Jonathan Mayhew

Jonathan Mayhew (1720–1766) was a Boston-born Congregationalist minister whose theological innovations and political sermons profoundly shaped American Revolutionary ideology. His 1750 sermon "A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers" challenged traditional interpretations of biblical obedience to authority, arguing that resistance to tyrannical government was not only permissible but a Christian duty. Mayhew's synthesis of Calvinist theology with Enlightenment political philosophy established him as a crucial intellectual bridge between religious doctrine and the colonists' emerging claims for political liberty.