Scholars of New England Puritans typically do capitalize the word, recognizing a distinct culture, even if filled with its own diversity, although some have also moved away from capitalizing the term for many of the same reasons. This article retains capitalization in part because its purpose is to help distinguish a certain people and a certain historiography of that people, and in part to recognize the different situation in New England.
For many, grasping what the Puritans believed and how it shaped their lives often forms the first and most difficult aspect of the subject. Offering both a quick historical overview and an account of Puritan piety, Bremer does an admirable job opening the topic. The best scholarly introduction to Puritanism can be found in Coffey and Lim , which provides not only a historical narrative to the development of Puritanism but also addresses major themes and legacies. Morgan , ostensibly a biography of the first Puritan governor of Massachusetts Bay, lays out several key features of Puritanism, and Bremer presents a whole narrative of American Puritanism while linking it at key moments to transatlantic concerns.
Spurr , meanwhile, offers a very readable introduction to English Puritanism. In the s, Puritan studies turned decidedly toward the transatlantic, emphasizing the many networks, communications, and interlinked histories that spanned the ocean though the transatlantic emphasis remains much more a feature of American Puritan studies than of English Puritan studies.
This paradigm shift has become important enough that, beyond the works cited below, almost any 21st-century publication on New England Puritanism will include some account of English and transatlantic affairs.
Bremer represents the shift in historiography well while also providing a good introduction to Puritanism more generally. The best full-length study of transatlantic continuities in Puritanism remains Foster Finally, Bremer and Webster is a nearly comprehensive encyclopedia of Puritanism that includes an impressive set of Puritan biographies along with definitions of the most significant events and ideas.
Bremer, Francis J. Arranged as both a developmental story of Puritanism and a series of topics about the subject, this very readable book provides a full overview of New England Puritanism and its relation to English affairs. Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction.
New York: Oxford University Press, A short overview of both the history and the characteristics of Puritanism. Best for those who are just beginning a study of Puritanism. Their society was a theocracy that governed every aspect of their lives. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech or of the press were as foreign to the Puritans as to the Church of England.
When other colonists arrived with differing beliefs, they were driven out by the Puritans. For instance, the minister Roger Williams , the founder of what became Rhode Island, fled Massachusetts after his proposal to separate church and state met with Puritan hostility.
The framers of the Constitution thought that one way of avoiding the religious intolerance of the Puritan era was to encourage a multiplicity of denominations; the First Amendment specifically prohibits the kind of national religious establishment that had once dominated colonies such as Massachusetts.
This article was originally published in Daniel Baracskay teaches in the public administration program at Valdosta State University. Dunn, Richard S. Princeton, N.
Jones, Howard Mumford. New York: Viking, With Winthrop as Governor, the Puritans, as they were called by their enemies, established a government and churches and initially negotiated with the local tribes for land; later they would decide that God had intended for the land to be freely taken by the English.
Winthrop thought of himself as creating a Christian utopia where they could practice their religion in peace with each congregation having its own elected minister and its own covenant with God. Because Winthrop and most of his fellow Puritans had previously experienced a religious conversion experience, they were able to become church members, vote, and own property.
Their form of government had elected leaders such as Winthrop himself who made decisions with the advice of magistrates and the clergy. Some scholars have called this form of government a theocracy. To understand the Puritans and the nature of their society, it is necessary to grasp some of the theological principles of Calvinism.
He reasoned that since God has infinite power and knowledge He knows everything that has ever occurred in the universe and everything that will occur. Thus, since God knows what every human on earth has done and will do, He already knows who is predestined to receive His grace, have a conversion experience, and spend eternity in heaven.
No person can change what is predestined so free will plays no role in the process of salvation. The clergy advised their church members that they should pray, study the Bible, and hope to receive grace, but they also must accept that if an individual is not predestined to be saved, there is nothing that he or she can do to save themselves.
When a person receives grace, he or she is quiet aware of the powerful experience, and a congregation is made up of those joyful converted souls whom they call saints. Many may have lived very virtuous lives, but if they do not experience grace and conversion, they will not be saved. While a large percentage of the first arrivals were saints, many of their children were not. To be sure that the church leaders were not fooled into admitting hypocrites who give false testimony of their conversion, the clergy required applicants for membership to give a detailed personal narrative of their conversion experience before the congregation and answer questions.
Because many who did not experience grace became discouraged, the clergy tried to find ways to encourage good behavior even as they knew that only the few were predestined for salvation. This problem of controlling the disgruntled and unconverted produced many problems for the colony.
Although most of those who migrated to America in shared a common Calvinist theology and the experience of having been persecuted in England for their faith, there was by no means unanimity regarding how they would practice their religion. Each congregation was autonomous and followed the rules of its own written covenant, and each minister had his own ideas on how to apply the various doctrines of Calvinism.
As the colony grew, increasing numbers did not embrace Calvinism at all or even Christianity. Different dissenting groups and sects arose including Quakers, Anabaptists, Millenarians, Baptists, Familists, Enthusiasts, and Antinomians. The Congregationalists sought to purge these other groups from the colony, and they agreed with Rev.
Such problems with religious diversity only increased with time. The most serious and destructive case of dissent arose from within the original group of settlers and involved a very prominent family. Having immigrated to Boston in to follow their minister John Cotton, Anne and William Hutchinson quickly became prominent figures in the community. William was elected deputy to the Massachusetts Court, and Anne continued her community service as a nurse midwife and spiritual adviser to women.
As people grew weary of not receiving grace and others faked conversion experiences, all the clergy could do was to encourage people to pray, study the scriptures, and await grace and conversion.
But this doctrine was frustrating for many who felt that living a virtues life of good deeds should count for something toward receiving grace and salvation. When the Reverend John Wilson, who was the pastor of the congregation in which Cotton was the teacher, seemed to go too far in the direction of suggesting that good works might lead to salvation, the Hutchinsons were disturbed.
Disturbed by what she heard as heresy, Anne began to hold weekly meetings in her home to discuss theology. She and her husband gathered others who sought to oust Reverend John Wilson, but the clergy closed ranks and declared Hutchinson to be the heretic.
Unlike her husband, she refused to recant her opinion and was subjected to a sensational trial that included suggestions that she was in love with John Cotton. Cotton was forced to condemn her, and she was excommunicated. When she and her family were banished in , they moved to Rhode Island for five years and then to New York where all of her family but one was killed in an Indian raid.
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