Jonathan Mayhew
Jonathan Mayhew (1720 - 1766)
American clergyman, was born at Martha's Vineyard on the 8th of October 1720, being fifth in descent from Thomas Mayhew (1592-1682), an early settler and the grantee (1641) of Marthas 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. Jonathan, the son of Experience, graduated at Harvard 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. He 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." He died July 1766. Mayhew was Dudleian lecturer at Harvard in 1765, and in 1749 had received the degree of D.D. from the University of Aberdeen.
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