Plymouth Plantation

From William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation: (setting: Mayflower voyage) And I may not omite hear a spetiall worke of Gods providence. Ther was a proud and very profane yonge man, one of the sea-men, of a lustie, able body, which made him the more haughty; he would allways be contemning the poor people [Pilgrim passengers] in their sicknes, and cursing them dayly with greevous execrations, and did not let to tell them, that he hoped to help to cast halfe of them over board before they came to their jurneys end, and to make merry with what they had; and if he were by any gently reproved, he would curse and swear most bitterly. But it pleased God before they came halfe seas over, to smite this yong man with a greevous disease, of which he dyded in a desperate maner, and so was him selfe the first that was throwne overboard. Thus his curses light on his own head; and it was an astonishmente to all his fellows, for they noted it to be the just hand of God upon him. ********************** From The Journal of John Winthrop: (setting: at a meeting house in Cambridge, Massachusetts Bay Colony, August 15, 1648, during a sermon) It fell out, about the midst of his sermon (Reverend Allen), there came a snake into the seat, where many of the elders sate behind the preacher. It came in at the door where people stood thick upon the stairs. Divers of the elders shifted from it, but Mr. Thompson, one of the elders of Braintree, (a man of much faith), trode the head of it, and so held it with his foot and staff . . . 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.