Puritans

[John Maddox Roberts]

Most of us have transferred our puritan attitudes to health and diet fanaticism. We even use the language of sin and redemption. We talk of food being "sinfully delicious" or "decadent." If we scarf a cheeseburger we repent and say "I was bad." Cholesterol is our modern equivalent of sin. It clogs the arteries instead of the soul.

To answer an earlier query, the puritans were not teetotalers. The Pilgrims stopped in Massachusetts instead of their intended Virginia primarily because they'd run out of beer. They abhorred drunkenness, but were enthusiastic consumers of ale and wine. Cotton Mather was fascinated by pirates and often interviewed them in prison, which must have constituted cruel and unusual punishment. And plenty of Puritan businessmen got rich middle-manning pirate plunder. Religious morals were no less elastic then than now.

[redhand]

Oh you want to talk PYRATES....then just start a list

of 17th & 18th century Bay colony BUSSINESS MEN!!

Thery were notorious even in THEIR day as pirates!

-Redhand

[Daniel]

Well, what distinguished the Puritans was not that they had such a highly developed sense of sin; the Catholics matched them for that. What distinguished them was how they looked at their neighbors' sins. Old-style Catholicism was all about utilizing the goodness of your neighbors to make up for your own sins: getting absolution from the priest in return for penance, getting holy-living monks and nuns to pray for you, bringing the saints in on your side, and of course accepting the sacrifice of the ultimate good neighbor, Jesus.

The Puritans concentrated so much more on repressing the neighbors' sins and keeping them from ever happening, rather than getting them forgiven. Ultimately it was almost like they wanted to get everybody in their whole society to be disciplined and regimented as harshly as the monks and nuns of the Catholic church, (with the exception that marriage would be allowed so the church could continue).

[Capt. Sterling]

Well, what distinguished the Puritans was not that they had such a highly developed sense of sin; the Catholics matched them for that. What distinguished them was how they looked at their neighbors' sins. Old-style Catholicism was all about utilizing the goodness of your neighbors to make up for your own sins: getting absolution from the priest in return for penance, getting holy-living monks and nuns to pray for you, bringing the saints in on your side, and of course accepting the sacrifice of the ultimate good neighbor, Jesus.

The Puritans concentrated so much more on repressing the neighbors' sins and keeping them from ever happening, rather than getting them forgiven. Ultimately it was almost like they wanted to get everybody in their whole society to be disciplined and regimented as harshly as the monks and nuns of the Catholic church, (with the exception that marriage would be allowed so the church could continue).

Both religions were based also in works... i.e. I must do this in order to get to Heaven, instead of just accepting that Christ died to pay for all sins. It is almost a flip flop then between the Puritans and the Catholics, the Catholics, trying to work things out for themselves by agreeing to do this or that and the Puritans almost trying to force folks to do good works by their strict laws. And their laws went right to the basic family because they very much believed that unless the family was sound, the government run by the men of those families would not be sound. Some of their ideas were quite nit picky, for instance only God is perfect, so young children were instructed to do their best but then before you complete a project, add a known mistakes... this is very evident in girls' sampler from the time... There is a very interesting book I believe it is called the Copse of Heaven, dealing with the puritans and their religion and government in the colonies.... a tedious read but interesting none the less.

Hector

[Daniel]

Both religions were based also in works... i.e. I must do this in order to get to Heaven, instead of just accepting that Christ died to pay for all sins. It is almost a flip flop then between the Puritans and the Catholics, the Catholics, trying to work things out for themselves by agreeing to do this or that and the Puritans almost trying to force folks to do good works by their strict laws.

Well, the Puritans would never admit that theirs was a works-based reilgion, though sometimes it looked that way. The Puritans were absolute, committed predestinationists who believed that God chose who went to Heaven and who went to Hell before you were ever born. The strict social regulation was intended to glorify God for its own sake, not get anyone into Heaven; that outcome had been predetermined.

[Capt. Sterling]

Isn't Calvinism pretty much the same then? How are they related?

Hector

[Daniel]

Isn't Calvinism pretty much the same then? How are they related?

Hector

Exactly the same as Calvinism, in fact. A Puritan was basically an English Calvinist who refused to accept the Church of England's concessions to old Catholic practices, like keeping the hierarchy of priests, bishops, and archbishops or certain elements of the old Catholic liturgy. The Puritans used a system of presbyters (elders) and deacons exactly reflecting Genevan Calvinist practice. Many of the English Puritans visited or corresponded with John Calvin in Geneva, and his successor Theodore de Beza, and as I recall the first English Puritan Bible was printed in Calvinist Geneva, decades before the King James version.

[Capt. Sterling]

Hey thanks. Do you know what other types of dissenters would be around during the GAoP time frame? Aren't the Quakers pretty much established by now as well? And did not Locke pretty much start laying down his theories concerning religious tolerance about now?

Hector

[redhand]

Stirling-

Exacxtly as Daniel describes, the Calvenists believed

in predestination, in example: Jusdas was predestined

to betray christ.The puratins were so busy trying to PREVENT

sin, arther than focusing on having your sins forgiven, as Daniel

previously described. The irony of their religious sect is that

they came over from Holland to escape the persecution from

the church in England, only to Immediately start persecuting

the indians, and anybody else they saw, that didn't agree

with their moral compass.

The Moravians, weren't to far away from getting here, 1730s I think.

I believe the first 1st of what they called the "Great Awakenings"...

of the revivalist movements, was around 1710 maybe...possibly

a little aerlier, there was also one in the 1740s. I believe Dr. Byrd

tells a rather droll tale of a traveling experience with a "new ager"

during one of his travels. THAT is a great book....I believe it's titled

Colonial American Travel Narratives, it's available through

peguine books, they have a fair amount of 1st person accounts in print.

-Redhand

[Daniel]

Hey thanks. Do you know what other types of dissenters would be around during the GAoP time frame? Aren't the Quakers pretty much established by now as well? And did not Locke pretty much start laying down his theories concerning religious tolerance about now?

Hector

Yes, there were Quakers, as well as Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, I think even some Anabaptists. Cromwell's New Model Army was filled with all kinds of different odd religious persuasions.

[Jib]

How about John Knox and his Scottish Kirk? He was a devotee to Calvin I believe.

Seems that Cromwell attracted all likes of odd creatures.

[Daniel]

How about John Knox and his Scottish Kirk?  He was a devotee to Calvin I believe.

Seems that Cromwell attracted all likes of odd creatures.

Right. The Church of Scotland ended up a whole lot more the way the Calivnists wanted than the Church of England did. Though even the Scots had their equivalent of the Puritans, called the Covenanters.

(I wrote my master's thesis on Calvinist religious doctrine, can ya tell? )

[Matty Bottles]

Gosh, I don't know about the accuracy of labeling religion as 'works' vs. 'faith' based. I know Catholicism maintains salvation through Christ and irresistable grace, with the caveat that no one can circumscribe the merciful nature of God (meaning that it is possible for people to be saved directly through God's will, rather than through accepting Christ. It doesn't say if any one ever was, though.) To say that Catholicism claims one can earn one's way into Heaven doesn't seem to jib with what I remember from the catechism. Works are important, yeah, because eveyone has an obligation to follow Christ's directions in the Beatitudes, but merely following the Beatitudes doesn't necessarily get you anywhere.

[Fox]

I don't know that I'd class the levellers or diggers particularly as religious dissenters. Religion undoubtedly played a part in both movements - but it did within almost any aspect of mid-17thC life to a greater or lesser degree. The leveller and digger movements were, IMHO, more politically orientated than religiously.

Gerard Winstanley, leader of the diggers, certainly had religious issues, but in terms of actual action they were more or less subservient to the bigger issues of free land.

The levellers were even less religiously motivated, and in fact preached (when they preached at all) complete religious toleration. For example, from the March 1647 manifesto: "5. That no man for preaching or publishing his opinion in Religion in a peacable way, may be punished or persecuted as hereticall, by Judges that are not infallible...". In that manifesto, which is a typical one, religion was given 7 lines out of 7 pages. They also had issues with the power of the clergy and the tithes, and wanted to institute a system of donation instead, but again that's more socio-economic than religious.

The Ranters were great! By rejecting organised religion and even the Bible they opened the door for all sorts of bad behaviour - drinking, smoking, free love... funnily enough, many of them became Quakers once the popularity of ranterism died.

One of the things I'm really interested in, and will probably get round to researching one day, is whether many levellers or former levellers made it to the Caribbean and became buccaneers, or influenced those who later became buccaneer. Since levellerism was strongest in the New Model Army, and since it was the NMA that captured and held Jamaica for the English, I think it is entirely possible. Was the supposed socialist stance of some pirates actually a hangover of English Civil War political experiment? Rediker's going to love me!

[Guest xXDCXx]

NERDS

NERDSNERDS

NERDSNERDSNERDS

all of you r nerds with no friends..

p.s NERDS

[William Brand]

NERDS

NERDSNERDS

NERDSNERDSNERDS

all of you r nerds with no friends..

p.s NERDS

breath.

[JoshuaRed]

Beware the Ides of March, eh? Really brings 'em out doesn't it?

[John Maddox Roberts]

Even Catholicism had its own version of Calvinism/Puritanism. It's called Jansenism. Jansen was one of those Counter-Reformation figures who set out to prove that the Catholics could be more protestant than the protestants. He promulgated a guilt-based faith that came perilously close to predestination and involved most of the usual Calvinist practices. He was eventually condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake. Jansenism was suppressed and lives on in only one place. Yep, you guessed it: Ireland. The Irish church is principally Jansenist to this day and in America in the 20th century the Catholic church meant mainly the Irish church. If you went to Catholic school in the 50s and 60s like I did, you recognize the tenets of Puritanism as pretty much what the nuns were teaching you back then. No wonder the Irish like to cut loose from time to time.

[Daniel]

One of the things I'm really interested in, and will probably get round to researching one day, is whether many levellers or former levellers made it to the Caribbean and became buccaneers, or influenced those who later became buccaneer. Since levellerism was strongest in the New Model Army, and since it was the NMA that captured and held Jamaica for the English, I think it is entirely possible. Was the supposed socialist stance of some pirates actually a hangover of English Civil War political experiment? Rediker's going to love me!

If you prove that one, Foxe, DT from Piratesinfo is going to have himself a hell of a laugh. That's been one of his pet theses for years!

English Civil War is outside what I studied for my thesis, so I won't claim any familiarity with the Diggers, Levellers, etc. I won't dispute that they were political movements, but I had always heard that their political stance sprang pretty directly from their religious doctrine. Were they religiously disunited while pursuing common political goals?

[Fox]

Yeah, essentially both the levellers and diggers' principal motive was the fact that after 6 or 7 years of bloody civil war nothing had changed. Parliament had defeated the king but life was as bad for the common man as it had been before; they still had no say in the affairs of the moment; taxes had gone up; food prices were the highest they had been in living memory; land ownership was still in the hands of the elite; and to make things worse martial law had been imposed.

Within the levellers it's impossible to tell what the religious convictions of most of them were, but given that the prevailing mood of the army at the time was "Independent" it seems reasonable to assume that that applied to the levellers as much as the other soldiers, hence the levellers insistence on religious toleration. They certainly had no religious agenda involving one form of worship over another.

[Jib]

One concept I am trying to get my head around is the idea of people or strict religious conviction doing things of incredible brutality. I can imagine people claiming to be these pious god fearing children of Christ and then going wild on wild murderous rampages. How they can seperate personal actions from tenets, scripture, doctrine is amazing.

...And it still happens today.

Godly and ungodly all in one human.

[Barber-surgeon]

"the idea of people or strict religious conviction doing things of incredible brutality...people claiming to be these pious god fearing children of Christ and then going wild on wild murderous rampages. How they can seperate personal actions from tenets, scripture, doctrine is amazing.

...And it still happens today.

Godly and ungodly all in one human.

Perhaps they look at it as actions that don't count or possibly 'add a jewel to their crown when they reach heaven', as me grand-mum used to say.

They are inflicting "God's Rightiousness" upon the evil-doer, bringing them "God's Justice", in effect, they convince themselves that they are the "Sword Arm of God".

And when I say "God", you can substitue whatever deity/concept/leader of the faith/ect. you wish. And all this can be filed under I.M.O.

Cheers! :)

[Capt. Sterling]

One concept I am trying to get my head around is the idea of people or strict religious conviction doing things of incredible brutality.

I think one has to remember that they lived in brutal times and things just rub off on a person and not just for the better, as a matter of fact Proverbs says that the bad will rub off on good folks before the good will rub off on bad. Not only that but most "Christian" religions of the time were firmly esconced in the Old Testement, and eye for an eye, etc. Yes they had the new and better Covenant but it does not seem to have taken a hold on the majority of the folks back then, and also remember most people could not read and so did not read the scriptures for themselves. Even Charles II thought too much education for too many folks was not a good thing. So it all boiled down to what was being preached from the pulpits and just because someone puts on a collar and carries a bible does NOT make him a Christian.

Hector

[Barber-surgeon]

Indeed, well put, Capt. Sterling. This generation carries a very thin coating of civilization--but that's another kettle of worms...

Cheers!

[Jib]

Who ever said you can't learn from the past sure didn't pay attention.