Christian Influence in Massachusetts Bay Colony Self Governance

CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE IN MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY SELF-GOVERNANCE
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January 12th, 2018
From the circumstances that conditioned the practicality of the American Puritans’ approach to their religious doctrine, the most important was that they were residents of the colony. No matter how urgent the imperatives of their Christian doctrine were, they were not dogmatic; the colonists could not afford to build their political institutions on its basis alone. A few decades earlier, their Geneva co-religionists in this respect were guided only by individual aspirations and dogma. However, already at the initial stage of the New England existence, signs of its colonial status are seen that will decisively predetermine the entire development of American political thought in the era of the Revolution and will contribute to the formation of our public institutions under the signs of moderation, compromise, and traditionalism
From this colonial position ensued, First, the generally accepted belief that there are certain limits that legislators are not free to transgress (in other words, it was constitutionalism), and Secondly, the idea that the most natural and correct way of forming civilians institutions – reliance on custom and tradition, and not on legislative or administrative decrees. Civil systems are, to a much higher degree, the consequences of the circumstances in which the Puritans of New England were located, rather than the fruits of the speculative political doctrines that they preferred.

In the first charter of the colony of the Massachusetts Bay (1629), King Charles authorized the General Assembly to issue “all kinds of useful and reasonable decrees, laws, statutes, and ordinances, regulations, and orders” provided that they “do not conflict with the laws of our Kingdom of England “. The colonists, not being lawyers, nevertheless had a right mindset: they took this restriction with full seriousness. Everyone willingly referred to him: both representatives of the ruling clique, and her critics, and rebels.
The history of the struggle for legality in early New England is not yet entirely told. But even from what we know, it appears that the rulers of this biblically colored world order have been haunted by the ghosts of Old English institutions. For any reason, both the rulers and those who rebelled against them considered it their duty to declare that a genuinely biblical society should not depart from the ancient institutions of the metropolis. As far back as 1630, Winthrop writes, the deputies were worried that, as a matter of fact, the magistrates “because of the absence of these laws did not begin to be guided, solving many issues, solely by their discretion.” The sought-for counterbalance to this state of affairs, which the General Assembly eventually resorted to, was typical of the English character: “To appoint people who would formulate the corpus of fundamental laws after the model of the Magna Carta … so that these laws are adopted as basic.”
The history of legislation during the initial period of New England development is nothing more than a history of successive attempts to supply the inhabitants of the colony of the Massachusetts Bay firstly by its Great Charter of liberties, and then – by a compact set of local laws. A small ruling group in early New England did not show much zeal about the exhaustive codification of colony institutions. Leaders like John Winthrop doubted how wise and fruitful it was to try to fit the diversity of these institutions into verbal frameworks; they were not sure and in their right to do so. The “reserved” spirit of the New England laws (in other words – the correspondence of the Bible) hardly bothered them more than their similarity to English in all essential features; at the same time, they wanted to ensure that any change in English laws was entirely due to local needs.
This aspect of the life of early New England for some reason never caught our eye. Blinded by the light that the Puritans revealed in the Holy Scriptures, we did not bother to discern that even guiding light that the example of old England appeared to the colonists. So, it was worthwhile for the historians to find a small job of John Cotton called “Judicial orders of Moses,” as they immediately hastily concluded that, being biblical in phraseology and dogmatic in nature, it was bound to become the code of laws of the colony of the Massachusetts Bay. There is, however, evidence showing that the said John Cotton Code never acted as a law, and, probably, was not thought of as such.
In fact, with very few exceptions – and, naturally, to the extent that their knowledge allowed – lawmakers of the colony followed the English models. The colonial position of New England prompted them to avoid in every possible way the creation of institutions and institutions of their understanding, and with the greater willingness, they adapted institutions and institutions already known to the new conditions. They were among the first to take a consciously realistic attitude towards customary law and force them to do this.
In fact, with very few exceptions – and, naturally, to the extent that their knowledge allowed – lawmakers of the colony followed the English models. The colonial position of New England prompted them to avoid in every possible way the creation of institutions and institutions of their understanding, and with the greater willingness, they adapted organizations and institutions already known to the new conditions. They were among the first to take a consciously realistic attitude towards the customary law and force them to this position of the colonists. The spirit of then New England law was well reflected by John Winthrop in describing the events of November 1639:
For a long time, people were longing to have a body of laws, believing their situation to be very unsafe since so much power was concentrated in the hands of the magistrates. Not once in the former courts (legislative assemblies) such attempts were made, and this question was entrusted to the wisdom of others from the magistrates and elders, but without result; for, given to many, he remained a nobody; decisions taken by some did not satisfy others, and still others ignored them. Finally, the work was entrusted to Mr. Cotton, Mr. Nathaniel Ward, and others; and each of them created a model, which was presented to this General Assembly, and then transferred it to the governor, vice-governor, and some others for consideration, to be prepared for a hearing in two months. Most of the magistrates and some of the elders did not rush the matter for two good reasons. Firstly, due to the lack of accurate information about the inclinations and moods of the people, dadsakhovaya together with the conditions of the country and other circumstances encouraged us to believe that the best laws for us would be those that would arise pro re nata, situationally, etc., for such are laws of England and other states; in England, they include customs that are part of the concept of customary law. Secondly, it would mean to knowingly transgress the limits established by our charter, which requires us not to adopt laws that are contrary to the laws of England, which, in our conviction, obligated us to do so. However, it was not to exceed the authority given by the charter to impart the force of law to the customs practiced; an example of this follows from the practice of our church statute and concerns the ceremony of marriage: a law that would establish that priests do not have the right to consecrate a marriage would be incompatible with the laws of England; However, to legitimize the entered into the practice of marriage ceremony, referring to the mediation of the magistrate, does not mean to conflict with English law, etc.
The best self-defense and the protection of their laws against all kinds of encroachments, the rulers of New England considered a reference to how closely the rules established by them correspond to the norms of England. The General Assembly of the colony of the Massachusetts Bay, at every opportunity, emphasized the remarkable coincidence of New England and English laws. Being pinned to the wall, they continued to assert that even apparent deviations from the rules of English law, in turn, originate in the laws of England, according to which “in the city of London and other corporations there are various legal norms and by-laws different from the general and statutory laws of the country “.
If you ignore the form and terminology of these laws and ponder their essence, you can only wonder how little change the rules of New England have undergone in comparison with the English. The most obvious and most dramatic of these changes relate to the list of serious crimes punishable by the laws of England with the death penalty. The number of such offenses the colonists supplemented by a few more by 1648, including idolatry (violation of the first commandment), blasphemy, theft of people (Exodus 21.16), adultery with a married woman, perjury to bring death to another, insulting parents by a child over the age of sixteen (Exodus 21.17), “rampage and disobedience” of the son (Deuteronomy, 21.20.21) and the third attempt at robbery or robbery on the big road. In all these cases, the priority of the laws of Scripture over English ones is obvious.
However, it’s hardly worth attaching too much importance to these deviations. It should be remembered that in the sphere of laws that punish the death penalty, both Americans and British have traditionally realized the long-standing and very deep discrepancy between theory and practice. In England, the merciful fiction of “church forgiveness” washed the letter of the law almost without remnant, in New England the same result, perhaps, reached the custom of public repentance. All this, of course, further narrowed the degree of changes made to the criminal law in the territory of the colony. This is a country where people have learned the habit of laws that were not always applied in practice, and where biblical orthodoxy was acquired without any significant changes in the way of everyday life. To this end the influence of John Winthrop’s ideas on the self-governance of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was more formal than practical and, in fact, the self-governance had reliable interconnection with the practice of governance in England.

Bibliography
John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity, Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1838, https://history.hanover.edu/texts/winthmod.html
Dunn, Richard. “John Winthrop Writes His Journal.” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Apr. 1984): pp. 186–212