Puritans Beliefs
The Puritans believed very differently than modern Christians do today. They didn’t see God as a forgiving being, but as someone with much anger for sinners. They didn’t think that we all can go to have, they believed only a selected few would be good enough in God’s eyes to make it into heaven. They also didn’t see Jesus as someone who died for all of us, but for only a few, therefore only those few could make it into heaven.
They also believed that God only gave a certain few power to spread his word, and live a holy life. If someone rejected God’s grace after God offered, they would be going against the power of God, something that would be impossible in Puritanism. The Puritans were God fearing people. There we’re taught to believe in God through the fear of going to hell, not the grace of going to heaven.
The Puritans
The Puritans were an interesting group of people. Even though William Bradford’s journal isn’t the easiest thing to read, it show’s a lot of insight into how our nation was made, and how it has changed. These people really believed what was preached, and very few in the first colony didn’t believe these things. They really wanted to believe in God, and they had faith that he would help them when they were down. They wanted their children to remember what God did for them, which was showed in this passage. "May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: "Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity."
Jonathon Edward, who is known for his sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", believed people should be god fearing people. Though Edward was kind of past his time, he was one of the most zealous preachers in his day. He strongly believed in original sin and preached more to those who had not found Christ yet. His congregation in 1750 eventually voted him out of his church. His sermon showed that the puritans truly feared hell. The way I see it, his motivation for accepting Christ was scarring his congregation into not wanting to burn in hell. In one of his passages he says, "So that thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it". That is pretty much saying that no matter what you do, God will never forgive, and your already sentenced to hell.
Going back to the early puritans, they believed this same philosophy. Instead of preaching to people and saying that they could be forgiven for their sins, they believed that if you were a bad person you’re automatically going to hell. Saying that though, most of the Puritans at that point believed they were still going to heaven. I think they believed that what they were doing was right, and they rarely questioned themselves as right or wrong. I’m not saying they were all bad people, they probably did what most of us would do. They did make a peace treaty with the Indians. Even though we all know now what they later did to the Indians.
One thing I do think is interesting about the Puritans is that they did have strong faith for the most part. Even when they were starving and sick they still kept their faith. Even though I believe in god myself, I’ve always found it interesting what all can be considered miracles. There can be miracles out there, but sometimes it may be luck. It sounds to me that anytime anything good happened to the Puritans, it wasn’t luck, it was God. "And here is to be noted a special providence of God, and a great mercy to this poor people, that here they got seed to plant them corn the next year, or else they might have starved." It may be true that God helped them at that point, but it amazes me how faithful they were. In today’s age most people I know, even the ones who believe in God, would start questioning God once things started going wrong. These people starved and had a hard life for a long time and few if any of them ever stopped believing in God. That is a true test of faith, and if god were grading them on it, I’d have to say they passed.
To be such God loving people, or fearing depending on which way you look at it, they paved a way for many Americans after them. There are few people in today’s world that have as much faith as they did, but we still believe many of the same concepts. More religions believe in some sort of heaven and hell, some sort of God and Devil. They faith was a different then some people’s faith today, but there theories and ideas still pop up in religions today. Like original sin, most of us have heard the same story about Adam and Eve that they did, and nothing that I’ve heard today is different from the way they told it then. The puritans were probably wrong about something’s, but at the end of the day they had much strong faith in God then we have faith in anything today. And what is life really if you have faith in nothing?
Textual Evidence
Limited Atonement
However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being in this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be truly convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you see that it is was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, peace and safety; now thy see that those things on which they depended for peace and safety were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.
From "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"
This passage shows that they believed no matter what you did, whether it be go to church or teach your family about God, if you were supposed to go to hell, you were going to go to hell.
Unconditional Election
What could now sustain them but the Spirit of God and His grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: "Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity," etc. "Let them therefore praise the Lord, because He is good: and his mercies endure forever. Yea, let them which have been redeemed of the Lord, show how He hath delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. When they wandered in the desert wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in, both hungry and thirsty, their soul was overwhelmed in them." "Let them confess before the Lord His lovingkindness and His wonderful works before the sons of men."
From "Of Plymouth Plantation"
What could now sustain them but the Spirit of God and His grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: "Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity," etc. "Let them therefore praise the Lord, because He is good: and his mercies endure forever. Yea, let them which have been redeemed of the Lord, show how He hath delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. When they wandered in the desert wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in, both hungry and thirsty, their soul was overwhelmed in them." "Let them confess before the Lord His lovingkindness and His wonderful works before the sons of men."
From "Of Plymouth Plantation"
I think this passage shows how the pilgrims believed God loved them more than anyone else, and that he chose to help them above others.
