Honors Assignment 3

Today, individuals portray the Puritans with their one-sided perspective. Puritan culture was extremely controlled and individuals could just have faith in God and the Bible was the law. Not at all like Puritan culture, does today’s general public not limit religion. We are free to choose whatever religion we like to practice within our own free will and desire. Despite the fact that Puritans had terrible impacts on today's general public, Puritans assumed a vital part in building the USA.

In Puritan society, citizens are to strictly adhere to set laws and instructions, or they risk being condemned to ‘an eternity in Hell’, as they put it. To understand as to why the Puritans are so conservative, one must first comprehend their origins. The Puritans are a sub-denomination of Christianity which left Europe to establish an orthodox society, purified of all corruption, that is also attributed, The City on the Hill. The Holy Bible,the ultimate (-- removed HTML --) , declares the manner in which an ideal Puritan is to act. Unfortunately, few of the Puritans who Arthur Miller portrays in “The Crucible”, a play that which describes the accounts of mass hysteria in a Puritan community named Salem , abide by the statutes enacted by God.

In the Puritan society, having faith was very much important to them, this was a source in which all of their other aspects of their society and values came from. Puritans,sought to reform the Church from within. They believed that “uniformity was essential to social order” (Pg 72). Puritans believed that God chooses each individual from the time they are born for salvation or for condemnation. Only God knew the fate of each person.

1) Quote Puritanism: And then Ma came out of the house, and Granma with her, and Rose of Sharon behind, walking daintily...took their places behind the squatting men... And the children, Ruthie and Winfield... the children squidged their toes in the red dust, but they made no sound. Only the preacher was not there.

Puritans, faced with harsh religious persecution, were forced to flee Europe and head to the New World in order to freely practice their religion. Pressed with the need to develop a prosperous society, they turned to God. Through a fire-and-brimstone view of the Lord & the teachings of the Bible, Puritans manifested a thriving society dedicated to the glorification of God politically, economically, and socially. To begin, living in constant fear of their angry God, New England Puritans developed a social order they believed would please Him. John Winthrop writes about Puritans living with a certain “meekeness, gentleness, patience and liberalty” so their God would not, “withdrawe his present help” from them (D - A).

The Puritans were a religious group in the 16th to 17th centuries who originated from England. They believed that God expected them to live according to the Scriptures of the Bible. They believed in prayer, hard work, family, tradition, structure, discipline, and frugality. Two very important Puritans that lived were Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards.

While the Puritans acted in inhumane ways, the Puritans ' actions towards others reflected their beliefs because of the Puritans ' reasoning to the idea of slavery, the Puritans ' engagement of war, and the Puritans ' brutal acts towards the Indians. The Puritans believed that as long as their actions were supported by the English understanding of religion and morality and were within the bounds of law, these actions were justified. The treatment of people in the 1600s may not have been seen as something peaceful, but during the time it supported the Puritan belief. First, the Puritans ' actions towards others reflected their beliefs because of the Puritans ' reasoning to the idea of slavery. As it has been noted by historians, specifically

Puritanism is a belief that occurred between the years of 1600 and 1800. Puritans saw religion as a personal experience. They believed that God elected who was going to be saved and who was not. In literature, Puritans had a plain style of writing. An example of a Puritan text is, “Huswifery” by Edward Taylor.

We must bear one another’s burthens” (Winthrop 225). This belief that people must love one another despite their mistakes or burdens is essential to Puritan beliefs, and Puritans also believe that people must always be honest and trustworthy. The Puritans, like many other communities, viewed women as subordinates to men; a women’s purpose was to maintain the household, and men were called to provide for their children and wives. Women not only had a “less important” purpose in life but were also seen as less capable or intelligent than their male peers.

Puritan children certainly had a large amount of responsibilities, and expectations to attend to; they used (as shown in The Crucible) the Salem Witch Trials as a way to let go of their emotions. Unfortunately, they had to end many lives to do

The Puritans though that brotherhood, community, and religion to be the most important social standings in their colonies, yet were violent towards non-Puritans. The New England colonies were very religiously active compared to other colonies like Virginia, were religion was an afterthought. Because of the Tobacco craze in Virginia, it was only until the mid-1700’s when religion actually became a part of the colony. In general the Puritans were extremely intolerant of other beliefs that were not theirs, and history shows that they could become quite violent towards non-believers. Anyone who was an outsider or deemed non-Puritan would be banished or executed; in Puritan society, the fear of outsiders was ingrained into the mind of Puritan followers,

They wanted to create pure, moral Christian society based on moral living. By hard working, integration of religion in politics, and social development of certain lifestyle practices, Puritans had a large influence on the development of the New England colonies from 1630s through the 1660s. Puritans believed in hard work as the pathway of success since they thought they were favored by God to succeed (Doc I). They tried to shun idleness and believed that being lazy is not profitable (Doc C).

As time has gone by we have realized that authors mindset and ideas have changed. Jonathan Edwards was a writer during puritanism, and is responsible of the famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, in which we see that everything was more God centralized. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin shows how they drifted away from the idea of everything being centralized around God and we see it is more focused on how one is self-made and values. The role of the authors have changed overtime due to the change of mindset of the society but are similar due to the fact that they find happiness in their beliefs.

The Puritans had an understanding attitude toward a person’s human-nature their sexual relations, while also guiding and encouraging people to follow “God-given moral values.” The Puritans realized that no human being was capable of perfectly obeying God’s laws, so instead of severely punishing one for their offense after it was too late to prevent it, leaders developed ways to prevent a misdeed before it had a chance to happen. For example, many Puritan youth were urged to wed early as to reduce the time that an individual was expected to protect their virginity. Another way used to lessen the opportunity for sin, was to ensure that husbands and wives lived together and respected one another, in turn, prevent adultery. Laws made to guarantee

Essentially, Puritans are expected to follow a strict set of religious and moral guidelines from which their actions and morality are derived. According to Hall’s A Reforming People, these moral expectations first introduced by the pilgrims were the driving force behind the power that the Puritan ministry had over society: “Ministers and laypeople looked first to congregations as the place where love, mutuality, and righteousness would flourish, and second to civil society. …Alongside love, mutuality, and righteousness they placed another set of values summed up in the word “equity.” Employed in a broad array of contexts, the concept of equity conveyed the colonists’ hopes for justice and fairness in their social world.”