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3. A BRIEF VIEW OF PURITANISM
3.1 Belief and Practice
Puritanism was a refore movement within English Protestanism that emerged in the 16
th
century. The movement proposed to purify the church of England and to invigorate the daily practice of religion. For their program of
reform, the puritans were indebted to John Calvin and the example of the Calvinist tradition. Another source of puritanism was the Bible, considered to sole
authority in matters of faith. Puritans believed that roman Catholics has perverted Christianity from the doctrine and worship, and they wanted the Christian church
restored to its original condition, as described in scripture. The movement remained frustrated until the reign of Charles I 1625-
1649, when a political crisis led to civil war and puritans took control of the English government. Meanwhile, Puritan emigrants had colonized New England
founding Plymouth in 1620 and Massachusetts in 1626-1630. The period of the English Revolution of 1640-1660 also known as the “Puritan Revolution” marked
the height of puritan influence. Decline quickly followed as the movement split into several sects and denominations. An enduring legacy was evangelicalism, and
the many waves of revivalism and reform that have swept America since the 16
th
century all stem from the Puritan movement. In demanding greater purity and stricter obedience to the will of God.
Puritanism resembled other reform movements in the history of Christianity. A type of person like the Puritan, the purist who rejects the compromises of
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14 everyday life, has often appeared within the church. Englishmen in the 16
th
century called such persons “Puritans” a name derived from the Latin word for pure, and intended as a criticism of the reformers for being too extreme in their
demands. Puritans would not accept the status quo. Because they were disrupters, they were constantly criticized in England and America.
Originally Puritanism was a phase of the Protestant Reformation, and the Puritans wanted England to be reformed as John Calvin 1509-1564 had
reformed Geneva. Most of their religious doctrines were also taken over from Calvinism, including their belief in all-powerful God. In the 16
th
century no Protestant doubted the authority of scripture, the reality of heaven and hell, or the
sinfulness of man. Every living person was guilty of sin because of Adam’s disobedience in the garden if Eden. Like other Christians of their time, the
Puritans also thought the doctrine of a risen Christ who saved mankind from eternal punishment.
Some of the Puritans were millenarians, which means that they thought of history as coming to the end with the return of Christ, the last judgement, and the
establishment of the kingdom of God. The millenarians please for reform were based on the expectation that these events would occur fairly soon.
The Puritans differed from most Christians in their description of the process of attaining salvation. They held that God elected or predestined certain
persons a limited number, not all mankind by any means to be saved and this solely out of his mercy. The doctrine of election was the Puritan’s way of
emphasizing that no one earned salvation by performing good works. Man was so
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15 tainted by sin, they reasoned, that his works could never please God saving grace
came as a gift, not as a reward for anything that man had done. A person knew that he was elected to salvation if he went process of
religious conversion. For the puritan, the conversion experience was the centre of religious life. Conversion was the extraordinary moment when salving grace
entered the heard releasing in from bondage to sin. Those who had this experience took on a new identity. The become “visible saints”, a person who showed by
their behavior that their whole way of living was based on serving God. Countless puritans offered descriptions of the conversion process, but none
with more insight than John Bunyan in The Pilgrim’s Progress 1678. The hero of Bunyan’s allegory sets out from City of Destruction for Mount Zion, bearing
on his back a great burden the emblem of his sins. On the way he falls into a swamp despair. He turn aside from the straight and narrow path religions truth.
Arriving at the Cross, he feels the burden tumble off, and his heart leaps for a joy. But troubles lie ahead. He will doubt his faithfulness to Christ, and he must face
the temptations of Vanity fair. In this homely fashion, Bunyan dramatized the lifelong effort of the
puritan to move from sin to grace, and having received grace, to live as a visible saint “in but not of the world”. It was the characteristics of the Puritan that he
worried about his spiritual condition. Daily the saint examined himself to see whether his heart were truly seot on Christ. One Puritan minister drew up a list of
60 rules to guide himself in making this examination, while others kept diaries as a record of their self-scrutiny. Often the diariest found much to complain of, and
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16 such journals suggest that the Puritan could lead a melancholy life. But the
sombre side of Puritanism can be overstressed. Puritans did not wear black clothes, as popular image implies. They liked their spirits, were far less prudish
than the victorians, and in many ways behaved like other middle-class Englishmen of the period.
As reformers, Puritan proposed to change the basis of current membership. They regarded the church as a special place because it was here that the saints
gathered to create a new kind of community. People were to enter the church voluntarily, but only after promosing to “walk in the ways” of Christ. Each
congregation was empowered to dismiss any member who fell from grace. Every adult male in the church had the right to vote on such matters as choosing a
minister, admitting new members, and deciding cases of church discipline. The community of the saints was set a part from the world both in being pure and in
practicing a certain degree of democracy. What held this community together was a conception of history. Puritans
believed that God by His providence determined the course of human events. They assumed that providence would favor people who entered into a covenant
with God to obey His commandments. Reading themselves as covenant people, Puritans often compared their relationship with God to that of the children of
Israel as a chosen people. They too had a special role to play in history, to prepare the church fo Christ’s return to earth.
In the course of English and American history, the Puritan out look had many consequences. It stimulated the rise of nationalism, as Englishmen came to
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17 regard themselves as being an “elect nation” and Americans absorbed the idea of
mission. It is not clear that Puritanism led straight to democracy. Yet puritan church government taught people to practice responsible citizenship, and it
obliged rules to serve a higher law than self-interest. On the whole, the movement helped to weaken traditional elites and ideologies. As an expression of the middle
class in England, Puritanism also encouraged capitalism and individualism.