Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Puritans did not come to America to establish a theocracy, but neither did they institute religious freedom. [40] Puritans believed that the state was obligated to protect society from heresy, and it was empowered to use corporal punishment, banishment, and execution.
King James I and Charles I made some efforts to reconcile the Puritan clergy who had been alienated by the lack of change in the Church of England.Puritans embraced Calvinism (Reformed theology) with its opposition to ritual and an emphasis on preaching, a growing sabbatarianism, and preference for a presbyterian system of church polity, as opposed to the episcopal polity of the Church of ...
Puritans did not believe confirmation was necessary and thought candidates were poorly prepared since bishops did not have the time to examine them properly. [ 68 ] [ 69 ] The marriage service was criticised for using a wedding ring (which implied that marriage was a sacrament) and having the groom vow to his bride "with my body I thee worship ...
The Puritans had moreover come to control most of the English Parliament. The Puritan movement would grow even stronger under King Charles I, and even for a time come to take control of England with the English Commonwealth and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, following the English Civil War.
If the Puritans were caught worshipping in secret, they could be put in prison. The Netherlands was open to the Puritans and their beliefs but wanted them to adapt to their religious ways. The puritans felt that it was their calling to spread the word of the Gospel to the New World, which led them to America. [7]
The history of the Puritans can be traced back to the first Vestments Controversy in the reign of Edward VI, the formation of an identifiable Puritan movement in the 1560s and ends in a decline in the mid-18th century.
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. These did not consider themselves completely separated from the English Church, however, and originally believed that they would one day return to purify England. [25]
Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of Protestant Separatists initially known as the Brownist Emigration, who came to be known as the Pilgrims. The colony established a treaty with Wampanoag Chief Massasoit which helped to ensure its success; in this, they were aided by Squanto , a member of the Patuxet tribe.