And so by an obvious sequence of cause and effect it came to pass that the clergy were early ripe for rebellion, and only awaited their opportunity. Nor could it have been otherwise. An autocratic priesthood had seen their order stripped of its privileges one by one, until nothing remained but their moral empire over their parishioners, and then at last not only did an association of rival ecclesiastics send over emissaries to steal away their people, but they proposed to establish a bishop in the land. The thought was wormwood. He would be rich, he would live in a palace, he would be supported by the patronage and pomp of the royal governors; the imposing ceremonial would become fashionable; and in imagination they already saw themselves reduced to the humble position of dissenters in their own kingdom. Jonathan Mayhew was called a heretic by his more conservative brethren, but he was one of the ablest and the most acrid of the Boston ministers. He took little pains to disguise his feelings, and so early as 1750 he preached a sermon, which was once famous, wherein he told his hearers that it was their duty to oppose the encroachment of the British prelates, if necessary, by force. “Suppose, then, it was allowed, in general, that the clergy were a useful order of men; that they ought to be esteemed very highly in love for their work’s sake, and to be decently supported by those they serve, ‘the laborer being worthy of his reward.’ Suppose, further, that a number of reverend and right reverend drones, who worked not; who preached, perhaps, but once a year, and then not the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the divine right of tithes, the dignity of their office as ambassadors of Christ, ... suppose such men as these, spending their lives in effeminacy, luxury, and idleness; ... suppose this should be the case, ... would not everybody be astonished at such insolence, injustice, and impiety?” [Footnote: “Discourse concerning Unlimited Submission,” Jonathan Mayhew. Thornton’s _American Pulpit_, pp. 71, 72.] “Civil tyranny is usually small in its beginning, like ‘the drop of a bucket,’ till at length, like a mighty torrent... it bears down all before it.... Thus it is as to ecclesiastical tyranny also--the most cruel, intolerable, and impious of any. From small beginnings, ‘it exalts itself above all that is called God and that is worshipped.’ People have no security against being unmercifully priest-ridden but by keeping all imperious bishops, and other clergymen who love to ‘lord it over God’s heritage,’ from getting their foot into the stirrup at all.... For which reason it becomes every friend to truth and human kind, every lover of God and the Christian religion, to bear a part in opposing this hateful monster.” [Footnote: Preface to “A Discourse concerning Unlimited Submission,” Jonathan Mayhew. Thornton’s _Amer. Pulpit_, pp. 50, 51.]