The Puritans

1
The Puritans

• Brad Hutchinson
• Academic English 11

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Who were the Puritans?

• Puritanism was a movement that attempted to
  purify the Church of England by eliminating all
  influences of the Catholic Church.

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Puritans and Calvinism

• Puritanism was an outgrowth of the teachings of
  John CalvinCalvinism.

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Separatists and Congregationalists

• There were two main groups of Puritansthe
  Separatists, who believed that the church could
  not be reformed, and the Congregationalists, who
  believed that the church could be reformed.

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The Puritans and the Bible

• The Puritans believed that only the Bible had any
  authority at all, that the Pope had no religious
  authority. Since the Bible was the only
  authority, a Christian would have to be able to
  read. Thus, education became important to them.

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Basic Puritan Beliefs

• Typologythe belief that a people are reliving
  events from the Old Testament and these events
  prefigure the return of Christ.

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Basic Puritan Beliefs

• ElectionGod chooses people as the elect (people
  who are saved) or as the damned.

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Basic Puritan Beliefs

• Original depravityeveryone is born a sinner and
  is disgusting in the eyes of God.

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Basic Puritan Beliefs

• Limited atonementthere really isnt any way to
  work toward being savedno salvation through good
  works

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Basic Puritan Beliefs

• Irresistible GraceWhile there was a rumor that a
  woman named Grace roamed the Puritan settlements
  luring men from their families to live in the
  wilderness, this is not what Irresistible Grace
  means.

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Basic Puritan Beliefs

• Irresistible graceGods decision to make someone
  of the elect cannot be changedonce of the elect,
  always of the elect.

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Basic Puritan Beliefs

• PredestinationGod has chosen the elect and the
  damned prior to the birth of a person. Despite
  predestination, people had to act as good people
  because of the idea that God would only choose
  those who were good so only people who acted as
  if they were good would be of the elect.

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Basic Puritan Beliefs

• Doubtsince one could never really know if one
  was of the elect, Puritans lived in doubtlooking
  for signs from God in everything. This led to
  meditation poetry/writing.

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Basic Puritan Beliefs

• Puritan ethiconly hard work can show that a
  person is of the elect, thus hard work is
  important

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Puritan Ideas on the Structure of Communities

• The individual must accept his or her place in
  society.
• God set up a hierarchymen above women, whites
  above all other races, Protestant English above
  all other cultures

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Puritan Writing

• Conversion narrative/personal narrativeto be a
  member of the church, one had to give an account
  of how one knew that he or she was one of the
  elect. In the New World, a man could not own
  land unless he was a church member. Thus, these
  accounts, personal narratives, became an
  important element of literature at the time.

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Puritan Writing

• SermonsMinisters of the Puritan church would
  give sermons on Sundays to help the members of
  their community understand passages in the Bible.
  One of the main types of writing we have from
  the Puritans are sermons.

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Puritan Writings

• Biographythe Puritans wrote biographies to show
  the workings of God in the lives of the elect.
  They believed that His will was evident in the
  workings of the world. They were tales meant to
  teach about how the elect behaved. If someone
  was writing a biography, he (or she, I guess)
  could change events so that the workings of God
  were more prominent. The lessons of biography
  were much more important than the truth. For the
  Puritans, biography was an allegorical tool for
  the learning of Gods will.

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Puritan Writings

• Plain stylethe Puritans believed that ornate
  creations were like the workings of the Catholic
  Church and thus they should only make plain,
  unadorned things thus, their writing was also
  plain and unadorned.

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Pilgrims

• The ascension of James Stuart, a Catholic, to the
  throne of England led a group of Puritans to move
  to Holland where they had to learn trades to
  support themselves. They were separatists.

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Pilgrims

• Eventually, they decided to leave Holland because
  they were afraid that their children were growing
  up too Dutch. Because of John Smiths book
  about the New World as a place of great riches,
  they settled on the New World as their
  destination. Not all the Puritans in Holland
  went along. Many families left members behind
  with the idea that they would send for them once
  the colony was established.

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Pilgrims

• William Bradford led the Pilgrims.

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Pilgrims

• Mayflower Compacta document created by the
  Pilgrims on the voyage to the New World to keep
  the peace amongst the colonists. Here we see the
  idea that these people thought of themselves as
  elected in a secular sense as well as in a
  religious sense.

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Pilgrims

• The Mayflower Compact stated that the Pilgrims
  were to govern over a world of strangers
  (people who were not Puritan). By writing down
  this document and signing it, they were showing
  the seriousness of their secular belief. Written
  words were akin to the written word of God. They
  believed this document as something written to
  handle problems not discussed in the Bible.

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Winthrops Group

• 1629A group of PuritansCongregationalistsdecide
  d they had to leave England so that the
  government would not take their money. These
  folks were wealthy and feared the loss of their
  riches. So, they decided to go to the New World
  where their wealth would be safe.

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Winthrops Group

• Winthrop was their leader. During the trip over
  the sea on the Arabella, he gave the famous
  sermon A Model of
• Christian Charity.

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Winthrops Group

• Winthrops Puritans believed that the Church of
  England could be reformed. Thus, their colony
  would be an example of how a Christian community
  should be. This would give the world a model of a
  Christian community to follow. They felt they
  were a model for the Christian nations of the
  world.

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Winthrops Group

• The type of government set up by these colonists
  is a theocracya government under the guidance of
  God.