Chapter 16 : The Pilgrim Fathers

The English reformers, while renouncing the doctrines of Romanism,

had retained many of its forms. Thus though the authority

and the creed of Rome were rejected, not a few of her customs

and ceremonies were incorporated into the worship of the Church

of England. It was claimed that these things were not matters of

conscience; that though they were not commanded in Scripture,

and hence were non-essential, yet not being forbidden, they were

not intrinsically evil. Their observance tended to narrow the gulf

which separated the reformed churches from Rome, and it was urged

that they would promote the acceptance of the Protestant faith by

Romanists.

To the conservative and compromising, these arguments seemed

conclusive. But there was another class that did not so judge. The

fact that these customs tended to bridge the chasm between Rome

and the Reformation, was in their view a conclusive argument against

retaining them. They looked upon them as badges of the slavery from

which they had been delivered, and to which they had no disposition

to return. They reasoned that God has in his Word established the

regulations governing his worship, and that men are not at liberty

to add to these or to detract from them. The very beginning of the

great apostasy was in seeking to supplement the authority of God

by that of the church. Rome began by enjoining what God had

not forbidden, and she ended by forbidding what he had explicitly

enjoined.

Many earnestly desired to return to the purity and simplicity

which characterized the primitive church. They regarded many of [290]

the established customs of the English church as monuments of

idolatry, and they could not in conscience unite in her worship. But

the church, being supported by the civil authority, would permit no

dissent from her forms. Attendance upon her service was required

by law, and unauthorized assemblies for religious worship were

prohibited, under penalty of imprisonment, exile, and death.

At the opening of the seventeenth century the monarch who had

just ascended the throne of England declared his determination to

make the Puritans “conform, or harry them out of the land, or else

worse.” Hunted, persecuted, and imprisoned, they could discern

in the future no promise of better days, and many yielded to the

conviction that for such as would serve God according to the dictates

of their conscience, “England had ceased forever to be a habitable

spot.” Some at last determined to seek refuge in Holland. Difficulties,

losses, and imprisonment were encountered. Their purposes were

thwarted, and they were betrayed into the hands of their enemies.

But steadfast perseverance finally conquered, and they found shelter

on the friendly shores of the Dutch Republic.

In their flight they had left their houses, their goods, and their

means of livelihood. They were strangers in a strange land, among a

people of different language and customs. They were forced to resort

to new and untried occupations to earn their bread. Middle-aged

men, who had spent their lives in tilling the soil, had now to learn

mechanical trades. But they cheerfully accepted the situation, and

lost no time in idleness or repining. Though often pinched with

poverty, they thanked God for the blessings which were still granted

them, and found their joy in unmolested spiritual communion. “They

knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but

lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, and quieted their

spirits.”

[291] In the midst of exile and hardship, their love and faith waxed

strong. They trusted the Lord’s promises, and he did not fail them

in time of need. His angels were by their side, to encourage and

support them. And when God’s hand seemed pointing them across

the sea, to a land where they might found for themselves a State,

and leave to their children the precious heritage of religious liberty,

they went forward, without shrinking, in the path of Providence.

God had permitted trials to come upon his people to prepare

them for the accomplishment of his gracious purpose toward them.

The church had been brought low, that she might be exalted. God

was about to display his power in her behalf, to give to the world

another evidence that he will not forsake those who trust in him. He

had overruled events to cause the wrath of Satan and the plots of

evil men to advance his glory, and to bring his people to a place of

security. Persecution and exile were opening the way to freedom.

When first constrained to separate from the English church, the

Puritans had joined themselves together by a solemn covenant, as

the Lord’s free people, “to walk in all his ways, made known or to

be made known to them.” Here was the true spirit of reform, the

vital principle of Protestantism. It was with this purpose that the

Pilgrims departed from Holland to find a home in the New World.

John Robinson, their pastor, who was providentially prevented from

accompanying them, in his farewell address to the exiles said:—

“Brethren, we are now erelong to part asunder, and the Lord

knoweth whether I shall live ever to see your faces more; but whether

the Lord hath appointed that or not, I charge you before God and his

blessed angels to follow me no farther than I have followed Christ.

If God should reveal anything to you by any other instrument of his,

be as ready to receive it as you ever were to receive any truth by

my ministry; for I am very confident that the Lord hath more truth

and light yet to break forth out of his Holy Word. For my part, I

cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed churches, [292]

who are come to a period in religion, and will go no farther than the

instruments of their reformation. The Lutherans cannot be drawn

to go any farther than what Luther saw, and the Calvinists, you see,

stick fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw

not all things. This is a misery much to be lamented; for though they

were burning and shining lights in their time, yet they penetrated not

into the whole counsel of God, but were they now living, would be

as willing to embrace further light as that which they first received.

“Remember your church covenant, in which you have agreed

to walk in all the ways of the Lord, made known or to be made

known unto you. Remember your promise and covenant with God

and with one another, to receive whatever light and truth shall be

made known to you from his written Word. But, withal, take heed,

I beseech you, what you receive as truth. Examine it, consider it,

compare it with other scriptures of truth before you receive it; for it

is not possible that the Christian world should come so lately out of

such thick antichristian darkness, and that perfection of knowledge

should break forth at once.”

It was the desire for liberty of conscience that inspired the Pilgrims

to brave the perils of the long journey across the sea, to endure

the hardships and dangers of the wilderness, and with God’s blessing

to lay, on the shores of America, the foundation of a mighty

nation. Yet honest and God-fearing as they were, the Pilgrims did

not yet comprehend the great principle of religious toleration. The

freedom which they sacrificed so much to secure for themselves,

they were not equally ready to grant to others. “Very few, even of the

foremost thinkers and moralists of the seventeenth century, had any

just conception of that grand principle, the outgrowth of the New

Testament, which acknowledges God as the sole judge of human

faith.” The doctrine that God has committed to the church the right

to control the conscience, and to define and punish heresy, is one of

[293] the most deeply rooted of papal errors. While the reformers rejected

the creed of Rome, they were not entirely free from her spirit of

intolerance. The dense darkness in which, through the long ages

of her rule, popery had enveloped all Christendom, had not even

yet been wholly dissipated. Said one of the leading ministers in the

colony of Massachusetts Bay: “It was toleration that made the world

antichristian; and the church never took harm by the punishment

of heretics.” The regulation was adopted by the colonists, that only

church-members should have a voice in the civil government. A

kind of State church was formed, all the people being required to

contribute to the support of the clergy, and the magistrates being

authorized to suppress heresy. Thus the secular power was in the

hands of the church. It was not long before these measures led to

the inevitable result—persecution.

Eleven years after the planting of the first colony, RogerWilliams

came to the New World. Like the early Pilgrims, he came to enjoy

religious freedom; but unlike them, he saw—what so few in his

time had yet seen—that this freedom was the inalienable right of

all, whatever might be their creed. He was an earnest seeker for

truth, with Robinson holding it impossible that all the light from

God’s Word had yet been received. Williams “was the first person

in modern Christendom to assert, in its plenitude, the doctrine of

the liberty of conscience, the equality of opinions before the law.”

He declared it to be the duty of the magistrate to restrain crime,

but never to control the conscience. “The public or the magistrates

may decide,” he said, “what is due from men to men, but when

they attempt to prescribe a man’s duty to God, they are out of place,

and there can be no safety; for it is clear that if the magistrate has

the power, he may decree one set of opinions or beliefs today and

another tomorrow; as has been done in England by different kings

and queens, and by the different popes and councils in the Roman

Church; so that belief would become a heap of confusion.”

Attendance at the services of the established church was required [294]

under a penalty of fine or imprisonment. “Williams reprobated the

law; the worst statute of the English code was that which did but

enforce attendance upon the parish church. To compel men to unite

with those of a different creed, he regarded as an open violation of

their natural rights; to drag to public worship the irreligious and

the unwilling, seemed like requiring hypocrisy. ‘No one,’ he said,

‘should be forced to worship, or to maintain a worship, against

his own consent.’ ‘What!’ exclaimed his antagonist, amazed at his

tenets, ‘is not the laborer worthy of his hire?’ ‘Yes,’ replied he, ‘from

those who hire him.’”

Roger Williams was respected and beloved as a faithful minister,

a man of rare gifts, of unbending integrity and true benevolence;

yet his steadfast denial of the right of civil magistrates to authority

over the church, and his demand for religious liberty, could not be

tolerated. The application of this new doctrine, it was urged, would

“subvert the fundamental state and government of the country.” He

was sentenced to banishment from the colonies, and finally, to avoid

arrest, he was forced to flee, amid the cold and storms of winter, into

the unbroken forest.

“For fourteen weeks,” he says, “I was sorely tossed in a bitter

season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean.” “But the ravens

fed me in the wilderness;” and a hollow tree often served him for a

shelter. Thus he continued his painful flight through the snow and

the trackless forest, until he found refuge with an Indian tribe whose

confidence and affection he had won while endeavoring to teach

them the truths of the gospel.

Making his way at last, after months of change and wandering,

to the shores of Narragansett Bay, he there laid the foundation of

the first State of modern times that in the fullest sense recognized

the right of religious freedom. The fundamental principle of Roger

Williams’ colony, was “that every man should have the right to

[295] worship God according to the light of his conscience.” His little State,

Rhode Island, became the asylum of the oppressed, and it increased

and prospered until its foundation principles—civil and religious

liberty—became the corner-stones of the American Republic.

In that grand old document which our forefathers set forth as

their bill of rights—the Declaration of Independence—they declared:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created

equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable

rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness.” And the Constitution guarantees, in the most explicit

terms, the inviolability of conscience: “No religious test shall ever

be required as a qualification to any office of public trust under the

United States.” “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment

of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“The framers of the Constitution recognized the eternal principle

that man’s relation to his God is above human legislation, and his

right of conscience inalienable. Reasoning was not necessary to

establish this truth; we are conscious of it in our own bosom. It is

this consciousness, which, in defiance of human laws, has sustained

so many martyrs in tortures and flames. They felt that their duty to

God was superior to human enactments, and that man could exercise

no authority over their consciences. It is an inborn principle which

nothing can eradicate.”

As the tidings spread through the countries of Europe, of a land

where every man might enjoy the fruit of his own labor, and obey the

convictions of his conscience, thousands flocked to the shores of the

NewWorld. Colonies rapidly multiplied. “Massachusetts, by special

law, offered free welcome and aid, at the public cost, to Christians

of any nationality who might fly beyond the Atlantic ‘to escape from

wars or famine, or the oppression of their persecutors.’ Thus the

[296] fugitive and the down-trodden were, by statute, made the guests

of the commonwealth.” In twenty years from the first landing at

Plymouth, as many thousand Pilgrims were settled in New England.

To secure the object which they sought,“they were content to

earn a bare subsistence by a life of frugality and toil. They asked

nothing from the soil but the reasonable returns of their own labor.

No golden vision threw a deceitful halo around their path.... They

were content with the slow but steady progress of their social polity.

They patiently endured the privations of the wilderness, watering

the tree of liberty with their tears, and with the sweat of their brow,

till it took deep root in the land.”

The Bible was held as the foundation of faith, the source of

wisdom, and the charter of liberty. Its principles were diligently

taught in the home, in the school, and in the church, and its fruits

were manifest in thrift, intelligence, purity, and temperance. One

might be for years a dweller in the Puritan settlements, and not “see a

drunkard, nor hear an oath, nor meet a beggar.” It was demonstrated

that the principles of the Bible are the surest safeguards of national

greatness. The feeble and isolated colonies grew to a confederation

of powerful States, and the world marked with wonder the peace and

prosperity of “a church without a pope, and a State without a king.”

But continually increasing numbers were attracted to the shores

of America, actuated by motives widely different from those of

the first Pilgrims. Though the primitive faith and purity exerted a

widespread and moulding power, yet its influence became less and

less as the numbers increased of those who sought only worldly

advantage.

The regulation adopted by the early colonists, of permitting

only members of the church to vote or to hold office in the civil

government, led to most pernicious results. This measure had been

accepted as a means of preserving the purity of the State, but it

resulted in the corruption of the church. A profession of religion

being the condition of suffrage and office-holding, many, actuated [297]

solely by motives of worldly policy, united with the church, without a

change of heart. Thus the churches came to consist, to a considerable

extent, of unconverted persons; and even in the ministry were those

who not only held errors of doctrine, but who were ignorant of the

renewing power of the Holy Spirit. Thus again was demonstrated

the evil results, so often witnessed in the history of the church from

the days of Constantine to the present, of attempting to build up the

church by the aid of the State, of appealing to the secular power in

support of the gospel of Him who declared, “My kingdom is not of

this world.” [John 18:36.] The union of the church with the State, be

the degree never so slight, while it may appear to bring the world

nearer to the church, does in reality but bring the church nearer to

the world.

The great principle so nobly advocated by Robinson and Roger

Williams, that truth is progressive, that Christians should stand ready

to accept all the light which may shine from God’s Holy Word, was

lost sight by their descendants. The Protestant churches of America—

and those of Europe as well—so highly favored in receiving the

blessings of the Reformation, failed to press forward in the path

of reform. Though a few faithful men arose, from time to time, to

proclaim new truth, and expose long-cherished error, the majority,

like the Jews in Christ’s day, or the papists in the time of Luther,

were content to believe as their fathers had believed, and to live as

they had lived. Therefore religion again degenerated into formalism;

and errors and superstitions which would have been cast aside had

the church continued to walk in the light of God’s Word, were

retained and cherished. Thus the spirit inspired by the Reformation

gradually died out, until there was almost as great need of reform

in the Protestant churches as in the Roman Church in the time of

Luther. There was the same worldliness and spiritual stupor, a

[298] similar reverence for the opinions of men, and substitution of human

theories for the teachings of God’s Word.

The wide circulation of the Bible in the early part of the nineteenth

century, and the great light thus shed upon the world, was

not followed by a corresponding advance in knowledge of revealed

truth, or in experimental religion. Satan could not, as in former ages,

keep God’s Word from the people; it had been placed within the

reach of all; but in order still to accomplish his object, he led many

to value it but lightly. Men neglected to search the Scriptures, and

thus they continued to accept false interpretations, and to cherish

doctrines which had no foundation in the Bible.

Seeing the failure of his efforts to crush out the truth by persecution,

Satan had again resorted to the plan of compromise which

led to the great apostasy and the formation of the Church of Rome.

He had induced Christians to ally themselves, not now with pagans,

but with those who by their devotion to the things of this world had

proved themselves to be as truly idolaters as were the worshipers of

graven images. And the results of this union were no less pernicious

now than in former ages; pride and extravagance were fostered under

the guise of religion, and the churches became corrupted. Satan continued

to pervert the doctrines of the Bible, and traditions that were

to ruin millions were taking deep root. The church was upholding

and defending these traditions, instead of contending for “the faith

which was once delivered to the saints.” Thus were degraded the

principles for which the reformers had done and suffered so much.