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In May 1638 the Puritan pastor Thomas Hooker preached a sermon that has been accounted as among the most important in colonial New England. According to existing interpretations, Hooker advocated popular sovereignty and popular control of civil government. Furthermore, in line with this interpretation, most scholars have accorded Hooker an important, if not also central, role in Connecticut's adoption in 1639 of the Fundamental Orders-the colony's articulation of its design for self-government. Contrary to the accepted interpretation, this essay demonstrates that Hooker's sermon, based on Deuteronomy 1:13, was actually instruction to his congregation and audience about their religious duties as persons living under a government that God had ordained for them. This essay concludes that this change in perspective about the sermon's meaning-from "political" to "religious"-has important implications for existing stories of New England political history.
On May 31, 1638, in the settlement of Hartford along the Connecticut River, Thomas Hooker preached what has been accounted as among the most important sermons in colonial New England. The only record of it that we have today exists in the form of an auditor's shorthand outline.1
Three features of this sermon have contributed to the attention given it by historians. First, its source: Hooker, a prominent Puritan pastor in both old and New England, was undoubtedly Connecticut's leading public figure in the first decade of the colony's existence. Second, its subject: the sermon referred to matters regarding civil government; more specifically, it apparently advocated popular sovereignty and popular control of government. Third, its timing: within the year - reportedly in January 1639 - Connecticut would adopt the Fundamental Orders, the colony's articulation of its design for self-government. The relationship among Hooker, Connecticut's nascent government, and the Fundamental Orders has long been a matter of study and commentary, attracting the attention of such prominent historians as Charles Andrews, Perry Miller, and Clinton Rossiter.2 Interpretations of the sermon have ranged from those that rank Hooker as among the earliest of modern democratic thinkers to others that insist that Hooker, although embracing a popular component of civil rule, was simply endorsing practices that had been developing since 1636, the beginning of government among the Connecticut settlements of Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor.3 The various interpretations have had important...