MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY.   Term Paper ID:26768 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines colony's 17th Cent. establishment, focusing on dominance of Puritan beliefs, maintenance of daily life & work, control of dissent.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines colony's 17th Cent. establishment, focusing on dominance of Puritan beliefs, maintenance of daily life & work, control of dissent. Paper Introduction: The English Puritans were constrained, derided, and bullied by the advocates of the Church of England, which they saw as the source of England's growing corruption. Their theologians, especially those who emigrated to America, "read about the covenant which God had established with Abraham, and so organized their churches on a covenant among the saints" (the saved), thereby producing "a theology, an ecclesiastical program, and a social philosophy for New England" (Delfs 602). The remarkable success of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was due in large part to the fact that the Puritan settlers, for the most part, agreed on principles that supported a life of hard work dedicated to the service of God. Civil and religious authorities universally understood human endeavor as the ceaseless attempt to live a godly life and saw a set of moral attributes that "have the Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Aftersecuring their foothold in New England, the members quickly converted thesimple trading company charter into a structure for governance. These were,not coincidentally, the virtues most valued by the rising merchant andartisan classes who made up such a large portion of the Colony's populationand the Puritan movement in general. How people lived was, of course, anessential concern of the entire community because of their interdependence. In order to continue"their struggle with Antichrist" on behalf of the Church of England, ofwhich "their churches, of course were, a part," the Puritans needed alocation that left them free to manage life as they saw fit (Middlekauff97). Works CitedBurnham, Michelle. reaffirmed it" (Conkin 13).The Puritans derived comfort from the fact that God was directing theirlives and understood that the despairing response to predestination wouldproduce anarchy and put an end to any possible significance for humanactions or choices. The immigrants werenearly all skilled and literate--merchants, craftsmen, and farmers--andthey were all committed to the success of the colony on moral as well aspractical grounds. As Miller notes, Williams'heresy resulted from the "dreadful literalness" with which he interpretedthe Puritan doctrine of justification by faith so as to "demand that thesaints become so holy as to render political regulation superfluous"(Miller, From Colony to Province 12 ). The Massachusetts colony is sometimes misunderstood as an entityruled by the clergy but there was instead a higher degree of separation ofchurch and state than was found in most European societies. 94,93). But in the Puritan view God "has only underwritten avast drama in which the crucial proximate force is often human choice andhuman effort" and, ever since Adam's poor choice, human beings have beenrequired to make the effort to choose correctly (Conkin 13). The new colony flourished because it had carefully planned exactlyhow to do so and because, as it became the city on the hill hoped for byWinthrop, it continued to attract English Puritans who believed in thisideal. Unlike the Pilgrim Separatists, who believed that it was necessary tobe apart from sources of contamination that were beyond redemption, theMassachusetts Puritans "had a strong sense of mission and destiny," whichcohered through their commitment to "regrouping for another assault oncorruption from across the Atlantic" (Davidson et al. Uniform religious belief and practice were the keyto creating such a society and, unlike most of the other British colonies,in Massachusetts "no one else came," thereby limiting the population topeople who "were almost always of one doctrinal persuasion (or were atleast sensibly silent on doctrinal issues)" (Conkin 14). Theremarkable success of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was due in large part tothe fact that the Puritan settlers, for the most part, agreed on principlesthat supported a life of hard work dedicated to the service of God. As Davidson et al. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994.Delfs, Arne. Hutchinson attacked the clergy who refused to endorse heropinion and the resulting scandals led to her trial for heresy, after whichshe was expelled from the colony for sedition (and was later killed byIndians on Long Island). New York: Dodd, Mead, 1968.Davidson, James West, William H. Even more serious, however, was the case of Anne Hutchinson who wasaccused of promoting the heresy of Antinomianism, which meant 'against thelaw.' Hutchinson was a recent immigrant who had followed the prominentpreacher John Cotton from England in 1634. Not surprisingly, as Burnham hasshown, the documents that have survived from this case "are noteworthy fortheir anxious insistence on the stability of the colonial community ofMassachusetts and the coherence of its religious mission (337). Once this was done they elected the lawyer and land-owner John Winthrop governor and moved their company to New England in163 . The order being protected by Hutchinson's persecutors and the orderresponsible for New England's great success were not, of course, founded onnotions of liberty or rights. In the Puritans' view, however, this meant that God had alreadyworked out the destiny of all of creation--including every individual humanbeing--before it or they even existed. Hutchinson's great mistake was to mention at her trial that she hadreceived direct revelation from God, a phenomenon which, the Puritansfirmly insisted, had ended in Biblical times. 97).People who were among the saved, that is, predestined for salvation, knewthis intuitively and could recognize it in others--according toHutchinson's interpretation of the idea of grace. Builders of the Bay Colony. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1961.Morison, Samuel Eliot. 9 ).The charter also, they claimed, which also ensured their right to governthe area themselves. 97). Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1953.---. But the people were also more than satisfied by being ableto meet their desire for the type of community they had originally sought--a godly community that was organized to fulfill all basic temporal andspiritual needs. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964.Perry, Ralph Barton. Thus Church members could console themselvesthat they were clearly among the saved and had nothing to worry about solong as they followed God's law. Two serious challenges to orthodoxy and the prevailing orderarose in the 163 s. "Anne Hutchinson and the Economics of Antinomian Selfhood in Colonial New England." Criticism 39 (1997): 337-58.Conkin, Paul K. The churchesand their property were owned, for instance, by the various towns and theirministers did not serve in civil government. The Puritansobjected to the sinfulness of life in England and the degeneration of theChurch of England. As most of her opponents saw Hutchinson'sclaims "Antinomians expected God's grace to do all" without requiringanything of human beings. New Haven: Yale UP, 1966.Middlekauff, Robert. In the years between 163 and 164 there were 21, immigrants tothe colony. For the Puritans, working atsubsistence agriculture in a harsh environment, any reminder of the valueof delaying pleasure while pursuing the grim tasks of the present found aready audience. The amoraland moral techniques tended, however, to overlap and this was a fundamentalelement in the coherence of the Puritan approach to all aspects of life.An example of such overlap would be honesty in business, which not onlyensures a good reputation and customer satisfaction, but is morally correctand is therefore twice rewarded, "in the market-place and before the bar ofconscience or God" (Perry 299). Hutchinson, however, rejected this notion.She held that any outward display of moral behavior "indicated nothingwhatsoever about the inward state of the soul" (Davidson et al. But, while therewas uniformity in general terms, the various congregations were self-managed and "each had its own distinctive way of admitting members,conducting divine worship or hiring a minister," with no fear of a "clashwith higher religious authorities, for none existed" (Davidson et al. The Puritans accordingly feltencouraged to make their best effort and, as this implied, to act morallyin doing so (yet hoping, as Davidson et al. Hutchinson's belief in the futilityof good works seemed like an attack on the second half of Sibbes' equation,i.e., the people's giving of consent. Puritans and Pragmatists: Eight Eminent American Thinkers. 2nd ed. suggest, "to discover in theirperformance some signs of personal salvation") (87). Not, however, a model for would-becolonizers, but for anyone who chose to build, or rebuild, a societyaccording to God's requirements. Puritanism and Democracy. Their childrenwere seduced away from the true Church and, lacking adequate economicopportunities their mission failed to flourish. Politically the puritan version of Christianity functioned as a most comprehensive social ideology, demanding as complete adherence in belief and as complete outward obedience in behavior as could be secured among men by men (Conkin 15). The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728. The colony also grew quite rapidly in terms of natural (i.e.,non-immigration) increase because the settlement began with families, thehealthful climate increased the average age of colonists to 7 (twice thatof the Virginia settlements and ten years better than in England), and asurprising 9 percent of children reached adulthood. These words do not, of course, precludethe pursuit of the latter half of each of these equations, but merelyorders the faithful to maintain a sense of proportion regarding what istruly important. Thus, in a brief span of time, and with remarkable efficiency anda fairly strong legal basis, the Massachusetts Bay Colony transformed acommercial enterprise into a religion-based entity in which "beingcommitted to Puritanism rather than owning company stock became therequirement for political participation" (Davidson et al. "Anxieties of Influence: Perry Miller and Sacvan Bercovitch." New England Quarterly 7 (1997): 6 1-615.Langdon, George D. In her enthusiasm Hutchinsonbegan to hold gatherings in her home in which she explained the content ofCotton's sermons to friends and neighbors. 9 -91). Like most Protestant sects the puritans were fond of findingjustifications for their courses of action in Scriptural precedent orcommand. But Hutchinson was also accusedof beginning to formulate ideas of her own that were eventually describedas heresy--the strongest of charges. They sent advance groups to New England where theyestablished Salem and the company, which consisted largely of "energeticmerchants, landed gentlemen, and lawyers," secured a Crown charter to theregion now known as Massachusetts and New Hampshire (Davidson et al. The original settlers only conceived of the newland as an extension of the old. The Puritans placed their faith in God and believed that theone great commandment was to love Him. Finding themselves in the wrong place, and being severelychallenged by poor conditions, the Pilgrims made the best of it and, takingadvantage of the opportunity to assume full responsibility for the shape oftheir government, organized themselves with the terms of the MayflowerCompact. The first came from Roger Williams, a respected Salemminister who suddenly announced his support for Separatism and began to"urge a more complete separation of church and state than most NewEnglanders were prepared to accept"--even, in later years coming to supportfull religious tolerance (Davidson et al. With their common beliefs, carefully ordered civil society, anddevotion to hard work the settlers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony managedwell in their first decade. note, thelogical inference that might be drawn from the idea of predestination isthat it would make people "despairing and passive, resigned to theirpredestined fates" (87). The attempt to "turn the city of man into a nearreplica of the city of God" required, as all Puritans understood, "amoralized educational system, a moralized politics, and a moralizeddiplomacy" (Conkin 12). Stoff. The Puritan "wanted every possible act to be considered,rational, and voluntary, and consequently subject to praise or blame,"i.e., subject to the norms and the possible censure of the community as awhole (Conkin 13). Even more importantly, however, the notionof worldly prudence was assuredly theologically sound because it conformedcompletely to "that subordination of immediate to ulterior goods which isthe central motif of the gospel" (Perry 3 ). . Thus they sought Biblical support for the general notion ofworldly prudence in the management of one's affairs. While they could not imposefines or inflict corporal punishment--as the Church of England could--theynonetheless resorted to censure and excommunication, very powerful tools instrongly homogeneous communities. Thus in devising the rules for the management of their daily livesthe Puritans believed in looking at their activities as, necessarily, moralchoices. 1939. As Winthrop famously explained, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was tobe a model for the rest of the world. But theyshared with the Plymouth group a profound belief in building "a societystructured and governed according to the will of God," and which wasdependent on a civil government that would "support and nourish religion"(Langdon 58). But this was not at all the case with thePuritans who had a carefully worked out rationale for living good and fulllives that meant that the doctrine of predestination, instead of inhibitingaction or morals, "provided their lives with meaning, order, and a clearsense of purpose" (Davidson et al. New York: Oxford UP, 1971.Miller, Perry. But it was also important because the ideas regarding behavior and thepursuit of every task were essentially related to the people's conceptionof all life as subject to predestination. The churches and their ministers took a very active role, however, inregulating the moral life of the communities. Her condemnation was not,therefore, based primarily on the supposed heresy she advocated regardinggrace, but on this slip into religious emotionalism--as the Puritans sawcontemporary claims of direct revelation. When dissent arose, therefore, the community reacted with all itsforce because it was defending more than just a point of doctrine. In the Book ofProverbs, for instance, the faithful are admonished that "a good name israther to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silverand gold" (quoted in Perry 3 ). Ifthey were successful their colony would "be as a Citty upon a hill," aparadigm of a society organized around the love of God and the correctprocedures for ensuring a flourishing social entity capable of continuingtheir worship of Him (quoted in Morison 73). Other citations from the Bible offer even moreunqualified support for business pursuits when they directly "affirm andproclaim the fact that diligence, self-control, and foresight conduce topower and riches" (Perry 3 ). For his troubles, Williams was tobe deported to England. Instead "it was founded upon the convictionthat only men fearing God could and would properly administer rights andliberties" and this conviction applied to any type of disturbance in thesocial and spiritual order--from outright rebellion to suspected heresy(Miller, From Colony to Province 121). And they did not haveto look far to find quite precisely qualified support. AllPuritans denied that human beings "could 'earn' salvation simply by obeyingGod's laws" and held that salvation was only the result of God's freelygiven grace, "not of human actions" (Davidson et al. Civiland religious authorities universally understood human endeavor as theceaseless attempt to live a godly life and saw a set of moral attributesthat "have the effect of promoting the material success of those whopossess them" as the only way to ensure that a society could flourish inorder to fulfill its purpose of serving God (Perry 297). Thecompany's governor became the chief executive of the colony and he and hisassistants were elected annually by stockholders of the company--anelectorate that was expanded within a year to include all adult male churchmembers. Everyaspect of its life was based on its beliefs and any variation in belief wasseen as a potential or present threat to its very existence and fundamentalpurpose. The New England Mind: From Colony to Province. To secure their liberty tocarry out exactly this type of program Winthrop and his fellow leadersacted on the assumption that their royal charter "supplied them with asolid legal title to settle and to rule" (Davidson et al. For the Puritans, as for all Catholics and Protestants, God was all-powerful. Lytle, and Michael B. Their version of the covenant of grace, however,relied on a "quid pro quo" arrangement in which the practical Puritans heldthat visible good works, ie., membership in the Church, clearlydemonstrated that an individual was among the saved (Miller, TheSeventeenth Century 389). Gienapp, Christine Leigh Heyrman, Mark H. Her fault was to adhere too closely,as Roger Williams had, to what was actually a true Puritan doctrine. In order to succeed, Winthrop wrote, itwas necessary "to doe justly, to love mercy, to walke humbly with our God"and "be knitt together in this work as one man" (quoted in Morison 73). But manyPuritans had come to believe that being able to live a good life was theconsequence of being saved. The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. 91). These virtues were held in highesteem both because they were conducive to economic success and becausethey contributed to the general refusal of these rising social groups to besubordinate to their traditional superiors. Nation of Nations: A Narrative History of the American Republic, Volume One: To 1877. The second group of New England settlers, however, left verylittle to chance. The basic "economic virtues," as Perry terms them,included the "acquisitive values [of] industry, sobriety, frugality,reliability, temperance, and simplicity of living" (297-98). But, as Puritans had found when attempting to carry out similarmissions in the Netherlands, local beliefs and customs could interfere, aseasily as the degeneracies of England, with their mission. Despite their reliance on high levels of uniformity ofbelief however, or perhaps because of their awareness of the need to ensurethem, the New England settlers had, since the Pilgrims arrived, been sureof "civil government's responsibility" not only to support religion but "tochoke off dissent" (Langdon 58). Thus it required orthodoxy. Subsistence farmingwas, however, sufficient for their needs, and resources of various typeswere adequate. They had "come to New England to preservethe true Church polity" and could have done this anywhere; "they would evenhave remained in England had it served the Lord's purposes" (Middlekauff96). The English Puritans were constrained, derided, and bullied by theadvocates of the Church of England, which they saw as the source ofEngland's growing corruption. 91). Most people weremembers of the churches but membership depended on application and thedemonstration of the experience of conversion, generally understood as "aturning of the heart and soul toward God, a spiritual rebirth that wasreflected by a godly and disciplined life" (Davidson et al. The settlement of New England, which began with the accidentalarrival of the Pilgrim Separatists headed for Virginia at Plymouth in 162 ,soon resolved into a very deliberate, well-organized undertaking as theCongregationalist Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company systematicallysettled Salem and the surrounding region beginning in 163 . Their theologians, especially those whoemigrated to America, "read about the covenant which God had establishedwith Abraham, and so organized their churches on a covenant among thesaints" (the saved), thereby producing "a theology, an ecclesiasticalprogram, and a social philosophy for New England" (Delfs 6 2). The ideachallenged by Hutchinson, and summarized by Sibbes, was essential to thefunctioning of the community. . The Puritan community, needed more thanjust its demand for virtue, morality, and prudence: It also demanded truth. New York: Vanguard, 1944. But this tightly woven fabric alsodepended on the absence of challengers and, as was seen in the first majorcontroversy over heresy in the Colony--the Antinomianism of the mid-183 s--the majority of the colonists would act to stamp out any perceivedchallenge to the order that depended on this precisely balanced combinationof factors. 94). 97). In this period, prior to the extensive growthof commerce, the economy did not produce great wealth. The successful pursuit of business of all kinds relied on what Conkincalls a "moral technique," consisting of steadfastness, self-denial, andprudence as well as on a certain amoral, purely businesslike, techniquethat encompassed qualities or methods--including shrewdness, inventiveness,and understanding--which were essentially amoral (Perry 299). This constituted, in the view ofthe community, an attack on the very basic motivation to do anything or todo it according to God's law, since, without any assurance that they wereamong those predestined for salvation, people were far less likely todevote their lives to the building of a community such as the MassachusettsBay Colony. 87). The original intention of the first settlers of theMassachusetts Bay Colony was to leave England only temporarily in order tofind a place where a godly community could flourish and work from outsideEngland for reform within. Yet the Puritans adhered to abelief in "almost unqualified human responsibility and in the crucialefficacy of human choice" and this moralism, strangely, "instead ofreversing the doctrine of predestination . Pilgrim Colony: A History of New Plymouth, 162 -1691. But Sabbath church attendancewas mandatory everywhere in New England, except for Rhode Island, andCongregationalist ministers were paid by a universal tax. But her views wererejected by the majority of the population, especially by those ministerswho, like Richard Sibbes, held to the notion that "Though God's grace doall, yet we must give our consent" (quoted in Miller, The SeventeenthCentury 389). But the Puritans also knew thatthis was insufficient for the practical management of life and God,therefore, dictated "certain procedures for obeying this commandment"(Langdon 58). The close fitbetween economic virtues, moral values, and religious ends for thecommunities of the Massachusetts Bay Colony proved to be a potent recipefor mastery of an alien environment. He escaped, however, and fled to Rhode Islandwhere he founded a colony that granted religious freedom. The doctrineof predestination is one in which the paradox of certain salvation ordamnation paired with the imperative for morally sound action cannot trulybe resolved, except by faith in one's own interpretation of the doctrineand of the notion of freedom of choice. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.