Godly Commonwealths and The Puritans and the Dilemmas ofConversion1. What are the three patterns of settlements that Rakoveidentify?Presbyterian: These churchesderive their name from a form of church government called Presbyterian andgoverned by a group of representative assemblies of elders.Congregationalist: In 16thand 17th Century a Christian movement that arose in England, whichoccupied the theological position which is somewhere between the radicalProtestantism of the Baptists and Quakers and Presbyterianism.
Episcopalians: It was a synonym for Anglican in the UnitedStates, Scotland, and other places. These churches were organized when itbecame separate from the Church of England after the American Revolution. 2. What was the Puritan critique of Catholic Church?Therewere lot of differences between the Puritan and a catholic church. The Puritanswere against the powerful Catholic hierarchy that was ruled by the pope and thebishops. They believed that only one person is the head of the church and thatis Jesus Christ. They also believed in recitingthe prayers rather than the standardized Missal during a ritualized service.They sang psalms and rejected making the sign of sign of cross and kneelingduring the service.
They also emphasized on severepunishment and public acknowledgement of sins whereas the Catholics believed inforgiveness and private confession of sin. The churches of the Puritans werehumble and simple and believed only in two sacraments baptism and thecelebration of the Lord’s Supper. They lived a more rigid lifestyle than theCatholics and believed pleasure to be a sin. They believed only in labor andworship of God and thought that pastors should be a married man as opposed tothe Catholic practice of celibacy. 3.
What sacraments did the Puritans preserve?Puritanssacraments that were preserved were many. They believed and valued theChristian rites. They believed in Sabbath, Baptism, Lord’s last supper,Christmas and Salvation. They also believed that God chose who should receiveHis grace or not. 4. Explain the doctrine of predestination? Why, according toRakove, is predestination a product of the challenge to the Catholic Church?What catholic practices does predestination reject?Thedoctrine of Predestination is in Calvinism that deals with the question ofcontrol that God exercises all over the world. It also refers to the beliefthat God has appointed the eternal destiny of salvation by grace to some andthe rest to receive an eternal damnation for their sins. It challenges the CatholicChurch by believing that God predestined whom he wanted to predestine, withoutconsidering the merits of the predestined people whereas, the Catholics teachthat predestination is conditioned upon the merits of predestined.
The CatholicChurch teaches that the church’s tradition is equally authoritative as theBible whereas, the doctrine of predestination of church reserves supremeauthority to the Bible alone and reject the church.5. What did a Puritan have to demonstrate in his or her life todemonstrate that he or she was a viable saint?It wasa movement started by the Puritans in the 16th century that theybelieved to purify the Church of England, or Anglican Church.
It was byeradicating the perceived remnants of Catholicism. A Puritan has to demonstratethat their daily lives were a part of God’s chosen or it predestined to receivesalvation. The man has to be from a wholesome living and financial success tobe God’s elect, to be visible saint otherwise referred to as sainthood.
6. What did the Synod of 1662 do and why?TheSynod of 1662 was a form of partial church membership that was created withinthe Congregational churches of colonial New England. It was promoted by theReverend Solomon Stoddard. The Reverend felt that the people of the colonieswere drifting away from their original religious purpose and were becoming morematerialistic.
