Masters Thesis

The origin of American Puritan thought on resistance to secular authority

American Puritan thought on the question of resistance to secular political authority is considered here in the context of its origin and background. The political conservatism of Puritan leaders during the first two decades in the Massachusetts Bay Colony was contrary to the political heritage of the Marian exiles and their Huguenot contemporaries, as well as to the philosophy of Cromwell's rebels. Their concern with orthodoxy, submission to authority, and the maintenance of order was consistent, however, with Jean Calvin's thought and that of the Puritan leadership in England during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I. A discussion of the major works of Calvin, the Marian exiles and their Continental contemporaries, and English and American Puritans demonstrates that the attention paid by Bay Colony leaders to the issue of order and submission is both a product of their theological and philosophical commitment to Calvinism, and of a practical desire to defend their society and the true religion from Catholic conquest. Most historians have either ignored this question or assumed that most Puritans during the period 1570-1650 were hostile toward the English Crown; these findings refute that assumption and explain the basis of English and Bay Colony Puritans' insistence on submission to secular authority.

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