Conclusion

Abstract

This book initially suggested that puritanism might be defined as that which puritans recognized in each other. In its circular manner, such a definition stresses the interaction of the spiritual and the social among the puritans; it asserts the mediation of individual spiritual experience through social exchange. It also allows for an emphasis on the puritans’ common qualities of character, mind and imagination. The puritan impulse — that drive to show in their lives their strong sense of their own personal salvation — made it possible to recognize others who were also visibly worthy of election to salvation. The puritans knew who they were, who their ancestors, allies and enemies were; but they did not expect to see eye to eye with their brethren in every detail. Puritans differed over separatism and the role of the holy spirit, they quarrelled over the singing of psalms and the central doctrine of predestination; they diverged in their views and became more diverse in their priorities as the seventeenth century progressed — old characteristics such as providentialism or millenarianism began to fade and new preoccupations with denominational purity or finances began to assert themselves. But we should not identify these changes prematurely: in 1689 a puritan was still recognizably what he or she had been in 1603.