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Edward VI

Under Edward VI, the Book of Common Prayer was developed and the Articles of Religion were written to clarify the new church’s faith. But without a doubt, it was Henry’s decision to install a Bible for public use in every church, a Bible written in English, not Latin, that was pivotal.For the first time Englishmen could examine the Bible for themselves and come to their own conclusions about it without benefit of clergy.Here was born the right to freedom of conscience, to independence of judgment, which the Saints later so vehemently demanded. Those in power quickly sensed the danger and cautioned that the Bible was not to be read at mass, “nor afterwards for purposes of discussion.“

Ulrich Zwingli

The reign of Mary brought this movement to an abrupt halt, with her restoration of the Catholic faith as the only lawful religion in England. Mary took the re-establishment of Catholicism seriously - indeed, hundreds of Protestants were hanged or burned to death - men, women and children - fifty-four in Kent alone. Even the dead were dug up, solemnly placed on trial,convicted of heresy, and burned at the stake. The leaders of the Protestant reform fled to the Continent, and there came under the further influence of leaders of the Reformation like Zwingli and Calvin. But Mary’s time on the throne was brief - just five years(1553- 1558)-and she was succeeded by Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry III and Anne Boleyn,a union declared illicit by the pope, so it was not surprising that Elizabeth lent her support to the Protestant reform movement. But she was a careful politician as well - one writer said she “adopted the masterful policy of having no policy at all, favoring one side, now the other, skillfully playing them against each other to keep both within bounds. She never came to a decision if she could possibly avoid it.” She was not a pious woman, loved pomp and show, had a taste for beer and “strong waters,” swore like a trooper on occasion, and delighted in telling bawdy stories.

Elizabeth I

But she was a pragmatist and a queen who understood the power wielded by the religious establishment, and thus pressed Parliament to legislate both the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity as instruments for control of it. Where Henry VIII had declared himself “head of the church,” Elizabeth fashioned her role as “supreme governor.” The Book of Common Prayer was mandated as the sole form of worship to be practiced throughout England. Penalties were prescribed for any deviation by clergy and also for any failure by laity to attend the church’s required worship. These regulations were to be enforced not just by ecclesiastical courts, but also by civil authorities. Remember,in the 16th century, it was assumed that the civil ruler was ruling by divine authority, and thus had a royal responsibility to govern the church, and “defend the faith.”

However, there were those who were not happy with these reforms - they felt the renewal
of the church had not gone far enough. These were voices that argued for a further “purification” of the church - and they became known as first “Brownists” after the firey preacher Robert Browne who did eventually recant his reform positions, then later “Puritans.” There were many various viewpoints, some influenced by their years in exile in Geneva, and a great deal of rapid change. Nevertheless, there were certain predominant characteristics of the Puritan movement - first, a focus upon the Bible as supreme authority that was much more rigid than that asserted by the church of England. Within the Church of England, there was an appreciation of the authority of church tradition, and the natural powers of human reason. But the Puritans rejected such input, and felt ultimate authority in all matters of theology, ethics, worship and church government rested in the Bible alone. Second, Puritanism developed a theology of sin and salvation both more pessimistic and more enthusiastic than that generally expressed in Anglicanism. Their emphasis upon the transforming power of the gospel earned them the nickname of “evangelical Calvinists.” The authority of the Bible was joined with an emphasis upon the personal experience of redemption, the new life through grace offered by Christ alone. Lastly, Puritanism emphasized the simplification of church practices, criticizing with vigor the elaborate ceremonial worship forms and structures of the Anglican church. It sought simplicity in church organization, stressed the role of the laity, rejected the hierarchical structure which ruled the Anglican church, and emphasized the need to improve the quality and education of the clergy.

Elder William Brewster

The Puritan movement quickly split into what was called the conforming Puritans - those who were engaged in passive resistance to the church authorities and who tried to work within the existing structure - and non-conforming Puritans, who actively rejected the Anglican church. Universities like Cambridge became hotbeds of dissension, as students and fellows dug into the scriptures, and found no justification there for the hierarchy of the Anglican church - rectors, vicars, rural deans, chaplains, chancellors, archdeacons, prebendaries, bishops, or archbishops. And one of the students at Cambridge during these years was a young man by the name of William Brewster. Elizabeth had come to the throne in 1558-by the 1560’s there were efforts being made in Parliament to protest the practices in worship and clerical dress of the Anglican church. The Archbishop of Canterbury responded by publishing the Advertisements of 1566, which explicitly mandated a set of instructions for liturgical conduct and clerical dress - how to do communion, how to do baptism, what vestments to wear, exactly how the clergy were to live. Protests quickly followed, and dissenting clergy were first suspended and then removed. In 1567 a small group began meeting secretly as the “Plumbers’ Hall Society“- becoming the first of what would become many protest congregations.

These congregations often came under intense persecution when discovered, and their members either fled to Holland or the Continent. Members of the clergy were arrested, imprisoned, publicly flogged, or hung.

The first Plumbers’ Hall congregation was dispersed by English authorities, but almost immediately reorganized - this time with greater clarity of purpose and organization. The members entered into a covenant with each other for the worship of God in accord with their Puritan understanding, and they took responsibility as a congregation for the election of their minister and the discipline of the members. These are foundational ideas that resonate within the Congregational movement even today. But they were threatening ideas for their time - and Pastor Richard Fitz and several members of the congregation were arrested and put to death.

Congregational ideas would not die - no matter how repressed. A renewed Separatism began to be heard from in 1579, when Robert Browne gave up trying to work within the system, and began writing about the necessity of reform from below, from those who are of sound faith and who unite to practice that faith in local congregations separated from the corrupt life of the larger church and the world. Browne joined with another friend, Robert Harrison,and developed a more complete conception of church polity - once again including the use of a covenant for church membership and a system of church government in which the congregation as a whole played a major part. In 1581, they formed a Separatist congregation - which almost immediately came to the attention of the Bishop of Norwich, who had Browne arrested. Shortly after his release, he, Harrison, and the congregation fled to Holland. Browne spent two years writing prolifically - and two of his works anticipated in remarkable manner much of what would become Congregational thinking in New England in the following century.

Years of religious ferment in northern England resulted in several of the parishes in Lincolnshire
and Nottinghamshire being served by Puritan - minded pastors - and in the early 1600’s there emerged from this unrest a new Separatist group. Gathering first in the village of Gainsborough under the leadership of its elected pastor, John Smyth, it grew quickly to the point of splitting into a second congregation. This group gathered in the home of one of its elders, William Brewster, postmaster in the neighboring village of Scrooby. The Scrooby congregation drew to its membership a preacher of Puritan sentiments, John Robinson - the man who ultimately became the most prominent and influential leader of English Separatism.

Robinson, like William Brewster, began his studies at Cambridge, and was apparently first exposed to Puritan concerns there. But he was ordained in the Anglican church and began his ministry serving as curate in St.Andrew’s church, Norwich. He was suspended from that post in 1605, for some failure to conform to the new Constitutions and Canons passed the previous year by church and king. So in 1606, he came to the Scrooby congregation, and led them in an act of covenant-taking. The congregation continued to meet in secret each Sabbath, and Robinson continued to preach without authorization in neighboring parish churches - and the congregation at Scrooby gained many members as a result. That brought it to the attention of the Archbishop of York-and the members paid the price.

In the fall of 1607, the members of the Scrooby church hired a ship to transport them to Holland, but the captain betrayed them to the authorities, and they thus lost what money they had scraped together through selling their possessions. Some were imprisoned for a time. They tried again in the spring of 1608, this time with a Dutch captain - but this time, the longboat carrying the women and children became grounded, and the captain panicked, sailing off with only the men aboard. That ship was caught in a storm that drove it nearly to Norway - it was many weeks before the men learned of the fate of their families. After this point,the people escaped in small groups, as opportunities arose. John Robinson stayed with the congregation in Scrooby until the last could leave.

Settling first in Amsterdam, the congregation eventually decided that they needed to make their own way - they found trying to live in the same city with the existing Amsterdam group of Separatists, called the “Ancient Brethren,” too contentious. So the Scrooby group settled in Leyden for the next dozen years. Leyden was a very different environment - the effect of oppression in England had been to make Puritans more Puritanical and Separatists more Separatist. But Holland was a country that offered freedom of worship for all creeds. Freedom to worship as one wished, also meant freedom not to worship at all - and the Sabbath was not kept holy. When petitioned about this, the Leyden authorities responded that “the Sabbath had been made for man and not man for the Sabbath.” The Separatist group drew quite different conclusions from this text! (Link to the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum)

Dutch society was very different from English - and good jobs hard to find.The guilds and crafts were open only to those of Dutch citizenship, so the immigrants were limited to low paying jobs and
honest poverty. They had been farmers, but now had to make do with jobs in an urban setting. And, while they tried to keep their little community of believers sheltered from the broader Dutch society, it was not long before they could see that their children were becoming more and more acculturated.The children became bi-lingual, but the parents did not - and they worried about what their children were saying that they couldn’t understand. The older children were not being educated either - their fathers had no leisure time in which to teach them, and most were pressed into working to support the families. To add to the strain, the ten-year truce between Spain and the Netherlands was due to end in1620, and the Dutch were already beginning to gear up to defend their country in case the war resumed.

The Separatists began to consider taking the immense step of seeking another settlement. They couldn’t return to England, so they looked to the New World. They considered Guiana, before hearing that the tropics were “unwholesome to English bodies.” They considered the Dutch settlements along the Hudson River - were even offered free land, transportation and generous supplies of cattle and provision - but they refused to become a Dutch settlement. They thought about the Virginia colony, but learned that the Anglican church was well-established, and the latest royal governor had made
failure to attend divine service a capital offense. The Leyden group wanted to be able to worship in the way they felt was right - or what was the purpose? They might as well return to England.

They also were desperately poor-they had no resources to pay for their transportation even. Then Tomas Weston of London came to Leyden to make them an offer - his company’s stockholders
would transport and supply the settlers provided they engaged themselves in working seven years for the profit of the company. They would be settled in northern Virginia, well away from Jamestown, and free to worship as they wished.

The group was excited - that is, all were except for John Robinson. He was distressed by the proposal that the colony be bound for seven years:

“Consider also how much unfit that you and your likes must serve a new prenticeship of seven years and not a day’s freedom from tasks.“

But there seemed to be no alternative - the contract was signed, the departure arranged. The congregation, now numbering nearly 300, would go in smaller contingents. Pastor Robinson would remain in Leyden to shepherd the part of the congregation whom age or infirmity made unfit for the
more rugged early years of settlement. When the way was prepared in northern Virginia these people would follow as ships became available.

So it was done - some of the congregation came in later ships, but never this “rear guard” and
thus never John Robinson. Robinson had continued writing and debating theological issues at the
University of Leyden, but over these years his strict Calvinism had undergone a softening - and, when the Saints set forth for the New World, he remained behind,sending them off with these famous words:

“the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy Word.“

His congregation would never become one of those that hung witches nor Quakers, because he filled them with the knowledge of God’s love rather than God’s wrath, and they were less obsessed than most with doom and hellfire.

But how did the group intended to land in Virginia end up in Massachusetts? In late July, 1620, those
who had been selected to be the first group of settlers headed for Delfthaven, to set sail in the Speedwell. Knowing the risks the group faced, there were tears aplenty, and fervent prayers for their safety as they set sail for Southampton. There, some of the group was moved to the Mayflower before the two ships set off for the Atlantic crossing. They set sail on August 5th - but according to the Julian calendar - we now use the Gregorian calendar - and by that, they didn’t leave until late August. It was late in the year to try the crossing, and what was worse, the ships had to turn back not once, but twice. The Speedwell had sprung a leak - at least that was the story given by the crew. It became obvious to the leaders of the group that the sailors were not enthusiastic about being assigned to stay a year in the New World and serve as a fishing vessel for the sponsoring Weston Company. They could not trust the sailors, so only the Mayflower would make the voyage.

Without the profit from the fishing, it would be hard to live up to their contract with Weston and Company. So much time had been lost, that it was now late September. And the Mayflower could not take them all, so by the time it was all settled, only seventeen men from the Leyden congregation actually set sail for the New World.

After all of the difficulty of beginning, the voyage was unusually successful - only one passenger died, William Butten, Samuel Fuller’s servant, and one sailor - whose death was regarded as God’s judgment upon him for mocking and cursing the seasick passengers. It was remarkable that,
in a day and age when sickness and infection could be rampant in ocean crossings, that none became ill. Mrs. Stephen Hopkins even gave birth to a son, Oceanus, in the midst of the journey. Of course, there were challenges - there were late season storms, one of which washed John Howland overboard, but who was successfully rescued; and the main beam cracked after they were more than halfway through their voyage - and the beam was repaired by using some of the supplies and equipment the Saints had brought with them.

The group made landfall in Cape Cod.They knew they still had to sail to the south, into the Virginia colony, but when they attempted this, they were met with “dangerous shoals and roaring breakers,” They turned back into Cape Cod harbor the next morning-sixty-six days out of Plymouth, ninety - either out of Southampton, almost four months out of Delfthaven - and dropped anchor in Provincetown harbor.

George Willison’s research offers a fascinating story for what happened next - the creation of the Mayflower Compact. All aboard the ship were eager to get onto dry land - but there were already murmurings from some of the passengers and crew that

“when they came ashore, they would use their own libertie, for none had power
to command them, the patente they had being for Virginia and
not New-england, which belonged to another Government, with which
ye Virginia Company had nothing to doe.“

Some ten years earlier, in 1609, another emigrant company had left England, with Virginia also as its destination, embarking with nine ships. They ran into a hurricane, and the flagship was wrecked off Bermuda. Those onboard were commanded to start building small boats to transport the remaining company - but rebellion arose, led by a clerk in the Governor’s own household. He presented arguments that

“it was no breach of honesty, conscience nor religion to decline from
the obedience of the Governor or to refuse to go further, ???s ince
the authority ceased when the wreck was committed, and with it they
were all then freed from the government of any man???“

The young man was arrested along with three or four other leaders of the rebellion.But he alone was finally pardoned from execution - his name? Stephen Hopkins.

And it was one Stephen Hopkins who was on board the Mayflower, and the Mayflower Compact repeats the essence, and even some of the exact same phrases, of the Bermuda mutineers. William Bradford’s history of the Plimouth Colony makes it clear that only Hopkins had ever been in the New World before - it was he who became one of those offering Miles Standish “counsel and advise.” He was also the only one of the Strangers allowed to so advise the Leyden group in charge of the settlement, for it was apparent that some new agreement had to be quickly achieved. Drafting a covenant in the same manner as they had done within their congregation, the leaders of the Saints came together to write what we now call the Mayflower Compact:

This was first signed by those who had the title of “Master” - of which there were twelve - Brewster, Bradford, Standish and Hopkins were among these signers. Then came the signatures of the “goodmen“-of whom 27 signed, and finally four of the servants also signed. Enormous challenges lay ahead - but we will talk about them next week.

What I want to do now is to tell you something of how this history almost didn’t come down to us. George Willison states that the entire Pilgrim saga was the creation of the nineteenth century, for the
Pilgrims were singularly unconcerned about their significance. The group had for itself no specific name - simply identifying the group who sailed onthe Mayflower as “saints” and “strangers.”For
generations, their descendants simply referred to them as the Forefathers - a tradition finally acknowledged when the state of Massachusetts declared a “Forefathers Day” holiday in 1895. The original settlers were largely simple and humblefolk, who read no earth-shaking import into what they were doing. They erected no monuments to themselves and their achievements, left few memorials of
any kind either on paper or in stone. Many were illiterate, few had any formal schooling, and simply focused upon the challenges of staying alive and doing the best they could to build their community. They did not even bother to keep town records until1632, twelve years after the landing.

There were two brief accounts of their initial trials and adventures - one written in1622, and one in 1624. Both were more like promotional flyers written to attract more settlers. It was left to Governor Bradford tow rite the chronicle of the voyage and settlement-he wrote sporadically from 1630 to 1650, finally completing 270 folio pages of his “Of Plimoth Plantation.” But since he had not written this for publication, his manuscript was handed down from father to son for several generations, with little or no appreciation of its unique worth.

It was not until 1855 that a student of Massachusetts history identified several anonymous quotes in a book published in England in 1845 as coming from Bradford’s manuscript. It was eventually found in
the library of Fulham Palace, a favored summer residence of the bishops of London. A transcript
was made, and published in the United States the next year-1856.

Of course, during the intervening years, many myths had grown up about the Pilgrims - and many false ideas. They didn’t land at Plymouth Rock, they weren’t pietists or Victorians - they were very much people of their time - the Elizabethan period. They were marked by restlessness, impatience with old ways, passionate enthusiasm, eager curiosity, daring speculation, bold action and a refusal to accept defeat, no matter what the odds against them. Far from being humble and soft-spoken, they were quick in their own defense, fond of controversy, sharp of tongue, given to speaking their minds plainly in the often rafter-shaking rhetoric of Marlowe and Shakespeare, with not the slightest regard for the proprieties and polite circumlocutions of a latter day.

They practiced no tortures of self-denial,they appreciated the pleasures of the table and the bottle, never complaining more loudly of their hardships than when necessity reduced them to drinking water, which they always regarded with suspicion as a prolific source of human ills. They raised large families, marrying early and often and late, sometimes within a few weeks of losing a mate. Only on the Sabbath did they wear flacks and grays - ordinarily they wore the russet browns and Lincoln green of the Englishcountryside. They never passed a law against “gay apparel” - Brewster himself had a large and varied wardrobe which included “a red cap, a white cap, a quilted cap, a lace cap, a violet coat and 1 pair of green drawers.”

They understood that the great contention of their age over the freedom of religion had enormous political implications as well. The issues of their day should sound familiar to us in ours:

• Is it right for the state to demand uniformity of belief?
• Should communion in an official church be compulsory?
• Or were people entitled to independence of judgment in religious matters?
• Should all their beliefs be proscribed, or could they read the Bible for themselves and come to their own conclusions about its teachings?
• If they could not worship as they wished in the established church, were they free to worship?
• And who rightfully spoke for it, the great body of believers or a priesthood appointed from above and quite beyond the control of those below?
• Did a parish have to accept whatever pastor, good or bad, was imposed upon it?
• Or had every congregation the right, as the Pilgrims contended, to choose its own pastor and dismiss them for cause?
• In short, was the “true” church a democratic or an autocratic institution?

And we in the United Church of Christ are indeed their inheritors. The rest of the Massachusetts colony would eventually swallow up their little Plymouth Plantation, but one writer called them”the meek who would inherit the earth; they were the leaven that made the loaf to rise.”

Source documents:
Marion L. Starkey, The Congregational Way
John Von Rohr, The Shaping of American Congregationalism
George R. Willison, Saints and Strangers

Web Links:
Pilgrim Hall Museum
Christian History Institute