporary British Empire. Mayhew’s interest was seemingly much narrower,
confined as it was to the continued observance of the Anglican feast day of
King Charles the Martyr. In attempting to discredit the commemoration of a
monarch whose overthrow he believed was justified, however, Mayhew ultimately
formulated a doctrine of civil authority whose basic contours closely resembled
both the social contract theory of John Locke and the rationale later put
forward by the Continental Congress in its formal declaration of America’s
independence from Great Britain. Without being able to say that Discourse thus unequivocally acted as a
bridge between these two moments in history – between 1689 and 1776 – the
possibility remains both entirely plausible and undeniably intriguing.
Granted, there’s
no reason to believe that the collective membership of the Founding Generation
were in particular need of a refresher on the topic of social contract theory
and the right of revolution. The likes of John Adams (1735-1826) and Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826), John Dickinson (1732-1808), James Madison (1751-1836), and
Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) were all highly educated individuals even by the
standards of the 21st century. They attended some of the finest
schools in contemporary British America – and in the case of Dickinson and
fellow Pennsylvanian Benjamin Rush (1746-1813), some of the finest schools in
the whole of the British Empire – read widely and voraciously, and quite often
invoked the memory of the Glorious Revolution (1688) and the passage of the
Bill of Rights (1689) – events to which Locke responded directly – amidst their
own written ruminations as to the nature of the dispute then unfolding between
America and Great Britain. Mayhew’s rearticulation of the ideas put forward by
Locke – who was himself rearticulating a theory first expounded by Thomas
Hobbes (1588-1679) – would thus likely have impacted these men but little. It
also bears noting, under the circumstances, that many of the individuals whose
responsibility it became in the summer of 1776 to draft a document announcing
and justifying Congress’s vote in favor of independence – namely Adams,
Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) – tended not to identify
themselves personally with any particular religious denomination. In
consequence, while there is no reason to think that these men would not have
been receptive to the theory of political power that Mayhew attempted to
propose in his Discourse, the fusion
of said theory with scriptural analysis, interdenominational criticism, and
Calvinist piety was likely not intended to attract their specific attention.
The most likely anticipated
audience, of course, was Mayhew’s own congregation. While this hardly qualifies
as any kind of revelation – Discourse was
delivered as a Sunday sermon before it ever saw print as a socio-political
treatise – it nonetheless bears recalling. The average congregant at Boston’s
Old West Church was unlikely to possess the same grasp of 17th
century English political philosophy as an Adams, a Jefferson, or a Dickinson. They
were apt to be literate, owing to the uniquely robust system of public
education that existed in contemporary New England, and exceptionally familiar
with the text of the Bible – a consequence of their probable Puritan heritage.
But a refined knowledge of English history, law, and political theory was
almost certainly not a part of their intellectual makeup. None of this is to
say, of course, that the typical mid-18th century Bostonian would
have been wholly ignorant of the events of the English Civil War and the
Glorious Revolution, or else broadly unaware of the libertarian contours of
contemporary English political culture. The British, by the standards of the
era, were among the most politically conscious people in Europe, the most aware
of their rights under the law, and the keenest to see them preserved. Americans
were subjects of the same empire and inheritors of the same traditions,
notwithstanding the political norms and material circumstances that otherwise
set them apart, and thus possessed of a similar – if not the same – sense of pride,
political awareness, and patriotism. That being said, it is an open question as
to whether or not even the literate and educated New Englander could be
depended on to be aware of specific theorists and their work even as it touched
upon something very near and dear to their cultural sensibilities.
Mayhew would consequently seem to have been
faced with a relatively narrow context in which to work towards his particular
aim. He wanted to talk about the veneration of Charles I as a martyr, what he
perceived to be the misuse of Romans 13 as a justification for arbitrary civil
authority, and, finally, his understanding of the nature of power and the
obligations of rulers and subjects. Locke presented the most obvious influence
from which to draw – having explored the nature of the social contract at
length in his Two Treatises on Government
(1689) – but therein lay the trouble. Locke’s presentation of the social
contract and the right of revolution – both of which bore directly on the reign
and overthrow of Charles I – tended towards a kind of secular humanism in which
the divine factored very little. Within Locke’s articulation of the origin of
civil government, for example, human beings acted out of self-interest rather
than according to the dictates of a higher power. Communitarianism and
government were accordingly born out of more wide-ranging forms self-interested
thought – i.e. sacrificing some autonomy in the short term for greater security
in the long term – regardless of what God may have wanted for his children or
required of his servants. While there was surely no reason for Mayhew to think
that the members of his congregation would have rejected this characterization
out of hand, it would almost certainly have presented a more personally compelling
case if restructured to emphasize the presence and role of the Almighty in
This is not to say, of course, that
Mayhew’s thought process in composing Discourse
was wholly calculating. There is no reason to think that he didn’t believe
every word of what he wrote, or that he wasn’t also of the opinion that Locke’s
relevant explanations were overly secular. That being said, Jonathan Mayhew was
himself a highly educated man. Having attended some of the finest schools in
America and in Britain, he almost certainly possessed an awareness of history
and philosophy that eclipsed that of most of the people he ministered to. In
consequence, there were bound to be ideas, concepts, and points of reference,
which, if he chose to introduce them to his congregation, would have to be
deconstructed or repackaged so as not to engender confusion or distraction. On
that topic, it also bears remembering that Mayhew was raised and educated in a
socio-religious environment that placed particular emphasis on the ability of
individual preachers to make very personal, emotional appeals to large and
varied audiences. There was, he was no doubt consequently aware, a rhythm to
truly effective preaching, and a logic of structure and vocabulary that made it
possible to translate what were often complex theological concepts into
straightforward exhortations that even a moderately-educated audience could
follow. Fusing the social contract theory of John Locke with a close analysis
of scripture, criticisms of religious intolerance, and denunciations of
ecclesiastical hierarchy was thus very likely in keeping with the way Mayhew normally
approached the pulpit.
Where Discourse
stands out from among the other sermons Mayhew delivered during his
ministry at Boston’s Old West Church, of course, is in the manner in which its
central thesis seemed to anticipate the forthcoming crisis within the
Anglo-American relationship. Mayhew naturally had no way of knowing this would
be the case. The Seven Years War was several years away in 1750, and the Stamp
Act Crisis that it would unleash was yet further afield. The last major rupture
between colonial and central authority had meanwhile occurred in the late 1680s
– namely the Boston Revolt (1689) and Leisler’s Rebellion (1689-1691), both of
which helped being about the collapse of the Dominion of New England – and the
half-century that followed, aside from the imposition of an unpopular tax in
molasses in 1733 and the rather costly American campaign of the War of the
Austrian Succession (1740-1748), was generally quite calm. Mayhew’s argument
for the conditional nature of civil authority and the obligation of abused
subjects to replace their governors was thus connected to no incident in
particular within recent Anglo-American history. Taking his own claims at face
value, he simply felt moved by the occasion of the feast day of Charles I to
hold forth upon certain subjects which he believed were in need of discussion.
In consequence, there would seemingly have been little reason at all for
members of Mayhew’s congregation – or anyone who read the transcripts that were
subsequently published – to give much thought to the nature and validity of
civil rule before January 30th, 1750, and every reason for these
same people to give the topic deep consideration afterwards. This is very
significant.
On one hand, it would appear to say a great
deal about the kinds of ideas that were circulating within the intellectual
discourse of liberal British America. By all indications, Jonathan Mayhew was a
Whig-leaning New Englander very much of a kind with the likes of John and
Samuel Adams (1722-1803) and James Otis Jr. (1725-1783). He attached particular
importance to the Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights, favored religious
toleration, and tended to reject political centralization as antithetical to
the liberty of the individual. The text of Discourse
speaks to these preferences in ways both subtle and explicit. In attempting to explain
why it was he felt the need to address the topic of King Charles the Martyr’s
continued veneration, for example, Mayhew admitted to his congregation that,
This is a point which I should not have concerned myself
about, were it not that some men continue
to speak of it, even to this day, with a great deal of warmth and zeal; and in
such a manner as to undermine all the principles of LIBERTY, whether civil or
religious, and to introduce the most abject slavery both in church and state:
so that it is become a matter of universal concern.
Later, voicing his
rejection of the notion that the overthrow of Charles I was some kind of unjust
and unjustifiable rebellion, Mayhew affirmed that, “It was not; but a most
righteous and glorious stand, made in defence of the natural and legal rights
of the people, against the unnatural and illegal encroachments of arbitrary
power.” This defense of the prerogatives of the people – an absolute standard
in terms of contemporary Whig ideology – was shortly joined by Mayhew’s
assertion of the traditional role of Parliament in expressing and protecting
the same. “Resistance was absolutely necessary,” he thus declared,
In order to preserve the nation from slavery, misery and
ruin. And who so proper to make this resistance as the lords and commons;–the
whole representative body of the people;–guardians of the public welfare; and
each of which was, in point of legislation, vested with an equal, co-ordinate
power, with that of the crown?
Thus clearly
ensconced within what was then the mainstream of 18th century
British Whiggism – as particularly embodied by a dedication to the supremacy of
Parliament, a preference for the toleration of Non-Conformist Protestants, and
a general embrace of the outcome of the Glorious Revolution – Mayhew’s
evidently spontaneous advocacy for a Lockean right of revolt would appear to
indicate that conditional rejection of civil authority was to some degree
already latent within the basic contours of contemporary Anglo-American
political discourse.
This is all to say, in short, that Discourse may be taken as proof that the
intellectual currents which would shortly drive a dispute over political
prerogatives towards a course of revolution were already circulating in British
America years before any particular crisis took hold. Furthermore, the fact
that Mayhew came to Locke’s right of revolt in his January 30th
sermon entirely as a response to events within English history and practices
from within contemporary English culture would seem to make clear that one of
the principle theoretical concepts at the root of the American Revolution –
i.e. that subjects had a right to replace their rulers in the event that their
sovereign rights began to suffer unrelenting abuse – was almost wholly
unrelated to the American context. Granting that Mayhew was himself the product
of a particular moment in the history of Massachusetts – and thus shaped by
certain specific cultural, educational, and religious currents – the case he
attempted to make in Discourse was
almost entirely concerned with the practices of policies of the English state
church in a general rather than specific sense. What concerned him was not that
the veneration of Charles I did particular harm to the liberties of his fellow
British Americans, but rather that it represented bad policy in any context. He
might have lived in Shropshire, Kent, or Anglesey and come to the same
conclusion and delivered the same sermon about the commemoration of January 30th.
This isn’t to say that the fact of Mayhew’s Americanness shouldn’t influence
how Discourse is read and understood.
On the contrary, it absolutely should. At the same time, however, it bears
acknowledging that the content of the sermon itself is more British than
American, and might fairly have originated in of any number of communities
within the contemporary British Empire.
If this is indeed an accurate assessment, the
implication of Mayhew’s Discourse for
anything like a nuanced understanding of the American Revolution and its
origins would seem once again to be that no small portion of the ideology at
the heart of that event was simply an outgrowth or rearticulation of existing
British socio-intellectual currents. Mayhew’s sermon was a response to an
aspect of contemporary British religious practice which he found to be
distasteful. It took British history as its context, adapted British philosophy
in formulating a rebuttal, and was substantially motivated and shaped by a
particular British understanding of government, religion, and authority. That
much the same argument against “unlimited submission” as articulated by Mayhew
in 1750 was later adopted by a subset of his fellow colonists in arguing
against certain Parliamentary policies thus says nothing about the origins of
the argument itself. Everything that Mayhew said – and that his countrymen
would subsequently repeat – about the nature of power, the obligations of civil
rulers, and the purpose of government was extant in British Whiggism, Lockean
social contract theory, and Calvinist theology. The Founding Generation
therefore cannot be said to have originated any of these concepts, theories, or
principles in the 1760s and 1770s any more than Mayhew himself did in the early
1750s. Mayhew and the Founders alike were thus to a large degree interpreters
rather than creators, translators rather than architects. Their particular
skill lay not necessarily in formulating new ideas or principles to meet the
needs of a given situation – though certainly this was an ability that many of
them were forced to develop – but in mobilizing existing theories in service of
an outcome they desired.
Bearing all of this in mind, it is
certainly possible for the relevant members of the Founding generation to have
mobilized Lockean theory in opposition to Parliament and the Crown in the 1770s
without having been substantially influenced by Mayhew’s 1750 sermon. The
orthodoxy of contemporary Whiggism contained all the necessary elements for the
partisans in question to arrive at the same basic conclusion about the nature
of power and the limits of civil authority. Mayhew’s role as potentially intermediary
was not strictly necessary, in short. For that matter, when one compares his
wholly understandable tendency to place God at the center of his conclusions to
the Founders’ penchant for speaking and writing in somewhat more abstract terms
about nature, rights, and men, the difference in tone would in itself seem to
indicate a distinct divergence of approach. A number of the men whose
resistance to British policy in America led them to support the latter’s
independence were almost certainly familiar with Discourse, particularly if they came from New England. John Adam’s
subsequent recollection that a transcription of the sermon was, “Read by
everyone” speaks to this anecdotally if not conclusively. All the same, there
simply isn’t much evidence – if any – to indicate that the authors of Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania
(1767-1768), A Summary View of the Rights
of British America (1774), or the Declaration of Independence (1776) were
inspired by Mayhew specifically to defend with their quills the primacy of the
Lockean social contract.
Where Mayhew was likelier to have had an
impact was with the average, moderately-educated, New England Non-Conformist.
As offered previously, this was almost certainly the demographic that the
minister of Boston’s Old West Church intended to reach with his September 30th
sermon. Though doubtless to some degree familiar with the basic contours of
English libertarianism, the significance of the Glorious Revolution, and the
values embodies by the Bill of Rights, the membership of this middling and
literate – if also somewhat unworldly – cohort would have known the Bible
better than any other book then in print and found greater comfort in their
faith than in the convictions espoused by long-dead philosophers. By thus
mixing political theory with scripture, and by peppering the resulting oration
with denunciations of religious practices widely considered by Non-Conformists
to be corrupt and decadent, Mayhew seemed to have targeted them directly.
Reject the commemoration of the execution of Charles I, he told them, and
listen not to those who would use the word of God to bind their fellow man in
obedience to those who do not warrant it. While the former perhaps need not
have been said – Mayhew’s audience being Congregationalists who had already
every reason to reject nearly every practice supported by the Anglican Church –
the latter was of undeniable consequence. Remember the ills that were committed
in the name of God but a century hence, he seemed to say, and remember what you
know to be God’s intention for his children. Was the overthrow of Charles I
justified, or was it not? May any ruler lay his hands upon the power granted
him by God if he fails to heed the responsibilities that come with it? What is
government if not an instrument for the realization of God’s will on Earth?
These were exceedingly important questions,
and Mayhew deserves all the credit it is possible to give for planting them in
the minds of an entire generation of his middle-class co-religionists. He may
not have succeeded in so influencing the people who would shortly lead the
colonies of British America down the path of revolution, but history would seem
to bear out that he did not have to. They, like Mayhew himself, were already
possessed of the theoretical tools needed to chart a course through the looming
crisis between Britain and its American dependencies that culminated in civil
rebellion. But the average colonial American was not so well equipped. Lacking
the kind of philosophical grounding that would have led them to support
resistance to arbitrary authority on principle alone, they were forced instead
to wrangle with the ideas being daily presented in newspapers and broadsides by
whatever means their modest education furnished. The convictions espoused – and
the questions begged – by Mayhew’s Discourse
likely served this end exactly. Having spent the better part of a decade
reflecting on the case he put forward, remembering and re-reading his
denunciation of arbitrary authority and his robust and scripturally-inspired
justification for the overthrow of governments that failed to take account of
the liberties of their subjects, these church-going, God-fearing, middling professionals,
farmers, and artisans would almost certainly have been well-primed to receive
the arguments put forward by their better-educated countrymen that the only
acceptable response to the capricious demands of an unrepresentative power was
steadfast and principled resistance.
None of this is to say that Mayhew’s Discourse was single-handedly
responsible for priming the non-elite population of British America to accept
the notion of resistance and revolution when it was presented to them in the
1760s and 1770s. Mayhew, as discussed at length, was a Congregationalist
minister whose message and rhetorical style were particularly attuned to the
social, theological, and political orthodoxy of that particular religious
community. His September 30th sermon, while speaking directly to a
Congregationalist audience, would thus likely also have enjoyed significant
impact among Non-Conformist populations whose basic principles more or less
aligned with his own – i.e. Presbyterians and Baptists. Those who practiced
forms of church organization for which Mayhew expressed explicit disdain,
however – Methodists, for instance, who retained episcopacy after splitting
from the Church of England – or were themselves Anglicans – about which Mayhew
had almost nothing good to say – or belonged to a sect that didn’t necessarily
figure into the dichotomy he presented within the text of Discourse would have almost certainly been far less inclined to
absorb his message in the spirit it was intended.
In consequence, while not impossible, it
would seem more than slightly improbable for Discourse to have had much impact among the majority Anglicans of
the southern colonies, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York,
or the Catholics of Maryland. All the same – and not for a second discounting
the importance of these colonies to the overall success of the American
Revolution – Mayhew’s inability to shape the thought-process of a significant
portion of the contemporary colonial population should not be taken to
discredit the significance that Discourse
almost certainly possessed. Even if the minister of the Old West Church was
only able to reach the general population of New England, this nonetheless
represents a tremendous influence upon the outcome of the Anglo-American crisis.
New England was the site of several pivotal moments along the road to
revolution, home to some of the most hardline opponents to Britain’s evolving
legislative policy in America, and heralded the beginning of the War of
Independence by playing host its first battle – at Lexington and Concord, April
19th, 1775 – and giving rise to the first incarnation of the
Continental Army. Again, without attributing to him the singlehanded
responsibility of teaching his fellow countrymen and coreligionists the need to
resist authority that acts for its own sake, it would seem fair to characterize
Jonathan Mayhew’s Discourse Concerning
Unlimited Submission as having very recently and very powerfully brought
the subject to their collective attention.
But that is, of course,
only my opinion. Go form your own, by all means. 
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