Puritanism

Faith: the foundation in a new society

The variety of ideas and beliefs is what make human beings unique and different from other. Since the beginnings of the history we can find that people have been always looking for a place where people share and accept their ideas without any restriction. However, this goal is not always easily achieved or the decision to move to a new country or land to follow our ideology is not as simple. Taking the risk to fight for what we believed requires courage, bravery, determination, and positivism. Those were clearly characteristics held by Puritans as it is clearly expressed in the journals called “Of Plymouth Plantation” by William Bradford and in most of the poems written by Anne Bradstreet. In their writings, they describe the way puritan lived, acted and believed. Puritans posed strength by their faith in God. Their faith, beliefs and life style helped and motivated them to leave their native country, surpassed all the challenges during their journey and in the new world, as well to accomplish their goals in America.

The main reason puritans left their country was because they were a group of people who opposed many ideas of the Church of England. After the church reformation, they disagree with the idea that the Church of England was doing many things similar to the Catholics and which under their point of view violated God’s word. Being opposed to those ideas, they were not allowed to express freely their ideas; contrarily, they were persecuted and many of them were put in prison, but with faith in God they “bore sundry years with much patience” (Bradford 105) waiting that something could change. However, it never came and after seeing that nothing happened, with their faith in God they decided to “see further into things by the light of the word of God” (Bradford 205), and by being sure that “[they were] better prepare to bear them by the assistance of God’s grace and spirit” (Bradford 106), they took the decision to...