Jonathan Mayhew

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Jonathan Mayhew, from Cipriani's London etching of 1767.

Jonathan Mayhew (October 8, 1720 – July 9, 1766) was a noted American clergyman and minister at Old West Church, Boston, Massachusetts. He is credited with coining the phrase "no taxation without representation", and with very early advocacy of what became Unitarianism.

Mayhew was born at Martha's Vineyard, being fifth in descent from Thomas Mayhew (1592-1682), an early settler and the grantee (1641) of Martha's Vineyard. Thomas Mayhew (c. 1616-1657), the younger, his son John (d. 1689) and Johns son, Experience Mayhew (1673-1758), were active missionaries among the Indians of Marthas Vineyard and the vicinity.

Mayhew graduated from Harvard College in 1744. So liberal were his theological views that when he was to be ordained minister of the West Church in Boston in 1747, only two ministers attended the first council called for the ordination, and it was necessary to summon a second council. Mayhew's preaching made his church practically the first Unitarian Congregational church in New England, though it was never officially Unitarian. He preached the strict unity of God, the subordinate nature of Christ, and salvation by character.

In politics, Mayhew bitterly opposed the Stamp Act, and urged the necessity of colonial union (or communion) to secure colonial liberties. He was famous, in part, for his 1750 and 1754 Election Sermons espousing American rights--the cause of Liberty and the right and duty to resist tyranny; other famous sermons included "The Snare Broken," 1766. His sermons and writings were a powerful influence in the development of the movement for "Liberty and Independence."

Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission.

The extent of his political feeling can be seen in his Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission, a sermon delivered on the 100th anniversary of the execution of Charles I (January 30, 1649/50). Taking vigorous issue with recent efforts to portray Charles as a martyred monarch, Mayhew began with observations on the antiquity of English liberties. The English constitution, he asserted, “is originally and essentially free.” Roman sources, such as the reliable Tacitus, made it clear that “the ancient Britain's … were extremely jealous of their liberties.” England’s monarchs originally held their throne “solely by grant of parliament,” so the ancient English kings ruled “by the voluntary consent of the people.” After forty pages of such historical discourse, Mayhew reached his major point: the essential rightness of the execution of an English king when he too greatly infringed upon British liberties.

The vigor of Mayhew’s sermon established his reputation. It was published not only in Boston, but also in London in 1752 and again in 1767. In Boston, John Adams remembered long afterward, Mayhew’s sermon “was read by everybody.” Some would say later that this sermon was the first volley of the American Revolution, setting forth the intellectual and scriptural justification for rebellion against the Crown.

In 1765, with the provocation of the Stamp Act fresh, Mayhew delivered another rousing sermon on the virtues of liberty and the iniquity of tyranny. The essence of slavery, he announced, consists in subjection to others—“whether many, few, or but one, it matters not.” The day after his sermon, a Boston mob attacked Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson’s house, and many thought Mayhew was responsible.

Mayhew was Dudleian lecturer at Harvard in 1765, and in 1749 had received the degree of D.D. from the University of Aberdeen. He died July 1766.