Anne Hutchinson.docx

Jurisprudenz, Politische Theorie und Politische Theologie, ed. Frederick S. Carney, Heinz Schilling, and Dieter Wyduckel, 2004

This Article argues that New England Puritan covenant theology was a fertile seedbed for a number of American constitutional ideas of ordered liberty and orderly pluralism. Puritan constructions of the “liberty of covenant” inspired later theories of liberty of conscience and free exercise of religion. Puritan constructions of social, political, and ecclesiastical “covenants of liberty” provided a foundation for later understanding of republican nationalism, separation and cooperation of church and state, and sundry checks and balances on authorities within both church and state.

Emory Law Journal , 1990

While they maintained firm and sometimes brutal religious establishments, the New England Puritans also helped cultivate a number of striking constitutional ideas that would prove influential for the United States after the American Revolution. Among the most novel were their ideas of social, political, and ecclesiastical covenants, rooted in biblical covenant thinking but prescient of later secular social and government contract theories. Also influential were their ideas of natural rights and liberties and their necessary protection by church and state authorities alike. But the Puritans' most prescient and enduring contribution lay in their theory of sin and the need to create constitutional safeguards against tyranny. This led them to develop early doctrines of separation of church and state, separation of powers within church and state, checks and balances amongst these powers, federalist layers of authority, codification of laws and limitations on equity, democratic election of religious and political officials, and the practice of congregational and town meetings between elections to render officials accountable to their constituents. The themes and contents of this early Article were greatly expanded and revised in the author's later book: The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Calvinist Theology and Its Effect on the Development of Criminal Jurisprudence in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1630-1649, 2015

ABSTRACT CALVINIST THEOLOGY AND ITS EFFECT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE IN THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY, 1630–1649 BY PHILIP DEAN STOLLER May 2015 This thesis addresses critical issues regarding the initial intent of the Puritan leadership who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. Much of this thesis explores issues that have either never been addressed, or that have not been adequately addressed before. Clearly, the primary intent of Mr. John Winthrop and other members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to quit Old England to go to North America was not to build that mythical shining “city upon a hill” serving as an example to Old England as to how to teach the unenlightened Anglicans to gather and live in a godly community and fully reform their Church of England so as to rid it of any remnants of papist influence. Rather, their primary goal was to establish their own nation 'ab initio' that was distinct, separate, and apart from that of Old England. Also addressed was the critical need for the development of Man-made jurisprudence in the form of temporal written law codes, which were frequently at odds—or totally different—than laws found in the Bible. The key factor, however, that forged their unique system of Massachusetts Bay jurisprudence was the incorporation into its single system the concept of “equity.” Examined fully is why and how, for a period of nearly fifty years, the Puritan legal system towered over that of Old England’s, particularly in regard to its fairness of outcome and mercy shown toward most criminal defendants. Ironically, their magnificent jurisprudence developed due to sheer necessity and circumstance. Key to this development were two factors: 1) Bay magistrates had to combine, into a single courtroom with a single magistrate, both law and equity, unlike in Old England where law and equity were handled separately, and 2) because of where the original concept of equity, or “Christian Charity,” derived: the New Testament’s Sermon on the Mount—or more precisely, God. Being human, the Puritans did not develop a perfect system. They did, however, develop a system that was light years ahead of its time, and many light years ahead of the system that was used in Old England.Keywords: Early Massachusetts Bay Colony, Emigration to North America, Original Intent to Settle, Criminal Law, Law, Equity, Old Testament, New Testament, Sermon on the Mount, Theology.

Schaar describes the "New England Puritans" as an ideal type which offers a contrast to liberal individualism found in subsequent American political thinking. Drawing on Michael Walzer, Perry Miller, and Georges Sorel, Schaar depicts the Puritans as making an epic effort to create radical religious, moral, and political communities based on impossibly high standards. Their central values were community, authority, and the belief that they could do something new.

Journal of Church and State, 2018

2009

Priscilla Papers, 2010

Author: Jason Eden Publisher: CBE International The Puritans are not known for their egalitarianism. Indeed, the word “Puritan” instead conjures up images of witch-burning, fun-draining, Quaker-persecuting authoritarians who restricted women to a life of dreary housework and perpetual childrearing. There is some truth to this stereotype. Certainly, the typical Puritan minister viewed women as subordinate beings who needed to keep quiet in church and be submissive to their husbands. As Benjamin Wadsworth noted in a sermon titled The Well-Ordered Family, “The husband is called the head of the woman. It belongs to the head to rule and govern.”1 The cases of Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer—strong-willed women who suffered banishment or execution for defying the established order—lend further credence to our stereotypes about the Puritans.2