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The Puritans were originally members of a group of English Protestants seeking "purity", further reforms or even separation from the established church, during the Reformation.
In the early 17th century, thousands of English Puritans settled in North America, almost all in New England.Puritans were intensely devout members of the Church of England who believed that the Church of England was insufficiently reformed, retaining too much of its Roman Catholic doctrinal roots, and who therefore opposed royal ecclesiastical policy.
In the 17th century, the word Puritan was a term applied not to just one group but to many. Historians still debate a precise definition of Puritanism. [6] Originally, Puritan was a pejorative term characterizing certain Protestant groups as extremist. Thomas Fuller, in his Church History, dates the first use of
Puritanism was not a religion of its own, but rather was a movement, started in England, to reform Protestantism. [24] However, the first Puritans in America who were called such have arrived between 1629 and 1640 and settled in New England, specifically the Massachusetts Bay area.
Although the Quakers may have resembled the Puritans in some religious beliefs and practices, they differed with them over the necessity of compelling religious uniformity in society. Pennsylvania Germans are inaccurately known as Pennsylvania Dutch from a misunderstanding of "Pennsylvania Deutsch", the group's German language name.
Pilgrims Going to Church, a 1867 depiction of Puritans in the New England colonies, by George Henry Boughton.. The Congregational tradition was brought to America in the 1620s and 1630s by the Puritans—a Calvinistic group within the Church of England that desired to purify it of any remaining teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. [6]
Puritan ministers most commonly used exegesis to preach on passages of scripture, meaning they strove to base their beliefs and theology directly on the Bible. [3] Their sermons were extensively prepared and memorized, and lasted for roughly an hour in length. [ 1 ]
The Puritan's main purpose was to purify the Church of England and to make England a more Christian country. History of the Puritans under Elizabeth I, 1558–1603; History of the Puritans under James I, 1603–1625; History of the Puritans under Charles I, 1625–1649; History of the Puritans from 1649; History of the Puritans in North America