Essay The Puritan's Beliefs on Self Reliance

Puritanism was a major belief during the 1500s-1700s, Puritans believed that you are required to devote your whole life to the Lord. In order to be a Puritan you had to glorify God by attending church, report sinners, and show God’s grace through your own actions. In

Puritans and reformers of seventeenth century England have been given a bad name for their part in history. This is primarily because they were working against the grain and trying to create change in world that saw change as a threat. The time period was turbulent and there was bound to be resistance in a world that was dominated by Catholics and those that had reformed to abide by their King’s law. The puritans of the time were considered extreme and rubbed people the wrong way because they wanted a world that abided by their morals and ethical codes. For this, they took the blame for the misery that many suffered during this age, but as we see in Fire from Heaven, this is not a fair assessment. The Puritans of this time wanted to improve the lives of the people and society as a whole through morality and purity.

Religion had a powerful impact on Puritans lives. Many Puritan people had faith in a supreme being, God, and the teachings of his Divine Son, Jesus Christ. They’d assume that if you weren’t a good Christian they would suffer in hell, but if you were one would be saved by god. An example would be in the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” the speaker strongly describes about how being a bad Christian has its consequences and the good things that come of being a good Christian. “Many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him who has loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.”(152)This explains how they had a strong feeling towards god’s ways. By being concerned about their religious life and being good Christians.

Some of the Puritans’ main focuses were spreading their culture and faith. They thrived on the belief that they were sent from God, who expected them to study and live by his scriptures in the Bible. They believed stories in the Bible could be applied to every aspect of their lives. A big part of the reason they left England to have a new start in America is so that they would have an opportunity to purify the Church of England that they were accustomed to.

In the 1630's and the 1640's, the Puritans traveled to the colonies to detach from their opinion of a convoluted Church of England. They set up towns and started new lives that were all based on their idea of a pure religion. The Puritan's definition of a pure religion did not include many of the ideas of the Church of England. They built the colonies and made a system based upon the idea that God was the most important aspect of life. Puritan ideas and values influenced the political, economic, and social development of the New England colonies from 1630 through the 1660’s by spreading their beliefs into every facet of daily life. Politically their ideas regarding what was considered sinful behavior and how power was separated among the

Puritans believed they had a covenant with God to build a righteous, yet prosperous society. Laziness was a sin and sacrifice was an important Puritan virtue. According to Robert Keayne, in his last will and testament, 1653, the Puritan work ethic “testif[ies] to the world on [one’s] behalfe that [he] ha[s] not lived an idle, lazie or dronish life” (Document I). The Puritans shared the “Protestant ethic” as they were genuinely committed to their work. Puritans passed Blue Laws to keep their human instincts for pleasure and recreation in check. John Higginson in “The Cause of God and His People in New England,” 1662, states it “is never to be forgotten that New England is originally a plantation of Religion, not a Plantation of Trade” (Document J). Conflicts arose though between religion and money as Jeremiads criticized Puritans for becoming more individualistic and forgetting about the common

When looking into the history of the puritans one can find many things, however while reading “City Upon a Hill” and “The Divine Right to Occupy the land” one may then come up with the idea of the puritans being selfish.

When the Puritans first came to America, they settled in Salem, Massachusetts. In Salem there was a village and a town. The richer would live in the town, as the less fortunate would live in the village. In the village … in the town… Since the Puritans governed themselves, they chose the laws and how to run the government. In the village and town going to church was one of the most important things to Puritans. It was so important, that they would go to Church every single day. Anybody that would not attend church was frowned upon and was in fact illegal. Having a church membership, however did have its benefits. The citizens of Salem that did attend church were able to vote. This caused for church members to have a considerable amount of power and influence, they would practically run the church and decide everything. Since the Puritans established Salem they decide all the rules, because they saw it as their “responsibility toward God” (Marlowe 29). This explains why they were so strict with their lives and church. The government the Puritans ran had no religious freedom,

The New England colonies quickly expanded and developed, largely due to the vast emigration of Puritans who had come seeking religious freedom. Puritan values and ideas greatly shaped New England's economic, social, and political development throughout the 1600’s. Their belief in a driven and productive lifestyle gave New England surprising economical success that was the envy of the English empire. Additionally, Puritan values on religion and the importance of education affected their social interactions with the Native Americans and intelligence of the New England community. Finally, Puritan values shaped the political structure in New England that simultaneously restricted the liberties of the people while taking a step towards democracy.

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.”

This book is a short biography about John Winthrop. In this book Morgan outlines how Winthrop struggled with the dilemma, first internally, as he dealt with the question of whether traveling to the New World represented a selfish form of separatism, the desire to separate himself from an impure England, or whether, as he eventually determined, it offered a unique opportunity to set an example for all men by establishing a shining city upon a hill, a purer Christian community in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In this regard, it seems to have been of vital importance to Winthrop and his fellow Puritan colonists that they had the approval of the King and that though they were physically distancing

To begin with, Puritans were colonists who wanted to seek religious strength. It was a sin and against the law to not attend a church mass. It was also against the law to pursue any type of witchcraft because the was known to correlate

Thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not murder, and thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor are three of the ten commandments that God created for his people to follow. The Puritans valued the commandments and devoted their lives to following them. They supposedly believed in going to church every sunday, having their children baptized young, and living day by day in accordance with the scripture. The Puritans were thought to be holy and without fault, but no one is perfect; therefore, the Puritan society was bound to make a mistake. Instead of confessing and publicly stating that they were deviant, they chose to cover it up and hide. They claimed to be the innocent Christians that they were raised to be, but deep down, they were

This essay addresses the questions: What is Puritanism. What is the meaning of puritanism in American history? What is the Covenant as Puritans understood it. How were their ideas about the Covenant applied to their experience in America?

Puritanism could be defined by many as a huge turning point of the history of our culture. When we hear the word, “Puritan” it invokes a sense of religion, of strict values and correctness that laid the raw foundation for the different branches of churches today. Not only did they play a monumental part in the growth of Calvinism, but of early colonial government and the movement and spread of people across North America. Although their values and ideals are radical in terms of modern beliefs, our culture would not have formed the way it did without the early influence of Puritans. Most confuse the group of Puritans that escaped England with the Mayflower separatists, but that is not the case. Their cause was not to destroy the Church of England or forsake it, nor its reformed beliefs that they were unhappy with, it was to sculpt and whittle their own place of worship in an area where they could no longer be punished for it, while still clinging tightly to the essentials of Calvinism. This is where their journey starts, with the group of 900 that docked in the New World on June 12, 1630. Due to the group of Puritans lead by John Winthrop, we would eventually come to have an early American culture lead by strong austerity and obedience, and in time those that resulted from the downfall of this harsh society. In the absence of these strict settlers, we would not have such a strong sense of congregationalism and