"What are the characteristics that distinguish the separatists from Puritans, in general?"?

Question

The group led by Bradford was a sub-group of Puritans known as separatists (they called themselves Pilgrims)

Answer 1

The Anglican Church was formed as a middle road between the Reformation Protestants and Roman Catholicism. It had, and still has, features of both. Puritans were essentially Presbyterians and Congregationalists as we experienced them in the US today. The difference with the separatists is that they chose not to follow the Anglican mongrel (or as one person called it a 'b-stard child'), so they were separating themselves from it. The Puritans, however, followed a line of thinking and practice that was picked up again by the American Holiness movement. The Scripture says God wants a "peculiar people" and that God's people were to be "holy" as God is holy (see 1 Peter 1:15-17). This called the Puritans to purify themselves. The Separatists, however, were usually not quite as zealous to that holiness target, they just didn't want to be in the Church of England that was at once Protestant and Catholic. In one sense the Puritans and Separatists were similar, but there was a subtle difference. A lot of folks today would be far more comfortable in the Separatist camp than the Puritan.