There was a certain amount of pitiable egotism in all this.  Seemingly God had very little to do except watch the Puritans.  It reminds one of the two resolutions tradition says that some Puritan leader suggested:  Resolved, firstly, that the saints shall inherit the earth; resolved, secondly, that we are the saints.  A supernatural or divine explanation seems to have been sought for all events; natural causes were too frequently ignored.  The super-sensitive almost morbid nature resulting from such an attitude caused far-fetched hypotheses; God was in every incident and every act or accident.  We may turn again to Winthrop’s History for an illustration: 

“1648.  The synod met at Cambridge.  Mr. Allen preached.  It fell out, about the midst of his sermon, there came a snake into the seat where many elders sate behind the preacher.  Divers elders shifted from it, but Mr. Thomson, one of the elders of Braintree, (a man of much faith) trod upon the head of it, 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.”

There was a further belief that God in hasty anger often wreaked instant vengeance upon those who displeased Him, and this doctrine doubtless kept many a Puritan in constant dread lest the hour of retribution should come upon him without warning.  How often the mother of those days must have admonished in all sincerity her child not to do this or that lest God strike the sudden blow of death in retribution.  Numerous indeed are the examples presented of sinners who paid thus abruptly the penalty for transgression.  Let Increase Mather speak through his Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences: 

“The hand of God was very remarkable in that which came to pass in the Narragansett country in New England, not many weeks since; for I have good information, that on August 28, 1683, a man there (viz.  Samuel Wilson) having caused his dog to mischief his neighbor’s cattle was blamed for his so doing.  He denied the fact with imprecations, wishing that he might never stir from that place if he had so done.  His neighbor being troubled at his denying the truth, reproved him, and told him he did very ill to deny what his conscience knew to be truth.  The atheist thereupon used the name of God in his imprecations, saying, ’He wished to God he might never stir out of that place, if he had done that which he was charged with.’  The words were scarce out of his mouth before he sunk down dead, and never stirred more; a son-in-law of his standing by and catching him as he fell to the ground.”