The rationale for the law reflected the Calvinist Puritan ethos of the time and in particular the influence of the Reverend John Cotton, who was a teacher in the First Church of Boston and one of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's most influential leaders. The Puritans sought to create a literate population to ensure that, as the law put it, "ye ould deluder, Satan" could not use illiteracy to "keepe men from the knowledge of ye Scriptures." Their religious beliefs emphasized the view that personal knowledge of the Scriptures was an essential requirement for temporal living and eternal salvation. The statute also endorsed the principle that the interpretation of the Scriptures should be done under the aegis of proper authority, namely the Puritan leaders, in order to avoid "false glosses of saint seeming deceivers".