“One of the Best Causes of the World”
This chapter discusses the views of British clergymen regarding the doctrine of political resistance and American resistance activities in the 1760s and 1770s. The perspective of the British clergy provides important context for understanding the American clergy’s arguments in this period. Many British clergymen affirmed the doctrine of political resistance and sympathized with the American cause. The existence of a robust British resistance tradition calls into question those who would understand the political resistance thought of the period to be something uniquely American. While John Wesley believed the American colonists were in the wrong to resist their British authorities, his Tory views were not shared by a number of evangelical clergymen in England and were by no means representative of the evangelical perspective of the issue. When the American clergy deviated from Wesley on this question of resistance, they were not deviating from British evangelicals in general.