Opposed to the lavish rituals and hierarchy of the Church of England and believing that few Anglicans truly felt the grace of God, Puritans set out to establish a simpler form of worship. They focused on their inner lives and on the purity of their church and community. Puritans followed Calvin, believing in an all-knowing God who had seen his flock wander away from his most basic teachings. The true Word of God was presented in the Bible, not in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer or hymns written by modern composers. The biblically sanctioned church was a congregation formed by a group of believers who made a covenant with God. Only a small minority of people, known as Saints, were granted God’s grace, and Puritans believed (or at least hoped) that their churches were filled with Saints.
Saints were granted God’s grace even though all humans since the fall of Adam were deserving of perpetual damnation. Whether one was a Saint and thereby saved was predetermined by and known only to God. Yet Puritans believed that those who were chosen led a godly life. Visible signs included individuals’ passionate response to the preaching of God’s Word, their sense of doubt and despair over their own soul, and that wonderful sense of reassurance that came with God’s “saving grace.” Saints were also expected to be virtuous, neighborly, benevolent, and successful.
Puritans, like most Christians at the time, believed that signs of God’s hand in the world were everywhere. They appeared in natural phenomena like comets, eclipses, and deformed births as well as in “remarkable providences” that eased believers’ way. Thus when a smallpox epidemic killed several thousand Massachusetts Indians in 1633–1634, a Puritan town council observed: “Without this remarkable and terrible stroke of God upon the native, we would with much more difficulty have found room, and at a far greater charge have obtained and purchased land.” Clearly God was shining his light on the Puritans, rather than on the Massachusetts.
Shared religious beliefs helped forge a unified community where faith guided civil as well as spiritual decisions. Most political leaders were devout Puritans. Indeed, ministers often served as members of the General Court or presided over town meetings. Puritan leaders determined who got land, how much, and where; they also served as judge and jury for those accused of crimes or sins. Their leadership was largely successful. Even if colonists differed over who should get the most fertile strip of land, they agreed on basic principles. Still, almost from the beginning, certain Puritans challenged some of the community’s fundamental beliefs, and in the process, the community itself.