Archeology And The Puritans

History and archeology both tell the stories of ancient societies, however, each of them has their own way of telling the story. While archeology requires scientists to interpret items used in a society to tell a story. Historians are able to read the written documents left behind; allowing each writer to tell their story in their own words. The ability to understand the Puritans is unparalleled when compared to many other ancient societies. The Puritans had a strong belief in the educational system and their main purpose was creating a utopia in which we can follow as it developed. Many young people between the ages of 16-22 were required to keep daily journals in an attempt to justify them as a visible saint to the congregation and this is

The first thing we must realize about Puritans is they believe in predestination. This is the belief that no matter how you live your life on earth, the decision on whether you will go to heaven or hell has already been made. This belief system is a direct abomination to Church of England, in which King James I was the head. Thereby, the puritans defied the church and the King and could not be trusted and had proven to be a threat to political power. This led to the persecution of the Puritans. They faced simplistic fines all the way to physical torture such as the cropping of ears, being branded by the King and his men. Knowing they were unwanted in England they decided to head east to Leiden in order to find a free place to worship; which proves to be a two-edged

Known as the Congregational Church they had no one single leader. When it came to church matters the visible saints in the church would vote on issues; creating in effect, grassroots democracy. Every year, there is the New England town hall in which visible saints vote on church matters. In the 17th century, they would vote on purchases of muskets, taxes, and land purchases from the Indians. During the infant stages, young members of the church would give a testimony in front of the entire congregation in an effort to gain the visible saint status and the visible saints would vote on your sainthood. However, as time drew on, less and less of the people would declare their testimony for fear of being rejected. Therefore, in 1650, Jon Winthrop comes up with a new idea that would allow your children to be baptized and would look at your financial standing to see if God’s blessing was upon you. If so, then you would be a visible saint however, this seen as a weakening of the puritan