Friday, September 19, 2025

Boston 1750 - "A Discourse concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers"

In mid 1700s America, the Ulster-Scots were not the only emigrant community to see history repeating itself through echoes of their ancestral past - of opposing a tyrant king, and connecting that experience with the 1688 Glorious Revolution.

Rev. Jonathan Mayhew's sermon A Discourse concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers, preached at the West Congregational Church in Boston in 1750, was said to have been "the most famous sermon preached in pre-Revolutionary America" (see ERR Green, Essays in Scotch-Irish History, p 44).

"... king Charles sat himself up above all these, as much as he did above the written laws of the realm ; and made mere humour and caprice, which are no rule at all, the only rule and measure of his administration. And now, is it not perfectly ridiculous to call resistance to such a tyrant, by the name of rebellion? the grand rebellion? 
Even that parliament, which brought king Charles II to the throne, and which run loyally mad, severely reproved one of their own members for condemning the proceedings of that parliament which first took up arms against the former king. 
And upon the same principles that the proceedings of this parliament may be censured as wicked and rebellious, the proceedings of those who, since, opposed king James II, and brought the prince of Orange to the throne, may be censured as wicked and rebellious also. The cases are parallel. But whatever some men may think, it is to be hoped that, for their own sakes, they will not dare to speak against the REVOLUTION, upon the justice and legality of which depends (in part) his present MAJESTY’s right to the throne..."  

Full text is online here.

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