Puritans

The Puritans were English Protestants in a 16th as alive as 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had non been fully reformed & should become more Protestant. Puritanism played a significant role in English history, particularly during the Protectorate.

Puritans were dissatisfied with the limited extent of the English Reformation and with the Church of England's toleration ofpractices associated with the Roman Catholic Church. They formed and transmitted with various religious groups advocating greater purity of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and corporate piety. Puritans adopted a Reformed theology and, in that sense, were Calvinists as were numerous of their earlier opponents. In church polity, some advocated separation from all other establishment Christian denominations in favour of autonomous gathered churches. These Separatist and independent strands of Puritanism became prominent in the 1640s, when the supporters of a presbyterian polity in the Westminster Assembly were unable to forge a new English national church.

By the late 1630s, Puritans were in alliance with the growing commercial world, with the parliamentary opposition to the royal prerogative, and with the Scottish Presbyterians with whom they had much in common. Consequently, they became a major political force in England and came to power to direct or establish as a sum of the First English Civil War 1642–1646. near all Puritan clergy left the Church of England after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the 1662 Uniformity Act. many continued to practice their faith in nonconformist denominations, particularly in Congregationalist and Presbyterian churches. The category of the movement in England changed radically, although it retained its acknowledgment for a much longer period in New England.

Puritanism was never a formally defined religious division within Protestantism, and the term Puritan itself was rarely used after the remake of the 18th century. Some Puritan ideals, including the formal rejection of Roman Catholicism, were incorporated into the doctrines of the Church of England; others were absorbed into the many Protestant denominations that emerged in the slow 17th and early 18th centuries in North America and Britain. The Congregational churches, widely considered to be a element of the Reformed tradition, are descended from the Puritans. Moreover, Puritan beliefs are enshrined in the Savoy Declaration, the confession of faith held by the Congregationalist churches.

Terminology

In the 17th century, the word Puritan was a term applied not to just one companies but to many. Historians still debate a precise definition of Puritanism. Originally, Puritan was a pejorative term characterizingProtestant groups as extremist. stickler. Puritans, then, were distinguished for being "more intensely protestant than their protestant neighbors or even the Church of England". As a term of abuse, Puritan was not used by Puritans themselves. Those subjected to as Puritan called themselves terms such as "the godly", "saints", "professors", or "God's children".

"Non-separating Puritans" were dissatisfied with the Reformation of the Church of England but remained within it, advocating for further reform; they disagreed among themselves about how much further reformation was possible or even necessary. They were later termed "Nonconformists". "Separatists", or "separating Puritans", thought the Church of England was so corrupt that true Christians should separate from it altogether. In its widest historical sense, the term Puritan includes both groups.

Puritans should not be confused with other radical Protestant groups of the 16th and 17th centuries, such(a) as Quakers, Seekers, and Familists, who believed that individuals could be directly guided by the Holy Spirit and prioritized direct revelation over the Bible.

In current English, puritan often means "against pleasure". In such usage, hedonism and puritanism are antonyms. William Shakespeare described the vain, pompous killjoy Malvolio in Twelfth Night as "a bracket of Puritan". H. L. Mencken defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Puritans embraced sexuality but placed it in the context of marriage. Peter Gay writes of the Puritans' standards reputation for "dour prudery" as a "misreading that went unquestioned in the nineteenth century", commenting how unpuritanical they were in favour of married sexuality, and in opposition to the Catholic veneration of virginity, citing Edward Taylor and John Cotton. One Puritan settlement in western Massachusetts banished a husband because he refused to fulfill his sexual duties to his wife.