Puritans In Early America

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d determined in advance who was to be saved and who was to be damned (Morgan, 67). A person’s fate was therefore decided before they were born, and their progress in the world either in the direction of salvation or the direction of damnation was simply the unfolding of a mandate before they were born. Calvin believed that it was impossible to for a reliable opinion about whether or not a moan is one of God’s selected, one of those destined for salvation. He had although furnished a number of clues by which concerned Christians could predict their chances. Calvin made it clear, for one thing, that justification depended on faith, not works, and that sanctification was the product of justification rather than the cause of it (Morgan, 67). Sanctification, therefore, though it could not in itself assist a man toward salvation, could be a sign that he was saved (Morgan, 67).
The Puritans that founded the colony in Massachusetts and the surrounding areas were not separatists. John Winthrop who lead the fist great wave of settlers in the spring of 1630, published in England, before his departure, a declaration of the colonists’ attachment and gratitude to the Church of England. But once they arrived in American, Winthrop and his companions did not have doubts about constructing churches closely resembling the Separatist one at Plymouth. The new Churches were on a convenant to which all members were subscribed: each chose and ordained its own ministers, admitted properly qualified new members and threw out incorrigible old ones (Morgan, 64).
The Puritans that stayed within the Church of England would tend emphasize the invisible attributes, such as that people were being preached the word and that at least some had to have been saved, instead of the visible ones over which they had no present control. If they had conceded to the Separatists that discipline, the supervision of the members’ behavior, was a necessary attribute of a chur...