Why did Puritanism decline in the seventeenth century, after the migration to America? According to Alden T. Vaughan, who wrote The Puritan Tradition in America 1620-1730, “There is little doubt that after about 1660 a gap began to grow between the well-ordered, godly, communitarian Bible commonwealth envisioned by John Winthrop, Richard Mather, and John Cotton and the more materialistic, cosmopolitan, heterodox New England of the post-Restoration (Vaughan, 297).” The puritans were non-materialist people who followed the Bible, …showed first 75 words of 1712 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1712 total…Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 1980. Reuben, Paul P. “Chapter 1: Early American Literature to 1700- A Brief Introduction.” PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. 2 July 1995. 18 April 2001 <http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap1/ 1intro.html>. Stavely, Keith W. F. Puritan Legacies: Paradise Lost and The New England Tradition, 1630-1890. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 1987. Vaughan, Alden T., ed. The Puritan Tradition in America 1620-1730. Colombia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. 1972.