New England Puritans essays

New England Puritans essays The Puritans came to America to fulfill many of their Socio-cultural and political aspirations. Their main goal was to purify all the religions. Massachusetts, the town were the Puritans settled, was known as the city upon a hill for the rest of the world to see as an example. Many of their aspirations were fulfilled in many ways, even though they had to go to extremes to accomplish them. One of the first steps that the Puritans took to cleansing people so that they would be acceptable to God was to educate. By educating people, they could read and study the bible. Puritan towns had many schools as soon as 5 years after they were founded. Not only were they focused on the citizens education but the clergy as well. A continuing goal was to further education among the clergy, and so ensure that not only were the right and righteous ideas and understandings being held and expressed, but that the expressions were in fact messages received by a comprehending audience. Out of this goal came many colleges which young men attended to become a priest, including the oldest college in America, Harvard. The puritans werent interested in helping everyone, only those who were ordained by god. This caused many controversies because some who were ordained by god thought that since god had chosen them to be sent to heaven, they could do whatever they wanted and their souls wou ld find heaven. Not only were they concerned only the ordained ones, but these ordained ones had to be perfect in Gods eyes. They believed that the community had to be perfect by the words of the bible; otherwise God would not resurrect them up to heaven. If people were not following the word of god, the Puritans would expel many people or even kill them. One example of them killing for god was the Salem witch trials. There was a group of kids going around pretending to be possessed and accusing whoever t...