You'll find a detailed answer to this question in:

Harry Stout, "Word and Order in Colonial New England," in eds., Nathan O. Hatch and Mark A. Noll, The Bible in America (New York, 1982)

While the English Puritans overwhelming held to the Geneva Bible, they did so for the same reasons the Colonial Puritans overwhelming adopted the Authorized Version, save the former were in protestation to the Anglican Church and the latter were remote and independent from it working to establish a Christian social order upon explicitly Reformed grounds. Both, however, were in unison advancing the Reformation.

The Geneva Bible, while a great Bible, is the work of a de-enfranchised middle class escaping persecution of Blood Mary. Hence, the English Reformers although restored in their social standing under Elizabeth I were under James I still fighting against Romanism's in the Anglican Church. Adopting the Authorized Version to them was a concession to Anglicanism, whereas the Colonial Puritans, contrariwise, were not, but they needed theological connection to their Feudal head and the Authorized Version provided them the Scriptures in their highest legal estate, in order to comprehensively outwork Christianity and frame the social order in total upon it.

You'll find, then, in the earliest social constitutions of Colonial America where the Authorized Version is copied verbatim and also quoted verbatim in judicial records. It was the Kings Bible and they were establishing Christian colonies under charter from their King - but remote and independent from the intertwined Roman/Protestant situations of England. They were able to put the vast majority of their energies into positive growth in terms of the Reformed Faith and not expend so much in defense against error that their English counterparts were engaged in.

This is a big reason why the Authorized Version, in particular, is so critical to the Church in America today. When a Church is properly organized at common law, as a free and independent jurisdiction, the Authorized Version is imputed by the civil law as its visible head and governor, since it is established at common law. She, then, has an Apostolic witness that the civil magistrate cannot resist:

"But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake. And it shall turn to you for a testimony. Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer: For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist." Luke 21:12-15

Paul then adds in Romans 15:6-7, "That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God."

The rejection of the Authorized Version, by the modern Church, is precisely why she no longer has an Apostolic witness, because she is now spending all of her time mediating on what she will say, instead of concentrating on being in one mind and one mouth, receiving what Providence has provided us and declaring "Thus saith the Lord..." In turn, the rulers we are brought before today no longer have any legal requirement to receive our testimony, and hence they resist it.

Thomas

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Thomas Weddle
Member, Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church
Evansville, Indiana