The Puritans were a group of 16th and 17th-century English Protestants who sought to purify the Church of England of remaining Roman Catholic practices. They held a Calvinistic theology and emphasized the authority of Scripture, personal piety, and the regulative principle of worship.
The Puritans emerged during the Elizabethan era with a deep desire for the complete reformation of the Church of England according to the Word of God. They were known for their commitment to the doctrines of grace and their insistence that worship be governed strictly by Scripture, rejecting ceremonies they viewed as unbiblical additions. In many cases, these believers sought to live out a life of radical obedience, understanding that they were accepted in Christ alone and therefore called to holiness. As the 1689 LBCF Ch.29 §2 reminds us, the emphasis on a credible profession of faith was central to their understanding of church membership and the ordinances.
The theology of the Puritans was deeply rooted in the Five Solas and the Doctrines of Grace. They held a profound conviction that salvation is entirely the work of God, a principle clearly articulated in Eph. 1:4-6: "even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." Their focus was always on the glory of God, and they lived with the constant awareness that they were more sinful than they dared believe, yet more loved in Christ than they dared hope.