Bradstreet's "Meditations Divine and Moral"

 

1

There is no object that we see, no action that we do, no good that we enjoy, no evil that we feel or fear, but we may make some spiritual advantage of all; and he that makes such improvement is wise as well as pious.

 

4

A ship that bears much sail and little ballast is easily overset, and that man whose head hath great abilities and his heart little or no grace is in danger of foundering.

 

6

The finest bread hath the least bran, the purest honey the least wax, and the sincereest Christian the least self-love.

 

8

Downy beds make drowsy persons, but hard lodging keeps the eyes open; a prosperous state makes a secure Christian, but adversity makes him consider.

 

11

That town which thousands of enemies without hath not been able to take hath been delivered up by one traitor within, and that man which all the temptations of Satan without could not hurt hath been foiled by one lust within.

 

14

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

 

19

Corn, till it have past through the mill and been ground to powder, is not fit for bread.  God so deals with his servants: he grinds them with grief and pain till they turn to dust, and then are fit manchet [fine bread] for his mansion.

 

31

Iron, till it be thoroughly heat, is uncapable to be wrought; so God sees good to cast some men into the furnace of affliction and then beats them on His anvil into what frame he pleases.

 

 

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 (church) 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.

 

GOD ALMIGHTY in His most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity,; others mean and in submission.

 

 

Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into covenant with Him for this work. We have taken out a commission. The Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles. We have professed to enterprise these and those accounts, upon these and those ends. We have hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this covenant and sealed our commission, and will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it; but if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, and be revenged of such a people, and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.

 

 

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.

 

--from “A Model of Christian Charity,” Governor John Winthrop’s Sermon on board the Arabella as it sailed to New England, 1630

 

 

Exodus 20:4-5

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,

 

Exodus 22:18

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. [sorceress]

 

Deuteronomy 4:16-18

Beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.

 

^{Deuteronomy 18:10-11}

There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.

¹¹ Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

 

Leviticus 19:31
You must not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out, or you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 20:6
Whoever turns to mediums or spiritists to prostitute himself with them, I will also set My face against that person and cut him off from his people.

Leviticus 20:27
A man or a woman who is a medium or spiritist must surely be put to death. They shall be stoned; their blood is upon them.'"

 

Leviticus 26:1

“You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God.

 

1 John 5:21

Little children, keep yourselves from idols.