Download Puritanism in New England De fin itions The term "Puritan" first

Beliefs
Definitions
Puritanism in New England
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.
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. The Puritans distinguished between
"justification," or the gift of God's grace given to the elect, and "sanctification," the holy behavior that supposedly resulted
when an individual had been saved; according to The English Literatures of America, "Sanctification is evidence of
salvation, but does not cause it" (434). 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.
According to Samuel Eliot Morison's Oxford History of the American People, the Puritans "were deeply impressed by a
story that their favorite church father, St. Augustine, told in his Confessions. He heard a voice saying, tolle et lege, 'Pick
up and read.' Opening the Bible, his eyes lit on Romans xiii:12-14: 'The night is far spent, the day is at hand; not in
carousing and drunkenness, not in debauchery and lust, not in strife and jealousy. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts therof'" (62).
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 New England Way
Covenants
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
beleevers, they should be discharged. Christ hath paid the price, God must be unjust, or else hee must set thee free from
all iniquitie" (New England Mind 406).
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 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). 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."
Church Membership
The Half-Way Covenant
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.
The children of first-generation believers were admitted to limited membership in the Congregational church, on the
grounds that as children of the elect, they would undoubtedly experience conversion and become full members of the
church. Not all underwent a conversion experience, however, thus leaving in doubt the future of their children, the
grandchildren of the original church members.
Drafted by Richard Mather and approved in 1662, the Half-Way Covenant proposed that second-generation members
be granted the same privilege of baptism (but not communion) as had been granted to the first generation. According to
Norman Grabo, "This encouraged individual congregations to baptize the infant children of church members but not to
admit them to full membership until they were at least 14 years old" and could profess conversion. "The partaking of the
Lord's Supper became a lure to struggling half-way members to discover their right to full membership and a public sign
of the purest in the congregation."
Richard, and, later, Increase Mather supported it, as did Edward Taylor; but Solomon Stoddard from Northampton argued
that, according to the Half-Way Covenant, no man was permitted to partake of the Lord's Supper until he had certain
knowledge and assurance of salvation; without this knowledge, attendance at the sacrament was damning. Stoddard said
that no man could know he was saved with absolute certainty; thus all well-behaved Christians should be admitted to the
sacrament in hopes that they might secure saving grace or be converted by it.
The Plain Style
The plain style is the simplest of the three classical forms of style. In choosing the plain style, Puritan writers shunned
features common to the rhetoric of the day; they declined to stuff their sermons with the rhetorical flourishes and learned
quotations of the metaphysical style of sermon, believing that to be the province of Archbishop Laud and his followers.
The Puritan sermon traditionally comprised three parts: doctrine, reasons, and uses. According to Perry Miller in The New
England Mind,
"The Anglican sermon is constructed on a symphonic scheme of progressively widening vision; it moves from point to
point by verbal analysis, weaving larger and larger embroideries about the words of the text. The Puritan sermon quotes
the text and "opens" it as briefly as possible, expounding circumstances and context, explaining its grammatical meanings,
reducing its tropes and schemata to prose, and setting forth its logical implications; the sermon then proclaims in a flat,
indicative sentence the "doctrine" contained in the text or logically deduced from it, and proceeds to the first reason or
proof. Reason follows reason, with no other transition than a period and a number; after the last proof is stated there
follow the uses or applications, also in numbered sequence, and the sermon ends when there is nothing more to be said.
The Anglican sermon opens with a pianissimo exordium, gathers momentum through a rising and quickening tempo,
comes generally to a rolling, organ-toned peroration; the Puritan begins with a reading of the text, states the reason in an
order determined by logic, and the uses in an enumeration determined by the kinds of person in the throng who need to
be exhorted or reproved, and it stops without flourish or resounding climax" (332-3).
In a similar manner, Puritans preferred the plainness of the Geneva Bible to the rich language of the King James version.
Discussion Questions
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Summarize each of the seven sections of this article.
What is Puritanism?
Which of the three covenants were most essential to Puritan beliefs? Why?
Describe the Puritan’s self-governing model.
What are the “elect”?
What were Solomon Stoddard’s objections to the Half-Way Covenant?
Describe the Puritan’s style of writing.