The main arguments that the authors are stating is how much influence the puritan religion had on society. The article “The Puritans and Sex” was arguing that the puritan religion did not hold a whole lot of influence because it refers to how the population did not always follow their rules on sex. The article “When Cotton Mather Fought the Smallpox” was also arguing against the puritan church having lots of influence because even though Cotton Mather was a preacher in the puritan church the population didn’t believe in his methods of inoculation. The article “Persistent Localism”states that the central religion that had power in the colonies were the Puritans. The article “ The Puritans and Sex” explores the values of puritans during the colonial days of America. The article talks about how the puritans viewed sex. In the article it states ‘ Intercourse was allowable too, though of course between persons who were married to each other”. This evidence means that the puritans were not against sex just as long as the people were married. But also in the article it states “ The Puritans became inured to sexual offenses, because there were so many. The impression one gets from reading the records of seventeenth-century New England courts is that illicit sexual intercourse was fairly common”. The previous piece of evidence states that Puritans allowed …show more content…
The article “The Puritans and Sex” and the article “When Cotton Mather Fought the Smallpox” both talk about how the Puritans did not have a lot of influence. Whereas The article “Persistent Localism” talks about how they did. The top two article gave a more compelling case then the bottom one because the bottom article talks about how the Puritans had central control of the religion but the top two article talked about how they had the central religion but they people didn’t always follow