NCJ Number
147548
Date Published
1993
Length
4 pages
Annotation
The author discusses the legal thinking of the Puritans in the 17th Century.
Abstract
The Puritans envisioned holy communities free of sin and corruption. They believed that God's moral law flowed in a continuum through natural law and Scripture to the human laws and statutes known as positive law. They struck a unique balance between the claims of the state and the rights of the individual. Right-thinking persons could perceive and live by God's law without state coercion; positive law was needed because original sin had so corrupted human nature that most people had lost the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong. The Puritans placed limits on government far more explicit than those of English common law, and anticipated most of the key guarantees that would appear in the United States Bill of Rights some 150 years later. These included proscriptions against unreasonable search or seizure, double jeopardy, compulsory self-incrimination, and cruel or unusual punishment, as well as the right to bail, grand jury indictment, trial by jury, and the right to confront one's accusers. Endnotes, 4 appendixes, list of abbreviations, index