THE INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION POLITICAL THOUGHT ON EARLY
COLONIAL AMERICA AND THE THOUGHT OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

By

Nicholas L. Costanzo, B.A.
East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of
The Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts in History
To the Office of Graduate and Extended Studies of
East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania

August 7, 2020

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ABSTRACT
A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts in History to the office of Graduate and Extended Studies of East
Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania

Student’s Name: Nicholas Costanzo
Title: The Influence of Reformation Political Thought on Early Colonial America and the
Thought of the America Revolution
Date of Graduation: August 7, 2020
Thesis Chair: Christopher Brooks, Dr. Phil.
Thesis Member: Christopher Dudley, Ph. D.

Abstract
This thesis examines whether a distinct political theory came into existence out of the
Reformation and whether that theory, political Calvinism, had an influence in early
colonial and revolutionary America. The thesis examines a wide range of primary and
secondary source material to do this. The thesis finds that the Reformation created a
distinct and well defined political theory and that this theory had a long-lasting impact on
both political thought on mainland Europe as well as in England and the American
colonies. This thesis attempts to raise the profile of the Reformation as a causational
event in the American Revolution and in the development of American political thought.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures…….……………………………………………………………………….ii

Chapter 1-Introduction…………………………………………………………………….1

Chapter 2-The Calvinist Political Philosophy……………………………………………25

Chapter 3-The Puritan Continuation of Political Calvinism……………………………..67

Chapter 4-Political Calvinism and Revolutionary America……………………………..93

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………116

i

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure

1. Massachusetts Bay Colony: Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies………..70

2. An Attempt to Land a Bishop in America……………………………………...111

ii

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
When George Bancroft published his History of the United States in the midnineteenth century, to include the Puritans in the pantheon of American founders was not
controversial. In fact, Bancroft went as far as to name John Calvin as the true beginning
of the American political experiment and “foremost among the most efficient of modern
republican legislators.”1 To Bancroft, Calvin and the Calvinist faith of the Puritans was at
the very center of the American story. Unsurprisingly, Bancroft placed the Calvinists at
the epicenter of the founding by saying,
The pilgrims of Plymouth were Calvinists; the best influence in South
Carolina came from the Calvinists of France. William Penn was the
disciple of the Huguenots; the ships from Holland that first brought
Colonists to Manhattan were filled with Calvinists. He that will not honor
the memory, and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little of the
origin of American liberty. 2

1

Michael D. Clark, “The Meaning of Freedom for George Bancroft and John
Fiske,” Midcontinent American Studies Journal 10, no. 1 (1969): 61.
2

Ibid.

Another early American historian, John Fiske, writing in 1895, similarly placed
the Puritans and Calvin as the starting point of American political liberty. Fiske, who
rejected Calvinism when it came to his own religious sensibilities, nonetheless believed
the Calvinists of New England to be the creators of American political liberty. 3 Fiske,
who once declared Calvin “ about the most abominable old scamp that ever disgraced this
mundane orb with this presence,” at the same time declared that “the promulgation of his
theology was one of the longest steps that mankind have taken toward personal freedom,”
and that Calvin fostered “the dignity and importance of the individual human soul.” 4
Today, most mainstream, secondary education textbooks largely ignore the
Reformation. Certainly, the Reformation is described as splitting Germany and other
European states along religious lines, such as in Britain and the Netherlands, but is rarely
described as the progenitor of a new political philosophy with long lasting and wideranging effects. As a political force, the Enlightenment is given top billing, as it certainly
should, with the exclusion of the Reformation as a political movement. In McDougal
Littell’s World History: Patterns of Interaction, a single sentence provides insight into
the long-term political effects of the Reformation. It reads, “The Reformation’s
questioning of beliefs and authority also laid the groundwork for the Enlightenment.” 5
That sentence is the sole entry in this popular textbook on the political ramifications of

3

Ibid, 62.

4

Ibid. John Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, Or, The Puritan Theocracy in
Its Relation to Civil and Religious Liberty (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1895), 58.
5

Roger B. Beck et al., World History: Patterns of Interaction (Evanston, IL:
McDougal Little, 2009), 500.
2

the Reformation. While certainly less true among academic historians, the Reformation
is still undervalued by historians of the United States in terms of the political ideology
that grew out of it.
This paper will argue that the Reformation did not merely “lay the groundwork”
for the development of new political ideologies, but rather was integral to the
development of a new political ideology which saw its culmination in the Puritan colony
of Massachusetts and in the run up to the American Revolution. To prove this thesis,
three different time frames will be examined as well as political development in both
continental Europe, Britain and ultimately in Massachusetts in the colonial period.

The Argument
The second chapter of this thesis focuses on the genesis of Calvinist resistance
theory and argues that out of the Calvinist branch of the Reformation came a distinct
political ideology that allowed for some measure of democracy and for resistance, in one
form or another, to a secular authority. To accomplish this, the political thought of the
two largest figures of the continental Reformation, Martin Luther and John Calvin, will
be examined. These two figures serve as the beginning of a new system of political
thought. Neither of these two figures gave voice to the political ideology of later British
and American Puritans. Rather, they, and especially Calvin, conceived of a separation
between the state and the church. Luther argued that there ought to be independence
between the church and the secular authorities. 6 Luther, along with Calvin after him,

6

Harro Höpfl, ed. and trans., Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), vii-xi.
3

would open the door to further reexaminations of the intersection of the church and state.
Luther’s rejection of the papacy and the political leaders whom he saw as propping up
and being propped up by Rome came as he was being sought by both Pope Leo X and
Charles V. Luther did not allow for rebellion on the part of a subject. 7
Unlike a modern understanding of separation between the state and the church,
Calvin believed that the two entities, though separate, had a similar God-ordained
mission.8 Calvin’s greatest contribution to a new system of political thought was his
assertion that a secular authority who was violating his charge and violating scripture
ought to be removed from his office. This idea was the basis for a new, political
Calvinism that became extremely potent across the English Channel. 9
In Scotland and England, two Calvinist movements would emerge. The Puritans
in England the Presbyterians in Scotland. These two groups would lay hold of political
Calvinism and would refine it under the opposition of the English Crown and the Church
of England. These Puritans ultimately carried this new stand of political thought to the
shores of New England where they were implemented in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Chapter three of the thesis examines the political ideology in Massachusetts Bay
Colony and argues that New England’s Puritans were the founders of a new and unique

7

Cynthia Grant Shoenberger, “Luther and the Justifiability of Resistance to
Legitimate Authority,” Journal of the History of Ideas 40 (Jan.-Mar. 1979): 3-5.
8

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. by John T McNeilll and
trans. by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), 1485.
9

John Calvin, Commentary upon The Acts of the Apostles, ed. Henry Beveridge,
trans. Christopher Fetherstone (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1844), 214215.
4

political order which was deeply rooted in political Calvinism and which continued to
have an influence on American political thought long after the Puritans ceased to control
Massachusetts. The chapter also focuses on the Puritan’s view of the purpose and
legitimacy of government.
The legacy and thought of the Reformation is easily seen in the governing of
Massachusetts and the political speech of the Puritans in New England. The Puritans
affirmed the Reformation principle that everything was to be done “Soli Deo Gloria”. 10
The Puritans in New England made it clear that this was also their standard for
governance in their new colonies.11
The Puritans also believed that their governance, like their theology, ought to be
based on covenants. They believed that the power of the civil authority was limited and
that for that power to be legitimate certain conditions needed to be met by both the
populace and the ruler.12 Were the secular authority to violate the command of God, the
people would be wrong to obey. This development in Calvinist resistance theory built on

10

Justin Holcomb, “The Five Solas-Points from the Past that Should Matter to
You,” originally published July 13, 2012, https://www.christianity.com/church/churchhistory/the-five-solas-of-the-protestant-Reformation.html. Soli Deo Gloria, or Glory to
God Alone, was one of the five “solas” of the Reformation. Along with Sola Scriptura,
Sola Fide, Sola Gratia and Solus Christus, they were the pillars of Reformation theology.
11

John Cotton, “Dissension at Quinnipiac: The Authorship and Setting of a
Discourse about Civil Government in a New Plantation Whose Design Is Religion,”
Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson (1663): 6-7.
12

Edmund S. Morgan, Introduction to Puritan Political Ideas: 1558-1794, by
Edmund S. Morgan. (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.), xxiii-xxiv.
5

the foundation left by Luther, Calvin and Calvin’s successor in Geneva, Theodore Beza,
and set the stage for early American political thought.
The Puritans in New England also had a strong tradition of suffrage. Like
Calvin’s Geneva, Massachusetts saw a much wider range of people voting that did almost
any other place on the planet. As in their churches, the Puritans allowed near universal
suffrage among church members. 13 Possibly most importantly, the Puritans attacked the
idea of the divine right of Kings as posited by James I. This was perfectly in line with
political Calvinism. Both Calvin himself and the Puritans wrote against the idea of the
Divine right of Kings.14 As Calvin’s death preceded John Locke’s Two Treatises on
Government by over a century, political Calvinism, and the Reformation more generally,
ought to be seen as an important step in the development of political theory.
In short, chapter three demonstrates that the Puritans were committed to and
advanced three fundamental political principles. 1) That the power of the secular
authority was limited. 2) That the divine right of kings was damaging both to the church
and the right of the people. 3) That the people should be allowed to influence their
government through suffrage. This chapter argues that all three of the principles were
drawn directly from Reformation political thought.
Chapter four of this thesis focuses on the influence of political Calvinism in the
years preceding and during the American War for Independence. During the eighteenth

13

Michael P. Winship, “Godly Republicanism and the Origins of the
Massachusetts Polity,” The William and Mary Quarterly 63, no.3 (Jul., 2006): 427.
14

W.A. Dreyer, “Calvin on Church and Government,” in Die Skrifling 44, no. 4
(2010): 171; Morgan, Introduction to Puritan Political Ideas: 1558-1794, xxiii-xxiv.
6

century, the American colonies saw the explosion of religious fervor known as the First
Great Awakening. Driven by two unabashed Calvinists, George Whitefield and Jonathan
Edwards, the First Great Awakening was a thoroughly Calvinist affair. Edward’s placed
himself squarely within the tradition of political Calvinism and demonstrated agreement
with both Calvin and John Winthrop and other early colonial Puritans. 15
Another figure focused on in chapter four is John Witherspoon. The only
clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence, Witherspoon was a true academic
and Calvinist Presbyterian. As the president of the College of New Jersey, Now
Princeton, Witherspoon educated a generation of statesmen and influenced their views on
the role and limits of government. He also drew a connection between civil and religious
liberty.16 Most importantly, Witherspoon’s intellectual marriage of Lockean Liberalism
with Calvinist political thought will be explored.

Definition of Terms
Several terms used in this thesis ought to be defined. The terms that will be
defined are Calvinist, Puritan, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, the divine right of kings,
and active and passive resistance. For the purposes of this paper, the term Calvinist will
serve as an all-encompassing term which will refer to the broad group of Christians who
followed the teachings of John Calvin. This group includes Puritans, Separatists,

15

Jonathan Edwards, "Sermon: “Sin and Wickedness Bring Calamity and Misery”
(1729)," In The Other Jonathan Edwards: Selected Writings on Society, Love, and Justice
(Amherst; Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015), 39-40.
16

“Sermon Delivered at a Public Thanksgiving,” in Jeffry H. Morrison, John
Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic, 29.
7

Huguenots, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, some Anglican and some other
denominations. Broadly speaking, these groups accepted Calvin’s teachings on most
theological subjects but often were at odds over ecclesiology.
In this paper, the Puritans, unless otherwise noted, will refer to the Puritans who
came to New England during the seventeenth century. This paper will not explore
political Puritanism in England after the exodus of Puritans to New England began. The
Puritans were a diverse group of English Protestants, who were nearly exclusively
Calvinists, who called for reforms within the Church of England. They were largely
focused on removing from the Church of England any remaining remnants of
Catholicism and were especially focused on the abolition of bishops within the Anglican
Church, a request which was rebuffed by James I. The Puritan movement was dominant
religiously and politically in Massachusetts through the seventeenth century and saw a
resurgence during the eighteenth century during the First Great Awakening. 17
Congregationalism will refer to those churches who rejected the ecclesiology of
both the Anglican and Presbyterian church. These churches argued that all decisions
ought to be made by individual churches, independent from any others. During the
seventeenth century, Congregationalist churches in New England became dominant.
Most Congregationalists in the seventeenth century were Calvinists and held to Calvinist
orthodoxy. During the eighteenth century, many Congregational churches would move

17

Francis J. Bremer, Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2009), 2-3.
8

towards Unitarianism. This paper will focus on those Congregationalist who maintained
fidelity to Protestant orthodoxy.18
For the purposes of this paper, Presbyterianism will refer to churches which
followed the ecclesiology of traditional reformed churches. Presbyterians govern their
churches through presbyteries which control churches within a geographic area. Rather
than being led by Bishops in a church where power was exerted from the top down,
Presbyterian churches were, and continue to be, led by elected elders. Presbyterians in
the United States remained staunchly Calvinist through the nineteenth century and were
committed to Calvinism.19
In the context of this paper, the term divine right of Kings” will refer to its usage
in light of James I’s Trew Law of Free Monarchies. In this work, James I, who was still
James VI of Scotland, lays out his view of divine-right kingship. James I’s argument is a
forceful argument for non-resistance to the king. The argument made by James I,
formerly James VI of Scotland, was largely made in response to the rise of Scottish
Presbyterians, like John Knox, who argued for resistance to kings in certain
circumstances.20 In this paper, the term divine right of Kings will refer to this expansion
18

“Congregationalism.” 2018. Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia,
January, 1;
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=funk&AN=co198800&site=ehos
t-live.
19

Gideon Mailer, "“HOW FAR THE MAGISTRATE OUGHT TO INTERFERE
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION”: Public Faith and the Ambiguity of Political
Representation after 1776," in John Witherspoon's American Revolution: Enlightenment
and Religion from the Creation of Britain to the Founding of the United States (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 285.
20

Kevin Sharpe, Image Wars: Kings and Commonwealths in England, 1603-1660
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 22.
9

of royal absolutism of James I and his insistence that active resistance was not to be
allowed.21
Active and passive resistance must also be defined. Passive resistance could also
be called passive non-compliance. The idea of passive resistance is that for a Christian
peacefully disobeying a king’s commands, all the while knowing that there will be
consequences for that disobedience. It is summed up nicely when Calvin said that “no
command has been given except to obey and suffer” when living under a wicked king.
Under passive resistance, a person may not obey a king, while at the same time knowing
that they are still subject to the authorities and that they do not have the right to rise up
against that authority. Active resistance refers to actually resisting the government with
force, be that armed resistance or simply by more defiantly refusing to obey government
orders.22

Historiography- Chapter 2
Chapter two focuses on the creation of a coherent, distinct political philosophy
that came out of the Reformation. Beginning with Martin Luther, the chapter examines
the creation of Lutheran and Calvinist political thought. A secondary source which is
most helpful in the examination of this topic is an article authored by Cynthia Grant

21

Alan D. Orr, “‘God’s Hangman’: James VI, the Divine right of Kings, and the
Devil,” Reformation & Renaissance Review: Journal of the Society for Reformation
Studies 18, no. 2. (2016): 146.
22

For a more complete treatment of the differences between passive and active
resistance see: Witte Jr., John. "Rights, Resistance, and Revolution in the Western
Tradition: Early Protestant Foundations." Law and History Review 26, no. 3 (2008): 545570.
10

Shoenberger entitled “Luther and the Justifiability of Resistance to Legitimate
Authority.” This article argues against the idea that Luther believed Christians were
called to obey secular authorities without exception. Rather, follows Luther’s changing
views through the Reformation and comes to the conclusion that Luther was supportive
of the idea that in some circumstances, Christians ought to resist illegitimate and abusive
authority. In the essay there is also a distinction drawn between Luther and the Calvinist
impulse to democratize. She also places Lutheran political thought as a forerunner of
Calvinistic resistance theory. The article is an invaluable source for the student of
Reformation politics.23
Harro Höpfl’s Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority is cited throughout this
chapter. As this thesis focuses on the ultimate influence of Calvin’s political philosophy,
this book is used to examine Luther’s political thought in a succinct manner. While a
study of Luther’s On Secular Authority may have been helpful, Höpfl’s study of the arc
of Luther’s political sentiments was more helpful for the purposes of this thesis. Höpfl
also analyses Calvin’s political thoughts and draws distinctions between the two groups.
Another work by Höpfl was used in the examination of Calvin. The Christian
Polity of John Calvin examines the political reality in Geneva when Calvin became active
in the city. The book was used to examine the realities of class, religion and politics in
Geneva. The work also further draws distinctions between Lutheran and Calvinist
political thought. Höpfl’s research on the different classes of citizens in Geneva is
invaluable for understanding the formation of Calvinist political thought.

23

Cynthia Grant Shoenberger, “Luther and the Justifiability of Resistance to
Legitimate Authority,” Journal of the History of Ideas 40 (Jan.-Mar. 1979): 20.
11

Two works by John T. McNeill are referenced in this paper. McNeill also edited
the edition of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion which is cited throughout the
chapter. McNeill’s introduction to Calvin’s On God and Political Duty, while written in
the mid-twentieth century, endures as one of the leading works on Calvin’s political
thought. In the book, McNeill draws out Calvin’s criticism of the medieval doctrine of
the Divine right of Kings. McNeill’s article “Natural Law in the Teaching of the
Reformers” also is examined as McNeill makes the argument that Calvin used language
and arguments concerning natural law, which very closely resemble arguments made
during the Enlightenment. Both sources paint a clear picture of Calvin’s burgeoning
political ideology.
In the examination of Calvin’s beliefs on the relationship between the church and
the state, John Witt’s book The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights
in Early and Modern Calvinism is most helpful. As one of the few modern treatments of
Calvin’s political thought, Witt clearly lays out argument that Calvin was committed to
some democratic participation among the citizenry. He also successfully argues that one
of the defining differences between Luther and Calvin in that Calvin did not believe that
the church should be subordinate to the state. Witt demonstrates that by leaving some
independence between the two entities, Calvin set the stage for the Puritan resistance to
the English crown. He also demonstrates that Calvin believed that Christians were not
compelled to obey an order that would violate scripture. In fact, he stated that Christian
ought to “be ready for civil disobedience of all kinds.”24 Carlton M. Waterhouse, while

24

John Witte Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in
Early and Modern Calvinism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 49-51.
12

acknowledging much of Witte’s argument, argues that the Reformers were inconsistent in
their implementation of their political views and often trampled on the rights of those
under their political systems.25
The most important work citied in this chapter, which is cited more than any
other, is Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. As Calvin’s magnum opus,
Institutes of the Christian Religion is by far Calvin’s most comprehensive work. While
most of the work is focused on theological topics, Calvin does examine the proper
establishment of a government and that government’s relation to the church. Without this
work, it would be nearly impossible to examine Calvin’s political ideology. Calvin’s
Commentary upon The Acts of the Apostles also gives insight into Calvin’s beliefs
concerning a Christian’s duty towards the state. Calvin’s work is examined extensively
throughout this chapter and is at the center of the argument.

Historiography- Chapter 3
Chapter three of this thesis focuses on the political ideology of Puritan New
England during the seventeenth century. Any study on this topic requires a few
foundational secondary sources. No other historian has impacted the study of the
Puritans as much as Edmund Morgan. Two of Morgan’s works, The Puritan Dilemma:
The Story of John Winthrop and Puritan Political Ideas: 1558-1794, are invaluable to a
study of this topic. The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop was used to
provide context to the migration of Puritans to New England as well as to examine the

25

Carlton M. Waterhouse, and John Witte. The American Journal of Legal
History 50, no. 2 (2008): 235.
13

political career of John Winthrop. Puritan Political Ideas: 1558-1794 provided primary
source material as well as a study of the centrality of covenants to Puritan political
thinkers. The most important quotation in the book is a letter sent from John Cotton to
Lord Say and Seal, in which he argues that the people of a polity have the right to resist a
government.26
One of the few recent historians to undertake an exhaustive study of Puritan
Politics in New England is Michael P. Winship. Winship’s book Godly Republicanism:
Puritans, Pilgrims, and a City on a Hill is the most recent and most informative study on
Puritan political ideals since Edmund Morgan’s work in the 1960s. Winship ties together
Puritan politics in England, which includes the regicide of Charles I, with the political
thought of North American Puritans. Also cited in the chapter is an article written by
Winship entitled “Godly Republicanism and the Origins of the Massachusetts Polity.”
This article includes many of the same arguments as does his but also includes extensive
quotation of Puritan thinkers. Much like Edmund Morgan, a study of Puritan politics in
New England would be incomplete without an examination of Winship’s work.
As this chapter focuses on the thoughts of Puritans in New England in the
seventeenth century, it was necessary to examine sermons that explain the Puritans’
views on the role and power of government. The most well-known Puritan discourse
cited in this chapter is John Winthrop’s 1630 “Model of Christian Charity.” While best
known for the “Citty upon a Hill” illusion, the context and argument of the sermon were
essential to proving the thesis of this chapter. Charles I’s hostility towards the Puritans as

26

John Cotton to Lord Say and Seal as quoted in Edmund S. Morgan, Puritan
Political Ideas (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1965), 167.
14

well as the Puritans’ covenantal thinking make this sermon essential to an understanding
of the motives of Puritans establishing a religious haven for themselves in the new
world.27
Perhaps the best-known Puritan aside from Winthrop is John Cotton. Cotton was
a prolific preacher who was not afraid to expound on political matters when he believed
they had an impact on the religious health of Massachusetts. In his Sermon “Limitation
of Government,” which was written in 1655, whose title gives insight to Cotton’s beliefs,
Cotton laid out his belief that one man ought not be given too much power, as he, like all
Calvinists, believed that man was at his core wicked. This belief places Cotton’s political
beliefs squarely within the mainstream of political Calvinism. Another sermon attributed
to Cotton, but most likely written by John Davenport, was entitled “A Discourse about
Civil Government in a New Plantation Whose Design is Religion.” This sermon clearly
echoes Calvin’s belief that the civil government had a mission in supporting the church
but that the two ought to remain separate. This sermon is valuable in demonstrating that
the Puritan’s were in line with political Calvinism as outlined by Calvin himself. 28
John Eliot’s "The Christian Commonwealth: or, The Civil Policy of the Rising
Kingdom of Jesus Christ” is demonstrative of the connection in the Puritan mind between
civil and religious liberty and the importance of covenants in safeguarding the people’s
safety and liberty. This source, written sometime in the late 1640s, was vital to this

27

John Winthrop, “A Model for Christian Charity” (1630), in Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry God: and Other Puritan Sermons, ed. Mary Carolyn Waldrep
(Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2005), 64.
28

John Cotton, “Dissension at Quinnipiac: The Authorship and Setting of a
Discourse about Civil Government in a New Plantation Whose Design Is Religion,”
Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson (1663): 6-7.
15

chapter as it demonstrates that the Puritans in New England sought to create the type of
government outlined by Calvin in Geneva. Most importantly, Eliot believed that civil
government had a duty to “submit…to being ruled by the Lord.” 29 This source also
demonstrates the importance to the Puritans of living under a government that submitted
itself to upholding the religious principles which they held so dear.
The final primary source to be examined in detail is Samuel Willard’s “The
Character of a Good Ruler.” This sermon was delivered in 1694, much later than most of
the other sources in this chapter. This demonstrates that the Puritans were still abiding by
political Calvinism as late as the turn of the eighteenth century. In the sermon, Willard
upheld the same standards for rulers as did Calvin in Geneva. He also expressed the idea
that all laws made by a civil government ought to align with scripture and God would
ultimately judge lawmakers for their conduct while in office. 30 This is one of the clearest
demonstrations that the Puritans of New England were strictly conforming to political
Calvinism as late as the 1690s.

Historiography- Chapter 4
When researching topics of religious influence on political thought during
the American Revolution, it is obvious that there have been several movements of

29

John Eliot, “The Christian Commonwealth: or, The Civil Polity Of The Rising
Kingdom of Jesus Christ. An Online Electronic Text Edition.” Faculty Publications, UNL
Libraries. Paper 19 (1659): 1-2.
30

Samuel Willard, “The Character of a Good Ruler,” 1694. In Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry God: and Other Puritan Sermons, ed. by Mary Carolyn Waldrep
(Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2005), 117-119.
16

thought concerning this topic. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
religion, especially reformed Protestantism, was seen as a hugely influential force
in the formation of American politics. This was typified by the writings of
historians such as C.H. Van Tyne and George Bancroft. One historian, B. F.
Morris, said in 1864 that, “The ministers of the Revolution were, like their Puritan
predecessors, bold and fearless in the cause of their country. No class of men
contributed more to carry forward the Revolution and to achieve our
independence than did the ministers…by their prayers, patriotic sermons, and
services [they] rendered the highest assistance to the civil government, the army,
and the country.”31
Since then, many historians began to view the Revolution as purely
economic, leading C. H. Van Tyne to say that historians have, “…worshipped too
partially the golden calf of economic stresses.”32 One of the most often quoted
books on the role of ministers was John Thornton’s The Pulpit of the American
Revolution: Political Sermons of the Period of 1776. Originally published in
1860, it had at its core, the intention of showing the marriage of politics and
religion in Revolutionary America. 33 The work of Van Tyne’s and Thornton’s
Pulpit of the American Revolution dominated the field until the mid-1950’s. As

31

Benjamin Franklin Morris, Christian Life and Character of the Civil
Institutions of the United States (Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 1864), pp. 334-335.
32

C. H. Van Tyne, “Influence of the Clergy, and of Religious and Sectarian
Forces, on the American Revolution,” The American Historical Review 19, no. 1 (Oct.,
1913): 44.
33

John Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution: Political
Sermons of the Period of 1776 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1970), III.
17

was noted earlier in this chapter, George Bancroft clearly articulated a link
between the creation of American liberty and the influence of political Calvinism.
Both are reference in the fourth chapter of this thesis as a good summation of the
treatment of political Calvinism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. Although not examined in detail, both authors allow the modern reader
to understand past historiography of the subject.
During the 1960’s, this view started to change. With the emergence of
Bernard Bailyn, the Revolution was deemed a “secular event,” with the focus
completely on the ideas of the Enlightenment, to the exclusion of almost all
others.34 Bailyn, in his article “Political Experience and Enlightenment Ideas in
Eighteenth-Century America” argued that the Revolution ought to be seen as the
triumph of the Enlightenment. He argues that the Revolution was the result of the
Enlightenment’s’ “endowing with high moral purpose inchoate, confused
elements of social and political change.” Bailyn also argues that the revolution
saw the “disestablishment of religion,” and therefore, religion’s retreat as a social
and political force.35
Over the next thirty years, ministers would receive very little attention. To
prove the point, Gordon Wood in a book devoted entirely to the American
Revolution, only mentions Jonathan Mayhew and John Witherspoon, both

34

Bernard Bailyn, Faces of Revolution: Personalities and Themes in the Struggle
for American Independence (New York: Random House, 1990), 104.
35

Bernard Bailyn, “Political Experience and Enlightenment Ideas in EighteenthCentury America,” The American Historical Review 67, no. 2 (Jan., 1962): 345, 351.
18

massive influences in the Revolutionary era, once. 36 When speaking about public
virtue, he never mentions religion. (It seems to this author nearly impossible to
discuss the ideologies and changing ideas of the revolutionary age without
speaking about the marriage of Enlightenment ideas and religion: an undertaking
Wood completely ignores.) To further illustrate the point, Bernard Bailyn’s short
chapter concerning religious influences on the Revolution in his book Ideological
Origins of the American Revolution, is one of the longest pieces devoted to that
subject.37
In 2005, Jeffry H. Morrison released the first comprehensive look at John
Witherspoon since 1925.38 With Witherspoon falling into relative obscurity, the
work was well overdue. Morrison contents that Witherspoon was a bona fide
founder, and deserves to be recognized as such. Morrison also calls attention to
the role of religion in the founding as well as Witherspoon’s role in developing
the role of religion. In his book, Morrison shows the ability of Witherspoon to
navigate the waters of the Enlightenment, while at the same time, remaining a
faithful Calvinist, both politically and religiously. 39 This work is the most recent

36

Gordon Wood, The American Revolution: A History. (New York: Random
House, 2002), 104.
37

Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.
(Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1967), 301-319.
38

Varnum Lansing Collins, President Witherspoon (New York: Arno Press &
The New York Times, 1969)
39

Jeffry H. Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American
Republic. (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Norte Dame Press, 2005), 60.
19

treatment of Witherspoon and is the only modern work that examines his political
sentiments in detail. This book is examined in detail throughout the fourth chapter
of this thesis.
Morrison also examines the influence of Witherspoon in his own time.
While Witherspoon in not held in the same esteem in the twenty-first century as
other, more prominent founders, he was extremely influential as an instructor and
as president of the College of New Jersey. As a professor, Witherspoon had an
influence on a large number of prominent political figures, the most notable being
James Madison. It is here that Morrison’s work becomes so important. By
supplanting Collin’s biography of Witherspoon, Morrison reintroduced the impact
of Witherspoon to the modern reader. 40
Another secondary source which is used to provide context in Charles
Akers’ Called unto Liberty: A Life of Jonathan Mayhew 1720-1766. While this
work was published in 1964, it remains one of the best treatments of Jonathan
Mayhew’s early life and of his father and grandfather. As Mayhew himself was
outside of the Calvinist theological mainstream, this examination of his early life
and pedigree is important in evaluating the formation of his political thinking. 41
Another secondary source used through the fourth chapter is Patricia
Bonomi’s Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial
America. Although published in 1986, the work is still cited frequently in

40

Ibid., 4-5.

41

Charles W. Akers, Called unto Liberty: A Life of Jonathan Mayhew 1720-1766.
(Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1964), 8-9, 24-25, 219-221.
20

academic journals and remains one of the most important works in the study of
the early American political scene. Bonomi writes extensively concerning the
political landscape in the English speaking work, both in England and America.
Her work is invaluable in the study of early American religion.
In the fourth chapter of this thesis, several primary sources are examined
in detail. In order to explore the influence of political Calvinism in the years
preceding the American Revolution, two sermons by Jonathan Edwards are
examined. Edwards in extremely useful to the historian who is examining the
political thought of Calvinists during the First Great Awakening. Edwards stands
alone as the greatest eighteenth-century Calvinist thinker and demonstrative of
American Calvinist political thought in the half-century preceding the American
Revolution. Born in Connecticut in 1703, Edwards died in 1758, before the
Seven Years War and the American Revolution. Even in that context, like other
Calvinists before him, Edwards subscribed to a political Calvinism that was
defined by a commitment to limited government power, a covenantal
understanding of God’s relationship to political entities and that a form of
democracy was essential. These political principles are clearly seen in two
sermons delivered by Edwards in 1729 and either 1731 or 1732. 42

42

Jonathan Edwards, "Sermon: “Sin and Wickedness Bring Calamity and Misery”
(1729)," In The Other Jonathan Edwards: Selected Writings on Society, Love, and Justice
(Amherst; Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015), 35-41. ; Jonathan Edwards,
"Sermon: “The State of Public Affairs” (1731–32)," In The Other Jonathan Edwards:
Selected Writings on Society, Love, and Justice, ed. Gerald McDermott and Ronald Story
(Amherst; Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015), 49-54.
21

Edwards’ sermon “The State of Public Affairs” demonstrates two critical
elements of political Calvinist thought. The first being that the people have a
right to resist a government which strips them of their rights, and the second being
that the people are ultimately responsible for the actions of their government. 43 In
the same sermon, Edwards expressed the idea that civil authorities were
ultimately responsible to God and ought to serve alongside the church in their
common calling. Here Edwards demonstrates a clear commitment to political
Calvinism and was an important voice for the political theory in the mideighteenth century.44
Another Edwards sermon is demonstrative of Edward’s commitment to
the political theory which came out of the Reformation. The sermon “Sin and
Wickedness Bring Calamity and Misery” shows the importance of covenants
between God and man in the Calvinist mind. This sermon demonstrates the line
that can be drawn from Calvin and the Reformation to Edwards and colonial
America.45 Although Edwards was a prolific writer, these two sermons are two of
the best examples of his political thought.
Two of John Witherspoon’s sermons are also examined. Delivered in
May of 1776, John Witherspoon’s “The Dominion of Providence over the

43

Edwards, "Sermon: “The State of Public Affairs” (1731–32)," 51.

44

Ibid., 54.

45

Edwards, "Sermon: “Sin and Wickedness Bring Calamity and Misery” (1729),"

39-40.
22

Passions of Men: A Sermon preached at Princeton, the 17 th of May, 1776, being
the general fast appointed by the Congress through the United Colonies” outlined
the Presbyterian argument for separation from Britain. In the sermon he argues
that Britain’s violation of the colonists’ civil liberty was sure to result in the
violation of their religious liberty as well. By tying civil and religious liberty
together, Witherspoon was able to justify the Revolution in the Calvinist mind.
This sermon serves to show that during the American Revolution, resistance to a
civil authority needed to be justified along the lines outlined by Calvin and the
Puritans.46
Another sermon delivered by Witherspoon which bears the uninspiring
title “Sermon Delivered at a Public Thanksgiving,” outlines Witherspoon’s
devotion to public virtue and its role in politics. In the sermon, Witherspoon
outlines his belief that a people must be religious in order to long last as a
politically free people. Much like Calvin, the Puritans and Edwards, Witherspoon
believed it absolutely necessary for a people to acknowledge God in order to
flourish. This sermon demonstrates Witherspoon’s alignment with historical
political Calvinism.47
The sermons referenced in chapter four are a clear demonstration of
political Calvinism in colonial America in the years before the American

46

John Witherspoon, “The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men: A
Sermon preached at Princeton, the 17th of May, 1776, being the general fast appointed by
the Congress through the United Colonies,” (Philadelphia: 1776).
47

John Witherspoon, “Sermon Delivered at a Public Thanksgiving,” in Jeffry H.
Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic.
23

Revolution. The time period focused on in the chapter, with Edwards writing in
the 1720s and Witherspoon writing in 1776, demonstrating the lasting influence
of political Calvinism in early American history.

24

CHAPTER 2

THE CALVINIST POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
The Reformation stands a pivotal turning point in Western history. While it
certainly upended the religious order that existed for well over a millennium in Europe, it
also upset the political order as well. This was indelibly tied to religion. Although the
Church of Rome continues to be influencer of world events, even in the twenty-first
century, this pales in comparison to the power it wielded in the sixteenth century.
However, the movement started by Martin Luther in Wittenberg forever transformed
political thought in Europe, and ultimately in the new world.
Out of the Reformation came a new political philosophy which threw off the
medieval trappings which characterized the political world which Martin Luther was born
into and would live in. Through the writings of Luther, John Calvin, Theodore Beza,
John Knox and others, would come a political philosophy which would abandon the ideas
that had empowered the political class in Europe. This movement resulted in the ideas of
political Calvinism which would guide both Calvinists in Geneva and Scotland, but

25

ultimately in New England. 48 Political Calvinism, which was created mainly through
the writings of John Calvin and Theodore Beza would argue three main points. The new
philosophy contended that people were best ruled went they were granted suffrage, that
the power of governments ought to be limited, and that the people had the liberty to resist
unjust and ungodly rulers. This chapter will contend that this new political Calvinism was
the catalyst for political upheaval in Europe, and was a distinct political philosophy
which was birthed out of the Reformation.

Lutheran Political Thought
When, in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the church door at
Wittenberg, he began one of the most dramatic religious, social and, ultimately, political
shifts in Western history. Luther’s movement would challenge the very undergirding of
European governments and, of course, the power of the church in Rome and of the Holy
Roman Empire of Charles V. However, Luther was certainly not the first to challenge
the power of the Roman church. Several proto-reformers had also challenged the church
over the previous four centuries, quite notably John Wycliffe and John Hus, whose
actions challenging Catholic authority foreshadowed the Reformation. During the
fourteenth century, Wycliffe rejected additions to the gospel, namely the sacraments, the
power of the papacy and the numerous land holdings of the church and church officials.
In central Europe, John Hus was inspired by Wycliff and would challenge the church on

48

Herbert Darling Foster, “The Political Theories of Calvinists before the Puritan
Exodus to America,” The American Historical Review 21, no. 3 (April, 1916): 481.
Foster’s assertions are representative of the early twentieth century consensus view of the
Reformation’s impact on political development.
26

the same grounds. For this he would be burned at the stake. In Florence, Girolamo
Savonarola would also be burned for opposing the church. His offense was less
theological. Savonarola loudly criticized the church for corruption and what Savonarola
saw as the abuse of the papal power.49 All of these objections to the teachings and power
of Rome presaged Luther and foreshadowed the coming Reformation.
As Luther began to challenge the Catholic Church, Europe was primed for a
political schism as the Holy Roman Emperors began to vie for power against the Kings of
France. There was also discontent with the power of the church among some German
princes. The Reformation cannot be explained away as a political or economic event.
While the Reformation certainly had wide ranging political and social consequences, it
was, and must continue to be viewed as, a religious movement primarily, as those
forming the movement held their faith as the prime motivating factor in all they did.
However, there was economic and political discontent toward the church in Rome. These
would only help to open the divisions that were beginning to form as the Reformation
began.50
At the outset of the Reformation, the role and scope of governments across
Europe was still largely tied to the Roman Catholic Church. However, with the
introduction of Lutheranism, the Anabaptists and the Reformed churches of Calvin and
Ulrich Zwingli, the political future of Central Europe was in question. Both Luther and

49

Andre Bieler, Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought, ed. Edward Dommen,
trans. James Greig (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2005), 5,9.
50

Andre Bieler, Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought, 7-8.
27

Calvin would contribute to the political discussions of the time: Luther primarily through
his On Secular Authority and Calvin through his Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Early Lutheran Political Thought
Luther’s political thought would largely be shaped by his protection by German
princes following his excommunication in 1521 and his dealings with Rome’s allies in
the aftermath of the excommunication. Many of the reformers, and indeed Luther
himself, saw the church in Rome as a “tyranny” according to Harro Höpfl. Luther’s On
Secular Authority, which was written in 1523 in the aftermath of his translation of the
New Testament being banned in Saxony, laid out the argument that there should be
independence between the church and the secular authorities. 51 Höpfl describes Luther’s
political thinking, as laid out in the work, by saying that “he [Luther] saw the duty of the
secular governors, traditionally enough, as keeping the peace, enforcing conformity to
laws, protecting the law-abiding and punishing law-breakers.” 52
Throughout the work, Luther stresses the importance of Christians obeying the
civil authorities. Much of what has been written concerning Luther’s political ideas
indicates that Luther, like Augustine before him, required absolute obedience to the state.
Early in his ministry, Luther argued, like Augustine, that if a magistrate 53 were to come

51

Harro Höpfl, ed. and trans., Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), vii-xi.
52

Ibid., xiii.

53

The term magistrate will be defined in more detail in the next section of this

chapter.
28

into conflict with scripture, it was the Christian’s duty to passively resist. It is important
to note that while Luther was composing On Secular Authority, he was being pursued by
Catholic Charles V and Pope Leo X and was protected by Frederick of Saxony. As he
was dependent on the support of the Protestant German princes, he was unwilling to
upset the political balance in the region and risk violence. 54
At the outset of the Reformation, Luther outrightly condemned armed resistance
and rebellion as he believed it showed a lack of faith in God on the part of the believer.
As an Augustinian by training, Luther was certainly influenced by Augustine’s theology,
as were many of the later, reformed theologians in Geneva. Luther also believed that
man’s evil was best contained by the power of an upright and well-managed state.
Again, as an Augustinian, Luther carried with him a belief in the sinful nature of man. 55
As such, any dismantling of the state would slow the work of reforming the church,
which was always his primary concern. 56
Luther repeatedly based much of this belief on one passage from Paul’s epistle to
the Romans. Over the course of two decades, spanning from 1522-1544, Luther referred

54

Cynthia Grant Shoenberger, “Luther and the Justifiability of Resistance to
Legitimate Authority,” Journal of the History of Ideas 40 (Jan.-Mar. 1979): 3-5. Luther’s
support of the German princes during the Peasants War would seem to lend credence to
this view.
55

Brandon Peterson, “Augustine: Advocate of Free Will, Defender of
Predestination,” Theology (May 2006): 3-4. Augustine has been called the most
influential Christian writer in church history. Both Luther and Calvin rely heavily on his
City of God. Luther’s Bondage of the Will considers heavily the theme of the sinfulness
of man. This fear of man’s sinfulness being fully displayed weighed heavily on Luther as
he considered the level to which the political order should be challenged.
56

Shoenberger, “Luther and the Justifiability of Resistance to Legitimate
Authority,” 6.
29

to the same passage during nearly all controversies over the issue of submission to civil
authorities, Romans 13: 1-7. The passage reads,
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no
authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by
God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has
appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a
terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who
is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval,
for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for
he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an
avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one
must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake
of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities
are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed
to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is
owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. 57
This vision of the governing authorities as a sword by which God governs the earth
dominated the early portion of Luther’s political thought. Although he never completely
abandoned this idea, he would certainly soften his position.58
The popular idea that Luther demanded complete obedience to secular authorities
seems to indicate that most of the writing on Luther’s political philosophy focuses on his
writings before the publication of On Secular Authority. This excludes what Luther
wrote and said when he came into the greatest conflict with the Holy Roman Empire in
the late 1530s and 1540s. However, his writings from after this time period indicate that

57

Rom. 13: 1-7. (English Standard Version) All quotations of the Bible will be
taken from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.
58

Höpfl, Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, xv-xvi.
30

he was more willing to allow for resistance to secular authority. It was during this time
period that Luther’s views on resistance begin to shift. 59
Lutheran resistance theory, as taught by Luther himself, is based on the idea that
Luther did not demand complete obedience to a civil power from all people in all
circumstances. While he concluded that private individuals should not rebel, he left open
the possibility that a magistrate, while carrying out his duties, might find it necessary to
protect his subjects from the attacks of the Emperor. Other Lutheran reformers, such as
Johannes Bugenhagen, argued that it was the responsibility of the prince to protect his
subjects, no matter the threat. This seeming break in the Lutheran line on the issue of
resistance did show that Luther would allow for arguments to be made from resistance,
even if he himself were not willing to espouse the position.60
Many Lutherans began to accept arguments for resistance to the Emperor, even
while Luther himself did not. However, Luther himself began to show a change in
position during a clash with Charles V. Lutheran lawyers began to argue that Charles V
violated the limitation on his power as understood under the terms of his coronation. It
was this narrow argument that Luther would tepidly endorse. Luther would allow for
resistance if the laws governing a state limited the authority of a political figure, such as
the Emperor. Luther stated, “Render unto the Emperor, what is the Emperor's. And it is
the Emperor's right, that he must be resisted in matters of notorious injustice. . . . All that
the Emperor has established, that is, the law of the Emperor, is to be observed. But that

59

Shoenberger, “Luther and the Justifiability of Resistance to Legitimate
Authority,” 3-4.
60

Ibid., 6-7.
31

law determines, that one must resist him in such a case.” Luther was not allowing for a
natural rights argument for rebellion but rather a constitutional argument based on the
governing agreement surrounding the Holy Roman Empire61
Through the 1530s and 1540s, Luther began to argue that the Emperor was
limited in his power and that his power was to be shared with the German Princes, as
stipulated in his election and coronation. As a clash with the Emperor became obvious,
Luther expressed a belief that German Christians were duty-bound to disobey the
Emperor. This was based on Luther’s belief that the Emperor was opposing “God and
divine laws,” as well as violating the laws which governed the Empire. It was at this
point that Luther argued that, whenever the Emperor acted outside of his legal authority,
it was acceptable to resist him. This did not mean that Luther was endorsing armed
rebellion, but rather passive resistance, on the part of the individual. By passive
resistance, Luther precludes the use of force. Rather, he meant that individuals could
simply choose to not obey an edict which violated scripture. However, Luther did leave
open the possibility for certain circumstances when a private individual would be
obligated to violently resist an authority. Luther gave assent to the argument that a private
individual would be justified in protecting his wife and family from an outside threat,
even if it were to come from the Emperor.62
Luther should not be seen as a proponent of complete obedience to secular
authorities no matter the situation. While he certainly did not endorse violent resistance

61

Ibid., 10-11.

62

Ibid., 13-14, 17.
32

to the Catholic authorities, he did, in the end, embrace a theory of resistance when the
Lutheran movement was being threatened by the Catholic church as well as the Holy
Roman Empire and Charles V. This resistance was a last resort and should not be taken
lightly. After his death, Luther’s assent to some form of resistance was touted by
Lutherans in their further efforts to resist the Emperor. Luther’s close friend and
associate Philip Melanchthon went as far as discussing natural rights and self-defense
arguments for resistance to a governing authority. In this way, Luther ought to be seen as
an earlier influencer of Reformation political thought, as well as a contributor to early
Lutheran, and ultimately Calvinist, resistance theory. 63

Calvinist Political Thought
While the Reformation certainly saw its genesis with Luther and his ninety-five
theses, the true apex of the movement’s religious thought could be found in John Calvin.
Calvin was, in his time, a veritable genius. Having received his Doctor of Laws in his
early twenties, he was forced to flee his homeland of France for Switzerland after
accepting and teaching the religious ideas of the Reformation, which were sweeping
across Germany and beginning to gain a foothold in Calvin’s native France. It was at this
time that he fully turned his attention to religious writing. During his exile in
Switzerland, Calvin penned his magnum opus, Institutes of the Christian Religion, which
would become the basis of the teachings of the Reformed, Presbyterian, Puritan and

63

Ibid., 14, 17-20.
33

Scottish churches. It was at this point that the twenty-five-year-old Calvin began his
theological teaching.64
In Institutes, Calvin laid forth a sweeping theology that covered nearly every area
of religious thought. The very last subject covered in Institutes is civil government. It
was here that Calvin detailed the ideology with which he would rule Geneva and the
ideas which would be carried to Scotland by John Knox and to the new world by the
Separatists of Plymouth and the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Calvin’s view of
civil government would become one of the most influential treatises on government in
Europe, as it helped form the fledgling government which was being formed in the new
world in Massachusetts. Unlike Luther, Calvin would, in detail, explain his thoughts on
civil government.
In Institutes, Calvin squarely addresses the domination of politics by the pope and
by the church in Rome and several new religious movements cropping up in Europe. 65
Calvin, like Luther, begins the chapter on civil government by explaining that he believed
that man was always subject to two governments, a civil government as well as a
government that primarily “pertains to eternal life.” 66 He clearly drew a distinction
between the two. During this time of Reformation, it was not a forgone conclusion,
among the religious, that a government was even necessary.

64

R. W. Wallace, “John Calvin,” The Journal of Education 70, no. 2 (July 8,
1909): 35.
65

Peter Iver Kaufman, Redeeming Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1990), 109.
66

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. by John T McNeilll and
trans. by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), 1485.
34

Calvin addressed the “fanatics” who claimed that political offices and
governments ought to be rejected by believers. This was largely aimed at the Anabaptist
movement which was a minority movement in Germany during the time period. The
Anabaptist position was demonstrated clearly in Peter Rideman’s declaration that “no
Christian is a ruler and no ruler is a Christian.” 67 The Anabaptist position was that before
Christ, a government was needed to control the actions of men. However, once Christ
established a kingdom, a government was unnecessary. Neither Luther nor Calvin were
party to the radical Reformation typified by the Anabaptists who were more likely than
Lutherans and Calvinists to simply remove themselves from secular life altogether. 68
Calvin would label the proponents of this position, a government not being a necessity,
“those who would have men live pell-mell, like rats in straw.” 69 Calvin asserted that
there was a misunderstanding in the church, especially among the Anabaptists, that the
freedom discussed in the gospel would not be complete while a government ruled over
members of the church. He also stated that this was a misunderstanding of the difference
between the soul and the body. He went to great lengths to stress that a person can be
spiritually free while the body suffers under “civil bondage.” 70

67

Peter Rideman, “An Anabaptist View of the Church,” in The Portable
Renaissance Reader, ed. James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin (New York:
The Viking Press, 1961), 665.
68

Höpfl, Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, viii-ix.

69

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1490.

70

Ibid., 1486.
35

This idea, that one could be spiritually free while at the same time be physically in
bondage, did not cause the reformer to shrink from the political arena. Calvin believed
that governments were established by God to allow faith to flourish. He contended that it
was necessary for Christians to understand the proper role of government, as it both
protected the believer from unscrupulous government officials who would corrupt
religion for political gain, but also to preserve the “divinely established order” from
“insane and barbarous men.”71 It was, in his view, the task of the government to ensure
the conditions under which an undefiled and productive church could operate freely. In
this respect, Calvin very closely mirrored the position held by Martin Luther. He
believed that the civil government was largely a positive good which helped protect the
church.
Calvin’s theology permeates this line of political thinking. A core tenant of
Calvin’s theology was that man is unable on his own to turn from sin and choose to
follow Christ. Later Calvinists would define this teaching at the Synod of Dort more
formally as “Total Depravity.”72 Calvin taught that “We must … distinctly note … two

71

Ibid., 1485-1486.

72

Calvin did not himself define this teaching as Total Depravity. Rather is was
well after his death that the teaching was formally named at the Synod of Dort. The
synod was called to address the teaching of Jacob Arminius who would become known as
the Remonstrants. His modern followers are called simply Arminians. At the synod, the
Remonstrants were answered by the leaders of the reformed churches of Europe. They
compiled five teachings, or points, which have become known as Five Point Calvinism.
The first of these points is Total Depravity. The other four would be listed as
Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the
Saints, which is alternatively called Once Saved, Always Saved. While Calvin never
used the term “total depravity” in Institutes, it was his teaching that led the reformed
churches to adopt the doctrine. This point of theology will become important later in this
paper. For more on the synod, see Revisiting the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619), ed. Aza
Goudriaan and Fred van Lieburg (Leiden: Brill, 2011)
36

things. First, we are so vitiated and perverted in every part of our nature that by this great
corruption we stand justly condemned and convicted before God, to whom nothing is
acceptable but righteousness, innocence, and purity.” 73 It was because of this view of the
human condition that Calvin believed a government was necessary. Calvin argued that
because man is imperfect there must be some constraint on his behavior so that he will
not impede others in their attempt to live pious lives. The reformer summed up the idea
most cogently in Institutes by stating:
Yet civil government has as its appointed end, so long as we live among men, to
cherish and protect the outward worship of God, to defend sound doctrine of piety
and the position of the church, to adjust our life to the society of men, to form our
social behavior to civil righteousness, to reconcile us with one another, and to
promote general peace and tranquility. All of this I admit to be superfluous, if
God’s Kingdom, such as it is now among us, wipes out the present life. But if it
is God’s will that we go out as pilgrims upon the earth while we aspire to the true
fatherland, and if the pilgrimage requires such helps, those who take these from
man deprive him of his very humanity. 74
Calvin’s theology drove him toward the idea of the necessity of a just civil
government. He also believed civil law to be necessary to restrain those who would
commit crimes. Again, his belief in the yet to be defined doctrine of Total Depravity
drove him toward this idea. He stated, “For since the insolence of men is so great, their
wickedness so stubborn, that it can scarcely be restrained by extremely severe laws, what

73

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 251

74

Ibid., 1487.
37

do we expect them to do if they see that their depravity can go scot-free when no power
can force them to cease from doing evil.” 75
As for the law, Calvin believed that each society had the right to make laws that
were unique for their own situation. Calvin argued that not all nations were under an
obligation to follow Old Testament laws as laid out in scripture. He made the argument
that the law given in the Old Testament was particular to the ancient nation of Israel and
should not be given to every nation. Rather, it was only necessary for the laws to
conform to “God’s eternal law.” In short Calvin believed that the law should restrain evil
men and that the law should punish “murder, theft, adultery” and perjury. It was for this
reason he believed a government necessary. This, however, would not be the only role he
saw for a government.76
Calvin clearly defined the role of the government. It was not only the
responsibility of the government to oversee the necessities of daily life and to ensure the
well-being of the people, but also to prevent “idolatry, sacrilege against God’s name,
blasphemies against his truth, and other public offenses against religion from arising and
spreading among the people.” He also gave to the government powers which would seem
unsurprising to the modern reader, such as the ability to keep the peace, securing property
rights and to ensure that business would flourish. From this perspective, it can be seen
that Calvin’s ideal government would not only carry on the administration of a political
state, but would also allow the church to function in its proper role. In this manner,

75

Ibid., 1487-1488.

76

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1504-1505.
38

Calvin was in total agreement with Luther. For both reformers, the civil authority
certainly was to work with the church to establish and preserve religion and protect the
people.77
In a rather brief statement Calvin addresses the concern that “I now commit to
civil government the duty of rightly establishing religion.” This would seem to conflict
with his earlier distinction between spiritual and civil government. However, he states
that his true intention is to have the government protect “the true religion which is
contained in God’s law from being openly and with public sacrilege violated and defiled
with impunity.” In this statement, Calvin gives away his underlying assumption, namely,
that the church is more at risk from forces other than the civil government. He reinforces
this by stating “I do not. . .allow men to make laws according to their own decision
concerning religion and the worship of God.” This would indicate that the government’s
role would be to protect the church rather than direct the church’s actions. Calvin has
here further established a guiding tenet of his political thinking. Namely, that Church and
state ought to be separated, but not completely cut off from one another. 78
A defining feature of Calvin’s teaching would be the assurance that the church
should not be subject to the dictate of the state. Rather, with a common purpose, they
would govern. One would govern the “temporal” and the other the “spiritual.” He also
envisioned participation in government being predicated on good standing in the church.
This was limited however. A person would not lose life or property due to a loss of

77

Ibid. 1487-1488.

78

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1487-1488.
39

standing in the church. Rather, it would be the ability to participate in government and
the right to hold office that would be tied to a man’s standing in the church. 79
In his book The Reformation of Rights. Law, Religion and Human Rights in Early
Modern Calvinism, John Witte Jr. argues that Calvin’s view of civil governance was
driven by three principles. The first of these principles was that Calvin believed in a
democratic process. Councils were necessary in decision making. Through these
councils, the people’s rights would be better preserved and tyranny would be avoided.
The second was that he believed in the necessity of the rule of law and the government’s
duty to enforce the civil, and in some cases religious, law. The final principle identified
by Witte was Calvin’s belief that a limited liberty of conscience should be protected. This
would not extend to religious thought that veered outside of what Calvin saw as Christian
Orthodoxy. It is important to note that the reformer did not believe in religious tolerance.
He believed that the civil government ought to establish a church and help enforce the
orthodoxy of the church. While Calvin was present in Geneva, it was illegal to practice
Roman Catholicism and to promote teachings contrary to Christian orthodoxy. 80
Calvin’s rejection of complete religious tolerance does not however indicate that
he was in favor of the most stringent punishments for the rejection of orthodoxy. Many
of Calvin’s critics point to the execution of Michael Servetus as a sign of Calvin’s
intolerance. In his book Calvin, Bruce Gordon is quick to point out that religious

79

Gerald Bray, "The Reformation of Rights. Law, Religion and Human Rights in
Early Modern Calvinism," Ecclesiology 4, no. 3 (2008): 366.
80

Gerald Bray, "The Reformation of Rights. Law, Religion and Human Rights in
Early Modern Calvinism," 366.
40

intolerance and the execution of heretics was not an anomaly in Geneva, but was the
norm in most of Europe, Protestant and Catholic alike. 81 In fact, Servetus was first
arrested by Catholic authorities in France after they were made aware of his views by
Calvin. Servetus’ offense was the publication of his book On the Restoration, which
contained many views which were considered heresy by both Calvin and the Catholic
Church. His punishment was also accepted as reasonable by other reformers. Upon
hearing the news of Severtus’ execution, the Lutheran reformer Philip Melanchthon
would write to Luther, “I have read your answer to the blasphemies of Servetus and
approve of your piety and opinions. I judge also that the Genevan Senate acted correctly
to put an end to this obstinate man, who could never cease blaspheming. And I wonder at
those who disapprove of this severity.” 82
While Calvin had previously stated that he wanted to see Servetus burn and was a crucial
player in the Spaniard’s trial, it was not Calvin would condemn him to death. Rather, it
was the city council that unanimously signed his death warrant. While the Servetus affair
seemed harsh to many, even at the time, it was highly demonstrative of his belief that
“civil government has as its appointed end . . . to cherish and protect the outward worship
of God, to defend sound doctrine of piety and the position of the church.” 83

81

Bruce Gordon, Calvin (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2009),

82

Ibid., 218, 224.

83

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1487.

217.

41

The Role of the Magistrate
In his attempt to allow the government to function properly, Calvin divided the
polity into three distinct groups. In Calvin’s formulation, these branches consisted of an
executive, whom Calvin would call “the magistrate,” the law, which the magistrate uses
to govern, and the people, who are under the magistrate as well as the law. He also saw
fit to define each of the branches in detail. The first office which he explores is that of the
magistrate, which illustrates the reformer’s vision for how the government ought to
function.84
Calvin saw governmental offices as positions which were mandated by God and
which carried with them the respect due to a position established by God. 85 He also
assented to the popular belief of the time that governmental officers were “wholly God’s
representatives, in a manner, acting as his viceregent.” In keeping with Luther’s
understanding, Calvin believed that God had a hand in raising and removing kings. He
said it was “by divine providence and holy ordinance” that kings came to power and not
purely by the actions of men. He also believed that the administration of the state was
under the authority God and that “God was pleased so to rule the affairs of men,
inasmuch as he is present with them and also presides over the making of laws and the
exercising of equity in court of justice.” Like Luther, Calvin based much of this thoughts
on the ordination of government by God in Romans 13, in which Paul states that

84

Ibid., 1487-1488.

85

In this section of Institutes, which focuses on the magistrates, Calvin echoes
some of the ideas proposed by the proponents of the ideology known as the Divine right
of Kings. Calvin points to Romans 12:8 as evidence of this in which Paul lists leading as
a worthy task alongside teaching and acts of service.
42

governments have been established by God. In this chapter, Paul makes the statements
that “princes are ministers of God” and that “there are no powers except those ordained
by God.” To further his explanation, Calvin points toward Old Testament examples by
saying,
To this may be added the examples of holy men, of which some possessed
kingdoms, as David, Josiah, and Hezekiah; others, lordships, as Joseph and
Daniel; others, civil rule among a free people, as Moses, Joshua, and the judges.
The Lord has declared his approval of their offices. Accordingly, no one ought to
doubt that civil authority is a calling, not only holy and lawful before God, but
also the most sacred and by far the most honorable of all callings in the whole life
of mortal men.86
Calvin points to two passages in the Old Testament as a guide for magistrates. In
both instances, he points to instructions given to judges in ancient Israel. The first,
Deuteronomy 1:16-17, demands that a ruler “‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and
judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him. You shall
not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be
intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God's.”87 The other, II Chronicles 19:6, states
that judges should “Consider what you do, for you judge not for man but for the Lord. He
is with you in giving judgment.”88
Calvin’s instructions were clear. While it was certainly the duty of the Christian to
submit to the ruling authority, it was equally the duty of the magistrate to carry out his
duties in accordance with the law of the state as well as in a way which upheld the law of

86

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1489-1490.

87

Deut. 1:16-17

88

II Chr. 19:6
43

God. In the introduction to his book Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, Harro Höpfl
describes the core of Calvin’s political ideology. He states, “Christian polity is
characterized by a two-fold government, a double ‘ministry’ of magistrates and pastors,
both deriving their authority from God, and both charged with governing the same body
of persons, the only possible relationship between them is one of cooperation and mutual
restraint.”89 To Calvin, the civil magistrate was to have the same end in mind as the
religious minister, namely to forward the gospel and ensure that the church could operate
properly, which would include implementing the religious teachings of the Reformation.
Calvin’s statements on Civil Government in Institutes largely aligns with Luther’s
On Secular Authority. One of the central themes in both works was the exhortation of
Paul in Romans chapter 13 to submit to secular authorities. Both reformers stressed the
duty of the Christian to submit to authorities. However, on the last page of Institutes,
Calvin states that Christians ought to “obey God rather than men,” leaving the possibility
that submission to a secular authority may not at all times be possible. This view of
passive resistance aligns with Luther’s view. Höpfl states that Calvin never gives his
reader the option of rebellion, but rather “prayer, supplication, suffering or exile.” 90
There seemed to be little difference between the minister and the magistrate other
than the realm in which they operated, be it the secular or divine in Calvin’s mind. He
stated that rulers were required by God to "represent in themselves to men some image of
divine providence, protection, goodness, benevolence, and justice.” 91 In other words,

89

Höpfl, Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, xxiii.

90

Ibid., xvii.

91

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1491.
44

magistrates were limited in their power and were not able to wield power “for any end
they please.” Calvin believed that there was only one authoritative and final power, that
of course being the authority of God. All men, be they laity, ministers, magistrates,
governors and kings, were all under the authority of God and must conform to his will. 92
Calvin drew a direct connection between God’s will and political power. This
connection necessitated that rulers would be guided by scriptural truth and religious law.
He also did not allow rulers to exercise their power with immunity from scrutiny. As
Jeffreys makes clear, Calvin uses the standard of rulers being subject to God’s will as the
standard by which their actions are judged. 93
Much of Calvin’s writings on the magistrate are directed to the magistrate rather
than those under the magistrate. In other words, Calvin was calling on magistrates to
check their own power and the restrain themselves when they carried out their duties.
Just as he cautioned the people to view the magistrate as a divinely created office, he
believed that all magistrates should take seriously the idea that they were God’s vicars, or
representatives, on earth. It was their responsibility to carry out God’s justice on earth
and, if they should fail, to answer to God concerning those failures. He went as far as
declaring that corrupt magistrates were “not only wrongdoers to men whom they

92

Höpfl, Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, xxii.

93

Derek S. Jeffreys, "It's a Miracle of God That There Is Any Common Weal
among Us": Unfaithfulness and Disorder in John Calvin's Political Thought,” The
Review of Politics 62, no. 1 (Winter, 2000): 114.
45

wickedly trouble, but [they] are also insulting toward God himself, whose most holy
judgements they defile.”94
Calvin demanded complete honesty and uprightness on the part of the magistrate.
He stated that they cannot live up to their charge “unless they defend good men from the
wrongs of the wicked, and give aid and protection to the oppressed.” 95 In this passage,
Calvin is placing the burden of good governance on the magistrate rather than on the
people. This is evident when Calvin exhorts his reader to submit to the governing
authority. He stated that private individuals have no right to overthrow or resist a ruler,
even if that ruler is a tyrant. In fact, he explicitly said to private individuals that “no
command has been given except to obey and suffer.” Calvin also said that Christians
ought to obey unjust and “wicked” rulers as they are often representative of God
punishing the people for some disobedience to God. Throughout the passage, Calvin
points to scripture emphasize this teaching. 96
Calvin saw the magistrate as the means by which a tyrannical government ought
to be opposed. After stating that private individuals are called to “suffer and obey,”

94

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1491-1492.

95

Ibid., 1496.

96

Ibid., 1510, 1512, 1516-1518. The three scriptures used by Calvin to support his
argument were Romans 13: 1-2: “ Let every person be subject to the governing
authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been
instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has
appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment,” Titus 3:1: “Remind them to be
submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work,”
and I Peter 2: 13-14: “Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether
it be to the king as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil
and to praise those who do good.” Calvin never abandoned this teaching, even as he
became an advocate of limited democracy later in life.
46

Calvin differenciates between the duty of the people to suffer and the magistrate’s duty to
resist the king as his office demands. He states,
For if there are now any magistrates of the people, appointed to restrain the
willfulness of kings … I am so far from forbidding them to withstand, in
accordance with their duty, the fierce licentiousness of kings, that, if they wink at
kings who violently fall upon and assault the lowly common folk, I declare that
their dissimulation involves nefarious perfidy, because they dishonestly betray the
freedom of the people, of which they know that they have been appointed
protectors by God’s ordinance.97
Calvin also left open the possibility that the magistrate may be able to openly
resist the king if certain conditions were met. In the aftermath of the “enterprise of
Amboise,” which saw a group of Huguenots attempt to overthrow the Catholic House of
Guise to gain power, Calvin wrote a letter to The Admiral de Coligny. In the letter,
Calvin is distancing himself from this power grab, as he was being charged as having a
role in the plot. Calvin makes clear throughout the letter that he was opposed to the plot
and even had admonished a military officer who inquired of Calvin if it would be lawful
to defend “children of God” who “were then oppressed.” Calvin answered that “he
should abandon all thoughts of this kind,” and that “he had no warrant for such conduct
according to God.” He did not, however, rule out entirely the possibility of armed
resistance. He stated, “I admitted, it is true, that if the princes of the blood demanded to
be maintained in their rights for the common good, and if the Parliament joined them in
their quarrel, that it would then be lawful for all good subjects to lend them armed
resistance.”98 Here, Calvin leaves open the possibility that in some circumstances, it

97

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1519.

98

John Calvin, The Letters of John Calvin, ed. Julles Bonnet, trans. Marcus
Robert Gilchrist (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1858), 175-176.
47

would be legal and acceptable for the magistrates and the people to resist the king if
certain constitutional conditions were met.
Calvin’s view of the magistrate dominated most of his writing in chapter twenty
of Institutes. He clearly demonstrated a desire for the people to revere the magistrate, as
he believed the magistrate to be God’s representative in the temporal government.
However, he believed that the magistrate ought to be restrained and should be judged
based on God’s law. He also made quite clear that the magistrate should be intent on
protecting the church and ensuring the well-being of the people. This conclusion did not
lead Calvin to believe that there should be no external restraint placed on a secular
government.

Democratic Strains in Calvin’s Political Thought
Due to his theological beliefs, Calvin believed that men were bent toward sin and
that no man was to be entirely trusted. He saw the necessity of a governmental system in
which the “secular authority [was] limited in its capacity to do evil, but not inhibited in
any way in doing the work of God, with agencies to act as guarantors and sureties for its
good behavior.”99 This led the reformer to conclude that is was preferable to avoid
monarchy and rather adopt a mixed system where there were aristocratic and democratic
elements.100 To this end, Calvin says that although it may be impossible to say which
form of government is best in every circumstance, he stated, “I will not deny that

99

Höpfl, Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, xxii.

100

Ibid., xx.
48

aristocracy, or a system compounded of aristocracy and democracy, far excels all others.”
101

Unlike many other writers of his day, and perhaps Luther, Calvin was not a
monarchist. In his writings, he only praised kings in scripture in a religious sense. He
was less committed than Luther to the governmental structure of a monarchy. 102 He
expressed his belief that it was the rare king or magistrate who would restrain his own
power. It was this belief that led him to advocate that a mixture of aristocracy and
democracy was the most feasible method to secure a measure of political freedoms. He
thought that because kings rarely restrained themselves properly, having more people
involved in governing would better protect the people. This is most clearly expressed
when he stated,
Men’s faults or failing causes it to be safer and more bearable for a number or
exercise government, so that they may help one another, teach and admonish one
another; and, if one asserts himself unfairly, there may be a number of censors
and masters to restrain his willfulness. This has both been proved by experience,
and also the Lord confirmed it by his authority when he ordained among the
Israelites an aristocracy bordering on democracy.103
To illustrate this point, Calvin points to two different texts in the Old Testament. The
two texts, Exodus 18: 13-26 and Deuteronomy 1:9-17, describe when Moses divides the
responsibility of governing Israel among men in the community. Rather than serve as the

101

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1493.

102

Höpfl, Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, viii-ix.

103

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1493-1494. The translator of
Calvin’s work, John T. McNeil notes that Calvin’s use of the Latin word plures, meaning
“more” emphasizes Calvin’s belief that many should be involved in the political process.
49

only judge over the people, Moses chose men to represent the people and judge the
people in a system in which power would be divided between different representatives. 104
For Calvin, this was not merely a philosophical position. It is necessary to note
the political reality of the Geneva in which Calvin lived and operated as a political actor.
Geneva was politically different than many other regions of central Europe. It was in
many respects a political blank slate as it possessed no university, no historical political
significance, it was not wealthy, and it was largely ignored by the Holy Roman Empire
even though it had adopted the Reformation. While Geneva did not boast a robust
democracy, it did not have the monarchal trappings of many other European cities. 105
A General Council made up the primary voting body in Geneva. All adult males
were eligible to vote. This body elected the councils which ultimately ruled the city.
James McGoldrick, author of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches: A Global History,
affirms that “Geneva was, in practice, an oligarchy.” However, it was an oligarchy
selected through a form of republicanism, which Calvin affirmed. 106
Geneva held elections in the city which elected a government which Harro Höpfl
described as “oligarchical” and would seem restrictive by modern standards. Genevan
society was rigidly hierarchical. Residents of the city were divided into three categories,
citoyen, bourgeois and habitants. Being regarded as a citoyen indicated that a man was

104

Ibid., 1494.

105

Harro Höpfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1982), 129.
106

James Edward McGoldrick, Richard Clark Red and Thomas Hugh Spence Jr.,
Presbyterian and Reformed Churches: A Global History (Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 14.
50

born in Geneva to citoyen parents and was baptized in the city. The bourgeois were
residents of the city who paid for the privilege in participating in civic life on the city.
Calvin was a member of the third group, habitant, for much of his time in Geneva. Both
citoyen and bourgeois were eligible to vote, although only a citoyen was allowed to hold
political office. Habitants were limited in their political rights but were given some basic
legal rights. This distinction significant in that it demonstrates that Calvin was actually
limited as a political actor by his status as a habitant and was not eligible to vote or hold
office.107
It was during this time as a political actor in Geneva that Calvin showed signs of
democratic thought in his writings. As was stated earlier, Calvin believed that the
monarch, and the government at large, should be limited. The government could kill, but
only after judging a person guilty under the justice demonstrated in scripture. The king
could tax, but not for any reason and not for any amount. According to Calvin, the
money collected through taxation, which Calvin judged as being within the power of the
king, still belonged to the people and should only be used in a responsible manner.
Likewise, war should only be undertaken when completely necessary. 108
One of the first indications given in Calvin’s writing that he believed a king was
not beyond reproach was in the introduction to Institutes. In his introduction to Institutes,
which was actually addressed as a letter to Francis I of France, Calvin explained what he

107

Höpfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin, 131, 133-134, 139. A habitant was
a person who was legally allowed to live in Geneva and enjoyed some political rights but
was not allowed to vote or hold political office.
108

John T. McNeill, introduction to On God and Political Duty, (New York: The
Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1956), xiv.
51

saw as the true duty of a monarch. He also used this letter to Francis I of France to
address what he saw as the failings of the king to protect the reformed believers in
France.109 From this, John McNeill contended that Calvin and his followers believed that
no one was above reproach and even above being resisted by magistrates occupying an
obviously inferior office within the government. This included a monarch. Of course,
this criticism needed to be based on scriptural reasoning. 110
Allowing for well-reasoned criticism of a ruler did not lead the reformer to
advocate for open rebellion. Calvin believed that a Christian could both recognize the
shortcomings in a ruler while at the same time showing respect to the office held by the
ruler. He emphasized this by stating,
I am not discussing the men themselves, as if a mask of dignity covered
foolishness, or sloth, or cruelty, as well as wicked morass full of infamous deeds,
and thus acquiring for vices and praise of virtues; but I say that the order itself is
worth of such honor and reverence that those who are rulers are esteemed among
us, and receive reverence out of respect for their lordship. 111
For the individual, acting on his own behalf, Calvin did not believe that outright
resistance was scripturally justified. This belief would not exclude all believers in all
circumstances from resisting an unjust power.
In the introduction to his book, Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, Harro
Höpfl drew a distinction between the ways in which the reformers envisioned
government. The main distinction he drew is between Martin Luther and Calvin. Höpfl

109

Calvin, Institutes, 9-11.

110

John T. McNeill, introduction to On God and Political Duty, ix-x.

111

Calvin, Institutes, 1510.
52

characterized Martin Luther’s vision of governmental authority as a sword, with which
the governing authority would punish those who do wrong. Calvin viewed it as a bridle
with which the authorities might restrain the actions of men. This distinction shaped the
way in which they envisioned government. Luther saw government as the tool by which
sin would be punished, while Calvin saw government as a tool which would restrain evil
and prevent evil from occurring.112
One of the most important means by which evil could be restrained in Calvin’s
mind would be to remove power from one man and have it distributed among a group of
well-intentioned leaders. While a political actor in Geneva, he encouraged the “Little
Council,” the more selective of the two political bodies in the city, to meet and discuss
the issues at hand. While some view this as Calvin’s advocating for oligarchy, it is
important to note that Calvin was arguing for an expansion in political involvement. To
be sure, Calvin was at best a hesitant democrat, even going as far as saying “it is
easiest… to fall from popular rule to sedition.” However, in his endorsement of a mixed
government, oligarchy and a limited democracy, as was seen in Geneva, Calvin was
opening the door for political change more than other reformers before him. 113 Although
Calvin never openly stated his dislike for monarchy, he did demonstrate a dislike for the
office of king through his sermons. In a sermon on the book of Daniel, Calvin stated, “If

112

Harro Höpfl, Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, xxiii.

113

Calvin, Institutes, 1493. The discussion over Calvin’s commitment to
oligarchy or control by the aristocracy has caused disagreement among Calvin’s scholars.
John T. McNeill, who edited the translation of Institutes by Ford Lewis Battle, argues
against the French historian J. Cadier who claimed Calvin was emphatically opposed to
democracy and was committed to an oligarchy.
53

one could uncover the hearts of kings, he would find hardly one in a hundred who does
not … despise everything divine.” He also, in his sermons on Deuteronomy stated, “"It is
much more endurable to have rulers who are chosen and elected.” In this statement,
Calvin showed a clear preference for leaders who were elected. 114
Just as Calvin believed that the church and the state worked toward a similar end,
the establishment and protection of a reformed, Christian community, he believed that
they ought to operate in a similar manner. Voting would be a vehicle by which both
would be protected. Calvin believed that through the voting of people in the church, the
principle of semper reformanda ecclesiae would be upheld.115 Similarly, Calvin
endorsed democratic principles in the city of Geneva as well as in his religious writings.
He even went as far as to comment that liberty is best protected by general suffrage and
that the rule of a king “does not seem in accordance with liberty.” This is demonstrated
when he said,
For the condition of the people most to be desired is that in which they create their
shepards by general vote. For when anyone by force usurps the supreme power,
that is tyranny. And where men are born to kingship, this does not seem to be in
accordance with liberty. Hence the prophet says: we shall set up princes for
ourselves; that is, the Lord will not only give the Church freedom to breathe, but
also institute a definite and well-ordered government, and establish this upon the
common suffrages of all. 116
114

John T. McNeil, “The Democratic Element in Calvin’s Thought” Church
History 18, no. 3 (Sept. 1949): 159.
115

John Witte Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights
in Early and Modern Calvinism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 5.
Calvin used the term semper reformanda ecclesiae to express the idea that Christians
should be “always reforming the church.” This would ensure that false teaching would
not enter the church as it had, in Calvin’s mind, entered the church in Rome.
116

John T. McNeill, introduction to On God and Political Duty, xxii-xxiii. The
quote is translated by McNeil from the Corpus Reformatorium.
54

Calvin held in high esteem the liberty of the people. This was not limited to a
religious liberty. In his introduction to Calvin’s On God and Political Duty, John T.
McNeill draws the reader to an important distinction. When reading the works of Calvin,
it is necessary to distinguish between two separate types of liberty. The first is Christian
liberty. This was Calvin’s primary concern. By Christian liberty, Calvin was talking
about the freedom from sin a Christian finds in “voluntary obedience to God.” However,
Calvin also speaks of political liberty in his writings about governmental structure. 117
On multiple occasions, Calvin spoke of liberty as a worthy end for which to work.
He went as far as to call liberty “an inestimable good,” and that “nothing is more
desirable than liberty.”118 Calvin in fact endorsed the idea that natural law ought to guide
the writing and enforcement of the law. He stated, “It is a fact that the law of God which
we call the moral law is nothing else than a testimony of natural law and of the
conscience which God has engraved upon the minds of men. Consequently, the entire
scheme of this equity of which we are now speaking has been prescribed in it. Hence, this
equity alone must be the goal and rule and limit of all laws.” 119 John T. McNeill
emphasized this by writing, “Not one of the leaders of the Reformation assails the
principle. Instead, with the possible exception of Zwingli, they all on occasion express a
quite ungrudging respect for the moral law naturally implanted in the human heart and

117

John T. McNeill, introduction to On God and Political Duty, xxii-xxiii.

118

Calvin, Institutes, 1494.

119

Ibid., 1504.
55

seek to inculcate this attitude in their readers.” He also stated that “for the Reformers . . .
natural law stood affirmed on the pages of Scripture.” 120
Calvin’s belief that natural rights afforded to men certain rights led the reformer
to a similar dilemma as Luther. At what point can a Christian resist a civil authority and
seemingly violate the exhortation of Paul found in Romans 13? Paul’s instruction of “Let
every person be subject to the governing authorities” guided much of Calvin’s writing in
Institutes concerning a believer’s relationship with the government. 121 Although Calvin
had written that individuals must not resist a ruler, in his further writings on the subject
he clarified his position. He focused his writing on the subject to two groups, private
individuals and those who held a position in the government.

Calvin’s Right and Duty to Resist
To those who occupied a political office, Calvin was very direct. There would be
times when, acting in their official capacity, it would be necessary to resist the king or
any other civil authority. In this circumstance, political action would be a duty to uphold
the law and to properly guide the hand of government. This was not a responsibility that

120

John T. McNeill, “Natural Law in the Teaching of the Reformers” The Journal
of Religion 26, no. 3 (July 1946): 168. McNeill states that through Calvin’s usage of the
term equity should be seen as a simple replacement for natural law, as he is writing about
the similarities between the Mosaic Law and other legal codes. The explanation of this
term is found on page 181 of the same article.
121

Rom. 13: 1. The complete text of Romans 13: 1-7 can be found earlier in this

paper.
56

Calvin took lightly. Calvin viewed these magistrates that the protectors of both the
people’s lives and liberty.122
Calvin argued that it was the responsibility of magistrates to resist an unjust king
under certain circumstances.123 He stated that a magistrate’s “sole endeavor should be to
provide for the common safety and peace of all.” This was emphasized by Calvin saying
that if a magistrate were to ignore the misdeeds of a king, he was “dishonestly betray[ing]
the freedom of the people, of which they know they have been appointed protectors by
God’s ordinance.” For Calvin, the lower magistrate had just as much of a duty to God
and the people as did the king. Therefore, the magistrate had the duty to resist the king if
obedience would cause the magistrate to violate his duty to God and the people. 124
In his commentary on the book of Daniel, Calvin stated “For earthly princes law
aside their power when they rise up against God, and are unworthy to be reckoned among
the number of mankind. We ought, rather, utterly to defy them than to obey them.” In
his commentary on this quote, McNeil points out that Calvin actually used language
which showed a complete disregard for any respect for this king. Rather than use the
word defy, the actual quote from Calvin is “conspuere in ipsorum capita.” This is
literally translated “to spit on their heads.” This is certainly a far cry from Calvin’s
earlier statement that “no command has been given except to obey and suffer.” 125 This

122

Harro Höpfl, Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, xviii.

123

For an earlier discussion of this topic please see the section entitled The Role
of the Magistrate.
124

Calvin, Institutes, 1519.

125

Ibid., 1518-1519.
57

command would not be applied only to those in positions of power. Calvin would also
extend this to the individual.
In Calvin’s conception of government, a good ruler would protect the people and
their liberties. It was for this reason that he believed that a political order which protected
the individual ought to be defended by the individual. However, according to Calvin, this
would only apply to a government which was supporting the word of God and protecting
the rights of the people. If this were not the case and the magistrate “command[ed]
anything against him [God],” the believer was commanded to “let it go unesteemed.” He
further explained his position by stating,
There is absolutely no foundation to the charge that they make against us, that we
overthrow the political order . . . and subvert the power of kinds… But if religion
ever forces us to resist tyrannical edicts, which forbid giving due honor to Christ,
and due Worship to God, then we too may rightly testify that we do not violate
the authority of kings. For they have not been lifted to such an exalted position,
that, like giants, they may endeavor to pull God from his throne. Daniel’s defense
was true. “I have done nothing wrong against the king,” although he had
nevertheless not obeyed the impious edict, for he had done no injury to a mortal
man, because he has preferred God to him. So let us, in good faith, pay to princes
their proper dues, but let us be ready for civil disobedience of all kinds, for if they
are not content with their own station, and wish to take away from us the fear and
worship of God, there is no reason for anyone to say that they are despised by us,
because the authority and majesty of God are of more importance to us. 126
Calvin explained that this was not a violation of Romans 13:1 and its command to “let
every person be subject to the governing authorities” because in violating scripture, the
magistrate had forfeited his position of authority over the people. This was necessary

126

Witte Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in
Early and Modern Calvinism, 49-51.
58

according to Calvin to ensure that all people were ultimately subject to God and not man.
He stated,
But so soon as rulers do lead us away from the obedience of God, because they
strive against God with sacrilegious boldness, their pride must be abated, that God
may be above all in authority. Then all smokes of honour vanish away. For God
doth not vouchsafe to bestow honourable titles upon men, to the end they may
darken his glory. Therefore, if a father, being not content with his own estate, do
essay to take from God the chief honour of a father, he is nothing else but a man.
If a king, or ruler, or magistrate, do become so lofty that he diminisheth the
honour and authority of God, he is but a man. We must thus think also of pastors.
For he which goeth beyond his bounds in his office, (because he setteth himself
against God,) must be despoiled of his honour, lest, under a colour or visor, he
deceive.127
In this statement, Calvin upended the political thought of the world in which he
lived. Calvin’s teaching, that godly kings must be obeyed and that kings who violate
scripture must be disobeyed, changed the political discourse in nations where Calvinism
was accepted.

Political Calvinism Beyond Calvin
The development of Calvinist political thought did not die with Calvin in 1564.
Calvin did leave a distinct political philosophy with several distinct features. Liberty was
a constant strain through Calvin’s religious and political writing. Much of his early
writing was focused on the liberty the Reformers thought the new Protestant churches
were being denied from both civil authorities and the religious authorities in Rome. John
Witte Jr. argues that Calvin’s political philosophy was also distinct from other Christian

127

John Calvin, Commentary upon The Acts of the Apostles, ed. Henry Beveridge,
trans. Christopher Fetherstone (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1844), 214215.
59

political traditions from the Reformation in that unlike his Lutheran counterparts,
“charted a course between the Lutherans of his day, who tended to subordinate the church
to the state, and Anabaptists” who completely separated the church and the state. Rather,
Calvin believed that the church and state were separate but cooperative in the effort to
spread and uphold the Reformed faith that was practiced in Geneva. In this way, Calvin
established the ideal of a “Christian Commonwealth” which was both dedicated to the
Reformed faith as well as the political wellbeing of the citizens. 128
In the years following Calvin’s death, the Reformed faith was rapidly spreading
across Europe. In Calvin’s place of birth, France, the reformed churches were expanding
rapidly and could lay claim to two million adherents. This number would have seemed
nearly unimaginable just a decade prior. Although there was religious conflict, Calvinists
were largely still restrained by the teachings of Calvin and resistance to civil authorities.
It would be Calvin’s successor in Geneva, Theodore Beza, who would ultimately
complete the transformation of the Calvinist resistance theory which emanated from
Geneva. After the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in which thousands of French
Calvinists were massacred, the tone of Calvinist writing changed rapidly. The Calvinist
expansion into Catholic France was halted and gone from the Calvinist pen was the tepid
and restricted right to resist a governing authority129

128

John Witte Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights
in Early and Modern Calvinism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 3-4.
129

Witte Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in
Early and Modern Calvinism, 82-84.
60

The St. Bartholomew’s Massacre, as well as other smaller massacres, led to a
change in Calvinist thinking. In a journal article entitled “Rights, Resistance, and
Revolution in the Western Tradition: Early Protestant Foundations,” John Witte Jr.
explains that the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was a defining moment in Calvinist
political theory. Until this time, Calvinism, in both its theological and political forms,
operated within the safe confines of Geneva. With the slaughter of possibly 100,000
Calvinists in the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, many Calvinists, including Calvin’s
successor Theodore Beza, began developing a more robust political theory with this
persecution in mind.130
As John Witte Jr. points out, Calvin’s institutes were based on the assumption of a
church and state that worked in conjunction and that persecution would be limited. The
situation faced by his followers just a decade after his death was a much harsher reality.
Out of this persecution came a completed and defined Calvinist resistance theory which
was based on the idea of a covenant. To this end, Beza states,” Once the free exercise of
the true religion has been granted…the ruler is so much more bound to have it observed
[that] if he acts otherwise, I declare that he is practicing manifest tyranny, and [his
subjects] will be all the more free to oppose him. For we are bound to set greater store
and value in the salvation of our souls and the freedom of our conscience than in any

130

John Witte Jr., “Rights, Resistance, and Revolution in the Western Tradition:
Early Protestant Foundations,” Law and History Review 26, no. 3 (2008), 546-547.
61

other matters, however desirable.” 131 J.H.M. Salmon defines this Calvinist, and more
specifically Huguenot, resistance theory as having three distinct principles:
They were: loyal resistance to malevolent and Machiavellian advisers who had
usurped royal authority; constitutional opposition to a king who had overstepped
limitations defined by law and history; and communal defiance of a tyrant in the
name of the ultimate power, or 'popular sovereignty', of the commonwealth over
the ruler.132
Just as Calvin had written about the importance of covenants in the Old and New
Testament, so the Reformers would apply this principle to governance. Beza and his
followers argued that there was a covenant between God, the ruler and the people. John
Witte Jr. explains this covenant:
God agreed to protect and bless the rulers and the people in return for their proper
obedience to the of God and nature. . .The rulers agreed to honor these higher
laws and protect the people’s essential rights. . .The people agreed to exercise
God’s political will for the community by election and petitioning their rulers and
by honoring and obeying them so long as the rulers honored God’s law and
protected the people’s rights.133
It was also assumed that if the people violated the covenant, they could be
punished, even be put to death, depending on the circumstance. It was also assumed that
if the ruler violated the covenant, he could be removed from office, or, in some cases,
executed, a situation which would come to bear with the regicide of Charles I. This

131

Theodore Beza, De Iure Magistratum, translated as die Beza, Concerning the
Rights of Rulers Over Their Subjects and the Duties of Subjects Toward Their Rulers,
trans. Henri-Louis Gonin (Cape Town and Pretoria: 1956 ), 85.
132

J.H.M. Salmon, “Catholic resistance theory, Ultramontanism, and the royalist
response, 1580-1620,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700, ed.
J.H. Burns and Mark Goldie (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 219.
133

John Witte Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in
Early and Modern Calvinism, 85.
62

change in Calvinist resistance theory would spread across parts of continental Europe and
would become accepted among Calvinists in England and Scotland as well. This opened
the floodgates for this theory to spread to other areas of political and religious thought.
Now Calvinists claimed certain “rights and liberties” that could be actively defended so
long as the believer did not violate this political covenant.

Political Calvinism Spreads across Europe
Across the English Channel from Calvin’s homeland of France, England saw a
Protestant movements under the rule of Henry VIII. However, after Henry VIII split
from the Roman Catholic Church, he did not move towards continental Protestantism.
Rather he continued the church structure as it had been structured under the Catholic
Church, with a simple replacement of the papacy with the crown. James McGoldrick, the
author of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches: A Global History, explained the
situation by stating, “like popes of the Middle Ages, monarchs of England claimed
preeminence in church and state. Any reform in church government would have entailed
major political consequences, and many strong Protestants feared the loss of royal
patronage would damage their cause.”134
England had struggled with challenges to the Catholic Church previously. John
Wycliffe had introduced a bible in the vernacular nearly two-hundred years before Luther
and challenged aspects of the church’s power. Most troublesome to Rome, Wycliffe
asserted that the laity ought to be able to question the authority of the clergy and that the

134

McGoldrick, Presbyterian and Reformed Churches: A Global History, 3-4.
63

Pope overstepped his bounds when meddling in political affairs. He also asserted that the
church’s only had authority when it was faithful to the teachings of scripture.
Theologically, Wycliffe affirmed a doctrines of predestination and the inability of the
believer to lose salvation which both Calvin and St. Augustine would have also affirmed.
Wycliffe also repudiated the church’s teaching of transubstantiation. All of these
challenges to the church would be reintroduced with both Hus and, ultimately, Luther.

135

While Wycliffe's descent was stifled in the short-term, many of his beliefs would be reintroduced to the British Isles by the burgeoning Presbyterian movement. 136 Wycliffe’s
ideas would become the norm in England, although not without much struggle.
Scotland would be the original battleground over Protestantism in Britain.
Luther’s writings were initially banned in Scotland, along with the writings of the Protoreformer John Wycliffe and his followers the Lollards. Luther’s writings came to
Scotland around the same time that William Tyndale’s New Testament, which was
published in 1526, became accessible to the average man. The combination of a new
translation of the Bible in the vernacular and the introduction of Luther’s writings would
help ignite the Scottish Reformation. 137
The first true Protestant leader in Scotland was George Wishart. Wishart brought
the reformed faith to Scotland after being heavily influenced by Ulrich Zwingli. He also
brought to Scotland the First Helvetic Confession. Wishart’s execution at the hands of the

135

Alessandro Conti, “John Wyclif”’ The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Spring 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
136

Lemoine G. Lewis, Lecture on John Wycliffe.

137

McGoldrick, Presbyterian and Reformed Churches: A Global History, 106.
64

Catholic cardinal only served to fan the flames of Protestantism in Scotland. However, it
would be one of Wishart’s followers would open the flood gates to Protestantism in
Scotland. The pivotal player in the Scottish Reformation would be John Knox. 138
After fleeing both Scotland and England, Knox traveled to Switzerland where he
would study under Calvin himself. Upon his return to Scotland, Knox quickly, publicly
and personally attacked Mary Stuart’s Catholicism. Public opinion in Scotland heavily
favored Knox and Mary Stuart fled to England where her Protestant cousin Elizabeth
would ultimately execute her. Scotland quickly adopted Protestantism and Knox’s Scots
Confession of Faith. With the establishment of the Church of Scotland, the Scottish
Reformation was complete and Calvin’s teachings had a foothold in the British Isles.
However, Calvin’s teachings would have the greatest political impact to the south in
Scotland.139
After the establishment of the Church of England, and even with the adoption of a
Calvinist theology, there were those in England who opposed the polity established
within the church. These dissenters became known as Puritans. Two of their largest
concerns with the English church were the order of worship, which still resembled
Catholicism, and the fact that the church was subordinate to the civil authority, meaning
Queen Elizabeth. While Elizabeth allowed the Puritans to operate in relative peace, her

138

Ibid., 107-108.

139

McGoldrick, Presbyterian and Reformed Churches: A Global History, 110-

112.
65

successors James I and Charles I were both bitterly opposed to both the Presbyterian and
Puritan movements.140
It was during the reigns of James I and Charles I, that Puritans began to follow
their fellow Calvinists, the separatists, to the new world. In the New World, James I saw
the opportunity to relieve himself of these religious dissenters. It was also in the New
World, and in Massachusetts in particular, that the political ideas of Calvin and the
Reformation would most thoroughly take hold.

140

Ibid., 174-175, 177.
66

CHAPTER 3

THE PURITAN CONTINUATION OF POLITICAL CALVINISM
During the early and mid-twentieth century, most historians agreed that colonists
living in New England and many other colonies in America were a religious lot and that
religion was a motivating factor in their decision making, both private and political. A
quick sampling of the historiography points to this consensus. Writers such as Edward
Humphrey, William Warren Sweet and C. H. Van Tyne all argued that the religious faith
of the colonists was instrumental in both their private and public lives. Some would go
so far as to claim that the Calvinistic faith of these early colonists was the driving force
behind their every action in regard to political decisions. This is laid out clearly in the
final paragraph of Van Tyne’s article “Influence of the Clergy, and of Religious and
Sectarian Forces, on the American Revolution.”
I believe that we must hereafter give more weight to the religious factor among
the causes of the American Revolution. After twelve years' study of the period, I
am not convinced that the economic causes of which so much has been made are
adequate alone to explain the bitterness of the controversy. In fact, the whole
colonial period must be studied, and many conditions noted, which there is no
time to mention here, before one may at all comprehend why the American people
rebelled in 1775.
Van Tyne’s view that religion was an important motivating factor for those living in the
67

revolutionary period was a rather standard view for the early twentieth century. He goes
on to say:
Among the many causes, I rate religious bigotry, sectarian antipathy, and the
influence of the Calvinistic clergy, which we have reviewed, as among the most
important. One may argue that after all the clergy were merely a part of the
American people, affected by the same conditions, and driven in their political
actions by the same motives as the members of their congregations, and that,
therefore, their teachings merely reflect the general views of the times, and are not
to be taken as causes, but I am convinced that they have deeper significance than
that.
He believed that “deeper significance” was that the clergy in the American colonies were
in large measure responsible for the political ideas which took hold in the colonies in the
years preceding the American Revolution.
Conflicting political ideas, and not tea or taxes, caused the American secession
from the British Empire, and the Puritan clergy had a large part in planting the
predominant American political ideas which were antagonistic to those dominant
in England. As has been said, the Americans were not only Protestants, but
Protestants from Protestantism itself, and from this fact, as Burke ex- pressed it, a
fierce spirit of liberty had grown up. This spirit the dissenting clergy
communicated to a people far more influenced by what they heard in the House of
God than we in these degenerate days can comprehend.141
For many years, historians pointed to the Great Awakening as an example of
Americans’ religiosity. Recently however, even this has come under attack. Both Jon
Butler and Frank Lambert claim that the lasting impact of the first Great Awakening was
nothing more than “Interpretive Fiction,” drummed up by emotional evangelicals in the
following decades.142 Butler makes the claim that the First Great Awakening was, “the

141

C. H. Van Tyne, “Influence of the Clergy, and of Religious and Sectarian
Forces, on the American Revolution,” The American Historical Review 19, no. 1 (Oct.,
1913): 64.
142

Jon Butler, “Enthusiasm Described and Decried: The Great Awakening as
Interpretive Fiction,” Journal of American History 69 (October, 1982): 305-308; Frank
68

product of overheated imaginations,” “among the transatlantic community of evangelicals
it aroused.”143 Although both make compelling arguments for reconsidering the term
“The Great Awakening,” they fail to disprove two key characteristics of the
“Awakening.” First, that revivals did not abound in the colonies in the mid eighteenth
century as they were reported. And secondly, that the Awakening did not have long
lasting religious, philosophical and political results.
Before conclusions can be drawn concerning religion’s role in colonial politics,
the American Revolution, or any other event, one matter must examine the role the
Puritans played in the development of both the political structure of New England and in
the political ideology of the people of the region. This chapter will prove that the
Puritans of New England were both the founders of a new and unique political order and
were also responsible for a new political ideology, based on the Calvinist political
tradition, which continued to have influence through American history.

Who were the Puritans?
To fully understand the importance of religion, particularly Calvinistic theology
and ministers, in colonial America, one must examine the very first Calvinists to arrive
on America’s shores. Religion was certainly viewed as being important at the colony at
Jamestown, however Jamestown was not an inherently religious colony and were not
driven to the new world by religious zeal. For the purposes of examining religion in the
context of political decisions and in the establishment of a society, one finds it necessary
Lambert, “The First Great Awakening: Whose Interpretive Fiction?” The New England
Quarterly, vol.68, No. 4 (December, 1995): 650.
143

Butler, 659.
69

to look northward towards Massachusetts.
While it would certainly be romantic to find that the few souls who faithfully
established the Plymouth Bay Colony were also the founders of a great political system,
which drew from their Calvinistic tradition, this is not the case. It is important to note
that the Plymouth Colony left a mark on the governance of Massachusetts, as evidenced
by the Massachusetts constitution. However, this credit must go to the colony founded
just ten years after the faithful landed at Plymouth; The Massachusetts Bay Colony. 144
It is certainly understandable how the two groups have become confused. Both
were religious groups who left England because of persecution and disagreements with
the Church of England. Both practiced a Calvinist faith and had very few, if any,
theological disagreements. Also, both groups settled in very close proximity. This makes
it all the more necessary to define what a Puritan is in relation to this paper.

145

144

George L. Haskins, “The Legal Heritage of Plymouth Colony,” University of
Pennsylvania Law Review 110, no. 6 (Apr., 1962): 847-848.
145

Massachusetts Bay Colony: Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies,
Map/Still, from Britannica Online for Kids, accessed October 21,
2013, http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-179295.
70

It must be understood that both groups were originally affiliated with the Church
of England and had serious disagreements with the church on a wide range of issues. The
distinction between the groups came in their response to these disagreements. While the
Pilgrims and the Puritans may have shared Calvinistic and Covenant theology, they
certainly differed in their views towards the Church of England. 146
The Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth were separatists. It was their simple goal to
leave the Church of England and their homeland in order to escape the persecution they
were experiencing.147 These radicals rejected the Puritan premise that the Church of
England could be, or should be, purified. To be connected in any way to the Anglicans
would have put their own righteousness at risk.
It was for this reason that a small group of separatists fled England for Holland in
the year 1607. But even the relative freedom of Holland would not satisfy this band in
their pursuit of religious purity. In Holland they found “great licentiousness” in the
people, which caused them to fear their children becoming “degenerate and . . . corrupt.”
To escape this influence, they decided to make a pilgrimage to America with the “great
hope and inward zeal of laying good foundations . . . for the propagation of Christ in the
remote parts of the world, even though they should be but stepping stones to others in the
performance of so great a work.”148 It is clear that the group who became the founders of

146

Francis J. Bremer, The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from
Bradford to Edwards (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1995), 57-58.
147

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation: Bradford’s history of the
Plymouth Settlement (Bulverde, TX: Mantle Ministries, 2004), 8.
148

Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation: Bradford’s history of the Plymouth
Settlement, 21.
71

the Plymouth settlement had no intensions of helping purify the Anglican Church, but
rather separating themselves from the Church. 149
The Puritans on the other hand, wanted to do just that, purify the Church from
within. They wished to reform the church, not leave it. To be sure, these reforms were
not simple and slight changes. Their goal was to completely change the way to the
church functioned. As Maxwell states, they wanted,
the Bible, not the church hierarchy, to be the ultimate authority;
membership by choice and therefore limited to those who had at least
some degree of religious motivation; and an active clergy who carried out
some teaching as well as purely liturgical functions.150
These reforms challenged three of the most established traditions in the church, the
church’s authority, mandatory membership and the clergy’s role in the religious activity
of the church.
While in England, the Puritans who would ultimately immigrate to North America
were convinced that England was deserving of God’s punishment and were concerned
that they enjoyed “so much comfort and peace in these so evill and declininge tymes.” 151
While the Puritans knew reform would be difficult to bring about, they thought it was
necessary for the church to reform her theology in order to avoid the just reward for

149

For of the differences between the Puritans and the Separatists, they were very
much in agreement when it came to political thought. The most obvious evidence for this
is the separatists’ willingness to unite with the Massachusetts Bay Colony only seventy
years after the creation of the colony. For more on the topic, see the introduction to
Michael P. Winship’s Godly Republicanism: Puritans, Pilgrims, and a City on a Hill.
150

Maxwell, “Pilgrim and Puritan: A Delicate Distinction,” 3.

151

Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1958), 29. All spelling and grammar will be left as
written by the original author.
72

England’s unrighteousness. As John Winthrop wrote to his wife Margaret, “I am verily
perswaded, God will bringe some heavye Affliction upon this lande, and that speedylye
(speedily).”152 This was largely caused by the outright hostility of Charles I towards the
Puritans and their fear that he would return England to Catholicism. 153
This colony was to be more than just an escape for the faithful or a profitable
venture for a group of investors. As the leader of this group, John Winthrop, declared
after Charles dissolved Parliament and effectively banished Calvinistic thinking from the
Church,
for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of
all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in
this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his
present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the
world, we shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes
of god and all professours for Gods sake; wee shall shame the faces of
many of gods worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into
Curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whether we are
going.154
Much like Calvin’s Geneva, this colony was seen by its inhabitants an example to
both the English and the rest of the world that it was possible to have a righteous polity in
the modern world. In their attempt to achieve this, the Puritans established a new
political system and a new set of political norms in this quickly expanding new world.
The initial disagreements between the Plymouth Separatists and the Puritans of
Massachusetts Bay disappeared quickly once both groups established colonies in the New

152

Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma, 30.

153

Michael P. Winship, Godly Republicanism: Puritans, Pilgrims, and a City on a
Hill (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 7.
154

John Winthrop, “A Model for Christian Charity” (1630), 64.
73

World. Ultimately, the two groups blended into a single polity and church. For the
purposes of this chapter, the term Puritan will refer to this merged polity. 155

The Puritans on the Purpose and Legitimacy of Governments
The Puritans were very clear as to the main purpose of government. Possibly the
most concise summation of their vision of government comes from John Davenport’s “A
Discourse About Civil Government in a New Plantation Whose Design is Religion,”
published originally in 1663.156 In his discourse, Davenport explains that the Church and
the State serve different ends of the same purpose, “God’s Glory.” 157 To Winthrop and
the other Puritans in Massachusetts, there was no separation between the missions of the
state and the church while at the same time remaining distinct entities. Both were

155

Michael Winship, Godly Republicanism: Puritans, Pilgrims and a City On a
Hill (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 7-8.
156

This writing has probably been mistakenly attributed to John Cotton in the
past. While the title page of the document states that Cotton was the author, Cotton’s
own grandson, Cotton Mather, said that John Davenport was the author. A few historians
have looked into the document and most have come to the conclusion that Davenport was
indeed the author. Although there is still debate as the actual author, it is of little
consequence, as both men were well known Puritans and agreed on this issue. It is
indicative of the political agreement among Puritans that the authorship of this document
is of little consequence to modern historians. This furthers the argument that they was a
cohesive and agreed upon set of political principles in Puritan New England. Throughout
this essay, the work will be cited with John Cotton as the author, as most manuscripts
attribute the essay to Cotton. For the most convincing argument for Davenport’s
authorship, see: Bruce E. Steiner, “Dissension at Quinnipiac: The Authorship and Setting
of a Discourse about Civil Government in a New Plantation Whose Design Is Religion,”
The New England Quarterly, 54, no.1 (Mar., 1981): 14-32. For Cotton’s authorship, see:
Isabel M. Calder, “The Authorship of a Discourse about Civil Government,” American
Historical Review 37 (1932): 167-169.
157

John Cotton, “Dissension at Quinnipiac: The Authorship and Setting of a
Discourse about Civil Government in a New Plantation Whose Design Is Religion,” 6-7.
74

vehicles by which they could honor God and advance the gospel. In fact, it was seen as
necessary that those who would serve in government should also be church members.
This view was expressly demonstrated in a letter John Cotton sent to Lord Say
and Seal, in which he said, “none are to be trusted with public permanent authority but
godly men, who are fit materials for church fellowship, then . . . it will appear, that none
are so fit to be trusted with the liberties of the commonwealth as church members.” 158
Any historian who would attempt to formally separate the two in the mind of the Puritans
would create a historical inaccuracy that would fundamentally change the way in which
the group should be viewed. This view, that church and state were connected, was not
radical for the time. The Puritans had long lived under a system in which the civil
authority also controlled the religion of the state. In fact, the Puritans did not even seek
to separate from that power even as they pointed to the deep-seated problems, as they saw
them, within the Church and the King.
One of the largest problems, from the Puritans’ perspective, was the introduction
of Arminianism, or the idea that man has the ability to choose faith on his own and thus
salvation, into the Church of England by Charles I. This rattled the Puritans and caused
them to question if the Church was able to perform her function. After this transpired, the
Puritans had looked to the people’s representatives, the parliament, for protection. 159

158

Letter from John Cotton to Lord Say and Seal as quoted in Edmund S.
Morgan, Puritan Political Ideas: 1558-1794 (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company,
Inc., 1965), 166-167. In regard to the word “commonwealth,” in a conversation on
October 16, 2013, Dr. Christopher Dudley of East Stroudsburg University indicated that
the use of the word commonwealth indicates that Cotton was sympathetic to the idea of a
republic, or was at least skeptical of a monarchy.
159

Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma, 28.
75

This experience, possibly for the first time, caused the Puritans to question if Church and
its leadership.
This led the Puritans to insist upon local control of their congregations. While the
Puritans of New England were not able to claim exclusivity to this idea, Presbyterians,
Congregationalists and Calvinists of many stripes also believed in congregational control,
it certainly was an issue which drove a wedge between them and the Church of England.
One cause of the insistence that a congregation should control the church in which they
worship stemmed from the Puritan fear that they could face God’s wrath because of the
sins of others. This fear was expressed in the previously quoted letter Winthrop wrote to
his wife. (See footnote twelve) For it was the Puritan belief that if a country’s leaders
violated the laws of God, the people would ultimately be held responsible. 160 To
understand this belief, it is necessary to understand the Puritan belief in covenants.
The Puritans were a people of covenants. It was one of their basic assumptions
that God made covenants, or binding promises, with his people, and that he was faithful
in completing them so long as the people honored him. This was certainly true in New
England just as it had been in Geneva. In his sermon “The Lesson of the Covenant, for
England and New England,” which was delivered some time between his emigration to
Boston in 1635 and his death in 1659, Peter Bulkeley explained that because of the
covenant between the people of New England and God, the people of New England were
held to a higher standard than those living elsewhere. In language which mirrored John
Winthrop, he explained that if the people neglected the work of God, he would:
remove thy candlestick out of the midst of thee; lest being now as a city upon a
160

Ibid., 30.
76

hill, which many seek unto, thou be left like a beacon upon the top of a mountain,
desolate, and forsaken. If we walk unworthy of the Gospel brought unto us, the
greater our mercy hath been in the enjoying of it, the greater will our judgement
be for the contempt. Be instructed, and take heed. 161
In this theological system, the covenants began with the first man, Adam, who’s
disobedience led to the downfall of his own covenant and the creation of a new one. This
new covenant, the covenant of grace, was the basis of the Puritans’ faith. This grace was
dispensed through a savior, whom the Puritans, and more broadly all of Christendom,
believed to be to be Jesus of Nazareth.162 Calvin’s theology, Calvinism, is often
alternatively referred to as “Covenant Theology.” This is largely because Calvin
believed that at the center of the relationship between God and man are the covenants
made by God to man in both the Old and New Testaments. Calvin’s belief in a covenant
government was diametrically opposed to the idea of a divine right of Kings as expressed
by James I of England in his treaties The True Law of Free Monarchies. Rather,
Calvinism fostered governmental systems in which the power of rulers was limited and
the rights of the people were protected. The government also was responsible for
“protect[ing] the church and promot[ing] the Christian faith and true reformed
teaching.”163 Samuel Willard more pointedly stated this idea by saying:
When men can injoy their libertiees and rights without molestation or oppression;
when they can live without fear of being born down by their more potent
161

Peter Bulkeley, “The Lesson of the Covenant, for England and New England.”
n.d. in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: and Other Puritan Sermons, ed. by Mary
Carolyn Waldrep (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2005), 2.
162

Edmund S. Morgan, Introduction to Puritan Political Ideas: 1558-1794, by
Edmund S. Morgan. (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1965), xx-xxi.
163

W.A. Dreyer, “Calvin on Church and Government,” In Die Skrifling 44, no. 4
(2010): 171.
77

neighbours; when they Are secured against violence, and may be righted against
them that offer them any injury, without fraud; and are encouraged to serve God
in their own way, in freedom, and without being imposed upon contrary to the
gospel precepts; now are they an happy people. 164
To the average Puritan reader of the day, Rev. John Eliot, who became known for
his work of winning converts among the native peoples of Massachusetts, spoke an
obvious truth when he wrote the following in his The Christian Commonwealth:
It is the Commandment of the Lord, that a people should enter into Covenant with
the Lord to become his people, even in their Civil Society, as well as in their
Church-Society. Whereby they submit themselves to be ruled by the Lord in all
things, receiving from him, both the platform of their Government, and all their
Laws ; which when they do, then Christ reigneth over them in all things, they
being ruled by his Will, and by the Word of his Mouth. 165
These covenants were not limited just between God and man. The people also
held covenants between themselves as a people. As Edmund Morgan submits, there was
also a covenant made between the people and the king. This covenant made clear that a
people were to “obey faithfully” and that the king was to “rule justly.” If both parties
were faithful to their word, the government would be prosperous and legitimate in the
eyes of God. However, if the king were to not rule justly and contradicted God, the
people had a responsibility to remove him from power, lest they risk God’s
condemnation.166

164

Samuel Willard, “The Character of a Good Ruler,” 117-119.

165

John Eliot, “The Christian Commonwealth: or, The Civil Polity Of The Rising
Kingdom of Jesus Christ. An Online Electronic Text Edition.” 1-2.
166

Morgan, Introduction to Puritan Political Ideas: 1558-1794, xxiii-xxiv.
78

The Puritans on Hereditary Rule and Building a Tradition of Suffrage
On the surface, the Puritans at Massachusetts Bay left an indelible mark on the
American political tradition through practicing of representative government and of a
more expanded suffrage among the colony’s male inhabitants than was seen in
England.167 In fact, the most important role the Puritans played in this early period was
the formation of a coherent political ideology. This ideology, named godly
republicanism, laid the groundwork for a political structure which endured in
Massachusetts and spread throughout the colonies.
Throughout much of English history, the sovereign had always enjoyed the
presumption of a “divine right.” 168 Unsurprisingly, the strongest support of this theory in
England can be traced to the monarchs themselves. English monarchs had long claimed a
hereditary right to rule. However, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, James I
attempted to convert this hereditary right to rule into an absolute divine right. James
began to rule in Scotland as James VI in 1567. Upon the death of Elizabeth I, he would
become king of England in 1603 and would be known as James I. In 1598, James I wrote
The True Law of Free Monarchies, which historians have sectioned into four main points,
which must be laid out to fully comprehend the political thought of the time. James I

167

Michael P. Winship, “Godly Republicanism and the Origins of the
Massachusetts Polity,” The William and Mary Quarterly 63, no.3 (Jul., 2006): 427.
168

Patricia Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in
Colonial America. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 189. Bonomi talks
extensively about the challenges to the notion of divine right in England in the years
running up to the Revolution. The colonists in New England were not alone in their
rejection, or at least skepticism, of this idea. Many British Whigs, such as Edmund
Burke, joined the Americans in this criticism.
79

declared: “Monarchy was divinely ordained; hereditary right was indefeasible; kings
were accountable to God alone; and non-resistance and passive obedience were enjoined
by God.”169 In a speech to Parliament he would declare, “The State of the Monarchie is
the supremest thing upon the earth: For Kings are not onely God’s Lietenants upon earth,
and sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himselfe they are called Gods.” 170 This
assessment was predictable coming from a king on whose legitimacy rested on the idea of
hereditary right and hereditary succession. His assessment proved to be the accepted
view for the time, as evidenced by Parliament’s declaration that hereditary right was the
legitimate means of monarchal succession. The declaration stated, “The king holdeth the
kingdom of England by birth- right inherent, by descent from the blood royal, whereupon
succession doth attend."171
Not long after James I made these assertions, the doctrine of divine right received
greater scrutiny. The cries against the doctrine took hold in the English world and served
as the reality of Winthrop and the other Puritans when they arrived in Massachusetts.
While the end result of this movement was the beheading of Charles I, and the brief rule
of Cromwell’s Commonwealth, the new colony at Massachusetts Bay would operate

169

J. H. Burns, The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700. (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 247. J.N. Figgis, The Divine right of Kings.
(New York: Harper, 1965), 5-6. Although this work is quite old, with the original printed
in 1896, it is still referenced quite often by publications as weighty as The Cambridge
History of Political Thought.
170

Glenn Burgess, “The Divine right of Kings Reconsidered,” The English
Historical Review, vol. 107, no. 425 (Oct., 1992), 837.
171

J.N. Figgis, The Divine right of Kings (New York: Harper, 1965), 138.
80

under a much different political system than the monarchal system in England. 172
A central tenant of Puritan and Calvinist political thinking was the assumption
that the civil power ought to be limited, an idea which was diametrically opposed to the
philosophy of both James I and Charles I. Unquestionably, the Puritans believed that
governments ought to be limited in power. In his sermon, “Limitation of Government,”
leading Puritan thinker John Cotton demonstrated the strict limits the Puritans believed
should be placed on a government. This belief was rooted in Cotton’s theological
Calvinism. His belief in the Calvinist Doctrine of man’s total depravity was on display
when he stated: “No man would think what desperate deceit and wickedness there is in
the hearts of men.” He believed that when men were given power, they were not likely to
restrain themselves. He stated, “Let all the world learn to give mortall men no greater
power then they are content they shall use, for use it they will: And unlesse they be better
taught of God, they will use it.” He hoped this warning “may serve to teach …the danger
of allowing to any mortal man an inordinate measure of power.” 173
When speaking of power of the civil government, including that of the King,
Cotton used language which would have been just as accepted by Enlightenment thinkers
as by New England Puritans. He stated, “It is therefore fit for every man to be studious
of the bounds which the Lord hath set: and for the people, in whom fundamentally all
power lyes, to give as much power as God in his word gives to men: and it is meat that

172

Gorgon Wood, The American Revolution: A History, 92.

173

John Cotton, “Limitation of Government,” n.d. in Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God: and Other Puritan Sermons, ed. by Mary Carolyn Waldrep (Mineola, New
York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2005), 3.
81

magistrates in the commonwealth, and so officers and churches should desire to know the
utmost bounds of their own power.” Cotton’s commitment to the principle that the
people ultimately controlled their government demonstrates the uniqueness of the
colonial New England political system. 174
When King Charles I granted the charter to allow the establishment of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629, he placed the colony under the control of a
governing board made up of the governor, John Winthrop, a deputy governor, Thomas
Dudley, and an eleven-member Court of Assistance. Just months after the founding of the
colony, Winthrop and the rest of the colony’s governing board made a decision that
forever changed the Western political world. Winthrop and board gave every “freeman”
in the colony the right to vote and supervisory power over the colony. 175 B. Katherine
Brown argued that this was actually a greater number of men than is normally reported
and that “. Massachusetts was not as aristocratic, as undemocratic, as we have been led
to believe.”176
What is even more noteworthy is that the stockholders of the company were under
no obligation to allow these men to vote. This was the first time in the British Empire that
men, even with the caveat that they be “freemen” were immediately granted voting rights
upon the establishment of a new colony. This idea, of expanded suffrage became a

174

Ibid., 4.

175

Michael P. Winship, “Godly Republicanism and the Origins of the
Massachusetts Polity,” 443-444.
176

B. Katherine Brown, “Freemanship in Puritan Massachusetts,” The American
Historical Review 59, no. 4 (Jul., 1954), 875, 882-883.
82

bedrock principle on which modern political thought is built. 177
While politically this was a monumental decision, it must have been a natural step
for the board to make. The Puritan idea that the church should influence civil life was
certainly on display in this instance. In fact, Winthrop had already done something just
like this while he helped lead the church at Groton when he still lived in England, where
he, as acting patron of the church, gave up his right to appoint the minister on his own.
Instead, he turned this decision over to the congregation. 178 While it has been suggested
that Winthrop may have felt pressure to allow the men of Massachusetts Bay to vote,
there surely would have been no such pressure from the congregants of the Groton
church. Surely, this points to the fact that the he and the other members of the church
thought it proper to have the congregation have some power of self-determination, and
may explain why Winthrop did not see the action taken at Massachusetts as particularly
noteworthy.

179

From the birth of this new ideology, it was clear that the fingerprints of John
Calvin covered the political ideas of his followers. These American colonists were
quickly influenced by Calvinistic thinking and theology not just in religious terms, but
also in their ideas about the crown. In his article, “Godly Republicanism and the Origins
of the Massachusetts Polity,” Michael Winship correctly shows that this was an

177

Michael P. Winship, “Godly Republicanism and the Origins of the
Massachusetts Polity,” 444.
178

Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma, 78.

179

Michael P. Winship, “Godly Republicanism and the Origins of the
Massachusetts Polity,” 444.
83

outgrowth of their Puritanism. While Winship attributes these ideas to the fear of the
monolithic nature of the Anglican Church, he misses a key point in the theology of these
early Puritans.180
While it may be true that the fear of the Anglican Church was certainly on the
minds of these Puritans, Winship ignores the long-standing practice of Calvinists electing
their spiritual leaders. John Calvin himself declared “only election by the people’s
consent flows from divine right.” 181 He also attacked the idea of succession as faulty
unless each successor “conserve safe and uncorrupted the truth of Christ which they have
received from their fathers’ hands, and abide in it.”182 Of course, when one considers
Calvin’s view of human nature in this light, it is easy to see why he looked down upon
succession, be it hereditary or through position, in the church. 183
The new ideology of the Puritans demanded that truths found in the church must
be brought into the public arena. When one examines the political thought and actions of
the Puritans at Massachusetts Bay, it seems as if Calvin himself were leading the colony.
As Columbia University’s Herbert Osgood claimed, “Calvin's Institutes was the chief

180

Ibid., 457.

181

John Calvin, vol. XXI of Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John
T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), 1085.
182

Calvin, vol. XXI of Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1043.

183

John Calvin, vol. XX of Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John
T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), 248.
To gain a full understanding of Calvin’s view of human nature, one must read in full his
writing on the subject, found in chapter two of Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Calvin described man as “defiled” and added “mankind deserved to be vitiated.” It is
certainly clear that Calvin believed man was completely corrupt and unable to avoid sin
and corruption. Clearly his followers were of the same mind.
84

religious and political textbook of the English Puritans.” 184 This ideas was widely
accepted by historians in the early twentieth century and was supported by both George
Bancroft and John Fiske. In his article “The Meaning of Freedom for George Bancroft
and John Fiske,” Michael Clark described Bancroft’s view of Calvinism by saying:
He rejoiced, in his History of the United States, that while America was ‘the chief
heir of the reformation in its purest form,’ it was also ‘the least defiled with the
barren scoffings of the eighteenth century.’ Indeed, Calvinism was for Bancroft
the primary fountainhead of American liberty. He praised John Calvin himself as
‘foremost among the most efficient of modern republican legislators,’ who had
made Geneva ‘the impregnable fortress of popular liberty, the fertile seed-plot of
democracy.’ The debt of America to the great reformer was clear. 185
Just as the Puritans had transferred the ideal of increased suffrage from the church
to public life, so, too, would the Puritans opposition to hereditary rule burst into the
political thinking of the colony. Calvin had argued that the arbitrary transfer of power in
the Catholic Church led to both doctrinal distortions and had reduced “Christ’s sacred
bride” to “a foul harlot.”186 As can be seen in the colony at Massachusetts Bay, positions
were not simply handed out. All civil and church power ruled at the consent of the
governed just as had been implemented in Geneva and proscribed by Calvin.
The Puritans also adopted Calvin’s standards for leaders. Samuel Willard, a
Puritan from the late-seventeenth century, demonstrated the commitment to Calvinist
political philosophy in his sermon “The Character of a Good Ruler.” Willard, like all
other Calvinists, believed that government was necessary due to the wickedness of man

184

Herbert L. Osgood, “The Political Ideas of the Puritans,” Political Science
Quarterly 6, no. 1 (Mar., 1891): 3.
185
186

Clark, “The Meaning of Freedom for George Bancroft and John Fiske,” 61.
Calvin, vol. XXI of Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1045.
85

and he argued that it was therefore necessary to elect moral and able leaders. The Puritans
maintained the same standards for leaders that Calvin maintained in Geneva. Willard
demanded that leaders must “love righteousness, and hate iniquity: that they be men of
truth.” The Puritans, like Calvin did not separate the man from his office. They believed
that “an unrighteous man will be an unrighteous ruler.” 187
Willard echoed Calvin’s teaching that rulers would ultimately answer to God for
their actions while in a position of power. He explained, “He therefore that ruleith in the
fear of God, is one who acknowledgeth God to be his soveraign, and carries in his heart
an awful fear of him: who owns his commission to be from him, and expects ere long to
be called to give an account of his managing of it: which maketh him to study in all
things to please him, and to be afraid of doing any thing that will provoke him.” 188
It was also understood by Willard that rulers ought to be conscious of religious
ideas when making laws. Like Calvin, he believed that laws made by civil government
must align with scriptural standards. Willard also, like Calvin, reminded rulers that they
ultimately served God and not man. He stated:
Although God doth not always peculiarly out a brannd in this world upon impious
and unjust rulers, yet there is a tribunal before which they must stand e’re long as
other men; only their account will be so much the more fearful, and condemnation
more tremendous, by how much they have neglected to take their greater
advantages to glorify GOD, and abused their power to His dishonour, by which
they had a fairer opportunity than other men. 189
Like Luther, Calvin and Beza, the Puritans were concerned with the idea that their civil

187

Samuel Willard, “The Character of a Good Ruler,” 117-119.

188

Samuel Willard, “The Character of a Good Ruler,”

189

Ibid., 119, 122.
86

laws needed to stand up to scriptural scrutiny and they believed themselves responsible if
they did not.
Shortly, democratic participation of the citizenry was the norm in Massachusetts.
In time, this thinking became integral to the political ideology of Massachusetts and
ultimately became driving force behind the American colonies’ rebellion against
England. If one can draw the conclusion that the Puritans influenced the American
colonies with this democratic tradition, then it is not unthinkable to come to the
conclusion that the Puritans at least played a small part in the political development of the
Western world.

“We Had Absolute Power of Government”
As early as the late 1630’s, it was clear that the government created in
Massachusetts was unique in the English tradition, and was one of the most autonomous
colonies in the English empire. It was also clear that the leaders as well as the people of
the colony rejected hereditary rule as an illogical form of government that was likely to
lead to tyranny.190 Much of this opinion was based on Calvin’s arguments for a mixed
form of government and the sentiment expressed by Theodore Beza who stated that,
“there has never been a single monarch (even if we take the best) who has not abused his
office.”191 Because of this, an obvious question must be answered. Whom did the
Puritans believe had the final say in government? To be more eloquent, in whom did the
190

Michael P. Winship, “Godly Republicanism and the Origins of the
Massachusetts Polity,” 446.
191

Michael P. Winship, Godly Republicanism: Puritans, Pilgrims, and a City on a
Hill, 25-26.
87

Puritans believe rested absolute authority?
By the late 1630’s and early 1640’s, the Puritans believed that they were able to
operate largely independently from England and the crown. There is no clearer example
of this as when John Winthrop declared, “by our Charter we had absolute power of
Government.” This was certainly true. Charles I had sent off his unhappy and
quarrelsome subjects to a far distant continent with a charter that only limited the Puritans
by stating that they were not allowed to make laws that were “repugnant to the lawes and
statutes of…England.”192
It is hard to imagine that the Puritans thought that they were making any laws that
would be “repugnant” to the laws of England, especially when it is considered that the
General court later said that the laws of the colony were based on English common law,
which in turn was based on “the Lawe of God & of Right Reason.” 193 Of course, the
Puritans saw themselves as God’s elect and sought to do his will which would have
placed them outside of doing anything to reject the law of God. This left one logical
conclusion to some of the Puritans; it was necessary to be separate from the crown. At
this juncture, it is important to make a clarification. These Puritans were not suggesting
that a war of independence be fought with the crown, or that a formal declaration of
separation be issued; rather some thought it a logical conclusion that they were already

192

Michael P. Winship, “Godly Republicanism and the Origins of the
Massachusetts Polity,” 447. As Winthrop includes in his footnotes, the charter did state
that the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay colony did have “absolute power” over
all the people of the colony.
193

Michael P. Winship, “Godly Republicanism and the Origins of the
Massachusetts Polity,” 448.
88

free from England. Much of this sentiment stems from the fact that England had, for the
most part, left the American colonies alone. They were allowed to develop their own
form of government without impediment. Levy their own taxes, and write their own
laws. It is no wonder that some of the Puritans thought of themselves as a free state.
It is also easy to see why the colony at Massachusetts Bay had been left to its own
devices. As the colony was springing up, England was experiencing one of the most
tumultuous times in her illustrious history. In the early 1640’s, England’s
parliamentarians were rising up against Charles I, who certainly was much less concerned
about the political climate in Massachusetts than the Scottish, to whom he was about to
surrender.194 Following Charles I’s execution, Cromwell’s commonwealth was also was
unable to attend to the colonies.195 From the regicide of Charles I to the restoration of
Charles II, the Puritans were left in New England with little to interfere in their worship
and governance of the colony. After the restoration of Charles II and his attempt to
regain control of Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Puritans still largely controlled the
political and ecclesiastic nature of the colony. 196 This led to a situation which Edmund
Burke, when speaking in 1775 in the House of Commons against the war with the
colonists, admitted,

194

The Official Website of the British Monarchy, “Charles I,” The Royal
Household,
http://www.royal.gov.uk/historyofthemonarchy/kingsandqueensoftheunitedkingdom/thest
uarts/charlesi.aspx (accessed October 24, 2013).
195

Herbert L. Osgood, “England and the Colonies,” Political Science Quarterly,
2, no. 3 (Sep., 1887): 444.

196

John Witte Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights
in Early and Modern Calvinism, 279-280.
89

I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of
ours, and that they are not squeezed into the happy form by the constraints
of watchful and suspicious government, but that, through wise and
salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way
to perfection.197
It was this very salutary neglect that led Puritan colonists such as Thomas Shepard
to argue that Massachusetts was a “free state” during the 1640s and John Cotton to argue
that the people had the power to “subvert the commonwealth.” 198 Under these
conditions, it is easy to see how the colonists had come to this conclusion. Seeing as the
king had granted the colony political autonomy, allowed them to develop their own
political system and never assert control over that political system, how could the
Puritans have arrived at any conclusion other than that Massachusetts was free to rule
itself, so long as it was operating within the bounds of the English legal system. This was
not unique to Massachusetts. However, it did allow the Puritans in Massachusetts to
form a government which conformed to their theological and political preferences.
While Winship establishes that “Whether Massachusetts was a full-blown sovereign
republic was a matter of debate rather than a settled conclusion, but the colony could not
be likened to an incorporated English town. Massachusetts was a deliberate, if tentative,
exercise in republican state formation.”199
It was also under these conditions that the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony
197

Edmund Burke, Conciliation with the Colonies: The Speech by Edmund Burke,
ed. Robert Andersen (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1896), 19.
198

Michael P. Winship, “Godly Republicanism and the Origins of the
Massachusetts Polity,” 450; John Cotton to Lord Say and Seal as quoted in Edmund S.
Morgan, Puritan Political Ideas, 167.
199

Michael P. Winship, “Godly Republicanism and the Origins of the
Massachusetts Polity,” 450.
90

drafted the 1641 Massachusetts Body of Liberties. The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay
quickly moved to ensure that their civil liberties would be protected. The Body of
Liberties would codify many of the protections the Puritans strived for in Continental
Europe and England. In this document, much of the reformed vision for government
was realized. Property rights were defined as well as the rights of the accused. Women,
children and even animals were protected from abuse. Women were even allowed to own
property. Men and women were afforded some political rights. Men in good standing
with the church were able to vote and serve on juries. Women, like men, were granted
free speech rights and were able to speak at town meetings or in court. 200
The greatest link between the reformers and the government which was established
in New England was the link of the covenant government. The Puritans of New England
carried with them the ideas of other European Calvinists, most notably Beza and the
Scottish reformers, concerning the covenant between the people and their government.
These New England Puritans believed that the civil government was responsible for three
main tasks. Under this vision, the government was responsible for upholding the law, as
long as the law squared with scriptural standards, protecting the liberties of the people,
and for promoting the church’s mission of continually reforming itself and the
surrounding society. This vision of government clearly drew on the political philosophy
which saw its beginning in Geneva under Calvin and Beza 201

200

Witte Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in
Early and Modern Calvinism, 280-281, 283-2284.
201

Witte Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in
Early and Modern Calvinism, 287, 297.
91

Conclusion
John Winthrop led his small group of Puritans from England to Massachusetts
Bay, with purpose; to build a colony focused on and devoted to their faith. Theirs was
not an exclusionary mission and, while the colony may seem closed to the modern reader
with the requirement of church membership for voting, it resulted in a society that was
remarkably politically inclusive for the time. This group of religious outcasts had laid the
groundwork for an unprecedented political system which held those in authority
accountable to the people, allowed all free men to be politically active, and which
challenged the longest and most deeply held political theories in Europe. It is easy to see
the fruit of the Puritans’ political thinking throughout American history, with some of
their thoughts still on the minds of modern Americans.
Unfortunately, the Puritans of early America are often portrayed as a prudish
people who spurned pleasure and denounced those who did not. Although historians have
worked to prove this untrue, this sentiment remains and continues to cloud the true
history of this colony which did so much for the political development of the American
colonies.202 The Puritans of New England quite clearly upheld the ideals of political
Calvinism and built upon the foundation laid by Reformation thinkers such as Calvin
himself. With their clear commitment to a limitation on government power, a rejection of
the Divine right of Kings and suffrage for a segment of the population, the Puritans of
New England ought to be seen as the recipients of and promulgators of political
Calvinism as laid out during the Reformation.

202

Edmund Morgan, “The Puritans and Sex,” The New England Quarterly 15, no.
4 (Dec., 1942): 591-592.
92

CHAPTER 4

POLITICAL CALVINISM AND REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA
In May of 1776, John Witherspoon asked that God would “grant that in America
true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable.” 203 This intersection of religious and
political liberty was paramount to those living in the colonies during the time of the
American revolution. In fact, some ministers of the time, and later historians such as
George Bancroft, made the claim that rebellion was just as much a religious decision as it
was a political and ideological decision and that resistance to the crown was as much
rooted in the ideas of the English Calvinists who landed at Plymouth and Massachusetts
as it was in the Enlightenment.204 This chapter will examine whether the clergy of

203

Ellis Sandoz, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730-1805
(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1991) 1:558. This work is a collection of primary sources
and provides little commentary on the sermons.
Mark L. Sargent, “The Conservative Covenant: The Rise of the Mayflower
Compact in American Myth,” The New England Quarterly 61, no. 2 (Jun., 1998): 250251. David W. Noble, The Frontier Thesis and the National Covenant in American
History (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1965), 19-20. For an example
of a minister who rallied for independence but who fell outside of the Calvinistic
theological tradition on several key points, but inside of the Congregational tradition, see
Jonathan Mayhew’s work. See Jonathan Mayhew, “Unlimited Submission and NonResistance to the Higher Powers.” in The Pulpit of the American Revolution: Political
Sermons of the Period of 1776, 56. John Adams saw this essay as demonstrative of the
204

93

Revolutionary Era America were the developers of revolutionary thought, or if they were
merely the instruments by which revolutionary ideas reached their parishioners. This
chapter will argue that the most prominent and influential of the Revolutionary era clergy
were essential in transmitting the political thought of the Reformation, by way of the
Puritans, to the people of the future United States both before and during the American
war for independence.

Religion before the Revolution
In England, a monumental political shift occurred not long after the original
Puritans in New England left for the New World. The English Civil War, led by Puritan
Oliver Cromwell and culminated with the regicide of Charles I, threw the British Isles
into a decade long violent struggle between Cromwell’s Roundheads and those loyal to
the monarchy. The Civil War cast a long shadow over English politics and was
detrimental to the influence of Calvinists in English politics.
In America, there was quite a different story. The Puritan movement in New
England began to lose the early zeal it exhibited early in the seventeenth century rather
quickly.205 By the 1660s, Puritan ministers were beginning to baptize children of parents
who were not full members of the church. This marked a significant turning point in the
history of the Puritan experiment in New England. While this “halfway covenant” did

religious influence on the American Revolution. For more on this essay, see chapter four
of this thesis.

205

Cedric B. Cowing, The Great Awakening and the American Revolution:
Colonial Thought in the 18th Century. (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1971), 46.
94

represent a shift in ideas concerning church membership and the significance of visible
sainthood, it was not a harbinger of decreasing influence of Puritan thought in New
England politics. This middle period, in which religious zeal was noticeably lacking,
would not last long. Through the work of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, the
First Great Awakening would take hold of the colonies and once again place a premium
on religious worship.206
The half measures of the halfway covenant and the liberalization of Puritan
churches in New England by the children of the first Puritans in America would not be
long lived. During the First Great Awakening, which occurred largely in the 1730s and
1740s, there was a renewed interest in Calvinist thought in the colonies, especially in
New England among Congregationalists and through the backcountry of America by
Presbyterians. Driven largely by the preaching of George Whitefield, Samuel Davies and
Jonathan Edwards, the First Great Awakening was a thoroughly Calvinist affair. Through
the work of Edwards and Whitefield, the First Great Awakening would take hold of the
colonies and once again place a premium on religious worship.
This awakening would spark a new phase in American culture and faith. Some
historians even see the Great Awakening as the starting point of the Revolution. One
historian, William G. McLoughlin declared that the Great Awakening was “really the
beginning of America’s identity as a nation-the starting point of the Revolution.” 207 If

206

Jeffry H. Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American
Republic. (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Norte Dame Press, 2005), 84.
207

Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic, 79;
William G. McLoughlin, “The Role of religion in the Revolution: Liberty of Conscience
and Cultural Cohesion in the New Nation,” in Stephen G. Kurtz and James H. Hutson,
95

this assertion is true, than it is difficult to remove Calvinism from the discussion as a
progenitor of American revolutionary thought. This chapter intends to prove that the
political ideas promulgated by Calvinists, both in Europe and in America, did not die out
with the first generation of Puritans in the New World and that through a thorough
examination of Revolution era preaching, the ideological and theological principles of
those first American Puritans, and ultimately the political ideals of the Reformation can
be seen in the American Revolution.

The Politics of the Great Awakening
During the 1730s and 1740s, the Great Awakening was the most influential social
movement in the American colonies. Unlike previous colonial movements, the
awakening was truly an inter-colonial movement which brought together, at least in
religious thought, many people in the disparate and diverse colonies. Led by Jonathan
Edwards and George Whitefield, the awakening reignited interest in Calvinist
Protestantism in the colonies. Unlike the “Old Lights” who occupied the pulpits before
them, the “New Light” preachers of the Awakening called for a deeply personal
conversion and drew great attention from Massachusetts to Georgia. 208

eds., Essays on the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1973), 198. The quote originally appeared in McLoughlin’s essay but was found
in Morrison’s book.
208

Hannah Schell and Daniel Ott, “Religious and Political Awakenings: The
Revolution,” in Christian Thought in America: A Brief History (Minneapolis: Augsburg
Fortress, Publishers, 2015), 55-57. Both Whitefield and Edwards were outspoken
Calvinists. Whitefield was originally a member of John Wesley’s “Holy Club” at
Oxford. Although he and the Wesley brothers, both Charles and John, maintained
contact, their theological convictions drew them apart. Whitefield’s embrace of
96

During the Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards would rise to prominence in both
America and in England. While he certainly was first and foremost a preacher and
religious figure, Edwards also clearly demonstrated political ideas and a coherent
political philosophy that stood alongside his religious teaching. Like John Calvin and the
Puritans, his theology shaped his political thinking to a large degree. Edwards believed it
necessary that for good governance to continue, government officials must necessarily
“have the fear of God before their eyes.” 209 In this, he echoed both Calvin and the
Puritan’s belief that the government served alongside the church in carrying out the
building of God’s kingdom.
Edwards also laid out those things that the people ought to guard against. Also
like Calvin and the Puritans, Edwards held to a belief that the people had a right to defend
both their political rights are well as their right to worship. Like other reformed thinkers
before Edwards, he emphasized the responsibility the people had to obey God and
therefore fulfill the covenant they had with Him. Aside from speaking of the people’s
responsibility to God, Edwards also spoke about the way in which the people ought to
behave with regard to their political rights. In a sermon which focused on I Kings 4:29,
Edwards drew lessons for his parishioners from the writings of Solomon. The passage
reads, “For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof: but by a man of

Calvinism placed a wedge between the Methodists in the early years, with Wesley’s view
winning out in the end within Methodist circles.
209

Jonathan Edwards, "Sermon: “The State of Public Affairs” (1731–32)," In The
Other Jonathan Edwards: Selected Writings on Society, Love, and Justice, ed. Gerald
McDermott and Ronald Story (Amherst; Boston: University of Massachusetts Press,
2015), 54.
97

understanding and knowledge shall the state thereof be prolonged.” 210 He also referenced
the life of Solomon by quoting “And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding
exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore.” 211 Of
these two passages, Edwards said:
This is the calamity that is directly spoken of in the text: the state of public affairs
of a land being in a changeable posture, whereby a people are exposed to lose
those rights, privileges, and public blessings which they enjoy by virtue of the
present establishment; when a people are threatened with being deprived of their
ancient privileges either in whole or in part and put under a new form of
government; when the case is such that it is doubtful what of their civil
enjoyments shall be continued to them, whether they ben’t 212 about to lose all
their privileges or, if not what they shall not lose; when there are powerful
enemies abroad that seek the eversion [turning inside out] of the state or enemies
in a people’s own bowels that are carrying on plots and designs against the
present establishment, that they may have the better opportunity to advance their
private interest or the interest of a party that they are attached to, or do it out of
spite to any person or parties that they are enemies to.213
Here, Edwards placed himself well within the mainstream of Calvinist political
thought. By leaving open the possibility of the people’s resisting a regime that would
strip them of their “rights and privileges,” Edwards warns that they may those these very
rights “through their own imprudence and mismanagement.” 214 Here, like Calvin and the
Puritans, Edwards places the responsibility of government on the shoulders of the people.

210

Proverbs 28:2 KJV. As an interesting side note, by the time of Edwards the
Geneva Bible was supplanted by the King James Version. It is also interesting to point
out that the King James Version did little to stamp out the Calvinist strain of thinking that
it was, at least in part, commissioned to impact.
211

I Kings 4:29 KJV

212

“Ben’t” was a commonly used contraction meaning “be not.”

213

Edwards, "Sermon: “The State of Public Affairs” (1731–32)," 51.

214

Ibid., 50-51.
98

Much like the Calvinist political thinkers before him, Edwards saw an implicit
covenant between the people of any polity and their God. This covenant is clearly seen
in a sermon that Edwards delivered on a day of fasting in 1729. A clear connection is
found in Edward’s sermon “Sin and Wickedness Bring Calamity and Misery” between
the people’s obedience to God and God’s dealing with the people. Edwards makes clear
the connection between the actions of the government and God’s judgment of the people
when he states:
When wickedness and immorality is countenanced or winked at by those whose
business it is to suppress it, viz. by the rulers of a people, either civil or
ecclesiastical: when civil rulers don’t take due care to make good laws against
immorality or don’t take due care to execute the laws, don’t show a zeal against
iniquities, are no terrors to evildoers; when the reins of civil government are let
loose, and wicked men can be open and barefaced with impunity; ministers don’t
bear a testimony; and when ecclesiastical discipline is not upheld, but scandalous
persons are allowed to come to the Lord’s table and to enjoy other privileges of
visible Christians. . . . When wickedness prevails amongst rulers, it argues a
general corruption, because they follow example. When public affairs are
wickedly managed, when rulers ben’t faithful to the glory and honor of God and
the interest of the people that they are set to rule over. 215
It is Edward’s contention that if the people refuse to obey God, he will punish
them. Edwards further states:
’Tis God’s manner to bring calamities and misery upon a people in judgment for
the prevalency of {wickedness amongst them}. ’Tis as God has threatened in his
holy Word: God rewards a public righteousness with public rewards and punishes
public iniquity with {public judgments}, which can be done only in this world. In
another world, mankind will be rewarded and punished only as particular persons,
for the bonds by which they are united in societies will then be dissolved. Though
the guilt of all the sin that is in a nation lies upon particular persons, so that it will
all be punished in another world, yet a people are punished as a people only in
this world, though it may be with spiritual judgments. The prosperity or adversity

215

Jonathan Edwards, "Sermon: “Sin and Wickedness Bring Calamity and
Misery” (1729)," In The Other Jonathan Edwards: Selected Writings on Society, Love,
and Justice (Amherst; Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015), 36.
99

of a people in this world is much more universally according to the prevalence {of
wickedness amongst them} than {the wickedness} of a particular person. 216
Edward’s even states that a person’s sin is even weightier if they hold a position of power
with the society, be that a position within the government or the church. Edwards
explains by stating:
If men live wicked lives, the guilt of prevailing iniquity amongst the people
among whom they dwell is in proportion to their influence, whether it comes by
their being in offices civil or ecclesiastical, or whether it be by their riches, or
their reputations for learning or wisdom, or their being of an extensive relation or
acquaintance.217
This sermon places Edwards squarely in line with other, earlier Calvinist political
thinkers. Edwards’s description of the covenantal relationship between a people and God
echoes both Calvin and John Winthrop.
Edwards is interestingly placed, both historically and theologically. Born in
British North America, Edwards is typically listed as one of the great early American
thinkers and theologians.

While he certainly did not think of himself as an American

per se, his revivalist preaching and his Congregationalist/Puritan political thought had a
distinctly American flavor. Earlier in this paper, the differences between Puritanism and
Separatism, as found in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay were briefly explored. While
Massachusetts Bay Colony and Plymouth colony merged many years prior to Edwards, it
is with Edwards and the New England Congregationalists that these subtle differences
truly disappeared. While the Puritans were by far the larger of the two groups, by

216

Ibid., 39-40.

217

Ibid., 40-41.
100

Edwards’ day it is obvious that the Separatists’ vision of locally controlled, independent
churches with Calvinist theology had won out. 218
In Edwards, the convergence of three major strands in Calvinist political thinking,
that were building from the very beginning of the Reformation, can be seen. The three
major strands of thinking are that the authority of the civil power is limited, that the civil
power and the people are responsible to God through a covenant and that the people have
the right to influence the civil power through some form of democracy, however limited
that may be. These three lines of thought became significant in the years preceding the
war for independence and during the war. They also were motivating factors for many
colonists who maintained the religiosity of the Great Awakening.

John Witherspoon’s Lockean Calvinism
Possibly the most notable reformed ministers during the Revolutionary period
were, by and large, Presbyterians. This was recognized at the time by those loyal to the
king and was emphasized by Joseph Galloway, a Pennsylvania Tory who fled to England
during the American Revolution. He stated that the Revolution was enabled by a “faction
in New England…of the congregational and presbyterian interest throughout the

Neil T. Dugre, "Church, State, and Commonwealth: The Transatlantic Puritan
Movement in England and America,” The William and Mary Quarterly 74, no. 2
(2017): 346. In his book Godly Republicanism: Puritans, Pilgrims, and a City on a Hill,
which is cited elsewhere in this paper, Michael Winship pushes the argument that the
Pilgrims were far more important than previously thought. As Dugre points out in his
article, Winship especially targets the arguments made by Perry Miller in his book
Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, 1630-1650 regarding the importance of the Pilgrims in early
Massachusetts religious and political thought.
218

101

colonies.”219 He described the Presbyterians as “a dangerous combination of men, whose
principles of religion and polity were equally averse to those of the established Church
and Government.”220 King George himself is reported to have called the Revolution a
“Presbyterian Revolt.”221
A Presbyterian minister who had a lasting impact on the rhetoric of the
Revolution was Samuel Davies, a man who would have an impact before Witherspoon
and also a man who would hold the post of President of Princeton before Witherspoon. 222
Many times Davies is noted for his extensive work for religious tolerance and his
ministry to the black population of the colonies. 223 Davies became quite well known in
his time for his impassioned sermons during the French and Indian war in which he urged

219

Throughout this paper, words which appear in the original documents with the
antiquated long “s,” which is printed as “ſ,” will be spelled in the more modern spelling.
220

Joseph Galloway, in Historical and Political Reflections on the Rise and
Progress of the American Rebellion, (London: G. Wilke, 1780), 54.
221

Kevin Phillips, The Cousins’ Wars: Religion, Politics and the Triumph of
Anglo-America (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 92.
222

David Barton, Celebrate Liberty! Famous Patriotic Speeches and Sermons,
(Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder Press, 2003), 227. Barton’s commentary is definitely biased and
although he is not an impartial source, this work contains much information on obscure
revolutionary era ministers. The commentary was used only for dates and has proven
itself an excellent source for primary sources.
223

Aside from his preaching during the Seven Years War, and his Presidency at
Princeton, Davies has been acknowledged as a minister who was dedicated to the cause
of the Slave population in the South. While serving as a minister in Hanover County,
Davies put great emphasis on the literacy of slaves. See also:
Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, Religion in a Revolutionary Age,
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994), 90; Jeffrey H. Richards, “Samuel
Davies and the Transatlantic Campaign for Slave Literacy in Virginia." Virginia
Magazine of History & Biography 111, no. 4 (September 2003): 333-378; George
William Pilcher, "Samuel Davies and the Instruction of Negroes in Virginia." Virginia
Magazine of History & Biography 74, no. 3 (June 1966): 293-300.
102

his congregation to bear arms in the British struggle in western Pennsylvania. 224 He had
declared the struggle not only a patriotic one, but also as a duty of “courageous
Christians.”225 This marked one of the first appearances of the rhetoric that would be
preached from Presbyterian pulpits during the American Revolution.
Possibly the most notable of the Revolutionary era preachers was John
Witherspoon. Witherspoon was born in Scotland in the year 1723. 226 John Witherspoon
was a dyed in the wool Calvinist. He came from a family of early Presbyterians and even
had a grandfather who signed the resolution that linked the Scottish Kirk and the English
Parliament through the Westminster Confession of Faith, published in 1646. 227
As the eldest son of a minister, he seemed an obvious choice for a future
minister. At the age of thirteen, Witherspoon was enrolled in Edinburgh University and
was considered well on his way towards becoming a minister in the Presbyterian
Church.228 Always a precocious child, John would receive a Master of Arts degree from
the University of Edinburgh at the early age of sixteen. Today, this degree would be the
equivalent of an undergraduate degree. 229 The next step in Witherspoon’s education

224

Patricia Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in
Colonial America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 183.
225

Ibid.

226

Varnum Lansing Collins, President Witherspoon (New York: Arno Press &
The New York Times, 1969), 7.
227

Gideon Mailer, “Anglo-Scottish Union and John Witherspoon’s American
Revolution,” The William and Mary Quarterly 67, no. 4 (October 2010): 709-710.
228

Collins, President Witherspoon, 12-13.

229

Ibid., 17-18.
103

would be a theology degree, also from Edinburgh. This course of study was completed in
four years and resulted in Witherspoon’s acceptance of a parish at the young age of
twenty-two.230
After a lengthy tenure as a minister in his native Scotland, Witherspoon decided
to become the president of The College of New Jersey, later known as Princeton
University. During this time, Witherspoon was also elected to represent New Jersey in
the Continental Congress. Witherspoon was perfectly readied for the role of statesman,
having taught both moral philosophy and the principles of the Scottish Enlightenment at
The College of New Jersey.231
Witherspoon serves as a wonderful example of the influence held by notable
ministers of the time. While his political sermons and philosophical writings surely
influenced political thought in the colonies, Witherspoon also influenced some of the
most important figures in American history while President of the College of New Jersey.
While president of the institution now named Princeton, the Scottish minister would
teach students as notable as James Madison and Aaron Burr. 232 He would also oversee
the educations of “twelve members of the Continental Congress; five delegates to the
Constitutional Convention; … forty-nine U.S. representatives; twenty-eight U.S.
senators; three Supreme Court justices; eight U.S. district judges; one secretary of state;

230

Collins, President Witherspoon, 20-21.

231

Jeffry H. Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American
Republic (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Norte Dame Press, 2005), 48-49, 51.
232

Ibid., 4.
104

three attorney generals and two foreign ministers.” Also included were a host of state
representatives and other government officials.233 Madison, who would later pen the U.S.
Constitution, stayed an extra year at Princeton to study under Witherspoon after his
graduation, seems to have been influenced greatly by the minister. 234
Of course, as a minister, Witherspoon saw religion as even more important than
politics. However, this does not mean that Witherspoon was only influenced by religious
thought and writings. More than almost any other founder, Witherspoon can be regarded
as a great moral philosopher. Possibly his greatest contribution was his bringing together
the religious ideas of Calvin and the political ideas of John Locke. Locke is tied to and
advocated the idea that man has natural rights. These rights were referenced in the
preamble of the Declaration of Independence, which Witherspoon would sign. The
influence of Locke’s political ideas is undeniable when one examines Witherspoon’s
political writings. One of the best examples of this influence can be seen in
Witherspoon’s second “Druid” essay. He states: “Wherever society exists founded upon
clearly established laws, this obliges us to form an idea of a state previous to the
formation of society, or before such, or any laws, were made and acknowledged to be in
force. This is called a state of nature.”235 In the essay, he also states that the principles of
the “law of nature…are to be derived from the state of nature or universal liberty.” 236 As
233

Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic, 4

234

Ibid., 4-5. Later in the same work, Morrison examines Witherspoon’s
influence on Madison’s ideology.
235

John Witherspoon, The Works of John Witherspoon (Edinburgh: Ogle and
Aikman et at., 1805), 9:234.
236

Ibid., 235.
105

Jeffry Morrison points out, “One could scarcely find a clearer rephrasing of Locke’s state
of nature.”237 He would also mirror Locke’s definition of the social compact. 238
Although these are only two examples, they strike directly at the heart of Locke’s
political theory.
Witherspoon also was firmly within the tradition of political Calvinism. John
Calvin, whose thought was and remains central to Presbyterian and Reformed theology,
was much less radical and even supported many aspects of the “divine right” argument,
although he did admit that “all persons, young and old, love liberty.” 239 This could have
played a role in Witherspoon’s hesitation to immediately throw in with those patriots who
wished to overthrow the crown from the beginning. Calvin would even go as far as
declaring that earthly rulers were “equipped with divine authority, in fact they stand in
the place of God and in a certain sense conduct his affairs.” 240 In fact Calvin did not
overtly endorse one form of government over any others.
However, Calvin did not mean that the civil government had free reign over the
people God had given this ruler. The ruler was constrained by many factors that would
ultimately render that sovereign to act as nothing more than God’s servant on earth. If
the ruler were to break from the mandate given to him, the legitimacy of that ruler could

237

Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic, 123.

238

Ibid., 122-123.

239

Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic, 80.

240

Wilhelm Niesel, The Theology of Calvin. (Philadelphia: Lutterworth Press,
1956), 230-231.
106

disappear.241 Of course, this clashed with James I’s assertion that hereditary right is
indefeasible and that there was no avenue for resisting the king.
Calvinist resistance theory rested on the idea that the magistrate is the vehicle by
which a government ought to be resisted. Calvin stated that magistrates are “appointed to
restrain the willfulness of kings” and were not to “betray the freedom of the people, of
which they know that they have been appointed protectors by God’s ordinance.” 242
Witherspoon followed this same line of thinking during the American Revolution.
Witherspoon argued that the Revolution was not a power grab by a monied elite
and was also not a mob action. Rather, the Revolutionary cause worked through the
means of elected officials, or magistrates, to use Calvin’s terminology. Even before the
American Revolution, Witherspoon was using language to describe Congress which was
reminiscent of Calvin’s description of the magistrate. In a 1774 essay entitled “Thoughts
on American Liberty,” Witherspoon described Congress as “the representative of the
great body of the people of North America.” He then asserts that “It is…an appeal to the
great law of reason, the first principles of the social union, and the multitude collectively,
for whose benefit all of the particular laws and customs of a constituted state, are
supposed to have been originally established.” 243 It is only through this body that
Witherspoon believes the colonists should resist the king. This is a clear demonstration of

241

Ibid., 240-241.

242

Calvin, Institutes, 1519.

243

Witherspoon, The Works of John Witherspoon, 9:73-74.
107

Calvinist resistance theory, which relied on the magistrate, in this case the elected
congress, to oppose the king when he trampled on their rights.
It is perhaps in his sermon “Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men,”
which he delivered in May of 1776, where the clearest expression of Witherspoon’s
commitment to political Calvinism can be seen. Witherspoon opens the sermon with a
recounting of the doctrines of God’s sovereignty and the depravity of man. He states,
“Nothing can be more absolutely necessary to true religion, than a clear and full
conviction of the sinfulness of our nature and state. Without this there can be neither
repentance in the sinner, nor humility in the believer. Without this all that is said in
scripture of the wisdom and mercy of God in providing a Saviour, is without force and
without meaning.” 244 Witherspoon opens the sermon with a defense of Calvinist
religious orthodoxy.
Witherspoon then spends much time describing how the persecution of earlier
believers, and especially Protestants, drove the Gospel into lands where it had never
been.245 He then turns to the issue at hand. He states, “You are all my Witnesses, that
this is the first time of my introducing any political subject into the pulpit. At this season
however, it is not only lawful but necessary, and I willingly embrace the opportunity of
declaring my opinion without any hesitation, that the cause in which America is now in
244

John Witherspoon, “Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men” in
Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730-1805, ed. Ellis Sandoz
(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1991), 535.
245

Ibid., 543-544. Witherspoon also seems to endorse the regicide of Charles I by
using it as an example of “providence” and by saying that Oliver Cromwell and Mr.
[John} Hampden were “The two most remarkable persons in the civil wars… one of them
was the soul of the republican opposition to monarchical usurpation during the civil wars,
and the other in the course of that contest, was the great instrument in bringing the tyrant
to the block.”
108

arms, is the cause of justice, of liberty, and of human nature.” He further states that “our
civil and religious liberties…depend on the issue.”246
Witherspoon then states that he believes that if the colonies were not to act, they
would jeopardize their religious liberty and, ultimately, their ability to worship God as
they saw fit. He also argues that the government of Britain overstepped their bounds and
was attempting to seize power for itself. He states:
I am satisfied that the confederacy of the colonies, has not been the effect of
pride, resentment, or sedition, but of a deep and general conviction, that our civil
and religious liberties, and consequently in a great measure the temporal and
eternal happiness of us and our posterity, depended on the issue. The knowledge
of God and his truths have from the beginning of the world been chiefly, if not
entirely, confined to those parts of the earth, where some degree of liberty and
political justice were to be seen, and great were the difficulties with which they
had to struggle from the imperfection of human society, and the unjust decisions
of usurped authority. There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty
was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our
temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage. 247
Witherspoon here argues that the religious liberty which the people enjoy, is linked with
the political liberty the colonies were seeking in the struggle with England. He also
singles out “usurped authority” as an opponent of “the knowledge of God and his truths.”
Here, Witherspoon weds the “temporal” liberty of the people with “the truly infinite
importance of the salvation of your souls.”248
In this sermon, Witherspoon moves between the language of a Calvinist and a
Lockean philosopher quite adeptly. Witherspoon’s opening dialogue places him squarely

246

Ibid., 549.

247

John Witherspoon, “Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men,” 549.

248

Ibid., 545.
109

within Calvinist orthodoxy and his political reasoning drifts between Lockean Liberalism
and covenantal, political Calvinism. After the war, Witherspoon again displayed his
agreement with political Calvinism when he argued that the magistrate was responsible
for suppressing evil and ought to be “a terror to evil doers.” 249
Other sources also demonstrate that many believed that there was a confluence of
Lockean political thought and Calvinist thought during the revolutionary period. One
such source is a political cartoon driving an Anglican bishop back onto his ship and
ultimately, back to England. The crowd holds signs which state “No Lords Spiritual or
Temporal in New England,” and Liberty and Freedom of Conscience.” They also hold
up a sign which says simply, “Locke.” Also, a book entitled “Calvin’s works” is being
through at the bishop.

249

Gideon Mailer, "“HOW FAR THE MAGISTRATE OUGHT TO
INTERFERE IN MATTERS OF RELIGION,” 312.
110

250

In his sermon “Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men,” Witherspoon
showed that he was also pragmatic, and not unwilling to stress Lockean principles more
than Calvin when the audience was more receptive to liberal political thought. 251 To
Witherspoon, this would not have been a contradiction, but rather a logical connection
between Lockean thought and Calvin. Jeffry H. Morrison, author of John Witherspoon
and the Founding of the American Republic makes this very argument. He says, “That a
reasonably sophisticated moral philosopher such as Witherspoon was able to harmonize
the basic tenets of Reformed political theory with those of an English liberal such as

250

An Attempt to Land a Bishop in America. Engraving from the Political
Register. London: September, 1769. John Carter Brown Library at Brown University,
Providence, RI. www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/f0304.jpg. (8/4/20).
251

Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic, 91.
111

Locke suggests that the latter may indeed have been a carrier of Puritan political
theory.”252
Ultimately, John Witherspoon was, at his very core, a Calvinist. He would hold
to the religious doctrines taught by Calvin, but would blend those ideas with Locke’s
liberalism. This blending would result in a new era of political thought by Americans
who adhered to Reformed Protestant Christianity. Witherspoon, who also introduced
many aspects of Scottish Enlightenment thought to America, would influence both
intellectual ministers and the layperson with his ability to show the connection between
protecting civil liberties and protecting religious liberties.253
It is perhaps in his instruction of James Madison that Witherspoon saw his
greatest influence. During his time at Princeton, Madison seems to have adopted
Witherspoon’s Calvinist view of human nature and the need to restrain that nature. Jeffry
Morrison points out that Madison displayed a nearly identical position as Witherspoon on
the issue of religious liberty, as well as a “Calvinist realism” which permeated his
writing. Madison went so far as to describe human nature by saying, “There is a degree
of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and
distrust.”254

252

Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic, 82.

253

Ibid., 127-128.

254

Ibid., 39.
112

It is in his view of nature that Madison’s overlap with political Calvinism can be
most clearly seen. In a sermon on Galatians 3:19-20, Calvin is expounding on the text
“Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions.” 255 On this text, Calvin said:
For we know there were laws and statutes made among men, according to the
vices that had need to be redressed. If all men were Angels, so as there were
nothing out of square, but every man behaved himself well of his own accord, so
as there needed no amendment: then were Laws to no purpose at all. What is the
cause then that we have need of so many laws and statutes? The naughtiness of
men, because they cease not to rush out into all evil, and therefore remedy is fain
[obliged] to be provided for it: like as if there were no diseases, there should need
no physic: but men’s unruliness causeth diseases, and therefore remedies must
needs be provided. So then seeing that men have need to be bridled and as it were
retrained, it is a sure record that they are bent to all evil, and utterly forward of
their own nature.256
Madison’s language in Federalist No. 51 so closely resembles that of Calvin that
it is difficult to imagine Madison not having Calvin, or at least a Calvinist understanding
of human nature, in mind. When writing as to the purpose of the law, Madison states:
It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices [checks and balances]
should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government
itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no
government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external
nor internal controls on government would be necessary. 257

255

Gal. 3:19 ESV

256

John Calvin, Sermons on Galatians (Albany, OR: Books For The Ages, 1998),
306. http://media.sabda.org/alkitab-7/LIBRARY/CALVIN/CAL_SGAL.PDF (Accessed
August 8, 2020).
257

James Madison, "The Federalist No. 51: THE STRUCTURE OF THE
GOVERNMENT MUST FURNISH THE PROPER CHECKS AND BALANCES
BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS." in The Federalist Papers, ed.
Shapiro Ian, by HAMILTON ALEXANDER, MADISON JAMES, JAY JOHN, Dunn
John, Horowitz Donald L., and Botting Eileen Hunt, (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2009),
113

While Madison may not have been a committed theological or political Calvinist, a
Calvinist strain of thinking can be seen in his defense of the then new, American political
system. This influence of John Witherspoon is clearly seen in Federalist No. 51. Douglas
Adair goes so far as to say that Madison drew on Witherspoon on several occasions in his
writing. This influence over the young Madison certainly should be held as one of
Witherspoon’s crowning achievements.258

Conclusion
John Witherspoon’s contribution to the American cause would come mainly in
the form of blending the liberal ideology of Locke with political Calvinism. Even with
his service to the Continental Congress and his training of many future political leaders,
Witherspoon’s assertion that “There is not a single instance in history in which civil
liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entirely,” would become the American
ideology among many ministers who would also speak out for American
independence.259
Although ignored, or minimized by many modern historians, the political
philosophy which emanated from the Reformation, and Geneva in particular, played a
large role in shaping the political philosophy which led to the American Revolution. As
John Adams remembered, “the pulpits…thundered” during the war for independence and
forcefully argued for separation from England. 260 Alongside Lockean liberalism,

258

Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic, 38-

40.
259

Witherspoon, “The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men,” 549.
114

Calvinist resistance theory ought to be regarded as one of the forces which led to the
formation of American political thought and to the revolutionary ideas which led to
separation from England.

260

John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor
(Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), Vol. III, p. 476, "The Earl of
Clarendon to William Pym," January 20, 1766.
115

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