Why Did The Puritans Establish A City Upon A Hill

Malleable Puritan thought laid the foundation for arguably the greatest civilization in history, The United States of America. Authors Perry Miller and Edmund Morgan chronicle Puritan history and describe how the Puritans left the Old World and began to transform the New World, and themselves, based off of experiences in their respective writings. Miller and Morgan use the word “experience” very differently when describing our Puritan forefathers, but they draw upon similar conclusions. Puritan thought was constantly transforming through physical, intellectual, and spiritual experiences.

The Puritans created a religiously repressive society that greatly influenced the overall development of New England. Although their society revolved around the church, were all of their beliefs detrimental to the evolution of the colony? Regarding New England’s social development, the Puritans’ stress on community, family and education was advantageous because it caused the region to thrive with more families and small towns. Therefore, since Puritans were more likely to come to the New World’s families instead of individuals, New England had significantly more families settle there than in other regions of colonization. Additionally, Puritans emphasized the importance of a community living together and sustaining its members, which resulted in New England being marked by the development of

Angry about the reformation of the Church of England in the sixteenth century, a group of extreme separatists known as the Puritans sought the absolute expulsion of Catholicism in their sect of Christianity. Their devotion to their religious practices and beliefs ultimately led the Puritans to emigrate to Holland and subsequently to the new world, where they established a colony in New England. The ideas and mindframes of the Puritans are not important to American history because they were simply the first but because they offered ways of thinking that are still ingrained in the American culture today. In laying a foundation for America, whether they realised it at the time or not, Puritans have influence in present day America in the form

In the year of 1630, a group of people known as the Puritans arrived to America and settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston. The Puritans were similar to the Pilgrims in which they were Protestants from England who thought that their reforms of their church were “too Catholic” and needed to be changed further. The Puritans being unhappy with their reforms was the primary reason for leaving England and settling in America, while the Pilgrims stayed behind and were determined to change their reforms. When they came to America, they decided to keep some of their strict rules. For example, church was mandatory and if someone missed a day,

John Winthrop, the first governor of the Puritans, wanted to create “a city upon a hill”. The Puritans had many aspirations including building a church state, a colony of educated settlers, and promoting their religion. Some of the aspirations were achieved while others were unfulfilled. The Puritans were extremist

In creating a new community, the citizens cannot be constantly worried about perceptions, and sometimes have to put the good of the community over their own personal agenda, something that was lacking in the creation of Massachusetts Colony. An additional problem that the Puritans faced was the importance and influence that money had over the community. Money was seen as a sign of God’s grace, so the more money any individual had the more they believed that God favored that individual. This created an unhealthy image of money and distorted the previous genuine piety that citizens of the Massachusetts Colony had in their

Document I shows a Puritan testifying that he had "not lived an idle, lazie or dronish life," but rather he spent his time well to redeem himself in heaven. This distaste of laziness led to hard-working societies in New England. The Puritans did not believe that "worldly gain was not the end and designe of the people of New England" (Document J). John Higginson also explains in Document J that New England was a "plantation of Religion, not a Plantation of Trade. "

The Puritans influenced the development of the New England colonies, including Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, and Connecticut through the Puritans’ extreme theological values and ideas that create the theocracy, their hard work ethic that increases their economic stability, and their resistance to tolerate other’s different opinions.

History tells us that the Puritans were different than the Pilgrims because they wanted to continue to exist with the Church of England but make it better in the New World. (Settling 2014) The Puritans must have felt some type of loyalty to their native religion because they didn’t put their religion totally aside. It is noted that the Puritans did not want the rituals and other beliefs that involved being a member of their native Church of England.

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).

Chapter 3 Outline: • 3.1 The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism • 3.2 The Pilgrims End Their Pilgrimage at Plymouth • 3.3 The Bay Colony Bible Commonwealth • 3.4 Building the Bay Colony • 3.5 Trouble in the Bible Commonwealth • 3.6 The Rhode Island “Sewer” • 3.7 New England Spreads Out • 3.8 Puritans Versus Indians • 3.9 Seeds of Colonial Unity and Independence • 3.10 Andros Promotes the First American Revolution • 3.11 Old Netherlanders at New Netherlanders • 3.12 Friction with English and Swedish Neighbors • 3.13 Dutch Residues in New York • 3.14 Penn’s Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania • 3.15 Quaker Pennsylvania and Its Neighbors • 3.16 The Middle Way in the Middle Colonies   3.1 The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism

In today’s society, men and women are so obsessed with spending money, gambling, it’s an addiction. This addiction tears families apart. A vicious addiction that will leave victims ‘out in the dark,’ so to speak. Men and women frown upon this, as well as the Puritan group. This goes against moral beliefs and religion.

Keayne’s insight into the will of a Puritan living in the New England area in the 1600’s support us to perceive where our Founding Fathers got their jealousy, and tenacity. They were not ruled by distant lands forasmuch as of their faith in “nothing being more authoritative than the Bible.” One of the only reasons for the breeding of young Puritans in the New World was so that they could read scripture!A statement made about education in New England in 1643 rank that: “the next things we hunger for, and looked after was to

The Puritans in the 1600s had a very important influence in the development of the New England colonies through the 1660s their ideas, values; political, economic and social development would have a lasting effect on the region. The values of the Puritans were greatly rooted in the idea that man was evil and that God alone would save us. By creating this town upon the hill God will reward them for their efforts for trying to reform the Anglican Church. Politically the Puritans were a semi-theocracy that would only allow those who were part of the church to vote. Economically they brought a lasting effect based on their hard work ethic.

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.”