Puritans in London
In England during the reign of Henry VIII, the people accepted the general principles that uniformity of religion was to be enforced, that the formulae of uniformity must have the sanction of the State, and that the supreme ecclesiastical authority of the State was the Crown. The Crown preserved the old episcopal organisation of church government as a matter of course. The limit of latitude in the direction of Roman doctrine was set primarily by the antagonism to the assertion of any claim to authority within the realm by any external potentate, whether spiritual or secular. Gunpowder Plot, the Catholic marriage projects and the attempts to relax the penal laws against Romanists, all tended to foster and intensify the alarmed hatred of Romanism and the unpopularity of the specific doctrines and practices which were looked upon as akin to those of Rome. But what King James cared about most was insistence on the authority of an episcopate intimately associated with the monarchy; and during the greater part of his reign bishops as a body were rather Calvinistic in their theology, and were not irritatingly strict in their insistence on unpopular details of ceremonial. Thus circumstances combined to develop Puritanism. Now the essential characteristic of Puritanism is the vivid consciousness of an immediate personal relation between the individual and his Maker, which recognises no mediator between God and man except the Son of God, who is both God and man. No Church, no hierarchy of saints, can be interposed between the soul and God. There is no ordained channel for the Divine Grace, which must be sought directly by prayer and the study of God's Word, God revealed in the Scriptures. Puritanism in the seventeenth century, when it searched the Scriptures, turned to the Old Testament rather than the New. It believed very emphatically in prophets, and its prophet par excellence was Calvin. Its primary dogma was that of Predestination, a grim creed which tends to make its adherents absolutely fearless of what man can do to them, but, while it fills them with the fear of God, does not greatly tend to inspire them with a love of His creatures.Logically it would appear that Puritanism ought to be tolerant. If there is no authority except Scripture, and no interpreter of Scripture except the individual, there can be no arbiter between individuals, no one who can impose his own judgment upon his neighbour, and every man must be left to follow his own conscience. Accordingly it was among the Puritans that the doctrine of toleration was first maintained as distinct from the doctrine of comprehension. Puritans in the 17th century endeavored to create a regimented society in the eyes of God, by means of theocracy, businesses, and communal membership resulting in improvement and decline for the New England colonies. They were best known as English Reformers with numerous documents of theological writings and sermons which became widespread over the course of the development of the colonies. The basis of their teachings came from Calvinism, and their way of life was governed on Calvinistic principles.