According to Bradford's worldview as expressed in "Of Plymouth Plantation," God rewards his Saints and punishes the wicked and profane. His writing reflects a grounding in Biblical literature where examples of this dynamic abound. Bradford sees the world as being divided between the Saints, who strive to conform to God's will as revealed in scripture, and the profane, who either mock God's Saints or depart from his revealed word despite their profession of Christianity.

For Bradford, as a Protestant separatist, the contemporary Saints were Protestants that rejected not only Catholicism, which they regarded as apostate and filled with traditions and teachings with no justification in God's word, but also the Protestant Anglican Church which they believed retained too many of the trappings of Catholicism.

By returning to early Christianity as described solely in God's word, contemporary Saints could expect not only persecution from the profane but also God's favor, justice, and protection as the scriptures so often promise. Bradford sees God's blessing in the Plymouth Saints's successful journey and establishment in the New World. The profane, however, could expect God's judgment upon them, either in this world or the next.

The founders of Plymouth Plantation saw themselves as on a perilous but holy religious pilgrimage to found an outpost of Saints in the New Word, where God's revealed word would be the foundation of community religious life without interference from the political authorities of England or the corrupting influence of Holland on the congregation's youth. As prototypes, they looked back to the Israelites and their travails in the wilderness before reaching the promised land, where God promised to reward them if they followed his will.

The belief that God punished sin and rewarded righteousness was common among European Christians of the 17th century and began to wane only in the 18th century, when scientific explanations of plagues and diseases and natural phenomena like storms and earthquakes became more widely known and commonly accepted.