New England Puritans

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New England Puritans

• What are our contemporary views of the Puritans?

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Initial Differences Between VA and NE

• Single v. families
• LABORors v. skilled
• Wealth v. Religion

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What is Calvinism?

• God is All Powerful
• Humans weak sinners who deserve eternal damnation
• Yet God in his mercy has chosen a Select few
• Saints
• Harsh Implications

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Morphology of Conversion

• Average person
• Something terrible happens
• You become introspective read the Bible and
  pray
• Combat in your soul Doubt v. Hope
• Feeling of Assurance, Mercy, Grace
• PERHAPS God has selected you but.
• YOU NEVER REALLY KNOW.
• Ministers decide if you might be a saint and
  allow you formal church membership

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Wilderness Experience

• Significant in Puritan Mind
• Nesting place of Demons
• Natives as demons
• Biblical parallels

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Total Environment for Obedience

• Government means family and church
• Civil Authority church obedience
• Punishment by authorities for lack of religious
• Obedience fines, jail, stocks
• John Winthrop- Gov. of Mass

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DECLENSION

• Decline of Puritan society due to
• Rebels
• Half-Way Covenant
• Outlanders
• Prosperity

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REBELS

• Roger Williams

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Anne Hutchinson
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Half-Way Covenant

• Young people not having conversion experience
• Allowed children of saints Half-way covenant
  baptize them into church and hope for the best
• Theological purity v. social control

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Outlanders

• Tremendous population growth 1670-1700 up 58
• Pressure on land
• People want to move further away
• Tension over taxes, churches between old towns
  and new towns

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Prosperity

• Why is Prosperity a Problem?
• Cannot serve two masters God v. Mammon
• Wealthy merchants less obedient to ministers
• Religious underpinning of Puritan new England
  threatened by all these forces

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Conclusion

• Comparison between Virginia and New England
• Virginia starts out as a chaotic mess that
  becomes increasingly stratified and stable
• New England starts out as stratifies and stable
  and increasingly unravels
• Evidence? Witchcraft Outbreak!!!