did the puritans want to purify their chuch my eliminating Catholicism??

Question

please... i am kind of confused. Who were the puritans and what was their goal?

and is this statement true? and if not, where is the error?

"the puritan's goal was to purify their churches by eliminating every shed of the catholic church influence, therefore they separated from the Elizabethan Religious Settlement."


again, i am very confused. Please help!

Answer 1

The Puritans did indeed see the Catholic Church as fallen, or as the apostle Paul described it:
"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."
The Church fell into apostasy.

After the deaths of the Savior and His Apostles, men corrupted the principles of the gospel and made unauthorized changes in Church organization and priesthood ordinances. Because of this widespread apostasy, the Lord withdrew the authority of the priesthood from the earth. This apostasy made need of a restoration of the fulness of the gospel, which was to come much later.

Back to the Puritans . . .
The immigration of the Pilgrims to New England occurred in stages. But that they had to go somewhere became apparent soon enough. Theirs was the position of the Separatist: they believed that the reforms of the Anglican church had not gone far enough, that, although the break with Catholicism in 1535 had moved some way toward the Puritan belief in and idea of religious authority grounded solely in Scripture, by substituting king for pope as the head of the church, England was only recapitulating an unnecessary, corrupt, and even idolatrous order. In one basic respect, the Pilgrims are a logical outcome of the Reformation. In its increasing dissemination of the Bible, the increasing emphasis on it as the basis of spiritual meaning, the subsequently increasing importance of literacy as a mode of religious authority and awareness, a growing individualism was implicit. (Unfortunately, religious authority comes from God - the laying on of hands - and not from increased literacy and learning "And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.")

But theirs was a religious, not a political agenda; moral and theological principles were involved, and from their perspective, there could be no compromise. For them 2 Corinthians made it clear: "Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord." To achieve and preserve a simplicity and 'purity' that they felt had been lost amid the some of the surviving features of Catholicism--the rituals which continued through into the Anglican Church and were epitomized in its statement, "'I believe in...the holy Catholick Church'". To establish themselves as rightful interpreters of the Bible independent of an inherited social and cultural order, they removed from the Anglican Church in order to re-establish it as they believed it truly should be.

Answer 2

There is a big difference between eliminating catholic influence and eliminating the Catholic church. The puritans didn't care whether a Catholic church existed. What they cared about was not following catholic practices they did not believe in. The main one was that strict Protestants like the Puritans believed in a direct relationship with God, but the Catholics believed you needed a priest as an intermediary. You can look up the details from here . . .

Answer 3

"Puritan" started as an "out-group ascription", i.e. they didn't call themselves that. The word appears in Shakespeare as an epithet. The Puritans, as their name implies, wanted a "pure" Protestant church. The Anglican church was seen as too influenced by Catholic beliefs and practices. Remember, this was the age of the wars of religion. England was at war with Catholic countries, especially Spain. Puritans (e.g Oliver Cromwell) were the extremist fanatics of Protestantism. Cromwell in particular massacred Catholics in Ireland, sending the survivors to slave plantations in the West Indies and outlawing Shakespeare. On the good side he legalized coffee (a new drug associated with Puritanism) and allowed the Jews back, centuries after they had been expelled from England. Of course, they, unlike Catholics, weren't trying to convert anyone else to their religion.

Answer 4

The Anglican church had nothing to do with catholicism.

The Puritans were just protestant Calvinists. They just wanted to escape persecution. Ironic part is that, in the end, all they did was persecute themselves.

Answer 5

I ditto "The Corinthian" answer. Too bad for all of us that the truth within the Church could not continue to exist without corruption. Choose "The Corinthian" answer as the best. God is God. Now and forever. We pray that the basic truths will again be revealed. And the Mormon church is not the answer, just the perfect devil inspired counterfeit of the truth. In Jesus name, I pray for the truth to be again revealed. We can pray directly to God without the use of a priest or any saint to intervene on our behalf. "He" is not to busy to hear us directly. HE>i. Praise be to God.