Rev. Jonathan Mayhew, the American who dismantled the misuse of Romans 13 and made disobedience to ungodly rule the Christian's very duty

 

This essay is a wrecking ball in its own right. 

Before the Revolution, There Was a Revelation

 ... The man historians call the “morning gun of the Revolution” was not a soldier or a statesman. He was Jonathan Mayhew, a 29-year-old Congregationalist minister in Boston whose 1750 Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission dismantled Romans 13 — long wielded by the Crown as a theological cudgel against resistance — line by methodical line. He demonstrated that the Bible places a clear duty upon Christians to resist tyrannical rulers. This sermon became the source of the declaration that “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” — a phrase Jefferson later proposed for the seal of the United States. John Adams called it “the morning gun of the Revolution” and remembered it “was read by everybody.” ...

 

 

The USA had never existed without the Protestant reformers

“I love and revere the memories of Huss Wickliff Luther Calvin Zwinglius Melancton and all the other reformers how muchsoever I may differ from them all in many theological metaphysical & philosophical points. As you justly observe, without their great exertions & severe sufferings, the USA had never existed.”

 

-- John Adams to F. C. Schaeffer, November 25, 1821

Moses and the American founders

From James P. Byrd, here:

[T]he story of Moses and the Exodus was one of the most cited biblical texts in revolutionary America. In 1776, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, about “a Parallel between the Case of Israel and that of America.” John Adams had heard this preached in a sermon, and he thought it was enlightening because it “indicated strongly the Design of Providence that We should be separated from G. Britain.” ...

In 1776, when Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson discussed what should be on a “Great Seal” for the new nation, they both thought of the Exodus story. As John Adams reported, Franklin wanted the seal to feature the parting of the Red Sea, with Moses raising his staff while Pharaoh and his chariots of soldiers drowned as the waters closed in on them. In contrast, Jefferson wanted another scene from the Exodus, with the Israelites led through the wilderness by a cloud in daytime and a pillar if fire at night.

Some of the founders saw themselves as politically enslaved by the British “pharaoh,” King George III, and his oppressive policies. ... [M]any patriots adopted this story, viewing themselves as the new Israel, and naming George Washington the American Moses. ... 

[Thomas Paine] turned to 1 Samuel 8 to make his case. Paine asserted that God did not want the people to have a king. God warned that kings would oppress them, and so they did, Paine argued.