Who Were the Puritans?

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by J. Glenn Ferrell

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H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) described Puritanism as The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. Puritanical has come to mean prudish, judgmental, anti-intellectual, regarding pleasure as sin. Many believe the Puritans came to America on the Mayflower; lived dreary, guilt-ridden lives; executed innocent people as witches; hated fun; hated sex; and worshiped a harsh and distant God, who roasted sinners over the fires of hell.

Were Puritans puritanical? Our misunderstanding is based on common myths and literature we read in school. Who were the Puritans?

The English Reformation steered a course between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, without satisfying either. Puritans were those in the 16th and 17th centuries, who remained within the English Church, wanting to purify her of non-Biblical practices.

The Pilgrims came on the Mayflower, not the Puritans. These were Separatists, who left the Church of England to start independent congregations. They settled at Plymouth in 1620.

The more numerous Puritans remained in England and Scotland rather than emigrate. A fraction of them came to New England after the Pilgrims. They founded Massachusetts Bay Colony, which later absorbed Plymouth.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850, is the dreary story of the self-righteous judgment of a forsaken woman, and the secret guilt of her adulterous, minister lover, during the Puritan era.

Puritans were not dreary, self righteous, religious prigs, obsessed with others sins. A self righteous Puritan is a contradiction in terms. They were humbly aware of their own sins and looked with mercy on the weaknesses of others.

We read of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (1953). Miller was writing in response to the McCarthy hearings in the US Senate, where people were intimidated by unfounded accusations. Miller tells us more about post WWII America than the Puritans.

Witchcraft was a crime in 1692 New England, as it was in England and France. Anglicans and Roman Catholics tried witches in Europe. We only remember Salem.

The Salem witch trials were conducted by civil judges appointed by an inexperienced Governor, William Phips. William Stoughton, the presiding judge, allowed the admission of spectral evidence. Excitable witnesses testified they saw the faces of their persecutors while being tormented. If the accused was sleeping or having tea with neighbors at the time, this was not considered a defense. This phantom evidence convicted many innocent people and some were executed.

Puritan minister, Increase Mather, vigorously objected to the use of spectral evidence and helped bring an end to the trials. This was a shameful episode in American jurisprudence. Though they were not the perpetrators, like those falsely accused, the Puritans take a bum rap, as intolerant, bloodthirsty fanatics.

G. K. Chesterton, an Englishman, who opposed the American adoption of Prohibition in 1920, blamed Puritanism’s righteous indignation about the wrong thing. Puritans are credited for any repressive or neurotic tendencies in American life.

Contrary to Chesterton, Puritans were a joyful people, who enjoyed feasting and believed God gave …wine that makes glad the heart of man… (Psalm 104:15). They called drunkenness a sin and warned of its dangers. However, Puritans allowed liberty in what the Bible permitted. They did not add human tradition to God’s Word.

The church of the Middle Ages considered human sexuality bad and celibacy commendable. The Victorian church was prudish and embarrassed by the mention of sex. Puritans encouraged neither celibacy nor prudishness. They taught God created man as male and female, intending a man’s and woman’s sexuality for mutual enjoyment and to produce children. Mankind’s fall added an additional need; protection from sexual temptation. Puritans valued human sexuality, protected within Biblical marriage. Puritan courts are recorded ordering husbands not to neglect their wife’s sexual needs; demonstrating Puritans regarded neither sex as evil nor women as powerless accessories of their husbands.

The English Prayer Book gave the purposes of marriage as: the procreation of children, a remedy against sin, and for mutual society, help and comfort. The Puritan order was: for companionship, the procreation of children and protection from temptation. Companionship, including the enjoyment of mutual sexual pleasure, was first on the list.

Jonathan Edwards, later President of what became Princeton University, preached Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God in 1741. This is offered as an example of Puritans rejoicing in people suffering in the fires of hell. The focus of the sermon is on the precarious predicament of fallen man, his hardness of heart and desperate need. It is a plea for repentance, not a celebration of hell’s fire.

Let Puritans speak for themselves. These were a humble people, knowing their own sins, the graciousness of a merciful God, communicating truth with practical application, allowing liberty where men create burdens, rejecting traditions not found in the Bible. Evaluate Puritans for what they were and said. You may appreciate, you may hate them. They are misunderstood and misrepresented, but not puritanical.

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Copyright 2008 by J. Glenn Ferrell

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