Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Land of Opportunity America confronted the colonists with unforeseen problems. Contact with the Indians, the demands of subsistence, the need to educate their own clergy, and the catastrophic civil wars back in England all contributed to changing the settlers’ view of their purpose and destiny. Economic opportunities enabled some settlers to get rich and to divert their thoughts slightly, away from heaven and towards the things of this world. Sermons by New England’s highly educated and eloquent clergy show that they were dismayed at the declension of their godly experiment, and most saw it as a fall from an earlier state of grace. Historians today, however, recognize that changes were inevitable. The preachers’ jeremiads, sermons full of gloom and threats of God’s wrath, were not so much an accurate account of a deteriorating situation as ritualized reminders of the colonies’ religious purpose(Patrick Allitt). Up to the point of departure from England to the American continent the soon to be named Puritans struggled to persuade others that the English religions had become too self-serving and caught up in the things of the world. With each change in the throne, they experienced a different view of religion,