It was his own, it was not mine, Far be it that I should repine; He might of all justly bereft But yet sufficient for us left.
Bradstreet does go back and forth in her faith, but after her house burns down, she does leave it all to God. She recognizes the house as His, and does not fret. God leaves her the beauties of nature and her creativity, leaving her barely deprived with the loss of her house.
The next consideration is how this loue comes to be wrought. Adam in his first estate was a perfect modell of mankinde in all their generations, and in him this loue was perfected in regard of the habit. But Adam, rent himselfe from his Creator, rent all his posterity allsoe one from another; whence it comes that every man is borne with this principle in him to loue and seeke himselfe onely, and thus a man continueth till Christ comes and takes possession of the soule and infuseth another principle, loue to God and our brother, and this latter haueing continuall [Page 42] supply from Christ, as the head and roote by which he is vnited, gets the predomining in the soule, soe by little and little expells the former.
Here, Winthrop is essentially outlining salvation and how that comes to fruition. Man loves himself and, through God's influence, begins to love others- including God himself. According to Winthrop, in this particular quote, we are incapable of loving before being saved. Is that true, though?
For patterns wee haue that first of our Saviour whoe out of his good will in obedience to his father, becomeing a parte of this body and being knitt with it in the bond of loue, found such a natiue sensibleness of our infirmities and sorrowes as he willingly yielded himselfe to deathe to ease the infirmities of the rest of his body, and soe healed theire sorrowes.
Just as Jesus died on the cross for us, we become a part of him, body and soul. We are literally of His body, interlaced from deep within. Because of this tight bond, Winthrop justified why the Puritans felt so indebted to God (and we are).
The Lawe of nature would give no rules for dealing with enemies, for all are to be considered as friends in the state of innocency, but the Gospell commands loue to an enemy. Proofe. If thine Enemy hunger, feed him; Love your Enemies, doe good to them that hate you. Math. 5. 44.
There seems to be some contradictions in the Puritan mentality. They strive to love others, despite their relations just as Christians do today. However, they exhibited less-than-ideal behaviors against those who behaved/believed differently- punishments, fights, prejudice, etc.
First to hold conformity with the rest of his world,
The Puritan's lived on "The City Upon a Hill," hoping to lead the rest of the world by example. Winthrop argues that the Puritans tried to conform to God's will of perfection- they wanted to act perfect, and they hoped everyone else would do the same.