The Puritans
A “Purified” Church
 The
Puritans sought to purify the Church
of England from within.
 They believed the Anglican Church of
England had become too garish and
idolatrous in its worship.
 They wanted to get back to the basics of
Calvinism.
Puritanism
 A version
of Calvinism
 Asserts the basic sinfulness of
humankind; but also declares that God
has determined that some will be saved
despite their sins
 Thus, the experience of conversion, in
which the soul is touched by the Holy
Spirit, is an indication that one is of the
elect
Puritanism
 Puritanism
was a way of life (theocracy)
 Puritan spiritual life stressed selfdiscipline & introspection
 Puritans saw their lives as a “divine
mission”: God gave them the New World
for they were his chosen people
 This idea is the precursor to the concept of
Manifest Destiny
The Bible
 Puritans
believed The Bible to be the
supreme authority on earth
 They used The Bible to justify their
occupation of the land and their use of
force against Native Americans
Basic Tenets of Puritanism
 Judgmental
God (rewards good/punishes
evil)
 Predestination/Election (salvation or
damnation was predetermined by God)
 Original Sin (humans are innately sinful,
tainted by the sins of Adam & Eve; good can
be accomplished only through hard work &
self-discipline)
 Providence
 God’s Grace
Basic Tenets of Puritanism
Grace
 The Puritans saw grace as a gift from a kind
and loving God; human beings were unworthy
to receive salvation because of their depraved
natures.
 Repentance, like personal salvation, depended
on the Grace of God.
 Only select individuals could experience this
miracle of God’s love.
Am I One of the Elect?
 Puritans
examined themselves & their
lives constantly looking for evidence of
their election
 Guilt & remorse were signs of God’s
grace
 Thrift, industry, hard work were viewed
as signs of God’s grace
 Business success was a sign of God’s
grace
The Elect
 Unlike Anglican
and Catholic churches of
the time, Puritan churches did not hold
that all parish residents should be full
church members.
 Exclusive, not inclusive
 A true church, they believed, consisted
not of everyone but only of the elect
The Elect
 Since
citizenship was tied to church
membership, the motivation for experiencing
conversion was secular and civil as well as
religious in nature.
 As a test of election, many New England
churches began to require applicants for
church membership to testify to their personal
experience of God in the form of
autobiographical conversion narratives.
Conversion Narratives
 Beyond
the usual confession of faith, the
applicant was required to give a
satisfactory narrative of his experience of
grace.
 Thomas Hooker: The six essential stages
of this morphology of conversion were
contrition, humiliation, vocation,
implantation, exaltation, and possession
Hard Work & Self-Discipline
 To
the Puritans, a person by nature was
wholly sinful and could achieve good
only by severe and unremitting discipline.
 Hard work was considered a religious
duty and emphasis was laid on constant
self-examination and self-discipline.
Hard Work & Self-Discipline
 Although
profanation of the Sabbath day,
blasphemy, fornication, drunkenness,
playing games of chance, and
participation in theatrical performances
were penal offenses, the severity of the
code of behavior of the early Puritans is
often exaggerated.
Puritans & Education
Puritans
were highly literate people
Education was highly valued as a
way to fight atheism and to instill in
children the value of hard work
Puritans & Education
They
held the writing of history in
high regard
They wrote narratives, journals,
biographies, hymns, sermons
Almost all writing was religiously
based
 1636:
The Puritans founded Harvard, the first
college in America
Puritan Firsts
 1638:
the first printing press was brought
to the colonies
 The Bay Psalm Book (1640): the first
published book in the colonies
 “The Day of Doom” (1662): popular
poem in the colonies (about the end of the
world/the Apocalypse)
From “The Day of Doom”
The pain of loss their Souls doth toss,
and wond'rously distress,
To think what they have cast away
by wilful wickedness.
We might have been redeem'd from sin,
think they, and liv'd above,
Being possest of heav'nly rest,
and joying in God's love.
But wo, wo, wo our Souls unto!
we would not happy be;
And therefore hear Gods Vengeance here
to all Eternitee.
Experience and woful sense
must be our painful teachers
Who n'ould believe, nor credit give,
unto our faithful Preachers.
Thus shall they ly, and wail, and cry,
tormented, and tormenting
Their galled hearts with pois'ned darts
but now too late repenting.
There let them dwell i'the' Flames of Hell;
there leave we them to burn,
And back agen unto the men
who Christ acquits, return.
The Saints behold with courage bold,
and thankful wonderment,
To see all those that were their foes
thus sent to punishment:
Then do they sing unto their King
a Song of endless Praise:
They praise his Name, and do proclaim
that just are all his ways.
The Bay Psalm Book
From The New England Primer
A Divine Song of Praise to GOD, for a Child
How glorious is our heavenly King,
Who reigns above tha Sky!
How shall a Child presume to sing
His dreadful Majesty!
How great his Power is none can tell,
Nor think how large his grace:
Nor men below, nor Saints that dwell,
On high before his Face.
Nor Angels that stand round the Lord,
Can search his secret will;
But they perform his heav'nly Word,
And sing his Praises still.
Then let me join this holy Train;
And my first Off'rings bring;
The eternal GOD will not disdain
To hear an Infant sing.
My Heart resolves, my Tongue obeys,
And Angels shall rejoice,
To hear their mighty Maker's Praise,
Sound from a feeble Voice.
Anne Hutchinson
–
Roger Williams
Dissenters
 Reformers
like Anne Hutchinson were
excommunicated from the church and driven
out of the community.
 Roger Williams was banished from the MBC
in 1635 for challenging the strict religious
code and the government’s right to confiscate
Native American land without compensation.
 He founded the colony of Providence in 1636.
 Quakers and other dissenters received very
harsh punishments, including execution, for
their beliefs.
Other Colonies
 1632:
Lord Baltimore establishes the colony of
Maryland as a haven for persecuted Roman
Catholics
 1636: Colonists leave Puritan Massachusetts to
seek religious freedom in Connecticut (Thomas
Hooker) and Rhode Island (Roger Williams)
 1682: Quaker William Penn’s Pennsylvania
becomes a model of religious and political
tolerance
Puritans are People Too!
 The
Puritans honored material success;
wealth was considered to be the reward
of a virtuous life.
 They valued family life, community,
service, art and literature.
 Puritans were known to drink beer and
other alcoholic beverages on occasion.
The Decline of Puritanism
 By
1700 Puritanism was in decline in New
England for various reasons
– Indian Wars (Pequots, Narragansets, Nipmuks,
Wampanoags)
– Urbanization (more non-Puritans joining the
colonies)
– Age of Reason (rationalists attack religion,
focusing on science & reason)
– Salem Witch Trials
Puritan Influence on America
 After
the 17th century the Puritans as a
political entity largely disappeared, but Puritan
attitudes and ethics continued to exert an
influence on American society.
Puritan Influence on America
 They
made a virtue of qualities that made for
economic success—self-reliance, frugality,
self-discipline, industry—and through them
influenced modern social and economic life.
 Their concern for education was important in
the development of the United States, and the
idea of congregational democratic church
government was carried into the political life
of the state as a source of modern democracy
The Great Awakening
Jonathon Edwards
“Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God”
The Great Awakening
 One
hundred years after a group of Puritans
came to colonial America for religious
freedom, some Puritans felt that their
congregations had grown too complacent, or
self-satisfied.
 To rekindle the fervor that the early settlers
had, Jonathon Edwards and other Puritan
ministers led the Great Awakening.
Jonathon Edwards
 A forceful
preacher & speaker
 Founded the College of New Jersey (later
became Princeton)
 Leader of “The Great Awakening,”
a religious revival that swept through
New England from 1734-1750.
Jonathan Edwards
 He
believed that he had experienced
grace as one of God’s elect and refused to
serve communion to the non-elect; this
upset many in his congregation
 In 1750 he was dismissed as a minister
after he publicly named those who had
lapsed in their devotion, including
influential members of the community
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
 Edwards’ sermon
is a classic statement of
the Puritan’s literal version of Heaven
and Hell
 In his sermon, he is trying to restore his
listeners to their original commitment to
Puritanism
 He delivered this six-hour sermon at
Enfield, CT on July 8, 1741
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
 The
sermon was very effective: the
audience literally shrieked and swooned
 The fact that Edwards spoke in a reserved
manner speaks to the effectiveness of the
language he uses in the sermon.
“I think it is a reasonable thing to fright
persons away from hell. They stand upon
its brink, and are just ready to fall into it,
and are senseless of their danger. Is it not
a reasonable thing to fright a person out
of a house on fire?”
– Jonathon Edwards
“Sinners in the Hands
of an Angry God”
The sermon contains vivid tropes (figurative
language) and vivid images
 Edwards uses mainly emotional appeal (pathos) to
impact his audience
 Repeated images (motifs) in the sermon:
– Hell as a fiery pit
– God holding sinners over that pit in his hand
– God as angry

“Sinners in the Hands
of an Angry God”
 “We
find it easy to tread on and crush a
worm that we see crawling on the earth; so
it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender
thread that any thing hangs by; thus easy is
it for God when he pleases to cast his
enemies down into hell…”
 “Yea, God is a great deal more angry with
great numbers that are now on earth; yea,
doubtless, with many that are now in this
congregation…”
“Sinners in the Hands
of an Angry God”

“The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow
made ready on the string, and justice bends the
arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is
nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of
an angry God, without any promise or obligation
at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from
being made drunk with your blood.”
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much
as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect
over the fire, abhors you…his wrath toward you
burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of
nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.”
 “You are ten thousand times more abominable in
his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent
is in ours.”

“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
“O sinner! Consider the fearful danger
you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a
wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of
wrath, that you are held over in the hand
of that God, whose wrath is provoked and
incensed as much against you, as against
many of the damned in hell.”
 “And now you have an extraordinary
opportunity, a day wherein Christ has
thrown the door of mercy wide open, and
stands in the door calling and crying with
a loud voice to poor sinners…”

Metaphor
Metaphor
The Salem Witch Trials
The Salem Witch Trials (1690s)
Several young Puritan girls accuse a servant, Tituba,
of being a witch
 To protect herself, Tituba implicates other members
of the community
 A chain reaction ensues and 27 people are convicted
of practicing witchcraft
 50 others “confess” and 100 others are imprisoned
to await trial
 In the end 19 people are executed (hanged) for
being witches

1692 Salem
 Since
Puritans were expected to live by a rigid
moral code, they believed that all sins—from
sleeping in church to stealing food—should be
punished.
 They also believed God would punish sinful
behavior.
 When a neighbor would suffer misfortune,
such as a sick child or a failed crop, Puritans
saw it as God’s will and did not help.
1692 Salem
 Puritans
also believed the Devil was as real as
God.
 Everyone was faced with the struggle between
the powers of good and evil, but Satan would
select the weakest individuals—women,
children, the insane—to carry out his work.
 Those who followed Satan were considered
witches.
 Witchcraft was one of the greatest crimes a
person could commit, punishable by death.
1692 Salem
 In
keeping with the Puritan code of
conformity, the first women to be accused of
witchcraft in Salem were seen as different and
as social outcasts: Tituba, a slave; Sarah Good,
a homeless beggar; and Sarah Osborne, a
sickly old woman who married her servant.
1692 Salem
 Fear
of magic and witchcraft was common in
New England, as it had been in Europe for
centuries.
 Over 100 alleged witches had been tried and
hanged in New England during the 1600s.
 But the hangings in 1692 Salem would be the
last ones in America
Witches or Not?
 To
“prove” that someone was a witch,
church officials sometimes poked him or
her with pins, searching for a so-called
devil’s mark, a spot where no pain was felt.
 Another test involved tying together the
hands and feet of the accused and throwing
him or her into water. Those who floated
were declared witches; those who drowned
were declared innocent.
Spectral Evidence
 In
the Salem witch trials, spectral
evidence – the testimony of a church
member who claimed to have seen a
person’s spirit performing witchcraft –
was enough to sentence the accused to
death.
The Examination of Sarah Good
 1692:
The Massachusetts Bay Colony of Salem
was gripped by panic after a group of adolescent
girls suffered mysterious symptoms such as
convulsive fits, hallucinations, loss of appetite,
and the temporary loss of hearing, sight &
speech.
 Diagnosed as being victims of witchcraft, the
girls denounced certain townspeople for this
crime, including a woman named Sarah Good.
The Examination of Sarah Good
 Sarah
Good was one of the first to be
accused of witchcraft by the circle of
young girls in Salem.
 She was a likely witch in the eyes of
many townspeople—an odd homeless
woman who did not fit the Puritan mold.
 The
people of Salem were very familiar
with Sarah Good.
 She often begged door-to-door with her
children.
 If she were refused, she would walk away
mumbling.
 Many claimed these “curses” were
responsible for failed crops and death of
livestock.
 Then
on March 24, Ann Putnam accused Sarah’s
five-year-old daughter, Dorcas, of witchcraft.
 When examined, the imaginative young child
confessed that she and her mother were witches.
 She showed the magistrates a red spot on her
finger—most likely a flea bite—claiming it was
from a snake her mother had given her.
 Little Dorcas was put in prison, chained to a
wall.
 On
March 1, 1692, Sarah Good faced
examination with two other accused witches,
Sarah Osburne and Tituba, Reverend Parris’s
Caribbean slave.
 During the questioning, Ann Putnam, Betty
Parris, and Abigail Williams shrieked and fell
into fits.
 Sarah Good pleaded, “I am falsely accused,”
but then Tituba named her as a witch. Several
villagers—including her own husband—also
testified against her, and Sarah was put in
prison.
 Sarah
Good was tried on June 30.
 Despite no evidence other than the claims
of the afflicted girls, she was found
guilty.
 She was one of five women to be hanged
on July 19, 1692.
 Just before the hanging, the other women
prayed and asked God to forgive the
accusers, but Sarah Good showed no sign
of forgiveness.
 Local
minister Reverend Nicholas Noyes
urged her to confess, announcing that she
was indeed a witch. Sarah Good replied:
“I am no more a witch than you are a
wizard, and if you take away my life,
God will give you blood to drink.”
 Twenty-five
years later, Reverend Noyes
died of internal bleeding, choking on his
own blood.
Another Explanation?
 Convulsive
ergotism may have been a
physiological basis for the Salem
witchcraft crisis.
 Ergot, a parasitic fungus, grows on a
large variety of cereal grains, especially
rye.
 Ergotism (ergot poisoning) was once a
common condition resulting from eating
contaminated rye bread.
Another Explanation?
 The
growing conditions and the pattern of
agricultural practices fit the timing of the
1692 crisis.
 Convulsive ergotism is characterized by
crawling sensations in the skin, tingling
in the fingers, vertigo, headaches,
hallucination, convulsions, and vomiting.
 The Puritans seized upon witchcraft for
the best explanation for the phenomena.
The
Crucible
The Crucible
 Arthur
Milller’s play, The Crucible draws a
direct parallel between McCarthyism in 1950s
America and the hysteria & paranoia in Salem.
 This
paranoia and “witch hunt” mentality was
present in 1950s Hollywood where many
Americans were suspected of being members
of the Communist party and “blacklisted.”
The Crucible
 In
the 1950s Miller was subjected to a
scrutiny by a committee of the United
States Congress investigating Communist
influence in the arts.
 The Crucible was an allegory for the
McCarthy era and mass hysteria
The Crucible
 In
1956 Miller was called before the
House Committee on Un-American
Activities (HUAC).
 Miller admitted that he had attended
certain meetings, but denied that he was a
Communist.
The Crucible
 Miller
had attended among others four or five
writer's meetings sponsored by the Communist
Party in 1947, supported a Peace Conference,
and signed many appeals and protests.
 Refusing to offer other people's names, who
had associated with leftist or suspected
Communist groups, Miller was cited for
contempt of Congress, but the ruling was
reversed by the courts in 1958.
 He was blacklisted, which meant that he could
not get a job anywhere in Hollywood.
Miller before HUAC