Sermon – Unlimited Submission 1750

In 1750, Congregationalist minister Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766) preached the sermon Concerning Unlimited Submission reminding his listeners, and then its readers once the sermon was published, that rebellion against tyrants could be both Biblical and just. His sermon helped form the basis of an early motto of the American Revolution: “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God,”¹ which also became Thomas Jefferson’s personal motto.²

John Adams later recognized Mayhew as one of the individuals “most conspicuous, the most ardent, and influential” in the “awakening and revival of American principles and feelings” that led to our independence.³

Jonathan Mayhew, A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers. Boston: D. Fowle, 1750.

                                                            See the printed sermon

                                                                Read the transcript

Endnotes

¹ John Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife, ed. Charles Francis Adams  (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1841), 1:152, to Abigail Adams on August 14, 1776.
² Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1858), 3:393, 487.
³ John Adams, Novanglus and Massachusettensis: or Political Essays Published in the year 1774 and 1775 (Boston: Hews & Goss, 1819), 235 [Shaw #46923].