"History of Plymouth Plantation" by William Bradford seems to have a reference to God or other biblical things on almost every single page of the book. For example, one passage from the writing shows this when it says, " Satan hath raised, maintained, and continued against the Saincts, from time to time, in one sorte or other. Some times by bloody deaths or cruell torments; other whiles imprisonments, banishments, and other hard usages; as being loath his kingdom should goe downe, the trueth prevaile, and you churches of God reverte to their anciente puritie, and recover their primitive order, libertie, and bewtie." (Bradford 1). This passage essentially means that the Puritans think that Satan is always out to get those who believe in God (Bradford 1). The Puritan Bradford remains firm, however, in his belief that Satan may cause many awful things for those who follow God, but that the Church always fights and wins against what the devil throws at them (Bradford 1). From the passage, readers can understand how important God was for the Puritans. It is clear to me that they thought that if they believed in God and followed Him, that they would be protected by all of the bad things that Satan would do to them and they would win against Satan (Bradford 1). This may explain why the Puritans thought so much of God and were so devout in their faith that they incorporated Him into their writing.
Bradford's "History of Plymouth Plantation" not only shows Puritan qualities in writing by having many references to God and the Bible, but it also shows Puritan writing qualities by its simplistic nature. This simple writing style can be observed from the passage that says, "Experience haveing taught them many things, those prudent governours with sundrie of ye sagest members, begane to both deeply apprehend their present dangers, and wisely to forsee ye future, and thinke of timely remedy." (Bradford 22). From this passage, I can tell that Puritan writers had a simple style of writing that was very straightforward. At first glance the text seems elaborate to the modern reader because of the use of Old English. Once getting past the vernacular of the Puritans of early America, I can see how plain the writing really is. All this passage really only says that the leaders of the colony became smarter and saw what was the dangers to the colony (Bradford 22). Then the author goes on to say that the wise leaders of the colony began to think of ways to fix the problems (Bradford 22). This is so simple because many writers would not come right out and say all of this. Many other writers would use a actual problem that was dealt with and how it was solved. They would leave the reader to infer that the leaders were getting wiser about colony affairs the longer they lived there, but Puritan writers do not do this. They get straight to the point and do not use symbolism, or let the reader read between the lines. I think that the Puritan writing is so simple because the Puritans themselves were not into being extravagant or elaborate in case they accidentally upstaged God.
Bibliography: Bradford, William. Bradford's History "Of Plimoth Plantation." Boston: Published for the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856. Print.
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