20 took up social causes such as temperance and anti slavery. Nonconformists and
Evangelicals became mainstays of moral and social reform in 19
th
century Britain.
3.3 Puritanism in America
Puritanism was entirely English in its origins, yet the movement achieved it greatest influence in America. Here the Puritans were able to carry their
program without interference and with less disagreement among themselves. The 17
th
century colonies in New England represent the fullest development of the movement.
The first puritans arrive in America were Separatists. A new group of Separatists fled England in 1607-1609, among them the Reverend John Robinson
and members of his congregation. They found refugee in Leiden, Holland, from where a portion of the group known as Pilgrims, emigrated to America, landing at
Plymouth in December 1620. The colony was never large, yet its founding is commemorated more than of any other colony in American history. One reason in
the moving history of the venture written in 17
th
century by William Brandford, governor of Plymouth Colony. His history of Plymouth plantation is a literary
masterpiece of the American experience. To the north of Plymouth, in the area around Boston, other Puritans began
arriving in 1628-1630. they came over under the auspices of the Massachusetts Bay Company, a corporation with rights to the area of land lying between the
Charles and the Merrimack rivers.
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21 The founders of Massachusetts wanted freedom to practice their religious
beliefs. Leaving England at a time when Charles I seemed completely in control, they believed that their only chance for freedom lay in moving elsewhere. In their
view, the Church of England was a true church. Leaving England was simply their means of avoiding a conflict between their loyalty to the king and their loyalty to
Puritanism Another reason for leaving England was their belief that God was about to
punish the nation for refusing to obey his commands to reform. It seems particularly true of the colonists that they felt the final day of judgement was near.
They would take refugee in New England, they reasoned and waited for Christ to return and restore His kingdom. John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts
Bay Colony, who believed that the colonists were to act as an advance guard is setting up the kingdom, told them in 1630 that their mission was to build a “city
upon a hill”. Free to build as they wished, the founders of Massachusetts began by
enacting the basic program of the reform movement. Eliminating bishops, ceremonies, and much else. But they also took more radical steps, limiting church
membership to visible saints, and choosing democratic Congregationalism as the fomr of church government. There was an argument about these matters before
the ministers, led by John Cotton, drew up the Cambridge Platform 1648, a summary of Congregational theory and practice.
Another step was to make government a theocracy. In such a government the political leaders are supposed to protect the church from harm. Puritans
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22 believed that church and state should cooperate in serving God. To ensure this
happening, the founders of Massachusetts restricted the right to vote for officers of the colony to church members. John Winthrop feared that unless the saints held
political power, wrong kind of person would get elected to office and divert the colonists from their mission.
Protest againts the policies of Winthrop and Cotton came from several groups. Some colonists complained that Congregationalism was too democratic in
permitting every church member to participate in decision. Others declared that the basis of church membership was too narrow: they wanted it open to anyone of
goor behavior. Anne Hutchinson called for more radical change. The antinomian controversy 1836-1838, involving the issue of obedience to moral or religious
law versus inner grace as the basis for judging who were saints, pitted Hutchinson and her followers againts Governor Winthrop and the majority of the clergyman.
She lost, and was banished. Roger Williams argued againts identifying Massachusetts with Israel and giving the government any authority over the
church. In 1635, William was forced to leave Massachusetts for Rhode Island. For 30 years the New England colonies paid little attention to England.
The restoration of Charles II in 1660 meant a loss of independence, for the king demanded that the colonies allow other groups to set-up churches. Baptists
organized a congregation in 1663 ; Anglicans, in 1666. Toleratioin emerged slowly, with many colonists resenting change and the ministers worrying about a
decline in church membership. A synod met at Cambridge in 1662 and decline in church membership passed from generation to generation in a family. The
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23 Halfway Covenant, as this declaration was called, allowed children to be baptized
whose parents were not really visible saints. Membership was widened, but on the basis of lower standards.
The leading minister of the second generation of New England Puritans was Increase Mather. Together with his son, Cotton, he tried to prevent decline by
holding up the example of the founders. Cotton Mather wrote more than 400 books and pamphlets, among them Magnalia Christi Americana 1702, a lengthy
history of New England that extolled the first generation of settlers. A new champion of puritan belief and practice, Jonathan Edwards, led the
first revival movement in America, which is known as the Great Awakening, in the 1740’s. But some ministers considered the revival a sham and abandoned the
historic puritan emphasis upon the convertion experience. The doctrines of election and original sin were gradually put aside, and through a slow process of
evolution Unitarianism emerged out of Congregationalism. The process was completed in 1825.
Yet most Congregationalists remained faithful to evangelical tradition of Jonathan Edwards. In the 19
th
century, Yankee evangelists sponsored a series of revivals out of which emerged reform movements aimed againts slavery,
intemperance, and immortality. Yankees moving west carried this zeal for reform to upstate New York and the Middle West. In these areas the Republican party
developed in the 1850’s as the heir of Puritan morality.
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24
4. AN ANALYSIS OF NEGATIVE SIDE OF PURITANISM
