Did you know the first American colony was founded to "advance the Christian faith?"

[LadyEagle]

Mayflower Compact 1620


Agreement Between the Settlers at New Plymouth : 1620

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, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour 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 Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, 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 eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.

These first colonists would turn over in their graves if they saw how ungodly America is today & how we can't have the 10 Commandments in a court house.

 

[Frogman]

These guys 'turned' over alot when they were living.

I agree with you though. Just had to say that.

Bro. Dallas

 

[Bible-boy]

Sorry SheEagle,

However, the Mayflower bunch was not the first American Colony. They landed in 1620. Now my Virginia ancestors... they landed at Jamestown, VA in 1607.

Plus, we should not forget about the Roanoke Island party in NC, led by Sir Walter Raleigh, who disappeared without a trace.

BibleboyII

 

[Tanker]

There is a statue in Boston to a woman. I forgot her name but the statue was erected because she was hung for not changing her religion to the predominant one of the colony. I am not sure that these colonists are worth emulating.

 

[Taufgesinnter]

Saint Augustine, Florida, is even older than Roanoke.

 

[Johnv]

Originally posted by SheEagle:
These first colonists would turn over in their graves if they saw how ungodly America is today & how we can't have the 10 Commandments in a court house.

RU kidding? These "first" colonists would have turned over in their graves if they had found our we broke from England in 1776. Additionally, the folks froom the Mayflower were not looking for religious freedom. They had brought the Church of England with them. This will prove important later on, when New Amsterdam becomes New York (yep, the Dutch colony, settled in 1614, beat the English by 6 years). In fact, the oldest continually operating Protestant denomination in the US is the Dutch Reformed Church (founded in New York in 1628).

 

[Kiffin]

The the Mayflower Puritans would have been first in line to persecute our Baptist forefathers as the Puritans did in the 1600's. Roger Williams and the Rhode Island colony help provide a safe haven for all religions. The Differance between the Baptist and the Puritan was,

Puritan - Freedom of Religion for US but no one else.

Baptist - Freedom of Religion for ALL.

Be glad you did not live in that Puritan Colony in the 1600's for the Puritans treated Baptists with cruelty.

 

[PastorGreg]

The Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 were not Puritans, they were Separatists - that's why they were hounded, arrested, persecuted in England. They did come, in part, for religious freedom. THEY NEVER PERSECUTED ANYONE. This is a myth which angers me. The Puritans who followed them did. Roger Williams found safe haven in PLymouth colony, but left of his own accord because the Puritans of Massachusetts colony so resented Plymouth Colony's freedom of religion. I think it would be good to document things before they are spread, and the Pilgrims' persecuting of anyone is a lie that can easily be disproven by anyone not too lazy to read a little.

 

[rlvaughn]

Some history on the Mayflower Pilgrims, from the Mayflower History website:

Religious Beliefs of the Pilgrims
Crime and Punishment in the Colony
The 1621 Thanksgiving
Another Mayflower Site

 

[Kiffin]

The Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 were not Puritans, they were Separatists - that's why they were hounded, arrested, persecuted in England.

Actually you are correct from a strict stand point in that they were Separatists. A strict definition of Puritan is one who was seeking to purify the Church of England. That being said, the the two terms gradually became synomous as the Puritans failed in reforming the Anglican Church. So English Separatists such as John Owen (who is called the Prince of the Puritans)is one of the most famous Puritans though he pastored a congregational church.

They did come, in part, for religious freedom. THEY NEVER PERSECUTED ANYONE. This is a myth which angers me.

I never said they persecuted anyone. They did however like all Separatists not have the Baptist view of religious freedom since such a view was unknown outside of Anabaptist and Baptist circles. No one has accused them of persecuting Baptists. I simply said the Mayflower Puritans would have been first in line to persecute our Baptist forefathers as the Puritans did in the 1600's. I stand by that statement. They would have (Of course there were no Baptists there at the time so they didn't) and the New England Puritans did persecute Baptists.

The Puritans who followed them did.

You are correct. I have no doubt however if there would have been Baptists there, the Mayflower Puritans would have viewed them as schismatics and would have made it hard or if not impossible for Baptists to live there. Plymouth colony persecuted an accused witch by the name of Margaret Jones and sentected her to be hanged and those accused of adultery would be publicly punished.

This is not meant to insult them. They like practically all paedobaptists of the time viewed not sprinkling a child as a form of child abuse. Even great mean like Luther and Calvin had such a view and it was common thought among all paedobaptists of the time. They also like most paedobaptists could never separate the Church from the State. To be honest they would have given religious freedom to other paedobaptists who were not in their strain (Probably not Catholics however) which made the more tolerant than most New England Puritans.

Roger Williams found safe haven in PLymouth colony, but left of his own accord because the Puritans of Massachusetts colony so resented Plymouth Colony's freedom of religion.

To be fair you are correct. Williams did receive refuge at the Plymouth colony. You failed to mention however that Williams was not a Baptist at the time(I believe it was 1635?). Williams later became a Baptist in 1639 but he was not one at the time. I doubt a Baptist who refused to have his child sprinkled would have been received warmly into Plymouth colony because not baptizing your infant was seen as a form of child abuse. Williams left the colony while still a Separatist himself.

Richard Howland Maxwell gives a good description of the Plymouth Colony's attitude, Moreover, the Plymouth Separatists were willing to share in worship with other Christian groups, including the Church of England - an idea which had much to do with the controversy between the Pilgrims and one of their most famous ministers, Roger Williams...Neither the Baptists nor the Quakers were welcome in Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, any other English colony, nor England itself. So the attitude toward the groups by the Plymouth colonists is little more than a reflection of a much more widely held attitude. http://www.pilgrimhall.org/PSNoteNewReligiousControversies.htm

I think it would be good to document things before they are spread, and the Pilgrims' persecuting of anyone is a lie that can easily be disproven by anyone not too lazy to read a little.

I think it would be good for you to actually read previous posts and what they say and not put your own interpretation in them, before you throw insults.

 

[Salty]

Originally posted by BibleboyII:
Sorry SheEagle,

However, the Mayflower bunch was not the first American Colony. They landed in 1620. Now my Virginia ancestors... they landed at Jamestown, VA in 1607. <img border="0" alt="[thumbsup]" title="" src="graemlins/thumbsup.gif" />

Plus, we should not forget about the Roanoke Island party in NC, led by Sir Walter Raleigh, who disappeared without a trace.

BibleboyII

Dr. Bob, I understand you were in North Carolina when the Roanoke Island party disappeared. Can you give us "The Rest of the Story"

 

[Dr. Bob]

Man, I know nothing and you can't blame it on me. The natives gave me some weed and I was sitting under a tree enjoying a smoke and the next thing I knew, EVERYONE WAS GONE!

Just me and this Sir Thomas of Hanks guy, all alone, waiting to be rescued.

Dr. Bob
Older than Iowa and Twice as Corny

 

[True Blue Tuna]

Originally posted by Johnv:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by SheEagle:
These first colonists would turn over in their graves if they saw how ungodly America is today & how we can't have the 10 Commandments in a court house.

RU kidding? These "first" colonists would have turned over in their graves if they had found our we broke from England in 1776. Additionally, the folks froom the Mayflower were not looking for religious freedom. They had brought the Church of England with them. This will prove important later on, when New Amsterdam becomes New York (yep, the Dutch colony, settled in 1614, beat the English by 6 years). In fact, the oldest continually operating Protestant denomination in the US is the Dutch Reformed Church (founded in New York in 1628). </font>[/QUOTE]Not only that, but once they arrived in the New World, they started practicing a particular kind of intolerance themselves. They executed four Quakers for committing "blasphemy", and they exiled another member from their colony. What was his crime?

This "strange person" held the highly controversial views that:

1. a person's relationship with God was determined between that person and God alone, and was not subject to the judgment of magistrates in the Plymouth Colony; and

2. the Plymouth elders were wrong in assuming that the royal charter gave them the right to take the land from the Indians without payment - he insisted that they must pay directly for whatever land they wanted, bargaining in good faith.

So it was due to these so-called "Christians" at Plymouth that the four Quakers were hung for blasphemy, and that the above individual was expelled, in the middle of the winter, without provisions.

This man's name? Roger Williams. Does it ring a bell? He was the founder of Rhode Island. Roger Williams left Plymouth, and started a new colony on land bought fairly from the Narrangansett Indians. He made Rhode Island a haven for people persecuted by intolerance, such as what he suffered at the hands of the Plymouth Colony.

So before you go making saints out the people at the Plymouth Colony, you might want to actually examine some of their practices. They were also known for being grave-robbers; somehow they had been enticed into believing that the Massachusetts Indians were buried with fortunes of gold and jewels. So they saw no crime in digging up the graves of these people, looking for gold jewelry or artifacts. Not exactly the most Christian actions - nor the most Christ-like motivations.

 

[PastorGreg]

Tuna, this type of slander of the Pilgrims has already been adressed. It is simply untrue. These things (if committed) were done by the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony, not by the Separatists of Plymouth Colony. A cursory familiarity with history makes this very clear.

 

[True Blue Tuna]

Originally posted by PastorGreg:
Tuna, this type of slander of the Pilgrims has already been adressed. It is simply untrue. These things (if committed) were done by the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony, not by the Separatists of Plymouth Colony. A cursory familiarity with history makes this very clear.

Actually, a "cursory examination" of history would show that you're quite wrong about that. From Encyclopedia Britannica:

The son of a merchant tailor, he was a protégé of the jurist Sir Edward Coke and was educated at Cambridge. In 1630 he left his post as chaplain to Sir William Masham, which had brought him into contact with such politically active Puritans as Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Hooker, to pursue his by-then completely Nonconformist religious ideals in New England.

Arriving in Boston in 1631, Williams refused to associate himself with the Anglican Puritans and in the following year moved to the separatist Plymouth Colony. In 1633 he was back in Salem after a disagreement with Plymouth in which he insisted that the king's patent was invalid and that only direct purchase from the Indians gave a just title to the land.

Moreover, the Pilgrims / Separatists on the Mayflower only numbered 35 out of a total 102 passengers. The remaining passengers were ordinary folk seeking their fortunes in the new Virginia colony - which, as any schoolchild knows, was the intended destination of the Mayflower. The reason that the Mayflower Compact existed in the first place was because the ship was near to mutiny, when the remaining passengers discovered that they were *not* going to go to Virginia after all. The Mayflower Compact provided a power-sharing arrangement, to prevent the passengers from splintering off into different settlements.

And yes, these Pilgrims / Separatists stole what they wanted. An eyewitness to the Pilgrim settlement said in his diary:

We marched to the place we called Cornhill, where we had found the corn before. At another place we had seen before, we dug and found some more corn, two or three baskets full, and a bag of beans...In all we had about ten bushels, which will be enough for seed. It was with God's help that we found this corn, for how else could we have done it, without meeting some Indians who might trouble us.

They ignored the fact that they were stealing from Indian grain storages in order to do all that. The narrator continues:

The next morning, we fond a place like a grave. We decided to dig it up. We found first a mat, andunder that a fine bow...We also found bowls, trays dishes, and things like that. We took several of the pretteist things to carry away with us, and covered up the body again.

The Separatists here basically engaged in graverobbing.

 

[Alcott]

Much of our knowledge of ancient civilizations depends on graverobbing.