It is very obvious through out Bradford's writings how large of an influence God is. This has been a main topic this semester in realizing how much God and religion influenced the Puritan way of life, but these writings establish the fear of God and how negative things are consequences of the Puritan actions.
The first example comes when Bradford tells of the man on the Mayflower. He says that a man was plotting to through all of these people who had become sea sick over board because he could not stand them anymore. However, before he could get a chance to do this he came down with a horrible illness and died. Bradford tells this as a way of showing how sinful people get punished by God.
Another example is the earthquake that Bradford explains. He says, "the Lord would hereby show the signs of His displeasure, in their shaking a-pieces and removals one form another." This is stating that the Lord was displeased with the Puritans so he caused and earthquake. I found this to be very interesting because I didn't know that the New England area could even get earthquakes.
Lastly the explains a lot of this in chapter XXXII. He explains how wickedness grew in the colony and as a consequence bad things happened. One example is that the steams started to to stop and damn up. I wonder now if it was just becoming a dry season or if this was a rarity for the time of year.
No matter what the cause for this natural disasters the Puritans "knew" it was God. This helped govern the colonies and caused people to have not only love for God but also fear so they would act in a way that the Lord would accept.
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I agree, it was like he was showing how powerful God is. God has the say in what happens and how it supposes to happen. We’re supposed to answer to only God and not man. “He explains how wickedness grew in the colony and as a consequence bad things happened.” God demonstrations his authority when people go astray, the judgment that God show and the miracles as well are wake-up calls to let people realize who He really is.
ReplyDeleteOf Plymouth Plantation shows that Bradford and other Puritans live in a manner that respects God through fear, because they if they don’t they’ll end like the young man on the boat. I think that it’s interesting that to the Puritans nothing is a coincidence or happens by chance. Every positive or negative event of life is evidence that God exists. Not only was it evidence of God, but the Puritans were able to analyze their environment to see how the covenant was fairing. An example used was the earthquake, and this was evidence that the covenant displeased God for one reason or another.
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