Puritan in early America
When King Henry VII dissolved the Catholic Church and made the Church of England rendering the Pope powerless in all English affairs (Williams, 4), some people, non-conformists, were not happy. They were persecuted for practicing their religion, so when they found a chance to leave, they did. This first group of people had been living in self-exile in Leyden, Holland. They were known by 3 different names, their leader William Bradford called them Pilgrims, those who held them in contempt called them Brownists, and to King James and his court they were known as Separatists (Williams, 48). They were forced to leave England, because their complete and unchanging belief that religion should be completely free from government. They became tired of Holland, because of their poor worship of the Sabbath, and were ready to find a new place to live, but only 35 were brave enough to go to the America, they were joined by 66 people from London. Their desired destination is not known, but they ended up landing at Cape Cod. After some exploring surrounding land the Pilgrims chose Plymouth Rock as their permanent settlement (Williams, 52). Although the first year almost half of the population died, by 1632, 11 years after the beginning thei
John Winthrop who lead the fist great wave of settlers in the spring of 1630, published in England, before his departure, a declaration of the colonists' attachment and gratitude to the Church of England. By laying importance of faith, even though they did not even pretend that all or even most members of the Anglican Church had faith, they could claim a greater devotion to faith than the Separatists. The Founding of a new church began with at least seven men, who had to make the other one happy with their knowledge of Christian doctrine and about their experience in saving grace. These writers on the subject were concerned with the individual rather than the church as a whole. In 1630 when the next churches were bein formed, Fuller visited again the Bay area, accompanied by Edward Winslow, one of Plymouth's acknowledged leader. A first line of nonseparating Puritans led by John Endecott, reached Salem in 1628, and the first installment of the Great Migration, a thousand strong, arrived under John Winthrop in the summer of 1630 (Morgan, 80). The new Churches were on a convenant to which all members were subscribed: each chose and ordained its own ministers, admitted properly qualified new members and threw out incorrigible old ones (Morgan, 64). In 1652 Massachusetts began coining her own money and officially proclaimed to be an independent commonwealth. If they had conceded to the Separatists that discipline, the supervision of the members' behavior, was a necessary attribute of a church, then they would not have been able to defend the remaining English churches, which they admitted lacked the power of discipline. A little while later the Salem church was founded. If the person passed the examination the ruling elder proposed the candidate to the church, and asked the members to make inquiry about him. Inside of the cities life was organized and run very strictly. If the prospective founders were not seen as properly qualified by these experts then the group was obliged to wait until suitable saints came forth. The church was the government and controlled everything under strict rule.
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