Woman's Life in Colonial Days by Carl Holliday
page 36 of 345 (10%)
page 36 of 345 (10%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
with the ground. But the father, freely in the open congregation, did
acknowledge it the righteous hand of God for his profaning his holy day against the checks of his own conscience." There was a certain amount of pitiable egotism in all this. Seemingly God had very little to do except watch the Puritans. It reminds one of the two resolutions tradition says that some Puritan leader suggested: Resolved, firstly, that the saints shall inherit the earth; resolved, secondly, that we are the saints. A supernatural or divine explanation seems to have been sought for all events; natural causes were too frequently ignored. The super-sensitive almost morbid nature resulting from such an attitude caused far-fetched hypotheses; God was in every incident and every act or accident. We may turn again to Winthrop's _History_ for an illustration: "1648. The synod met at Cambridge. Mr. Allen preached. It fell out, about the midst of his sermon, there came a snake into the seat where many elders sate behind the preacher. Divers elders shifted from it, but Mr. Thomson, one of the elders of Braintree, (a man of much faith) trod upon the head of it, until it was killed. This being so remarkable, and nothing falling out but by divine providence, it is out of doubt, the Lord discovered somewhat of his mind in it. The serpent is the devil; the synod, the representative of the churches of Christ in New England. The devil had formerly and lately attempted their disturbance and dissolution; but their faith in the seed of the woman overcame him and crushed his head." There was a further belief that God in hasty anger often wreaked instant vengeance upon those who displeased Him, and this doctrine doubtless kept many a Puritan in constant dread lest the hour of retribution |
|