Puritan DBQ Essay

The Puritans Mark On The World in the 1600’s
The Puritans religious virtues and ideals affected all aspects of their life. Socially, the main Puritan goals were to glorify God, educate their people so they can spread their religious ideals, and to keep the society pure. Politically, they wanted god to do the governing for them and therefore established the Puritan society as a theocracy in which the minister translated god’s word into a form that could be governed. Economically, the Puritans wanted to have God in the "drivers seat" and everything else was a passenger. However what is truly amazing is how their beliefs never wavered.
The Puritan society is a very close and tight-knit culture (Document A) that is based off the idea the religion is the most important thing and life should be lived to glorify God. Religion was the driving force behind the Puritans. It was the main reason they decided to abandon the Church of England and come across the Atlantic to North America. Once the Puritans had come over, they began building their towns. The center of a puritan town would the Church and the Town Hall (Document B). The Church was a center gathering place that all townspeople and the Minister acted as a mayor-like figure. As a way to spread their strict Christian beliefs, they were very concerned with education and believed it was a right for everyone (Document E). Knowing how to read and write were key instruments to spreading the Puritan ideas and ways of life. Reading was especially essential because reading the Bible took up a huge majority of time in the Puritan society. The writing was used when writing in their diaries about how they were glorifying god (Document C). While the entire reason the Puritans separated from the Church of England was to escape their persecution, once they got to America, they were not the most tolerant people (Document G). They believed that their religion was correct and no others should be accepted. “He that is willing to tolerate any religion, or discrepant way of religion, besides his own, unless it be in matters merely indifferent, either doubts of his own, or is not sincere in it” (Document G). The Puritan political ideals and values shaped a large portion of the New England’s political beliefs during the 1630-1660. As stated by John Cotton’s “limitations of government” (document H) “Let all the world learn to give mortal men no greater power than they are content they shall use” this statement put the Puritan ideology in full view, that no man shall hold more power than then he deserves and no one will ever be considered a “god” in politics. The Puritans believed no man could ever come close to the power of God so in the puritans minds someone who could control others destinies such as a lawmaker or governor could never have too much power over their own people. Along with puritan beliefs they said every man had to treat one another equally (Document C) for they are all God's people and the people who much watch themselves the most are those in power such as the ministers and the politicians for they, in the puritan's mind, had to rule by the word of God and only the word of God. Now the puritans idea for for people involved in government was much like the rest of the worlds views for the time, only landowning free white males could be involved in governing the people but the puritans took it one step further. They also added the rule that you had to be of the church to be part of the governing body. Finally the Puritans believed community and how its run should be based on the family model. The Puritans believed that the patriarchal position in the family was the man and in the community the minister. Both taught the next generation how to live and learn by the bible and how to be good puritans. The next position in the society was that of the woman's, who is there to guide the next generation into love and nurturing from bible and support the man in all his endeavors and work.

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