Puritans
Uploaded by tauseef on Jan 16, 2004
Tauseef Ahmed
Research Paper
"Puritan Lifestyle, Ethics and Contributions in the Development of the United States"
Puritans were a group of people who believed in Puritanism, a movement to purify the Church of England, started in the 16th century. The purpose of this movement was to simply cleanse the Anglican Church, which they believed was going in the wrong direction. When the number of Puritans starts to increase, they were persecuted in England and many moved away from the country to settle elsewhere in Europe. Later on when the new colonies were being established in the Americas, many Puritans moved from Europe to settle in the continent. In 1629 a colony was founded in the New World called Massachusetts Bay by Puritans. However, the influence of Puritanism didn’t decline from Europe until 17th and 18th century. Besides religious influence, there were many other contributions that were made by the Puritans, such as the development of town meetings, stress on the value education, and enhancement on farming, however, they have failed to maintain their status and influence in the world today.
Puritans had a variety of beliefs and many were considered as rules and laws in Puritan colonies. They believed in the total corruption of humans at the point they are born, which is the concept of original sin. Unconditional Election was also an idea believed by Puritans, which basically means God saves those who he wishes, the concept of predestination. The also believed in Irresistible Grace, which means that whoever God is pleased with, obtains the grace, and in Perseverance of the saints, which signifies that those who are elected by God have the power or permission to interpret His will. Many Puritan writers were very much influenced by their religious studies and many writers tried to make God more relevant to the world and tried to transform His mysteriousness into simplicity that the people could easily understand.
John Winthrop, a Puritan leader started establishing a new colony in 1629 with a thousand Puritan settlers. This colony was situated in Massachusetts and the town was called Salem. Two hundred people died during the winter and another two hundred returned to England in the same year. However, within the next ten years there were almost twenty thousand people living in the colony. From 1640 the colony was on its own without any help from the English authorities and after nine years from when Winthrop died,...