Roger Williams Beliefs

2. What effect did Puritanism have on Winthrop’s view of the world and his role in it?

People immigrated to America for many reasons, most people shared in the same ideas of going to the New World to start new lives away from England. Roger Williams and John Winthrop both joined in the Puritan dissent to New England, but while they were living in Boston, Massachusetts they did not agree on several matters. These two men had contrasting views when it came to Christianity, separating from the Church of England and religious liberty.

The New England colonies developed quickly and rapidly through the early 1600s. The colonies’ development was largely influenced by the Puritans, who had helped found most of the colonies in the region after emigrating from GB. The philosophies, ideas, and values of the Puritans greatly shaped the development of the colonies in a number of distinct ways. Politically, the idea of a united, representative government that later became a staple of the US was derived from Puritan ideals. Economically, the ideals of fair pricing and the celebrated “Yankee frugality and thriftiness” originated from the Puritans. Socially, emphasis on church, religion, and community was another lasting influence of the Puritans. Clearly, the values held by the Puritans greatly influenced the political, economic, and social development of the New England colonies from 1630 to 1660.

His lifelong search for a closer personal union with God forged his beliefs and ideas. Rejecting the moderate theology of Puritanism, Williams embraced the radical tenets of separatism, turned briefly to Baptist principles, but ultimately declared that Christ’s true church could not be known among men until Christ himself returned to establish it. From his reading of the New Testament, in which Christ had commanded religious truth and error to coexist in every nation until the end of the world, Williams concluded that liberty of conscience”soul liberty” as he called it was necessary because no one could know for certain which form of religion was the true one God had intended.

The decades surged by and thoughts other than religion began to crowd the minds of the American people. The smoldering ideas of independence, enlightenment, and innovation elicited a new mentality in America. Puritan ideals were not held as high, for other religious sects had taken their place. The stringencies of the Puritan lifestyle wafted away as America grew in its diversity, but the Puritan mindset was rooted in the soil and could not be torn away. The words that John Winthrop had spoken on the Arabella were held at the base of the country, “For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.”

1) Who were the Puritans and how did Puritans organize their local communities? Why did the religious fervor of New England Puritans decline after 1660? How did the Salem witch episode reflect the tensions and changes in seventeenth-century New England life and thought?

In the trial of Anne Hutchinson, we meet a well intentioned yet lost people described and labelled as the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company. These self governing Puritans, once a people who sought God to set them on their way, settled only to be found as a people who simply lost their way. This journey to lost began when first motivated by a desire for religious reform and separation from the liturgy, ceremonies and practices of the Church of England. Once they banned together, they set on their way and traveled in groups to the New World. With the Word of God as their ultimate authority and the desire for a personal relationship with God, these people landed in Boston in 1630 united to self govern the newly founded Massachussets Bay Colony. Unfortunatly, this self rule resulted in a government of intolerance, fear and a liturgy not much different from what was once found in the Church of England. A system designed to set apart outward morality, or sanctification, to strengthen the authority of the Church only worked to neglect the place of true piety purposed to strengthen the spiritual lives of the people it served.

Murrin, Paul E. Johnson, James M. Mcpherson, Alicea Fahs, Gary Gerstle, Emily S. Rosenberg, and Norman L. Rosenberg, “Puritans fleeing to America hoped to escape the divine wrath that threatened england and to create in America the kind of churches that God demanded.” (John et al., 2012). Because the English church was beginning to become “perverted, corrupted, and utterly overthrown by the multitude of evil examples and the licentious government” (John Winthrop) the Puritans feared God’s rage at the Church of England, so therefore they felt they urgently need to flee in order to escape this wrath and please God by creating a “City Upon a Hill”. This means the Puritans had to set an example in Massachusetts because they wanted to spread the gospel and create a government surrounding all of their principles around God’s word and do what they believed would glorify God. There was no where else where an opportunity for a pure church

There are many similarities and differences between the three mainland regions in British North America in the time span of 1720 and 1750. These regions are New England, the Middle colonies, and the South. The biggest thing all the regions had in common were that their population increased drastically due to the result of natural increase, European migration, and the American slave trade. All these regions were different in a political manner, they had different systems that pushed for a more representative government as yeomen and poorer farmers started to rebel against government policies that exploited them, or were unfair. After being acknowledged of these differences and similarities, conclusions have been made about the character of American society in the mid-eighteenth century. One of these conclusions are that overall the character of American society was increasingly similar and unified but also becoming more complex and diverse, at the same time.

Within the colony of Massachusetts, religion played an important role in shaping the community’s people and interests. The reason for the Puritans move to North America was to escape the convictions the Christians of England were placing on them (Divine, 89). Winthrop and his followers believed that in this new land they must create a place where they could come together as a people and build the perfect religious society (Divine, 90). In a speech about his vision for the land, John Winthrop said, “We must delight in each

Billions of people all over the nation and world have heard of the ideal American vision to be defined as a perfect set of rules and regulations that provide the ideal conditions for living life. Though many people to this day may still argue their understanding of these idealistic views, there is an ideniable truth that it was two most influential figures in history from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Benjamin Franklin and John Winthrop, who helped shape this vision through their strong and very different opinionated perspectives. God’ role and form of government, social classes gradation, nature and moral laws, individualism or collectivism and virtues of success are all important aspects that have helped shape the American vision, in which also the opinions of Franklin and Winthrop stand divided between the leaders. Franklin emphasized the importance of the science and reason, which explains the structure of the world its affect of life on every nation. Winthrop presented his “a City on a hill” model, where everything depends on God’s will.” (The Puritan Vision Altered, John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity”, 1630, pp. 6-7). Unlike Franklin’s democracy and liberty, he believed in state of brotherhood. However, Winthrop shares Franklins’ nature norms in relationship between people, but Winthrop also builds his vision

There were many people who impacted the settlement of the thirteen original colonies, which impacted us today. The person who has impacted the thirteen original colonies the most was Roger Williams because he founded Rhode Island. Rhode Island was a refuge for Baptists, Quakers, Jews, and many other religious minorities.

The 17th century Puritans were known to represent a religious group migrating from England to America in order to practice religious freedom. These groups were determined to “purify” churches of England from Catholic practices. Puritans are known for their religious, social, and political influences on early America. Edmund S. Morgan’s novel The Puritan Family highlights a part of history that many would tend to look over upon- that is, the complex structural life of Puritan Families in the 17th century.

I have known Raoul Williams for 17 years he is my cousin. Raoul Williams is dedicated, energetic, positive and conscientious in whatever he does. Raoul is a person who knows what he wants out of life

In Morality: An Introduction to Ethics, Bernard Williams aims to question the figure of the amoralist. The amoralist can be characterized as a person who, regardless of acknowledging the world’s claims of moral considerations, does not possess these sensitivities himself. Furthermore, the foundational values of morality, which direct—for the most part—the actions of others, do not influence the amoralist’s judgments similarly. When Williams addresses the amoralist, he wants to show how someone might be able to convince another individual who is insensitive to moral concerns to be swayed in hopes of look at morality as a way of decision-making.