|
|
|
|
Government as Contract Another effect of the Great Awakening on colonial culture was the growth of the notion of state rule as a contract with the people. Parishioners during the revival gained an understanding of covenants with their churches as contractual schemes; they argued that each believer owed the church their obedience, and the churches in turn owed their congregants the duty to be faithful to the Gospel. Parishioners therefore reserved the right to dissolve the covenant and to sever ties with the church without prior permission. This notion of covenant was a popular one in Puritan society and reflected a common biblical understanding of association. Present in the Mayflower Compact and later forming an ideological basis for breaking from Great Britain, the notion of covenant grew to link religion and politics in the colonies. The ideals of Puritanical covenant theology were manifested in the "social compact" of the Declaration of Independence. |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
Under this theory, implicit in the Declaration, disassociated individuals in the "state of nature" agree to live and be bound together under consensual government. With the frequency by which believers broke away from larger churches to form splinter groups, the colonists must have been accustomed to separating themselves from larger institutions. |
|
|
|