Mertcan Bulak
@MBulak
1178 okur puanı
Ağustos 2020 tarihinde katıldı
Şu anda okuduğu kitap
Puritans were in a position to say which laws were for the public good because they had secured the charter granting them the right to settle in New England. Thus in their colony in Massachusetts they had the authority to permit only freemen to vote for the governor and magistrates and to insist that all freemen be church members. So the vote and public morality were controlled by the churches.
This attempt to legislate morality is one reason later Americans came to hate the Puritans. Most later Americans prized their personal freedoms above the character of the society in which they lived. Civil liberties became more important than community character.
Reklam
We call this condition voluntaryism because the churches, deprived of state support, were compelled to maintain their mission of preaching and teaching on a voluntary basis. Anyone could accept or reject the gospel as they pleased. The state had nothing to do with it. The denominations had to win converts and raise funds without state aid.
In some cases, states maintained confessional orthodoxy by suppressing nonconformity and persecuting heresy. In other cases, when conflicting doctrines could not be reconciled, states pursued a policy of inclusiveness. They allowed latitude in doctrinal views so long as the church followed a minimum of formal unity. Nonconformity was tolerated, though not sanctioned. This was the route of the Church of England
Thus by 1748 “the people called Methodists”—like the Pietists in Germany—were a church within the church. For the next forty years, Wesley resisted all pressures from his own followers and all charges from Anglican bishops that suggested separation from the Church of England. “I live and die,” he said, “a member of the Church of England.”
Wesley stressed what we now call Arminian beliefs; he was the only prominent leader of the Great Awakening who did. The name came from Jacob Arminius (1560–1609), a Dutch professor who tried to modify the Calvinism of his time. Wesley felt no special debt to Arminius, but he did staunchly oppose Calvin’s doctrine of predestination. He thought the belief made God seem arbitrary and partial to certain people and neglectful of others. He insisted that God willed the salvation of all and that people had enough freedom of will to choose or refuse divine grace.
Reklam