"It becomes us, therefore, to be contented, and dutiful subjects"
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“It becomes us, therefore, to be contented, and dutiful subjects” lands with the velvet weight of a pulpit sentence that knows it can pass as virtue. Mayhew, a New England Congregational clergyman writing in the long run-up to the American Revolution, is steeped in a political theology where obedience isn’t merely civic hygiene; it’s a spiritual posture. The phrasing matters. “Becomes us” isn’t a command so much as a lesson in self-fashioning: a reminder that respectable people accept their place. He’s selling deference as decorum.
The line’s most interesting work is in the word “therefore.” It implies a chain of reasoning already completed, an argument that has supposedly climbed from Scripture and “order” to a single moral conclusion: compliance. That rhetorical shortcut is the point. Once you accept the premise that authority is divinely sanctioned, dissent stops being political disagreement and starts looking like sin, vanity, or childish impatience. “Contented” does double duty: it asks for quiet, and it asks you to feel good about being quiet. “Dutiful subjects” narrows the imagination even further, defining people not by rights or conscience but by their relationship to power.
Context sharpens the edges. Mayhew is famous for preaching resistance to tyranny (especially in his 1750 Discourse on unlimited submission), so a sentence like this can function as a setup: the orthodox expectation he will soon qualify or overturn. If read straight, it’s a clean piece of empire-friendly moral management. If read as Mayhew often preached, it’s bait: establishing the norm of obedience so he can argue that only just rulers deserve it. Either way, the subtext is a warning about how easily piety can be recruited to domesticate politics.
The line’s most interesting work is in the word “therefore.” It implies a chain of reasoning already completed, an argument that has supposedly climbed from Scripture and “order” to a single moral conclusion: compliance. That rhetorical shortcut is the point. Once you accept the premise that authority is divinely sanctioned, dissent stops being political disagreement and starts looking like sin, vanity, or childish impatience. “Contented” does double duty: it asks for quiet, and it asks you to feel good about being quiet. “Dutiful subjects” narrows the imagination even further, defining people not by rights or conscience but by their relationship to power.
Context sharpens the edges. Mayhew is famous for preaching resistance to tyranny (especially in his 1750 Discourse on unlimited submission), so a sentence like this can function as a setup: the orthodox expectation he will soon qualify or overturn. If read straight, it’s a clean piece of empire-friendly moral management. If read as Mayhew often preached, it’s bait: establishing the norm of obedience so he can argue that only just rulers deserve it. Either way, the subtext is a warning about how easily piety can be recruited to domesticate politics.
Quote Details
| Topic | Contentment |
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