The American Puritans were part of a group that had its origins in sixteenth-century England. Some familiarity with the events that led up to the Great Migration to New England in the 1620s and 1630s or at least the shape of these events is necessary for an understanding of Puritanism in America. Quite as important is the intellectual inheritance that the Puritans, as Puritans, brought from England. Since the early Puritans, in both England and New England, were devoted to the "plain style," much of what they had to say is still clear and understandable, though they wrote more than 350 years ago. For this reason and because their language suggests their thought patterns, some of the leading spokesmen for Puritanism, clergymen and laymen, can usefully be allowed to speak for themselves. The use of contemporary documents often has the effect, when modernized slightly, of bringing that which is remote in time a good deal closer.

By the end of the Middle Ages, many Christians, especially intellectuals, believed that the Christian church had departed from the example provided by the churches of New Testament days. The elaborate ceremonies associated with the Mass and the complicated system of penance were among the developments that appeared to have submerged the simplicity, and purity of Christ's Gospel. Among those who advocated reform were such Christian humanists as Thomas More and Erasmus, who sought renovation within the church. Others favored a more radical housecleaning, including a break from the authority of the Pope. In England, Protestant reformers did not achieve dominant influence until the reign of Edward VI (1547-1553), though the Church of England had been formally separated from Rome in the reign of Edward's father, Henry VIII, and William Tyndale, who was active in Henry's reign, had a considerable influence on later religious thought. Tyndale taught that, in matters of doctrine, the Scriptures were all sufficient.

Edward's reign was short, and he was succeeded by the Catholic Mary, who re-established the dependence of the English church on Rome. The shaping of the reformed Church of England, begun under Edward, was resumed, after Mary's brief reign, under Queen Elizabeth. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign two attitudes towards the church can be noted among reformers. Some argued doctrine was all important; if the church taught the truth, then such matters as vestments, ceremonies, and church organization were indifferent. Others, influenced by the practice of the Reformed churches of the Rhineland and Switzerland, as well as by their theology, believed that the church should be thoroughly purified in externals as well as in doctrine. The goal of the queen was the stabilization of the country; it could be effected, she believed, by a comprehensive church that might accommodate both Protestants and conservatives who had been Roman Catholics. Therefore the Church of England taught a form of doctrine that was wholly acceptable to Protestants, while it retained many Catholic traditions, notably what the Protestant John Jewel labeled, scornfully, "the scenic apparatus of divine worship." For a time many reformers believed that the Elizabethan Compromise was only temporary and tentative. It was not, and by the middle of the 1560s controversy arose over the continuing requirement that ministers wear religious vestments while conducting services. Of particular importance was the question: Were the vestments evil because they were consecrated to idolatry through their use in the Mass? Or were they, though indifferent, a proper requirement because they were traditional symbols of status and a means of identification? Those who considered vestments evil were in time called Puritans; those who defended them can be called conservatives. . .