Puritans Compare And Contrast Essay

The Puritans were a group of English Reformed Protestants. During the late sixteenth century, the Puritans began trying to reform the Church of England and country’s religion. They wanted to “purify” the Church and break its ties from the Catholic practices they used. They believed that the Church of England had only been partially reformed. Deists believed that the God created the universe but that he does not interfere with it. Basically, he created the universe and they left it to its own devices. They believe in natural laws that are used to run his creation. Deists do not believe in the supernatural parts of religion. They reject things such as the belief in a second coming in the Bible, and instead stresses how important ethics are.
Puritans believed that you were born sinful and evil because of the original sin committed by Adam and Eve. Humans are born into a sinful world and humans are corrupt because of this. The Puritan author Winthrop talks of natural liberty and said that human nature is corrupt. He said that man "hath liberty to do what he lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good" (Winthrop, 1). Basically, Winthrop is saying that man can commit evil acts because they are born with that evil inside of them, that it is part of their human nature. The Puritans have an almost dark view of the world because they believe that you are born with this evilness inside you. Deists were believers in the concept that all humans were created equal. This is evident in ‘A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain by Benjamin Franklin. He writes "If He is all-powerful, there can be nothing either existing or acting in the Universe against or without his Consent; and what He consents to must be good, because He is good; therefore, Evil doth not exist" (Franklin, 26). This shows that unlike the Puritans Deists believed that humans were not created undeserving of God’s grace. Deists believed that God was not biased and that all humans were created