Pilgrims and God

Early days of the USA and God's relationship with the Pilgrims

Everyone accepts that there were many inhabitants or people who landed in the Americas but did not settle it or make any significant changes.  I will research all of those groups in a different post.

For this post, we do accept the Pilgrims as the first to come to America to settle it for a reason.  These people are the very foundation of our Constitution and their beliefs are what formed the United States.  So maybe understanding them might help understand why the United States and Christianity go hand in hand.

The Voyage of the Mayflower and its story is really the story of the beginning so lets start there.

The Mayflower

The Mayflower was the Pilgrim ship that in 1620 made the historic voyage from England to the New World. The ship carried 102 passengers in two core groups – religious Separatists coming from Holland and a largely non-religious settler group from London.

This voyage has become an iconic story in the earliest annals of American history with its tragic story of death and of survival in the harshest New World winter environment. The culmination of the voyage in the signing of the Mayflower Compact is one of the greatest moments in the story of America, providing the basis of the nation's present form of democratic self-government and fundamental freedoms.

So here we have two groups coming to the Americas or New World - Separatists and settlers.  Before looking at these groups, lets look into the Mayflower Compact.

The Mayflower Compact

Although the original document has been lost, three versions exist from the 17th century: printed in Mourt's Relation (1622), which was reprinted in Purchas his Pilgrimes (1625), hand written by William Bradford in his journal Of Plimoth Plantation (1646), and printed by Bradford's nephew Nathaniel Morton in New-Englands Memorial (1669). The three versions differ slightly in wording and significantly in spelling, capitalization and punctuation. William Bradford wrote the first part of Mourt's Relation, including its version of the compact, so he wrote two of the three versions. The wording of those two versions is indeed quite similar, unlike that of Morton. Bradford's handwritten manuscript is kept in a vault at the State Library of Massachusetts.

Modern version

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.

The 'dread sovereign' referred to in the document used the archaic definition of dread—meaning awe and reverence (for the King), not fear. Also, as noted above, the document was signed under the Old Style Julian calendar, since England did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752. The Gregorian date would be November 21.

Signers

The following list of signers is organized into the six short columns of Morton (1669) with the numbers and titles of Prince. The names are given their modern spelling according to Morison (1966). Use the numbers given for the order used by genealogists and half of unnumbered lists (Samuel Fuller will be the eighth name), but merge the half columns vertically into full columns for the order used by the other half of unnumbered lists (John Turner will be the eighth name).

1.Mr. John Carver  2.William Bradford 3.Mr. Edward Winslow 4.Mr. William Brewster 5.Mr. Isaac Allerton 6.Capt. Myles Standish 7.John Alden 8.Mr. Samuel Fuller 9.Mr. Christopher Martin 10.Mr. William Mullins 11.Mr. William White 12.Mr. Richard Warren 13.John Howland 14.Mr. Stephen Hopkins

15.Edward Tilley 16.John Tilley 17.Francis Cooke 18.Thomas Rogers 19.Thomas Tinker 20.John Rigsdale

21.Edward Fuller 22.John Turner 23.Francis Eaton 24.James Chilton 25.John Crackstone 26.John Billington 27.Moses Fletcher 28.John Goodman 29.Degory Priest 30.Thomas Williams 31.Gilbert Winslow

32.Edmund Margeson 33.Peter Browne 34.Richard Britteridge 35.George Soule 36.Richard Clarke

37.Richard Gardiner 38.John Allerton 39.Thomas English 40.Edward Doty 41.Edward Leister

Pilgrims

Pilgrims (US), or Pilgrim Fathers (UK), is a name commonly applied to early settlers of the Plymouth Colony in present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States. Their leadership came from the religious congregations of Brownist English Dissenters who had fled the volatile political environment in England for the relative calm and tolerance of 16th–17th century Holland in the Netherlands. Concerned with losing their cultural identity, the group later arranged with English investors to establish a new colony in North America. The colony, established in 1620, became the second successful English settlement (after the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607) and later the oldest continuously inhabited English settlement in what was to become the United States of America. The Pilgrims' story of seeking religious freedom has become a central theme of the history and culture of the United States.

This theme will continue to be the reason for this blog and will explain how we started so close to God and how we are now moving so far away and why.

May God grant us the courage to follow in the same foot steps as our Founding fathers and may he give us the courage to once again turn this nation's eyes, heart, and spirit upon him.

Bob,