Church, Covenant, and Conformity

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Puritans believed that a church consisted of men and women who had entered a solemn covenant with one another and with God. Each new member of the covenant had to persuade existing members that she or he had fully experienced conversion.

Puritans embraced a distinctive version of Protestantism derived from Calvinism, the doctrines of John Calvin, who insisted that Christians strictly discipline their behavior to conform to God’s commandments announced in the Bible. Like Calvin, Puritans believed in predestination — the idea that the all-powerful God, before the creation of the world, decided which few human souls would receive eternal life. Only God knows the identity of these fortunate predestined individuals — the “elect” or “saints.” Nothing a person did in his or her lifetime could alter God’s choice or provide assurance that the person was predestined for salvation with the elect or damned to hell with the doomed multitude.

Calvinism

image Christian doctrine of the Swiss Protestant theologian John Calvin. Its chief tenet was predestination, the idea that God had determined which human souls would receive eternal salvation. Despite this doctrine, Calvinism promoted strict discipline in daily and religious life.

predestination

image A doctrine stating that God determined whether individuals were destined for salvation or damnation before their birth. According to the doctrine, nothing an individual did during his or her lifetime could affect that person’s fate.

Despite the looming uncertainty about God’s choice of the elect, Puritans believed that if a person lived a rigorously godly life — constantly winning the daily battle against sin — his or her behavior was likely to be a hint, a visible sign, that he or she was one of God’s chosen few. Puritans thought that “sainthood” would become visible in individuals’ behavior, especially if they were privileged to know God’s Word as revealed in the Bible.

The connection between sainthood and saintly behavior, however, was far from certain. Some members of the elect, Puritans believed, had not heard God’s Word. One reason Puritans required all town residents to attend church services was to enlighten anyone who was ignorant of God’s Truth. The slippery relationship between saintly behavior and God’s predestined election caused Puritans to worry constantly that individuals who acted like saints were fooling themselves and others. Nevertheless, Puritans thought that visible saints — persons who passed the Puritans’ demanding tests of conversion and church membership — probably were among God’s elect.

visible saints

image Puritans who had passed the tests of conversion and church membership and were therefore thought to be among God’s elect.

Members of Puritan churches ardently hoped that God had chosen them to receive eternal life and tried to demonstrate saintly behavior. Their covenant bound them to help one another attain salvation and to discipline the entire community by saintly standards. Church members kept an eye on the behavior of everybody in town. By overseeing every aspect of life, the visible saints enforced a remarkable degree of righteous conformity in Puritan communities. Total conformity, however, was never achieved. Ardent Puritans differed among themselves, and non-Puritans shirked orthodox rules, such as the Roxbury servant who declared that “if hell were ten times hotter, [I] would rather be there than [I] would serve [my] master.”

Despite the central importance of religion, churches played no direct role in the civil government of New England communities. Puritans did not want to mimic the Church of England, which they considered a puppet of the king rather than an independent body that served the Lord. They were determined to insulate New England churches from the contaminating influence of the civil state and its merely human laws. Ministers were prohibited from holding government office.

Puritans had no qualms, however, about their religious beliefs influencing New England governments. As much as possible, the Puritans tried to bring public life into conformity with their view of God’s law. For example, fines were issued for Sabbath-breaking activities such as working, traveling, playing a flute, smoking a pipe, and visiting neighbors.

image
Figure false: The Puritan Challenge to the Status Quo
Figure false: The World Turn’d Upside Down, a pamphlet printed in London in 1647, satirizes the Puritan notion that the contemporary world was deeply flawed. The pamphlet refers to the “distracted Times” of the Puritan Revolution in England. The drawing on the title page ridicules criticisms of English society that also were common among New England Puritans. Courtesy of the Trustees of The British Library.
Figure false: > VISUAL ACTIVITY
Figure false: READING THE IMAGE: The drawing shows at least a dozen examples of the conventional world of seventeenth-century England turned upside down. Can you identify them?
Figure false: CONNECTIONS: Puritans would claim that the artist had it wrong — that the conventional world turned God’s order upside down. How might the drawing have been different if a devout Puritan had drawn it?

Puritans mandated other purifications of what they considered corrupt English practices. They refused to celebrate Christmas or Easter because the Bible did not mention either one. They outlawed religious wedding ceremonies; couples were married by a magistrate in a civil ceremony. They banned cards, dice, shuffleboard, and other games of chance, as well as music and dancing. “Mixt or Promiscuous Dancing … of Men and Women” could not be tolerated since “the unchaste Touches and Gesticulations used by Dancers have a palpable tendency to that which is evil.”