Nukus state pedagogical institute named after ajiniyaz foreign languages faculty

Puritanism. 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.
Of that Word there is no infallible interpreter; the only interpreter is the individual himself, guided by the Spirit of God. The individual, therefore, must in all things be guided by the inward monitor. Puritanism is, in short, the principle of individualism carried to its highest pitch in matters of religion.
But 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.
Puritan beliefs. So Puritanism dwells upon the Power of an offended God and the Righteousness of His Judgments rather than upon His Love and His Mercy. And an Old Testament Puritanism contained a grave element of political danger to monarchy; since neither the institution of monarchy among the Hebrews nor its persistence, nor the attitude of the Prophets to the Kings, suggest a high conception of royalty.
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. Unqualified toleration leaves opinion absolutely free. A qualified toleration may repress the expression of opinions, not on the ground that they are false, but because their dissemination is injurious to public order; on the ground, that is, not of religious truth but of political expediency.
Comprehension, on the other hand, draws a distinction between things fundamental and things indifferent, and is under no obligation to tolerate variations of opinion with regard to fundamentals. Comprehension, not toleration, is the normal attitude of a State Church. But the Puritan may interpret his position in two ways. If he admits his own fallibility, he is logically bound to leave to his neighbour the same right of private judgment which he claims for himself.
Yet the Puritan may claim infallibility for himself, having assurance of the direct guidance of the Spirit. It follows, then, that any one who thinks differently from himself is not under the guidance of the Spirit, and therefore has no claim to toleration. Hence Puritanism could also display a supreme intolerance, rendered additionally offensive by its egotism.
Again, Puritanism is not essentially connected with any particular form of ecclesiastical organisation. It is perfectly compatible with an Episcopalian, a Presby­terian, or a Congregational system. It can accept creeds infinitely various. We may then sum up the Puritanism of the seventeenth century by saying that it was predestinarian in its creed, that it drew its public morals from the Old Testament, that its personal morals were of an extreme austerity, and that it identified the Papacy with the Scarlet Woman of the Apocalypse.
It was disposed to be anti-prelatical, partly because it regarded the old system as being too nearly akin to that of Rome, partly because the Episcopate was presented as a means of subjecting the things of the Spirit to the arm of the flesh; whereas the Puritan advocates of Presbyterianism regarded that system as a means of subjecting the arm of the flesh to spiritual control. But Puritanism was not to be identified with Presbyterianism, nor did it become definitely antagonistic in England to the episcopal system until the Episcopate itself took on a new colour in the reign of Charles I.