2 The Puritan Dilemma was written in 1958. It is important to know because
3 Puritanism demanded more of the individual than it did of the church. Puritanism was a power not to be denied. Puritanism required that a man devote his life to seeking salvation but told him was helpless to do anything but evil. Puritanism required that he rest his whole hope in Christ but taught him that Christ would utterly reject him unless before he was born God foreordained his salvation. Puritanism required that man refrain from sin but told him he would sin anyhow. Puritanism required that he reform the world in the image of God’s holy kingdom but taught him that evil of the world was incurable and inevitable. Puritanism required that he work to the best of his ability at whatever task was set before him and partake of the good things that God had filled the world with, but told him he must enjoy his work and his pleasures only, as it were, absentmindedly, with his attention fixed on God.
4 For John Winthrop, Massachusetts was an ideal place to build a Puritan utopia untainted by the