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The Importance Of The Puritans

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The Puritans of New England in the mid 1600s lived a harsh reality. The Puritans were Christians of Calvinist thought. What is significant about this was the Calvinist belief of pre-destination. Heaven was a lottery where only a few who lived pious lives were granted the gift of being saved from God’s wrath. This means even those who are good could still go to hell. However, the ones who were granted this spiritual ticket to heaven from birth could lose that right if they do not live a pious lifestyle. The Puritans believe any happenstance around them was a sign of hell if bad, or heaven if good (Ping). Unfortunately, the colonial lifestyle they lived was harsh and these many bad sighs occurred often for the Puritans. Satan played the role …show more content…

This idea lead Puritan men too many justifications. Not be a single vocal Puritan man, but a group of Puritan men with differing mindsets and ideas especially with their view on the role of women. If women were physically weak then they are certainly spiritually weak against Satan. If a woman was older and single she was a witch, if she was widowed she was a witch, rich witch, poor witch, quiet witch, loud witch, or talked back most certainly the devils work. The problem was a damned if she does and damned if she does not. This accusation of a woman being a witch meant that “their feminine souls made an explicit and aggressive choice to conjoin with the devil” (Reis, 94). Puritans believed they were not just manipulated by Satan, they willingly desired to be possessed by him. This was aggressive stance most Puritan men had towards Puritan women. Satan could get to their soul through their body because it was weak. With these women bringing Satan around it was easy now to understand why bad things always happened. It could not be a sign of a man’s damnation, but of a

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