The most obvious difference between the Pilgrims and the Puritans is that the Puritans had no intention of breaking with the Anglican church. The Puritans were nonconformists as were the Pilgrims, both of which refusing to accept an authority beyond that of the revealed word. But where with the Pilgrims this had translated into something closer to an egalitarian mode, the Puritans considered religion a very complex, subtle, and highly intellectual affair, and its leaders thus were highly trained scholars, whose education tended to translate into positions that were often authoritarian.
             Puritans wanted to remain as part of the English establishment, working for biblical reform from within. Even as they emigrated to New England, they affirmed their Englishness and saw the main purpose of their new colony as being that of a biblical witness, a "city on a hill" which would set an example of biblical righteousness in church and state of Old England and the entire world to see. As deeply committed covenant theologians, they emphasized especially strongly the corporate righteousness of their entire community before God.
             Pilgrims wanted to reformations without tarrying, even if it meant separating from their church and their nation. While they continued to think of themselves as English, their emphasis was on their new political identity and spiritual identity. Because of their passionate commitment to the necessity of reformation immediate and without compromise, they emphasized especially strongly individual righteousness before God.
             They both thought that God alone must be the glory, and, in their different ways, they sought to bring every action-religious, political, social-captive to him.
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