Puritan Theology, Culture and Literature
I. Theology
A. Terminology
The term "Puritan" first began as a taunt or insult applied by traditional
Anglicans to those who criticized or wished to "purify" the Church of England.
Although the word is often applied loosely, "Puritan" refers to two distinct
groups: "separating" Puritans, such as the Plymouth colonists, who believed that
the Church of England was corrupt and that true Christians must separate
themselves from it; and non-separating Puritans, such as the colonists who
settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who believed in reform but not separation.
Most Massachusetts colonists were nonseparating Puritans who wished to reform
the established church, largely Congregationalists who believed in forming
churches through voluntary compacts. The idea of compacts or
covenants was central to the Puritans' conception of
social, political, and religious organizations.
B. Differences in Beliefs
Several beliefs differentiated Puritans from other Christians. The first was
their belief in predestination. Puritans believed that belief in Jesus and
participation in the sacraments could not alone effect one’s salvation; one
cannot choose salvation, for that is the privilege of God alone. All features of
salvation are determined by God’s sovereignty, including choosing those who will
be saved and those who will receive God’s irresistible grace. When William Laud,
an avowed
Arminian, became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633, the Church of England
began to embrace beliefs abhorrent to Puritans: a focus on the individual’s
acceptance or rejection of grace; a toleration of diverse religious beliefs; and
an acceptance of "high church" rituals and symbols.
C. Calvanism
- The works of John Calvin (1509-1564), especially his
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), were central to Puritan
beliefs because they asked central questions: how do we acquire knowledge of
God and of ourselves?
- Calvin believed that simply knowing truths about God did
not mean the same thing as knowing God. Instead, individuals must cultivate
this awareness of deity through examination of the seeds of divinity within
each person as well as through contemplation of and reflection on the world.
Sin, for Calvin, is the opposite of knowing God; and a corrupt reason and will
can prevent this knowledge.
- Calvinism is a system of theological thought found in the
doctrinal expressions of the Reformed and Presbyterian churches, from Calvin’s
Institutes of the Christian Religion. The famous "Five Points"
represent a somewhat narrow and debased definition of Calvinist thought, but
as they are a concise manner of providing a glimpse of the basic theology they
are as follows:
The Five Points of Calvinism (often remembered through the acronym T U L I
P)
1. Total depravity. Man is naturally
unable to exercise free will, since through Adam’s fall he has suffered
hereditary corruption. Evil was a palpable presence in the Puritans’ world,
and it was often symbolized by the struggle between light and darkness. In
this system, it was impossible to find disillusioned Puritans, for they
believed that there was no horror that man could not commit.
2. Unconditional election. Election
manifests itself through God’s wisdom to elect those to be saved, despite
their inability to perform saving works. Only a chosen few are so elected, and
simply being a church member did not necessarily signify election.
3. Limited atonement. Man’s hereditary
corruption is partially atoned for by Christ, and this atonement is provided
to the elect through the Holy Spirit. This limited atonement gives them the
power to attempt to obey God’s will as revealed through the Bible.
4. Irresistible and prevenient grace,
made only to the elect. Grace was a "motion of the heart" that was God’s gift
to the elect—unconditional, irresistible, and inexorable. It came to each
directly and could not be taken away. It promised "ecstatic intimacy with the
divine" or "soul liberty." When Winthrop talks about liberty, this is the sort
that he counts on his audience recalling.
5. Perseverance of saints. Those who
are predetermined as elect inevitably persevere in the path of holiness.
D. Covenant Theology
The concept of a covenant or contract between God and his elect pervaded
Puritan theology and social relationships. In religious terms, several types of
covenants were central to Puritan thought.
The Covenant of Works held that God
promised Adam and his progeny eternal life if they obeyed moral law. After Adam
broke this covenant, God made a new Covenant of Grace with Abraham (Genesis
18-19).
Covenant of Grace. This covenant requires
an active faith, and, as such, it softens the doctrine of predestination.
Although God still chooses the elect, the relationship becomes one of contract
in which punishment for sins is a judicially proper response to disobedience.
During the Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards later repudiated Covenant Theology
to get back to orthodox Calvinism. Those bound by the covenant considered
themselves to be charged with a mission from God.
Covenant of Redemption. The Covenant of
Redemption was assumed to be preexistent to the Covenant of Grace. It held that
Christ, who freely chose to sacrifice himself for fallen man, bound God to
accept him as man’s representative. Having accepted this pact, God is then
committed to carrying out the Covenant of Grace. According to Perry Miller, as
one contemporary source put it, "God covenanted with Christ that if he would pay
the full price for the redemption of believers, they should be discharged.
Christ hath paid the price, God must be unjust, or else he must set thee free
from all iniquity" (New England Mind 406).
II. Puritan Culture
- Calvin’s social thought was also influential. He believed
that human beings were creatures of fellowship and that Church and State
satisfied a human need for this type of grouping.
- According to Wolterstorff,
The concern of the church is the spiritual realm, the life of the inner
man; the concern of the state is the temporal realm, the regulation of
external conduct. In regulating external conduct, the general aim of the
state, in Calvin’s view, is to insure justice or equity in society at large.
This equity has two facets. Obviously the state must enforce restrictive
justice, but Calvin also believed that the state should secure distributive
justice, doing its best to eliminate gross inequalities in the material
status of its members.
- Calvin believed that an ideal government would be a
republic in which power is balanced among magistrates and in which a competent
ruling aristocracy is elected by the citizens.
- The concept of the covenant also provided a practical means
of organizing churches. Since the state did not control the church, the
Puritans reasoned, there must be an alternate method of of establishing
authority. According to Harry S. Stout, "For God's Word to function freely,
and for each member to feel an integral part of the church's operations, each
congregation must be self-sufficient, containing within itself all the offices
and powers necessary for self-regulation. New England's official apologist,
John Cotton, termed this form of church government 'Congregational,' meaning
that all authority would be located within particular congregations" (The
New England Soul 17).
- Cotton's sermon at Salem in 1636 described the basic
elements of this system in which people covenanting themselves to each other
and pledging to obey the word of God might become a self-governing church.
Checks and balances in this self-governing model included the requirement that
members testify to their experience of grace (to ensure the purity of the
church and its members) and the election of church officials to ensure the
appropriate distribution of power, with a pastor to preach, a teacher to
"attend to doctrine," elders to oversee the "acts of spiritual Rule,"
and a deacon to manage the everyday tasks of church organization and caring
for the poor (Stout 19). The system of interlocking covenants that bound
households to each other and to their ministers in an autonomous, self-ruling
congregation was mirrored in the organization of towns. In each town, male
church members could vote to elect "selectmen" to run the town's day-to-day
affairs, although town meetings were held to vote on legislation.
- Thus the ultimate authority in both political and religious
spheres was God's word, but the commitments made to congregation and community
through voluntary obedience to covenants ensured order and a functional system
of religious and political governance. This system came to be called the
Congregational or "New England Way."
According to Stout, "By locating power in the particular towns and defining
institutions in terms of local covenants and mutual commitments, the dangers
of mobility and atomism--the chief threats to stability in the New World--were
minimized. . . . As churches came into being only by means of a local
covenant, so individual members could be released from their sacred oath only
with the concurrence of the local body. . . . Persons leaving without the
consent of the body sacrificed not only church membership but also property
title, which was contingent on local residence. Through measures like these,
which combined economic and spiritual restraints, New England towns achieved
extraordinarily high levels of persistence and social cohesion" (23).
- Unlike Anglican and Catholic churches of the time, Puritan
churches did not hold that all parish residents should be full church members.
A true church, they believed, consisted not of everyone but of the elect. As a
test of election, many New England churches began to require applicants for
church membership to testify to their personal experience of God in the form
of autobiographical conversion narratives.
Since citizenship was tied to church membership, the motivation for
experiencing conversion was secular and civil as well as religious in nature.
God’s covenant that bound church members to him had to be renewed and accepted
by each individual believer, although this could be seen as a dilution of the
covenant binding God and his chosen people.
III. Puritan Literature
A. Puritan histories-Many historical works were produced by
Puritans, especially narratives of particular colonies or regions of colonies.
Many forms were used, the most prevalent being travel journals, letters and
diaries. The historical works often refer to the mission of the Puritans
and point to the colonies as a land of optimism watched over with a special
providence by the divinity. Progressivism definitely has its roots with
the Puritans.
B. Puritan verse-Puritan verse is highly individual and often
focuses on the relationship between the poet and God.
C. Puritan Sermons & Jeremiads-Puritan sermons and jeremiads are
specifically structured oratories used for the purposes of explaining doctrine
and applying it to the listening congregation. See the articles for more
information.
D. Common Themes-Providence, the Infinite Power and Glory of God,
the Meekness of Man, the Love God Inspires, the Wish to Sin, Redemption, etc.
The Bible provided a model for Puritan writing; a conception of each individual
life as a journey to salvation. Puritans saw direct connections between Biblical
events and their own lives.
E. Plain Style
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