Blest Be the Ties that Bind: Covenant and Community in Puritan Thought

Seventeenth-century Puritans in England and America transformed the biblical idea of covenant into an organizing principle of their theology and society. They reconfigured the traditional theological covenant of works and covenant of grace into a fluid contractual relationship between God and humanity. They used the idea of divinely-sanctioned covenant as a way to organize their key social relationships of family, church, state, and community as well as their doctrine of voluntary binding contracts. This covenantal theory eventually provided a prototype for the more secular contractarian theories of society and politics that became more prominent in Enlightenment liberalism.