Puritanism, superficially thought to be a belief in which the Church of England should be removed from Catholicism and its hierarchy, demands more of the individual than the church. It demanded the faith, strength, and determination to please God. The Puritan Dilemma, by Edmund S. Morgan, is the biography of John Winthrop, a Puritan who departs from England so as to create a haven and an example of a community where the laws of God were followed diligently. Within the Puritan Dilemma, Morgan outlines the dilemma that plagues all Puritans. Morgan speaks of the paradox that troubled Winthrop that was “... the paradox that required a man to live in the world without being of it.”(Morgan, pg.27) He delineates the central desire of Puritan’s, or
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He had concerns with the idea of leaving England. He was apprehensive about the idea of leaving because he thought that they might be “abandoning one’s fellow sinners to flee to a brave new world”(Morgan, pg.36). He believed it might be a form of separatism. He attempted to convince himself otherwise by attempting to minimize the negative effects of their absence through the short list of involved persons, and the ideal of ‘converting’ the native populations; despite this, he was still believed these to be weak arguments. He eventually convinced himself by the belief that he might have more success in the reform of the Anglican Church by creating a pure partition of the church rather than attempting to “strive in vain for purity at home”(Morgan, …show more content…
This he believed was their covenant with God; an agreement to unconditionally obey God’s will(Morgan, pg.63). Winthrop believed their covenant with God was an extension of the Covenant of Grace, which Puritans believed was the only way to achieve salvation(How do I cite notes?). Winthrop, therefore, came under the belief that his actions was not an abandonment of his peers to escape their sin but an endeavor to extend English society and purify it. These views on Covenant Theology are reflected by Winthrop's ideals, in the form of the paradox, because wished to retain their connection to England, but not inherit the errors they wished to serve example against in their duty to be a model for the rest of England to emulate.
This aspiration for a pure society invited many opportunities for some to develop an obsession with this purity in the form of separatism. This obsession led them to seek the disengagement with everything they believed to be impure. John Winthrop believed these ideas to be physically threatening to the survival of the Massachusetts Bay Colony as well as blasphemous. He viewed the fervor of separatism to be more of a threat to the Colony than the same evil & corruption of man that they had come to New England to erase England of (Morgan,
He had concerns with the idea of leaving England. He was apprehensive about the idea of leaving because he thought that they might be “abandoning one’s fellow sinners to flee to a brave new world”(Morgan, pg.36). He believed it might be a form of separatism. He attempted to convince himself otherwise by attempting to minimize the negative effects of their absence through the short list of involved persons, and the ideal of ‘converting’ the native populations; despite this, he was still believed these to be weak arguments. He eventually convinced himself by the belief that he might have more success in the reform of the Anglican Church by creating a pure partition of the church rather than attempting to “strive in vain for purity at home”(Morgan, …show more content…
This he believed was their covenant with God; an agreement to unconditionally obey God’s will(Morgan, pg.63). Winthrop believed their covenant with God was an extension of the Covenant of Grace, which Puritans believed was the only way to achieve salvation(How do I cite notes?). Winthrop, therefore, came under the belief that his actions was not an abandonment of his peers to escape their sin but an endeavor to extend English society and purify it. These views on Covenant Theology are reflected by Winthrop's ideals, in the form of the paradox, because wished to retain their connection to England, but not inherit the errors they wished to serve example against in their duty to be a model for the rest of England to emulate.
This aspiration for a pure society invited many opportunities for some to develop an obsession with this purity in the form of separatism. This obsession led them to seek the disengagement with everything they believed to be impure. John Winthrop believed these ideas to be physically threatening to the survival of the Massachusetts Bay Colony as well as blasphemous. He viewed the fervor of separatism to be more of a threat to the Colony than the same evil & corruption of man that they had come to New England to erase England of (Morgan,