New England Puritanism: Religious Movement In Seventeenth Century

New England Puritanism was a religious movement in Seventeenth century which was mainly based upon building a purer Church but it also had political, economic and cultural implications. In early sixteenth century, King Henry VIII decided to move away from Roman Catholic church and created the Church of England. He declared himself the supreme head of the church. The Puritans were Englishmen and women who overtime became dissatisfied with the direction taken by the Church of England. They perceived that the Church was highly affected by the political struggle in England at the time and it was beyond repair. Eventually, the Puritans (in fear of being persecuted for their views) started to migrate to America. These Puritans came to New England in order to create a purer church and practice their beliefs without opposition. They formed colonies where religion and religious beliefs were major principals in the society. One such colony was Massachusetts Bay Colony which was founded by John Winthrop who was a wealthy English puritan lawyer. Winthrop also became the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony and served for over a decade. Winthrop set out to create a holy society that would be a model for mankind and he had a big role to play in some of the most prominent Puritanism view that made the Puritanism experiment a success.
Puritanism was largely based upon a belief that God has a record of what every human being has done and he already knows who is worthy of his blessing. Puritans believed that only God has the power to forgive. From a Puritan perspective, all things happen by the God 's will and everyone is predestined to live out their lives based on God 's plan. The other Puritan belief was that the God created Puritans to clean up the cultural acts such as drunkenness, sex outside of marriage, swearing, etc. These acts were perceived to be morally wrong in Puritan