Below is a series of study in the history of the founding of America. Since the majority of our citizens today, and especially the immigrants, have no clue as to how our great nation began, it is hopeful that these short articles will be helpful.
THE FOUNDATION OF NEW HAVEN
Archbishop Land of the Church of England was attempting to arrest vicar John Davenport of St. Stephen’s Church in London. Davenport was accused of stirring up problems in want of freedom of expression in his church. To keep from being arrested he had escaped to New England! Davenport and others felt that the Law of Moses, and all of the Scriptures, was necessary for good civil government. He and others took these ideas to the new world and attempted to apply them in the theocracy that they wished to establish there.
In time, it would be to the benefit of the new land that such a theocracy would not come about. But at the time, who could see that this would have been a curse to the new American system of government!
Nevertheless, a reliance on the Bible would bring a spiritual component to the founding of the new nation. Few nations on earth were so relying on Scripture to guide their laws and their thinking.
Davenport and others felt that “Without charter or governmental constitution of any kind, they undertook to found a commonwealth ‘whose design is Christian.’” It was stated: “With serious consideration it was agreed, concluded and settled as a fundamental law, not to be disputed or questioned hereafter, that the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses and expounded in other parts of Scripture, so far as they are a defense to the moral law, and neither typical nor ceremonial nor had reference to Canaan, shall be accounted of moral and binding equity and force, and as God shall help shall be a constant direction for all proceedings here, and a general rule in all courts of Justice.”
For generations this statement guided local and national governmental bodies. The people of this land felt that God’s laws had an impact on all that was done in America. No one complained, argued, or fought this idea. All agreed that the new nation was to be guided by a biblical and a spiritual component, though the country was not to be a theocracy! This is why America went so far as a Christian guided nation. Now that has been destroyed, and it will never return again!
PROPHET OF DEMOCRACY
This was the title given to the Anglo-Saxon Thomas Hooker (1586-1647). He arrived in America on the same ship as John Cotton. He was a well-known preacher who had taught in Chelmsford in Essex, England. He became popular in his preaching at Newtown, now Cambridge.
In a fiery sermon in Hartford Connecticut, he had said that “The foundation of authority in government is found in the free consent of the people.” And, “the choice of public leaders belongs to the people of God’s own allowance.” He added, “They who have power to appoint officers and magistrates have the right also to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them.” (Present America, take heed!)
He further said, that “what the proponents of democracy sometimes forget, that the right of voting belongs to the people ought not to be exercised according to their whims, but according to the blessed will and law of God.”
Therefore, for a democracy to work, the people must continually pray and give thanks for their freedoms. They must be appreciative of the charge of freedom bestowed upon them by God’s sovereignty. If the people are no longer appreciative the blessings will depart!
THE PILGRIMS ATTENDING CHURCH
A Dutch merchant described how the Pilgrims practiced worship in Plymouth in 1627. The Anglo-Saxons and Europeans met in a large meetinghouse made of heavy plank wood with a flat roof. On top were six cannons. The lower part of the building was used for Sunday church services. The people assembled by the beat of a drum, each man and husband coming with his flintlock weapon. It was expected that the men, with their weapons, were ready to defend the women and children from the Indians, if necessary. They assembled in order with three abreast. The Governor, William Bradford sat up front in a long robe, with the preacher Elder Brewster coming in last, also wearing his cloak. He was armed with his handy side-weapon and pistol. Each man had his gun at the ready! To bear arms was a right expected of all the men!
By the end of 1630 there were twenty thousand Anglo-Saxons who had arrived from England to escape the tyranny of Charles I and the zeal of the Archbishop of England, Bishop Land. They were not Separatists who said “Farewell Babylon; Farewell Rome!” But we want to say “Farewell, dear England, farewell, the Church of God in England and all the Christians friends there! We do not go to New England as Separatists from the Church of England, but we go to practice the positive part of church reformation and to spread the gospel in America!”
CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS
Following the example of churches in Salem and Boston, other towns, all founded by Anglo-Saxons and Europeans, organized their congregations. The ministers were, as they should be, pastors and teachers, not priests. They exercised no priestly functions and recognized no hierarchy while rejecting the Anglican liturgy. Each church controlled its own affairs. The churches were emancipated in spiritual matters from the control of the state. But Massachusetts came close to making the state the servant of the churches. The sovereignty of God was the fundamental article of the Puritan’s creed, and they sought to establish a theocracy, which was in time, rejected. In the life of the state as well as in that of the church, the congregation aimed at complete obedience to the will of God as revealed in Scripture.
The statues of Governor John Winthrop in Boston represent him holding the Bible in one hand and the state Charter in the other. From 1631 to 1664 only church members could vote as freemen. They had to show satisfactory evidence of being born again.
THE SEPARATISTS BECAME PILGRIMS
At Scrooby, England, a group of Separatists met each week in the local manor house. William Bradford (1588-1657) remarked that “As the Lord’s free people they joined themselves to a covenant of the Lord into a church, in the fellowship of the gospel, to walk in all His ways, … whatever it should cost them.” “And that it did indeed cost them, history will declare.” To escape persecution, they fled to Holland, and after eleven years, fearing lest their English heritage be lost and their children fall into strange customs and untoward ways, resolved to remove to America. Edwin Sandy invited them to the Virginia colony, where it was said of them later, “These English have lived now among us ten years, and yet we never had any suit or accusation against them, or any of them.” In appreciation of God’s blessings, they lived an exemplary life that no one could fault! These Anglo-Saxons would set the pace for a holy people!
THE YOUNGEST WENT FIRST
It was decided that the youngest and the strongest of this English church now residing in Holland would travel first to America. William Brewster, the elder, went with them, though pastor John Robinson stayed behind. His parting counsel to those who embarked is memorable. “He charged us … to follow him no further than he followed Christ; and if God should reveal anything to us by any other instrument of His, to be as ready to receive it as ever we were to receive any truth by his ministry; for he was confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of His Holy Word.” This little crowd of Pilgrims went aboard the brig Speedwell at Delft Haven. They would never see their families again! And, many would die of diseases and deprivation, never fully experiencing the blessings of the new world!
THE FIRST SABBATH ON CLARK’S ISLAND
The ship, the Speedwell, carried these Pilgrims to England, but it would be the Mayflower, finally, which bore them from Plymouth to America. They arrived at Cape Cod on November 11, 1620, and spent a month in exploration. On Saturday, December 9, an exploring party, after many difficulties, landed on Clark’s Island. They “gave God thanks for His mercies, in their manifold deliverances. Since this was the last day of the week, they prepared there to keep the Sabbath.” On Monday, they explored the neighboring mainland, found it to be a “most hopeful place,” and decided there to build their homes. The new settlement was named Plymouth, in remembrance of their port of departure. A poem was later written by Felicia Hemans entitled “The Pilgrim Fathers.”
“Oh, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod.
They have left unstained what there they found—
Freedom to worship God.”
GOD CAME FIRST
The Pilgrims at Plymouth were without a pastor for nine years. John Robinson died before he could join the little colony. They were led in worship by elder William Brewster (1566-1644), the oldest. He was the ruling elder who led the congregation in times of prayer and study. He “taught twice every Sabbath, and that both powerfully and profitably. … In teaching he was very moving and stirring of affections, also, in what he taught. … He had singular good gifts in prayer, both public and private. … He always thought it were better for ministers to pray oftener, and divide their prayers, than be long and tedious in the same.” The people met around the fire in a wooden structure that became their church building. Appreciation for their spiritual freedoms was ever in their thoughts. Because of all their struggles they would become the most free of the Christian groups of that time!
JOHN COTTON: “PATRIARCH OF NEW ENGLAND”
Cotton (1585-1652 AD) had tremendous influence on the colonies in New England. Though he was a pastor his writings were still used in the public schools in Massachusetts and even beyond. For twenty-one years he was the vicar of St. Botolph’s Church in Boston. Because he refused to carry out certain Anglican observances the authorities tried to arrest him, but he escaped. For years he taught in the church at Boston. His catechism entitled Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes in either England was used in churches and schools to teach morals to the youngsters. The subtitle read: “Drawn out of the Breasts of both Testaments for their soul’s nourishment of our children.” The book was used for more than 150 years and was incorporated into the New England Primer.
THE FOUNDATION OF NEW HAVEN
Archbishop Land of the Church of England was attempting to arrest vicar John Davenport of St. Stephen’s Church in London. Davenport was accused of stirring up problems in want of freedom of expression in his church. To keep from being arrested he had escaped to New England! Davenport and others felt that the Law of Moses, and all of the Scriptures, was necessary for good civil government. He and others took these ideas to the new world and attempted to apply them in the theocracy that they wished to establish there.
In time, it would be to the benefit of the new land that such a theocracy would not come about. But at the time, who could see that this would have been a curse to the new American system of government!
Nevertheless, a reliance on the Bible would bring a spiritual component to the founding of the new nation. Few nations on earth were so relying on Scripture to guide their laws and their thinking.
Davenport and others felt that “Without charter or governmental constitution of any kind, they undertook to found a commonwealth ‘whose design is Christian.’” It was stated: “With serious consideration it was agreed, concluded and settled as a fundamental law, not to be disputed or questioned hereafter, that the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses and expounded in other parts of Scripture, so far as they are a defense to the moral law, and neither typical nor ceremonial nor had reference to Canaan, shall be accounted of moral and binding equity and force, and as God shall help shall be a constant direction for all proceedings here, and a general rule in all courts of Justice.”
For generations this statement guided local and national governmental bodies. The people of this land felt that God’s laws had an impact on all that was done in America. No one complained, argued, or fought this idea. All agreed that the new nation was to be guided by a biblical and a spiritual component, though the country was not to be a theocracy! This is why America went so far as a Christian guided nation. Now that has been destroyed, and it will never return again!
PROPHET OF DEMOCRACY
This was the title given to the Anglo-Saxon Thomas Hooker (1586-1647). He arrived in America on the same ship as John Cotton. He was a well-known preacher who had taught in Chelmsford in Essex, England. He became popular in his preaching at Newtown, now Cambridge.
In a fiery sermon in Hartford Connecticut, he had said that “The foundation of authority in government is found in the free consent of the people.” And, “the choice of public leaders belongs to the people of God’s own allowance.” He added, “They who have power to appoint officers and magistrates have the right also to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them.” (Present America, take heed!)
He further said, that “what the proponents of democracy sometimes forget, that the right of voting belongs to the people ought not to be exercised according to their whims, but according to the blessed will and law of God.”
Therefore, for a democracy to work, the people must continually pray and give thanks for their freedoms. They must be appreciative of the charge of freedom bestowed upon them by God’s sovereignty. If the people are no longer appreciative the blessings will depart!
THE PILGRIMS ATTENDING CHURCH
A Dutch merchant described how the Pilgrims practiced worship in Plymouth in 1627. The Anglo-Saxons and Europeans met in a large meetinghouse made of heavy plank wood with a flat roof. On top were six cannons. The lower part of the building was used for Sunday church services. The people assembled by the beat of a drum, each man and husband coming with his flintlock weapon. It was expected that the men, with their weapons, were ready to defend the women and children from the Indians, if necessary. They assembled in order with three abreast. The Governor, William Bradford sat up front in a long robe, with the preacher Elder Brewster coming in last, also wearing his cloak. He was armed with his handy side-weapon and pistol. Each man had his gun at the ready! To bear arms was a right expected of all the men!
By the end of 1630 there were twenty thousand Anglo-Saxons who had arrived from England to escape the tyranny of Charles I and the zeal of the Archbishop of England, Bishop Land. They were not Separatists who said “Farewell Babylon; Farewell Rome!” But we want to say “Farewell, dear England, farewell, the Church of God in England and all the Christians friends there! We do not go to New England as Separatists from the Church of England, but we go to practice the positive part of church reformation and to spread the gospel in America!”
CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS
Following the example of churches in Salem and Boston, other towns, all founded by Anglo-Saxons and Europeans, organized their congregations. The ministers were, as they should be, pastors and teachers, not priests. They exercised no priestly functions and recognized no hierarchy while rejecting the Anglican liturgy. Each church controlled its own affairs. The churches were emancipated in spiritual matters from the control of the state. But Massachusetts came close to making the state the servant of the churches. The sovereignty of God was the fundamental article of the Puritan’s creed, and they sought to establish a theocracy, which was in time, rejected. In the life of the state as well as in that of the church, the congregation aimed at complete obedience to the will of God as revealed in Scripture.
The statues of Governor John Winthrop in Boston represent him holding the Bible in one hand and the state Charter in the other. From 1631 to 1664 only church members could vote as freemen. They had to show satisfactory evidence of being born again.
THE SEPARATISTS BECAME PILGRIMS
At Scrooby, England, a group of Separatists met each week in the local manor house. William Bradford (1588-1657) remarked that “As the Lord’s free people they joined themselves to a covenant of the Lord into a church, in the fellowship of the gospel, to walk in all His ways, … whatever it should cost them.” “And that it did indeed cost them, history will declare.” To escape persecution, they fled to Holland, and after eleven years, fearing lest their English heritage be lost and their children fall into strange customs and untoward ways, resolved to remove to America. Edwin Sandy invited them to the Virginia colony, where it was said of them later, “These English have lived now among us ten years, and yet we never had any suit or accusation against them, or any of them.” In appreciation of God’s blessings, they lived an exemplary life that no one could fault! These Anglo-Saxons would set the pace for a holy people!
THE YOUNGEST WENT FIRST
It was decided that the youngest and the strongest of this English church now residing in Holland would travel first to America. William Brewster, the elder, went with them, though pastor John Robinson stayed behind. His parting counsel to those who embarked is memorable. “He charged us … to follow him no further than he followed Christ; and if God should reveal anything to us by any other instrument of His, to be as ready to receive it as ever we were to receive any truth by his ministry; for he was confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of His Holy Word.” This little crowd of Pilgrims went aboard the brig Speedwell at Delft Haven. They would never see their families again! And, many would die of diseases and deprivation, never fully experiencing the blessings of the new world!
THE FIRST SABBATH ON CLARK’S ISLAND
The ship, the Speedwell, carried these Pilgrims to England, but it would be the Mayflower, finally, which bore them from Plymouth to America. They arrived at Cape Cod on November 11, 1620, and spent a month in exploration. On Saturday, December 9, an exploring party, after many difficulties, landed on Clark’s Island. They “gave God thanks for His mercies, in their manifold deliverances. Since this was the last day of the week, they prepared there to keep the Sabbath.” On Monday, they explored the neighboring mainland, found it to be a “most hopeful place,” and decided there to build their homes. The new settlement was named Plymouth, in remembrance of their port of departure. A poem was later written by Felicia Hemans entitled “The Pilgrim Fathers.”
“Oh, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod.
They have left unstained what there they found—
Freedom to worship God.”
GOD CAME FIRST
The Pilgrims at Plymouth were without a pastor for nine years. John Robinson died before he could join the little colony. They were led in worship by elder William Brewster (1566-1644), the oldest. He was the ruling elder who led the congregation in times of prayer and study. He “taught twice every Sabbath, and that both powerfully and profitably. … In teaching he was very moving and stirring of affections, also, in what he taught. … He had singular good gifts in prayer, both public and private. … He always thought it were better for ministers to pray oftener, and divide their prayers, than be long and tedious in the same.” The people met around the fire in a wooden structure that became their church building. Appreciation for their spiritual freedoms was ever in their thoughts. Because of all their struggles they would become the most free of the Christian groups of that time!
JOHN COTTON: “PATRIARCH OF NEW ENGLAND”
Cotton (1585-1652 AD) had tremendous influence on the colonies in New England. Though he was a pastor his writings were still used in the public schools in Massachusetts and even beyond. For twenty-one years he was the vicar of St. Botolph’s Church in Boston. Because he refused to carry out certain Anglican observances the authorities tried to arrest him, but he escaped. For years he taught in the church at Boston. His catechism entitled Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes in either England was used in churches and schools to teach morals to the youngsters. The subtitle read: “Drawn out of the Breasts of both Testaments for their soul’s nourishment of our children.” The book was used for more than 150 years and was incorporated into the New England Primer.
