Puritans (Congregationalist')

Each colony government favored certain churches. During this time most believed that close alliances between religion and government benefited both the church and the state. Ministers were highly revered by the colonists. Although ministers were not allowed to hold political office, they made many of the most important decisions. In 1636, Harvard College was founded to train Puritan ministers. It was the first college in North America.

Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by (Congregationalist’) Puritans led by Governor John Wentworth in 1630, as well as John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley (who founded Boston). John Winthrop was an English Puritan lawyer, and popular founding Governor who had the goal to erect a pious Puritan state from an idea in Mt 5:14. He said, “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”

The Puritans were members of a Protestant reform movement. They believed the Church of England was too similar to the Roman Catholic church and should eliminate ceremonies and practices not rooted in the Bible. Puritans felt that they had a direct covenant with God to enact these reforms. They were viewed anywhere from hairsplitters to hypocrites who cheated the very neighbors they judged inadequate Christians and persecuted other denominations. Some dissenters were banished, others hanged.

The Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock were another Puritan faction fleeing for their safety from British persecution. However, they were ‘separatists’ and felt people needed to renounce the Anglican church to worship properly. Puritanism survived in a wide range of evangelical Protestant groups, but even more so in the secular form of self-reliance, moral rigor, and political localism that became, by the Age of Enlightenment, virtually the definition of Americanism.

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During the English Reformation John Calvin’s writings influenced a group which became known as Puritans as they were insisting on purifying the Church of England of what they believed to be unscriptural Catholic elements that lingered in its institutions and practices. They were nicknamed Puritans or Precisionists as a term of contempt. . Puritans did not use the term to refer to themselves, primarily using 'Saints' as a self-referent, and ‘Congregationalists’ as their group name.

Some of the things Puritans complained about included: ministers wearing surplices (loose, white garments); people kneeling while taking Communion; ornaments, paintings and stained glass windows in churches; the playing of organ music during services and the celebrations of saints' days. They also disliked the power that the bishops had in the church. For example, many Puritans disapproved of bishops appointing church ministers. Instead, they suggested that ministers should be elected by the people who attended church services. This was considered threatening to the bishops as well as the monarchs that supported them. This led to ongoing friction between Anglicans, Pilgrims, Puritans, Catholics, and other factions.

Queen Elizabeth saw the Puritans as a threat to monarchical government and feared that Puritans who complained about the wealth and power of bishops would eventually say the same thing about kings and queens. Under Queen Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603 CE) they were accommodated (for the most part) while under her successor James I of England (r. 1603-1625 CE) they were persecuted and so many fled to America then.

Puritans did not consider themselves separatists the way Pilgrims did. They called themselves “nonseparating congregationalists,” by which they meant that they had not repudiated the Anglican Church of England as a false church. But in practice they acted–from the point of view of Episcopalians and even Presbyterians at home–exactly as the separatists were acting. Pilgrims believed the church could not be redeemed and people had to separate from it. Both factions were persecuted under James I. By the end of the 1630s, as part of a "Great Migration," nearly 14,000 more Puritan settlers came to Massachusetts. The colony began to spread. In 1691, Massachusetts Bay Colony absorbed Plymouth colony, creating one large territory.

For a century, Western Europe had seen many bloody conflicts between Catholics and non-Catholics, or Protestants. This led to problems both in everyday society and within the government. Europeans had seen firsthand the consequences of religious dissent. Many of those affected by these conflicts immigrated to the New World and brought their fears about religion with them. It is no surprise, then, that the founders of the first colonies in America quickly set up religious establishments similar to Europe. While they gave their citizens the liberty to practice their founding faith, they refused to grant much religious freedom beyond that boundary.

While Mercantilism was the reason England supported establishing the 13 colonies, in an effort to build a positive trade balance and increase its wealth, the Puritans and others took it as an opportunity for religious freedom. While Britain struggled with leadership changes from within, as well as wars in Europe, North America, and its own English Civil Wars, the colonists were happy to receive the support in defending their newly claimed territories and enjoyed their religious and political freedom under England’s distraction and neglect.

The English Civil Wars came to an end in 1651, which allowed England to turn some of its attention back to the Western Hemisphere with its original goal, that of solidifying its internal economy to create wealth. They found colonists were unwilling to trade solely with Britain or pay the taxes necessary to pay back the funds for colonial development and safety. England only profited from the customs duties, not the imports directly. As colonies grew, they experienced turmoil from wars, plagues, and religious differences which created social unrest that led to political changes that helped transform them into nation-states.

What fruitage did these spiritual leaders produce? Mt 7:15-20. Consider John 17:16 vs Acts 20:29, 30. What would Jesus have said seeing this?

-Source Links-

https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/mercantilism/

https://www.history.com/topics/colonial-america/puritanism

https://www.worldhistory.org/Puritans/

https://www.ushistory.org/declaration/lessonplan/churchstate.html

https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/colliding-cultures/john-winthrop-dreams-of-a-city-on-a-hill-1630/