preview

Puritans And The Church Of England

Good Essays

In the seventeenth century, England Puritans noticed that the Church of England was tolerating too many practices that were associated with the Church of Rome. The Puritans frowned upon this. The Puritans held a high view of scripture and believed that the English Reformation had not gone far enough in reforming the church (The Puritan Beliefs, 2004). The England Puritans desired to ‘purify’ and change the church from within, however it was unsuccessful in England and Puritans relocated. In the early-mid seventeenth century, thousands of England Puritans migrated from England to North America, primarily New England, to practice religious freedom. (What is Puritanism and what did the Puritans believe?, 2015) The Puritans’ very conservative view on religion and the idea of purifying the Church of England led them to live and worship as God would like them to. Because of their view on religion, any acts/behaviors that seemed unusual or abnormal was thought to be the work of the devil. This lead to a series of court cases involving the accusations of persons doing witchcraft/interacting with the devil, also known as the Salem witch trials. The Salem witch trials began in February 1692 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. It all started with a group of young girls that claimed to be possessed by the devil that started all of the mayhem soon to follow. The allegedly possessed group of young girls began accusing several local women of witchcraft; the town broke out into mass

Get Access