The first arrivals of the northern colonists brought with them their Puritan religion, based on Calvinist doctrine. This doctrine can be defined as:

". . . the distinctive characteristics of Calvinism . . . are known as the Five Points: (1) total depravity, man's natural inability to exercise free will, since through Adam's fall he has suffered hereditary corruption; (2) unconditional election, which manifests itself through God's wisdom to elect those to be saved, despite their inability to perform saving works; (3) permanent and irresistible grace, that anticipatory grace made available only to the elect; (4) limited atonement, man's hereditary corruption being partially atoned for by Christ . . . giving [mankind] the power to attempt to obey God's will as revealed through the Bible."

 The literature during this period was mostly religious in nature. The strict regulations placed on society would not allow for anything else. Some authors include William Bradford and John Winthrop. These men established an American precedent with their Calvinist writings, that America was a "city on a hill” and the ones chosen to lead God’s people. Nathaniel Hawthorne was later to write a book criticizing Puritanism as hypocritical.
 The later Colonial period saw the dilution of the Puritan population as other sects immigrated to the New England colonies, and as trade flourished up and down the coast, especially with the Middle Colonies, where Church of England doctrines were commonplace, and where the spiritual hold on public and private life seems to have been looser. A last great uprising of Puritanism in New England was the Great Awakening under the leadership of Edwards, Colman, and others.
 The crisis between the Puritan lifestyle and the emerging economy was brought to fruition in the Great Awakening. Authors like Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, and Anne Bradstreet. This religion was a more personal emotional way to view Puritanism.
 

 

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