While he was first acclaimed by Richard Beale Davis in 1970 as the author of "perhaps the most courageous sermon of colonial America," Thomas Cradock's modest reputation increased after the 1983 publication of his varied verse. Yet it is probable his best-known work will remain his 1753 "election sermon" before the Maryland General Assembly, in which he described many of his fellow priests of the established church as men "of no Worth, no Learning, no Religion" who have become "Monsters in Wickedness." By publicly discrediting some of his colleagues, Cradock opened the door to a wholesale attack on the religious and proprietary establishments, as well as on the basic social theory of the day, which stressed the stratification of society and the necessary deference one should give to his social and intellectual superiors. Cradock's remedy for clerical irregularities was the creation of an American episcopate, but such a plea for the...