Puritanism in New England

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Puritanism in New England

• American Literature I
• 9/20/2004
• Cecilia H. C. Liu

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Who are Puritans?

• 1. first began as a taunt or insult applied by
  traditional Anglicans to those who criticized or
  wished to "purify" the Church of England.
• 2. refers to two distinct groups "separating"
  Puritans, such as the Plymouth colonists, who
  believed that the Church of England was corrupt
  and that true Christians must separate themselves
  from it and non-separating Puritans, such as the
  colonists who settled the Massachusetts Bay
  Colony, who believed in reform but not
  separation.

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Massachusetts colonists

• Most Massachusetts colonists were nonseparating
  Puritans who wished to reform the established
  church, largely Congregationalists who believed
  in forming churches through voluntary compacts. 
  The idea of compacts or covenants was central to
  the Puritans' conception of social, political,
  and religious organizations.

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First three major English settlements on east
coast

• 1. the Virginia colony at Jamestown (1607) -
  mainly Church of England (no dissenters)
• 2. Plymouth Colony (1620) - Separatist in name
• 3. Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630) - Puritan

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Puritan Beliefs (I)

• The first was their belief in predestination.
  Puritans believed that belief in Jesus and
  participation in the sacraments could not alone
  effect ones salvation one cannot choose
  salvation, for that is the privilege of God
  alone. All features of salvation are determined
  by Gods sovereignty, including choosing those
  who will be saved and those who will receive
  Gods irresistible grace.

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Puritan Beliefs (II)

• The Puritans distinguished between
  "justification," or the gift of God's grace given
  to the elect, and "sanctification," the holy
  behavior that supposedly resulted when an
  individual had been saved according to The
  English Literatures of America, "Sanctification
  is evidence of salvation, but does not cause it"
  (434).
• Jehlen, Myra, and Michael Warner, eds. The
  English Literatures of America, 1500-1800.
  London Routledge, 1997.

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predestination

• For many, the doctrine of predestination answered
  these pressing inner needs. Its power to comfort
  and reassure troubled souls arose from its wider
  message that, beyond preordaining the eternal
  fates of men and women, God had a plan for all of
  human historythat every event in the lives of
  individuals and nations somehow tended toward an
  ultimate triumph of good over evil, order over
  disorder, Christ over Satan.

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• In other words, Calvin (and his many followers
  among groups like the Puritans) saw human history
  as an unfolding cosmic drama in which every
  person had a predestined role to play. True, men
  and women had no free will, but they had the
  assurance that their existenceindeed, their
  every actionwas MEANINGFUL and that their
  strivings and sufferings in the present would
  ultimately produce a future of perfect peace and
  securitya kind of heaven on earth.

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Covenant of Works

• The concept of a covenant or contract between God
  and his elect pervaded Puritan theology and
  social relationships. In religious terms, several
  types of covenants were central to Puritan
  thought.
• Type 1 The Covenant of Works held that God
  promised Adam and his progeny eternal life if
  they obeyed moral law. After Adam broke this
  covenant, God made a new Covenant of Grace with
  Abraham (Genesis 18-19).

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Type 2 Covenant of Grace

• This covenant requires an active faith, and, as
  such, it softens the doctrine of predestination.
  Although God still chooses the elect, the
  relationship becomes one of contract in which
  punishment for sins is a judicially proper
  response to disobedience. During the Great
  Awakening, Jonathan Edwards later repudiated
  Covenant Theology to get back to orthodox
  Calvinism. Those bound by the covenant considered
  themselves to be charged with a mission from God.

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Type 3 Covenant of Redemption

• The Covenant of Redemption was assumed to be
  preexistent to the Covenant of Grace. It held
  that Christ, who freely chose to sacrifice
  himself for fallen man, bound God to accept him
  as mans representative. Having accepted this
  pact, God is then committed to carrying out the
  Covenant of Grace. According to Perry Miller,
  "God covenanted with Christ that if he would pay
  the full price for the redemption of believers,
  they should be discharged. Christ hath paid the
  price, God must be unjust, or else he must set
  thee free from all iniquitie" (New England Mind
  406).
• Miller , Perry. The New England Mind From
  Colony to Province. 1953. Rpt. Harvard Harvard
  UP, 1998.

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Churches

• The concept of the covenant also provided a
  practical means of organizing churches.  Since
  the state did not control the church, the
  Puritans reasoned, there must be an alternate
  method of of establishing authority. According to
  Harry S. Stout, "For God's Word to function
  freely, and for each member to feel an integral
  part of the church's operations, each
  congregation must be self-sufficient, containing
  within itself all the offices and powers
  necessary for self-regulation.  New England's
  official apologist, John Cotton, termed this form
  of church government 'Congregational,' meaning
  that all authority would be located within
  particular congregations" (The New England Soul 
  17). 
• Stout, Harry S. The New England Soul Preaching
  and Religious Culture in Colonial New England.
  New York Oxford UP, 1988.

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The Great Awakening

• What historians call "the first Great Awakening"
  can best be described as a revitalization of
  religious piety that swept through the American
  colonies between the 1730s and the 1770s.
• One of those who attacked this growing
  rationality, and who was also one of the
  principle figures in the Great Awakening was
  Jonathan Edwards. Edwards has received a bad
  press for his Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
  God. In that sermon he used the image of a
  spider dangling by a web over a hot fire to
  describe the human predicament.

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The three most famed evangelical preachers of
the Great Awakening

• http//www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/
  grawaken.htm

George Whitefield
Jonathan Edwards
Gilbert Tennent
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All these images are derived from National
Humanities Center 17th and 18th Centuries
http//www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/tserve/eighteen.htm
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John Eliot, ca. date (unknown artist). Eliot a
Puritan minister in 17th -c. Massachusetts, was
known as the "Apostle of the Indians. Image
from www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/.../ ekeyinfo/puritanb.htm

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Puritan church with pulpit, pews, and,
significantly, no altar. Old Ship Meeting House,
Hingham, Mass., built in 1681. Image from
www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/.../ ekeyinfo/puritanb.htm
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References

• Puritanism and Predestination
  http//www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/
  puritanb.htm
• http//www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/tserve/eighteen/ekey
  info/grawaken.htm
• American Journeys A Map of Virginia
  http//www.americanjourneys.org/aj-075/summary/ind
  ex.asp
• Images from National Humanities Center 17th and
  18th Centuries http//www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/tserv
  e/eighteen.htm
• Puritanism in New England http//guweb2.gonzag
  a.edu/faculty/campbell/enl310/purdef.htm
• The Great Awakening
• http//www.u-s-history.com/pages/h620.html
• http//www.wfu.edu/matthetl/perspectives/fou
  r.html