The Puritans

Brad Hutchinson

Academic English 11

Who were the Puritans?

Puritanism was a movement that attempted to “purify” the Church of England by eliminating all influences of the Catholic Church.

Puritans and Calvinism

Puritanism was an outgrowth of the teachings of John Calvin—Calvinism.

Separatists and Congregationalists

There were two main groups of Puritans—the Separatists, who believed that the church could not be reformed, and the Congregationalists, who believed that the church could be reformed.

The Puritans and the Bible

The Puritans believed that only the Bible had any authority at all, that the Pope had no religious authority. Since the Bible was the only authority, a Christian would have to be able to read. Thus, education became important to them.

Basic Puritan Beliefs

Typology—the belief that a people are reliving events from the Old Testament and these events prefigure the return of Christ.

Basic Puritan Beliefs

Election—God chooses people as the elect (people who are saved) or as the damned.

Basic Puritan Beliefs

Original depravity—everyone is born a sinner and is disgusting in the eyes of God.

Basic Puritan Beliefs

Limited atonement—there really isn’t any way to work toward being saved—no salvation through good works

Basic Puritan Beliefs

Irresistible Grace—While there was a rumor that a woman named Grace roamed the Puritan settlements luring men from their families to live in the wilderness, this is not what “Irresistible Grace” means.

Basic Puritan Beliefs

Irresistible grace—God’s decision to make someone of the elect cannot be changed—once of the elect, always of the elect.

Basic Puritan Beliefs

Predestination—God has chosen the elect and the damned prior to the birth of a person. Despite predestination, people had to act as good people because of the idea that God would only choose those who were good so only people who acted as if they were good would be of the elect.

Basic Puritan Beliefs

Doubt—since one could never really know if one was of the elect, Puritans lived in doubt—looking for signs from God in everything. This led to meditation poetry/writing.

Basic Puritan Beliefs

Puritan ethic—only hard work can show that a person is of the elect, thus hard work is important

Puritan Ideas on the Structure of Communities

The individual must accept his or her place in society.

God set up a hierarchy—men above women, whites above all other races, Protestant English above all other cultures

Puritan Writing

Conversion narrative/personal narrative—to be a member of the church, one had to give an account of how one knew that he or she was one of the elect. In the New World, a man could not own land unless he was a church member. Thus, these accounts, personal narratives, became an important element of literature at the time.

Puritan Writing

Sermons—Ministers of the Puritan church would give sermons on Sundays to help the members of their community understand passages in the Bible. One of the main types of writing we have from the Puritans are sermons.

Puritan Writings

Biography—the Puritans wrote biographies to show the workings of God in the lives of the elect. They believed that His will was evident in the workings of the world. They were tales meant to teach about how the elect behaved. If someone was writing a biography, he (or she, I guess) could change events so that the workings of God were more prominent. The lessons of biography were much more important than the truth. For the Puritans, biography was an allegorical tool for the learning of God’s will.

Puritan Writings

Plain style—the Puritans believed that ornate creations were like the workings of the Catholic Church and thus they should only make plain, unadorned things; thus, their writing was also plain and unadorned.

Pilgrims

The ascension of James Stuart, a Catholic, to the throne of England led a group of Puritans to move to Holland where they had to learn trades to support themselves. They were separatists.

Pilgrims

Eventually, they decided to leave Holland because they were afraid that their children were growing up “too Dutch.” Because of John Smith’s book about the New World as a place of great riches, they settled on the New World as their destination. Not all the Puritans in Holland went along. Many families left members behind with the idea that they would send for them once the colony was established.

Pilgrims

William Bradford led the Pilgrims.

Pilgrims

Mayflower Compact—a document created by the Pilgrims on the voyage to the New World to keep the peace amongst the colonists. Here we see the idea that these people thought of themselves as elected in a secular sense as well as in a religious sense.

Pilgrims

The Mayflower Compact stated that the Pilgrims were to govern over a world of “strangers” (people who were not Puritan). By writing down this document and signing it, they were showing the seriousness of their secular belief. Written words were akin to the written word of God. They believed this document as something written to handle problems not discussed in the Bible.

Winthrop’s Group

1629—A group of Puritans—Congregationalists—decided they had to leave England so that the government would not take their money. These folks were wealthy and feared the loss of their riches. So, they decided to go to the New World where their wealth would be safe.

Winthrop’s Group

Winthrop was their leader. During the trip over the sea on the Arabella, he gave the famous sermon “A Model of

Christian Charity.”

Winthrop’s Group

Winthrop’s Puritans believed that the Church of England could be reformed. Thus, their colony would be an example of how a Christian community should be. This would give the world a model of a Christian community to follow. They felt they were a model for the Christian nations of the world.

Winthrop’s Group

The type of government set up by these colonists is a theocracy—a government under the guidance of God.