The Puritans
The Puritans dream was to create a model society for the rest of Christendom. Their goal was to make a society in every way connected to god. Every aspect of their lives, from political status and employment to even recreation and dress, was taken into account in order to live a more pious life.But to really understand what the aspirations of the puritans were, we must first understand their beliefs. "Their goal was absolute purity; to live with out sin in a sinful world was to them the supreme challenge in life. They were derisively called Puritans because they sought to purify the Church of England of the popish and antichristian stuff with which they believed the simplicity of the primitive Christian church had been encrusted." The Puritans believed that man's only purpose in life was "to glorify God on earth and, if he were especially fortunate, to continue the good work in Heaven." For the puritans, to glorify god meant keeping him in mind at all times, working to the best of their ability at whatever job god had fated them to do, and following a strict moral code based on the bible. "Every act and thought was either a glorification of god or its opposite." Thus, leading a pious life in the form of working hard, praying
In reality very few people were ever able to give enough evidence that they had completed their part of the bargain. The Puritans dreamed of creating the perfect god fearing society as a model for the entire Christian world. They created an official whose only job was to check up on ten families daily to see if anything out of the ordinary was happening and to make sure everyone who was able went to church. Even though she displayed remarkable knowledge of theology, she still defied clergy, and was eventually banished for sedition. The colonial government, alarmed at this challenge to its spiritual authority, banished him in sixteen thirty-five. " When a puritan felt that he had failed to meet the requirements set for him by God, he "flagellated himself remorselessly with introspective cross-examinations that usually took the form of thoughts of eternal reprobation and torment. They did everything in their power to keep this dream alive. The first was the Hartford Colony, consisting of the towns of Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor in the Connecticut River valley. At first, the Puritans came very close to realizing the dream of a perfect god fearing society. An entire community living as God had directed men to live, this was the vision that spurred thousands of people to make the dangerous Atlantic journey to New England. Idleness was also a grave infraction that carried with it the penalty of torturous physical punishment. First of all, the Puritans took happiness in the knowledge that they were living a pure life the way God had intended it to be. Pride, complacency, and gratification of the senses could not be permitted if they captured the place in the mind reserved for the Almighty. " The city of God was destined to be built in New England and the Puritans intended to be the founders. ------------------------------------------------------------------------**Bibliography**.
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