Sunday, February 8, 2009

John Winthrop And William Bradford

After reading the articles, it was pretty clear that John Winthrop and William Bradford were similar when it came to their beliefs in religion and in their nations as a whole, and Mather proves this idea well to his readers. Throughout the course of history, many considerable happenings have formed and made our society what it appears to be today: free. William Bradford lived through a very symbolic time in American history and not only did he witness the time, so did anyone who read his pieces of writings, seeing as he did write about all of his experience. He was accountable for the young Plymouth colony's success through some extreme hardships. The Pilgrims were looked upon as complete abdicates from the Church of England. The success of the Plymouth was based on covenantalism - the belief that men could form compacts or covenants in the sight of God as a structure for a government without the approval of a higher authority. In similarity, John Winthrop was on a very close level. As governor of Massachusetts, Winthrop help a very strong belief in understanding God’s reasoning and purposes for the colony. The church was the center of the people’s lives in that time, and that is just how Winthrop wanted it. After reading the articles, it came clear that John Winthrop understood the ideas and intentions that Jesus Christ had for the nation, and soon enough something was going to be set up in which the individual was free to act and choose according to his free will, also having to live up to a social, lawful order. These pieces show us that both Winthrop and Bradford went through a lot to try and preach to their people the word of God, and it was never noticed as much as it should’ve been. Both of these great men of Christian history were men of integrity and humanity, and both men laid out the ground work for the generations to come. They both were prepared to deal with their people by the assistance of God and the Holy Spirit.

5 comments:

  1. Do you think that these men were as good and righteous as Mather's makes them out to be? I am not saying that they were necessarily bad men but the way in which they are depicted makes them seem like they were both the second coming of Christ. I do not think these biographies serve as a useful tool into discovering much information about who these men really were. I look at these biographies rather as an interesting promotion of the Puritan life and of New England in the 17th century. I think that the article on biographical parallels shows that Mather's intent was more likely such promotion than it was to give an accurate account of who Bradford and Winthrop were. I'm not saying that they are not men to be admired but I do advise caution against such praising as this post seems to suggest based solely on the reading of two highly biased biographies.

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  2. I do tend to agree with you Bryan, but there is the fact that both men were elected many times over by their peers. I do think this is a testament to their character (though I am sure they were not as perfect as Mather portrays), but this shoudl not be over looked. To think of all the tribulations these groups faced, and how easy it is to scapegoat a leader, it does say something about them that they were elected numerous times.

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  3. I'm not saying they weren't good men. Obviously they were popular enough to be reelected so many times. I'm merely saying that it is a good idea to not take this biographies as accurate accounts of who these men were and be aware that they probably had very human faults and that this fact is important in analyzing the writing of Mathers.

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  4. I do agree, I don't think they were perfect, and Mather does try to give some examples of times when they were brought into question, but still uses it as examples of a way to show the high moral character of the men. I certainly do agree that these men couldn't have been as good as they are portrayed, as no one is, but it was done for an affect on the reader.

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