The Influence of the Puritan Ideal in the Formation of American Culture
...bility, a person can gain both riches and dignity by exercising his manhood and investing in this new world. A world so flourishing with bounty that “He is a bad fisher [who] cannot kill in one day with his hook and line, one, two, or three hundred cods” (Smith, 55). Through endorsements such as these, the new world was seen as a promise of prosperity and an opportunity for all who are willing to invest their time and work to build a new way of life. As the Puritans were a people of strong work ethic and pungent religious devotion, such calls of freedom and opportunity could be seen as an invitation from God to settle where they could worship and maintain their way of life as He would see fit. Their adamant devotion had found political and social disaccord with the current state of England they were forced to seek a horizon where they could worship in peace. Following John Smith’s promise of a world that will provide plenty and abundance to all who will but work for it and freedom to all those that seek it, the Puritans sailed west to establish a “New Israel”. From their writings, we understand that they saw themselves as the chosen elect of God as we read from John Winthrop’s A Model of Christian Charity, “The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us as His own people… He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, ‘the Lord make it like that of New England.’ For we must consider that we shall be as a city up on a hill” (Winthrop, 105). A Puritan woman named Mary Rolandson explains in A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson the nature of being the elect of god as she states “ ‘For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth’ (Hebrews 12.6). But now I see the Lord had His time to scourge and chasten me… Yet I see, when God calls a person to anything, and through never so many difficulties, yet He is fully able to carry them through and make them see, and say they have been gainers thereby” (Rowlandson, 150). The Puritans were constantly typologically comparing themselves with ancient Israel, who, in a like manner, faced many afflictions before receiving the blessings God. If there is one underlying theme through out all Puritan writings, it is that no matter what happens, it is God’s will, and thusly it is what they not only must endure, but more so, what they seek. From the writings of the Puritans, one could assume that their faith is what gave them the stamina and strength to overcome the many trials that the new world offered. From accounts like William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation we learn that the early settlers of New England knew hardship and suffering well as they struggled against nature and adversity to sustain life. Keeping true to Puritan faith, through all their tribulations, they ever praised the Lord for loving them enough to chasten them, and looked to their deliverance. They saw their affliction, though severe, an opportunity to sacrifice for their Lord and show their devotion. The Puritan oxymoron of suffering signifying divine election can be better understood through the writings of Jonathan Edwards in his discourse Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. We understand that the Puritans saw themselves, and all men, as worthy of divine reprehension due to the fall of Adam. It isn’t very taxing to get a good understanding of the extreme nature of this belief when reading passages such as “He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire; He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended Him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment” (Edwards, 213-214). This particular view, in its severe and damning nature, is a strong reflection of that which caused the ultimate decline of Puritanism. The rigid and rather close-minded view that the Puritans lived by was not conducive to the developing state of New England, where people from all walks of life and religions began to congregate. Although many Puritan standards and views are no longer unanimously held or supported in the cultural religious statutes of our nation, many Puritan beliefs and qualities such as the feeling of election, importance of work ethic, and essentiality to endure and overcome have proved to be an integral part in the foundation of our country. Probably the most influential aspect of the Puritans was their demand for the right to maintain their beliefs, and their courage in refusing to be told by others what is correct for them. This standard of the Puritans has proven to be quintessentially American, as it was prevalent even in the writings of our founding fathers, and is still an American ideal today. In the following years of the formation of New England, the restrictive lifestyle and the unbending non-inclusive religious pious of the Puritans diluted and dispersed as more and more immigrants arrived and settled in New England. With the Puritan lifestyle on the decline, though not forgotten, a new America began to form. This American nation sought to lay a framework that would ensure the rights of every person to believe and live as they see fit, as long as it does not impede upon the beliefs or actions of others. Thomas Jefferson boldly stated in his Notes on the State of Virginia, “The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor...