Book Review: Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford
Convenience can be a deadly thing. In today’s culture, it’s idolized. And with the worship of our cars, our microwaves, and our smart phones, convenience eases our labor, dulls our focus, and softens our desires.
The problem with this is that some things are worthy of labor, focus, and craving. The highest of all these is God Himself, whom the Bible says that we must seek after with diligence, on whom we must focus our minds and hearts and souls, and for whom we must hunger and thirst as in a dry land where there is no water.
Religion has become convenient. Worship has become convenient. God has become convenient. And with this convenience, enjoyed in a comfort driven, ego-centric country of couch-potato religious liberty, freedom to worship has evolved into apathy of worship.
Now don’t get me wrong, we are richly blessed by the ability to worship God freely in our country – and it was a gift that was bought at a high price. But let us never forget the hungry-seeking, Scripture-soaked, Prayer-intoxicated, God-saturated intensity of our Christian forefathers, as they sought to lay a foundation, not for apathy in worship, but greater zeal.
On Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, chronicles a tale of just such a group of true Pilgrims, whose desire to seek God was so broad and deep, that they would sacrifice their entire world for His sake.
The Genesis of our nation has been distorted by our Exodus from Biblical truth, and we forget – or intentionally ignore – the truly religious roots of our American stock. Historical reference to God and His sovereign providence over the affairs of Nations, the Church, and individual lives is hushed beneath a clamor of dates, difficulties, and depravity.
We must look to the actors of History itself to set the record straight. Who could better describe the true reality of not only the dates, but the era of thoughts and ideas; not only the difficulties, but the triumphs of the Church in the face of adversity; not only the depravity, but the faithfulness of those whom God has chosen to fulfill His purposes but those who were actually there?
Let historians try to efface the truth – History will speak for itself.
It is easy for us to view people, so remote from our time and circumstances, as shady figures, almost mechanical dreams, working out some vague and predisposed figment of distant reality.
We are so familiar with history – and yet so removed from it – that we forget that these were real people, who had no idea what the end of the story would be as the struggles and successes unrolled chaotically beneath their feet. They had real emotions, and had to somehow foster the courage to risk all certainty for a sliver of hope.
We must not read their narrative without hearing a story, a story with real characters and real emotions and real pain and real joy, watching their lives slowly unravel at the same speed and uncertainty and length that we watch ours – but with infinitely more at stake.
As William Bradford, founder and longtime governor of Plymouth, states:
“For these reformers to be thus constrained to leave their native soil, their lands and livings, and all their friends, was a great sacrifice and was wondered at by many. But to go into a country unknown to them, where they must learn a new language, and get their livings they knew not how, seemed an almost desperate adventure, and a misery worse than death…But these things did not dismay them, though they sometimes troubled them; for their desires were set on the ways of God, to enjoy His ordinances; they rested on His providence, and knew Whom they had believed.”
Why Should I Read It?
The reasons for reading this book are both significant and many. I’ll try to boil it down to three.
First, for historical detail. On Plymouth Plantation is an eye-witness account of the first several years before the famous Mayflower left her port, her voyage, and the establishment of the colony in America, full of stories, letters and documentation.
Second, for a Spiritual reawakening. The zeal and devotion of these faithful men and women is riveting and inspiring. Their goals were centered fixedly on Christ, and through all the hardship and tragedy, God rewarded their faith: “Thus out of small beginnings, greater things have grown by His hand Who made all things out of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light enkindled here has shone to many, yea, in a sense our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise.”
Third, this book gives a beautiful, grand, overarching sense of the sovereignty of God, providentially guiding the efforts, failings, and trials of our individual lives. “…they cherished a great hope and inward zeal of laying good foundations, or at least making some ways toward it, for the propagation and advance of the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in the remote parts of the world, even though they should be but stepping stones to others in the performance of so great a work.”
They knew that God would use their lives, for something infinitely bigger than themselves or anything they were striving to accomplish. Their goal was not to change history, make a new world, or govern themselves, although they did do all of these things. They goal was to exalt God and the Gospel above all else:
“May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: ‘Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice, and looked on their adversity, etc. Let them therefore praise the Lord, because He is good, and His mercies endure forever. Yea, let them which have been redeemed of the Lord, shew how He hath delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. When they wandered in the desert wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in, both hungry, and thirsty, their soul was overwhelmed in them. Let them confess before the Lord His loving kindness, and His wonderful works before the sons of men.”