RT Article
T1 The Puritan Natural Law Theory of William Ames
JF Harvard theological review
VO 64
IS 1
SP 37
OP 57
A1 Gibbs, Lee W.
LA English
PB Cambridge Univ. Press
YR 1971
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1582050392
AB This essay is an analysis of the natural law theory of one of the most important of the seventeenth-century Puritan philosophers and theologians, William Ames (1576-1633). Ames' theory of natural law has historical importance because of its contribution to the formulation of fundamental doctrines upon which modern democratic institutions were raised — such doctrines as the duties and inalienable rights of individual citizens, the social contract or government by consent of the people, and the right of resistance when a government exceeds the bounds of its authority. For although Ames spent his life in England and Holland, and although he died in the midst of his preparations to emigrate to America from Holland, his greatest impact and predominating influence were in the New World, He has justifiably been called ”the spiritual father of the New England churches,” ”the favorite theologian of early New England,” and ”the father of American theology.”
DO 10.1017/S0017816000018022