Puritan Americans Selfish Or Selfish

Selfish or Selfless

By using the person that puritans relied so much on, anyone could take control. To the Puritans, God, was everything to them, every prayer they had, every food they ate, every morning they woke up alive, they counted on god. With needing power, holding “ Gods word” above them was an easy target. The Puritans knew two things, God, and Selfishness As stated in John Winthrop's sermon given aboard the Arbella to settlers traveling to New England, he makes laws, and reinforces them by saying it's what “ God wants,” and by that it gave him control over the people. If they didn't follow those rules, he made sure to add some threatening words to frighten them. “ We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together.” This statement of rules he created

Bradford trying to justify the war and gruesome murder of many by using God’s forgiveness and blessing upon the war. He goes on to say” thus to enclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud, insulting, and blasphemous and enemy.” Because the Pequot did not believe in the same God as the Puritans; he tries to convince everyone that it was what God wanted because they didn't believe in Him. This being the most selfish thing he could do. Bradford, not only using out of text phrases from the bible to justify murder, but using the fear that not believing in God, will cause death, making people more likely to stick with them than wonder on their own independence for the fear of death. William Bradford was not the only person to have this “threat of God”