In this paper, I demonstrate that Englishmen who employed the royalist discourse of
honoring imposed stronger political obligations upon subjects when we compare these
obligations with those emerging from the royalist doctrine of passive obedience. In
contrast to the latter doctrine, the obligation to honor rulers obligated subjects externally
and internally. Externally, it imposed obligations upon an honorer’s action, speech and
gesture. Internally, it imposed obligations upon a subject’s will, emotional state, and his
or her set of estimations and beliefs. Authors employing the discourse of honoring
instructed subjects to obey their Christian rulers willingly, sincerely, diligently and
promptly. The discourse of honoring obligated inferiors to love their Christian rulers and
to fear them. It imposed upon them the obligation to conceive of them as truly superior.
And, honoring had an imperialist element to it. For, not only did it command subjects to
defend and vindicate their ruler’s honor. Honoring also commanded inferiors to magnify
and to advance their ruler’s reputation throughout their lands, and beyond them. The
obligation to honor rulers touched nearly every part of a subject’s being. In short, it was
nearly a totalizing obligation.
I argue that when we conceptualize mid-seventeenth century political obligation in terms
of honoring, rather than in terms of passive obedience, we must envision a Christian
subject who is morally obligated to be active, rather than passive; willing rather than
indifferently; zealous in his or her obedience rather than grudging.
doctrine of passive obedience (which allows for passive resistance and passive
obedience), the account of political obligation offered through the discourse of honoring
2
I do not mean to suggest here that Christian subjects were obligated to fervently obey rulers who broke
God’s law. According to some Puritan accounts, they were not so obligated and their political obligation
was significantly limited. This will be discussed in the paper.
4
Convention