The Puritans were a group of religious people from England who deeply believed in the foundations of the Bible and knew that God had commissioned them to do something great. They were to be trail blazers in a sense. They were a part of the Church of England but thought that the church practiced too many Catholic behaviors. The Puritans sought to “purify” the church of all those Catholic influences and rituals. Did the Puritans succeed in purifying the Church of their “evil” behavior?
King Henry VIII started the English Reformation when he wanted to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon, when she failed to birth a son. The Roman Catholic Church did not believe in divorce. Henry got the Archbishop to grant his divorce, against the Pope’s will.
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There was absolutely nothing you could do to make God change his mind. The Catholics believed that works could get you in to heaven. That’s part of the reason why the Puritans wanted to get rid of the Catholic beliefs and rituals in the church. The Puritans believed that faith that God had chosen them was the only way to get in heaven. You could not possibly know if you were a part of the elect or not. They relied on the idea of conversion for that answer. Being converted meant that you had a life changing experience from God and you were against willful sinning. If you could somehow persuade the people that you had experienced this conversion process, you could possibly be considered part of the …show more content…
They wanted to be free to worship as they pleased. They did not want to be forced to pursue their faith the way somebody else wanted them to. They were a group of dissenters from the Church of England. Dissenters are people who oppose others’ religious beliefs and start their own churches. They opposed the Roman Catholic Church and went to North America to start their own church. They didn’t go to try and force someone else to see God their way. They were seeking freedom from that religious bondage that held the rest of the world in