The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 3

IV. Mayhew-Dudleian Lecturer Notes Lisbon Earthquake

JONATHAN MAYHEW (1720-1766), Dudleian lecturer at Harvard for 1765, was born at Martha’s Vineyard. Graduating with honors from Harvard in 1744, he was called to the pastorate of West Church, Boston, in 1747, was ordained the same year, and remained there until death. He was the author of a dozen works, his volume of sermons in 1749 being recognized with the degree of D.D. from Aberdeen in 1757. He stalwartly championed the right of private judgment, taking his stand against every form of arbitrary authority in church and state, and was a stanch upholder of civil and religious liberty, early breaking with New England ecclesiasticism. He defended disobedience when a civil command is in contravention to God’s laws. The weight of his influence was on the side of the Revolution. A true Puritan, he detested pre-latical institutions, Roman and Anglican, and likewise censured the scheme of introducing an American episcopate. ²³ (Portrait appears on page 144.) PFF3 192.1

1. HARBINGERS OF LAST GREAT EARTHQUAKE

Mayhew’s Discourse ... Occasioned by the Earthquakes in November 1755 was delivered in the Boston West-Meeting-House on December 18, within a few days of the arrival of the news from Europe. ²⁴ Denominating them “uncommon and alarming occurrences of divine providence,” he declared they were harbingers of the coming “final destruction” foretold of that “anti-christian power which is emblematically described by ‘a woman arrayed in purple, and scarlet’ ... Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the earth.” ²⁵ These catastrophes were to be successive and cumulative, until the final calamity of the last great earthquake of Revelation 18. ²⁶ Thus with great violence would Babylon be thrown down in her final overthrow and destruction. PFF3 192.2

Mayhew defined Babylon as she that sitteth on the seven hills, that reigneth over the kings of the earth, and that is stained with “the blood of prophets, and of saints.” ²⁷ These judgments are “judicial acts of God” in the course of His providence, as He is the “moral Governor of the world.” ²⁸ Mayhew then appeals to his hearers to refrain from all conformity to the corruptions of Babylon, adhering to the Holy Scriptures in doc trine, discipline, worship, and practice, and repudiating her decrees and councils. Thus we may avoid being cast with the Beast into the fire. ²⁹ And the Lisbon earthquake, he concludes, is a harbinger of the woes and plagues culminating in the great last earthquake soon to be visited upon Babylon. ³⁰ PFF3 193.1

2. CALLS FOR SEPARATION FROM BABYLON

Ten years later Mayhew delivered the Dudleian lecture at Harvard for 1765, titled Popish Idolatry. Defining Babylon and her idolatry, he cites Revelation 18 as “sufficient warrant to come out of a church, whether Rome or any other, to which the characters of Babylon actually agree.” ³¹ Mede, More, and Newton are noted. Mayhew deprecates the strides being made by popery in Eng land, and the agents of Rome who compass land and sea to make proselytes. But the Man of Sin will be destroyed by the brightness of the coming of the Lord. ³² (Title page reproduced on page 174.) PFF3 193.2