Puritan Dilemma Summary

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How come a quote by Buddha, a man who lived over hundred thousand of years before the existence of Puritans, can sum up the whole Puritan’s experiment in one question? Buddha asked, “However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?” Buddha meant that anybody can read and speak the words of God, but they are simple words if not applied to daily life. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was the product by the Puritans whom applied the teaching of the Bible into the infrastructure of the “city on a hill.” Morgan’s book Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop discusses the early histories of John Winthrop and how the corruptions of England lead him and his fellow Puritans to…show more content…
These churches solidified their commitment to the commission. One particular change that led to the purification of their churches was the colony contained the ideas of separatism. Morgan wrote that “Massachusetts was safe from new Separatists but safe at the risk of succumbing to a new separatism” which plagued the Anglican Church. These repressions stop the spreading of new ideas that contradicted Puritan set beliefs on the right way to honor God. (Morgan 173) The notable challenges were that of George Phillips, Roger Williams, and Anne Hutchinson. Each individual brought a challenged that only the purest churches could went against. Winthrop was able to expelled Phillips’s ideas of “the churches of England but those of Rome too were true churches”. (Morgan 90) The acceptance of Phillips’s ideas assured that Puritans are in favored of the corruption of churches in England. Additional to Phillips, Williams and Hutchinson were a much bigger crisis. Williams sought for that the true test of purity of a church was for them all to “renounce the impurities of England”. This way of thinking was an upset to Massachusetts’s commission due to their agreement to purify the Anglican Church. Coupled with Williams was Anne Hutchinson. Winthrop said that the victory of expulsion of Hutchinson saved the church from ‘ruin beyond all expectation’. Hutchinson had gone unpunished brought punishment onto Massachusetts. (Morgan 143) Hutchinson preached that God intervened in salvation not the Bible. This went against everything that Puritan stood for because the Massachusetts established that “their state, their churches, and their daily lives, namely that God’s will could be discovered only through the Bible.” Her influences through her job a mid-wife allowed the spread of the belief “that all the ministers in Massachusetts, with the

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