Puritans

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Gallery of famous 17th-century Puritan theologians Thomas Gouge, William Bridge,

Thomas Manton, John Flavel, Richard Sibbes, Stephen Charnock, William Bates, John
Owen, John Howe and Richard Baxter
The Puritans were a group of English Reformed Protestants in the 16th and 17th
centuries who sought to purify the Church of England from its Catholic practices,
maintaining that the Church of England was only partially reformed.[1]

Contents [hide]
1 Overview
2 Terminology
2.1 The Godly
2.2 Puritans and Separatists
2.3 Puritans and Killjoys
3 Summary history
3.1 Elizabethan Puritanism
3.2 Jacobean Puritanism
3.3 Fragmentation and political failure
3.4 Great Ejection and Dissenters
4 Beliefs
4.1 Diversity
4.2 Demonology
4.3 Millennialism
5 Cultural consequences
5.1 Early science
6 Family life
7 New England Puritans
7.1 Education
7.2 Restrictions and pleasures
7.3 Opposition to other religious views
7.4 The Puritan spirit in the United States
8 Historiography
9 Notable Puritans
10 See also
11 Footnotes
12 Further reading
Overview[edit]
Puritanism in this sense was founded as an activist movement within the Church of
England. The founders, clergy exiled under Mary I, returned to England shortly
after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558.

Puritanism played a significant role in English history during the first half of
the 17th century. One of the most effective stokers of anti-Catholic feeling was
John Pym, whose movement succeeded in taking control of the government of London at
the time of the Grand Remonstrance of 1641.

Puritans were blocked from changing the established church from within and were
severely restricted in England by laws controlling the practice of religion. Their
beliefs, however, were transported by the emigration of congregations to the
Netherlands, and later to New England in North America, and by evangelical clergy
to Ireland (and later to Wales), and were spread into lay society and parts of the
educational system, particularly certain colleges of the University of Cambridge.
They took on distinctive beliefs about clerical dress and in opposition to the
episcopal system, particularly after the 1619 conclusions of the Synod of Dort were
resisted by the English bishops. They largely adopted Sabbatarianism in the 17th
century, and were influenced by millennialism.

The Puritans were in alliance with the growing commercial world, with the
parliamentary opposition to the royal prerogative, and with the Scottish
Presbyterians in the late 1630s with whom they had much in common. Consequently,
they became a major political force in England and came to power as a result of the
First English Civil War (164246). Almost all Puritan clergy left the Church of
England after the Restoration of 1660 and the 1662 Uniformity Act, with many
continuing to practice their faith in nonconformist denominations, especially in
Congregationalist, as well as in Presbyterian churches.[2] The nature of the
movement in England changed radically, although it retained its character for a
much longer period in New England.

Puritans by definition were dissatisfied with the limited extent of the English
Reformation and with the Church of England's tolerance of practices which they
associated with the Catholic Church. They formed and identified with various
religious groups advocating greater purity of worship and doctrine, as well as
personal and group piety. Puritans adopted a Reformed theology and, in that sense,
were Calvinists (as were many of their earlier opponents), but they also took note
of radical criticisms of Zwingli in Zurich and Calvin in Geneva. In church polity,
some advocated separation from all other established Christian denominations in
favor of autonomous gathered churches. These separatist and independent strands of
Puritanism became prominent in the 1640s, when the supporters of a Presbyterian
polity in the Westminster Assembly were unable to forge a new English national
church.

The Puritans were never a formally defined sect or religious division within
Protestantism, and the term Puritan itself was rarely used to describe people after
the turn of the 18th century. Some Puritan ideals became incorporated into the
Church of England, such as the formal rejection of Roman Catholicism; some were
absorbed into the many Protestant denominations that emerged in the late 17th and
early 18th centuries in the Americas and Britain. The Congregationalist Churches,
widely considered to be a part of the Reformed tradition, are descended from the
Puritans.[3][4] Moreover, Puritan beliefs are enshrined in the Savoy Declaration,
the confession of faith held by the Congregationalist Churches, which they
originated.[5]

Terminology[edit]
Main article Definitions of Puritanism
Historically, the word Puritan was considered a pejorative term that characterized
Protestant groups as extremists, similar to the Cathars of France. According to
Thomas Fuller in his Church History, the term dates to 1564. Archbishop Matthew
Parker of that time used it and precisian with the sense of the modern stickler.[6]
In modern times, the word puritan is often used to mean against pleasure.[7]

The Puritan movement referred to the desire and goal of purifying the Church of
England and Roman Catholic Church from within, in contrast to Separatists such as
the Pilgrims, who believed that the established churches could not be reformed and
the only hope was to set up separate churches. In this sense, the term Puritan was
coined in the 1560s, when it first appeared as a term of abuse for those who found
the Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559 inadequate. The term Puritan,
therefore, was not intended to refer to strict morality, a common modern
misunderstanding, but to a reforming attitude towards established churches.

The Godly[edit]
The word Puritan was applied unevenly to a number of Protestant churches (and
religious groups within the Anglican Church) from the late 16th century onwards.
Puritans did not originally use the term for themselves. The practitioners knew
themselves as members of particular churches or movements, and not by a single
term. Precise men and Precisians were other early derogatory terms for Puritans,
who preferred to call themselves the godly and the saints. Seventeenth century
English Puritan preacher Thomas Watson used the godly to describe Puritans in the
title of one of his more famous works The Godly Man's Picture. The parliament that
came into being on 4 July 1653, after a request by Oliver Cromwell and the Army
Council of Offices was known by its supporters as the Parliament of Saints and the
Barebones Parliament by its Royalist detractors.

Puritans and Separatists[edit]

For more details on this topic, see English Dissenters.
Some Puritans are known as non-separating Puritans, those who were not satisfied
with the Reformation of the Church of England but who remained within it,
advocating further reforms. This group disagreed among themselves about how much
further reformation was possible or even necessary. Others thought that the Church
of England was so corrupt that true Christians should separate from it altogether;
they are known as separating Puritans or simply Separatists. The term Puritan in
the wider sense includes both groups.[8][9] Separatists had no particular Church
title.

The Mayflower Pilgrims[10] were referred to only as Separatists.[11] Plymouth

Colony leaders John Robinson and William Brewster were separatists.[12][13] In
contrast, John Winthrop and the other main leaders of Puritan emigration to New
England in 1629 were non-separating Puritans.[14] There is no current consensus
among modern historians whether Separatists can properly be counted as Puritans,
[15] but separatists and non-separatists alike have traditionally been viewed as
two branches of the Puritan view.

Separating Puritans were called Dissenters, especially after the English

Restoration of 1660. The 1662 Uniformity Act caused almost all Puritan clergy to
leave the Church of England, the so-called Great Ejection or Black Bartholomew's
Day (see below). Some of these 2,000 ejected clergymen became nonconformist
ministers (later Congregationalists, Baptists, Unitarians, Presbyterians, etc.).
The movement in England changed radically at this time, though this change was not
as immediate across the Atlantic (see History of the Puritans in North America).

Puritans and Killjoys[edit]

In modern usage, the word puritan is often used to describe someone who adheres to
strict, joyless moral or religious principles. In this usage, hedonism and
puritanism are antonyms.[7] In fact, Puritans embraced sexuality but placed it in
the context of marriage. Peter Gay writes of the Puritans' standard reputation for
dour prudery as a misreading that went unquestioned in the nineteenth century,
commenting how unpuritanical they were in favour of married sexuality, and in
opposition to the Catholic veneration of virginity, citing Edward Taylor and John
Cotton.[16] One Puritan settlement in Western Massachusetts banished a husband and
sent him into exile because he refused to fulfill his marital duties to his wife.
[17]

Summary history[edit]
Puritan history
Narrative History
History of the Puritans under Queen Elizabeth I
History of the Puritans under King James I
History of the Puritans under King Charles I
History of the Puritans from 1649
History of the Puritans in North America
Topics
Puritan
Definitions of Puritanism
Troubles at Frankfurt
Puritan choir
Vestments controversy
Martin Marprelate
Millenary Petition
Arminianism in the Church of England
Impropriation
Providence Island Company
Puritan Sabbatarianism
Scrooby Congregation
Trial of Archbishop Laud
This box view talk edit
Main article History of the Puritans
Puritanism has a historical importance over a period of a century, followed by 50
yea