As one small candle may light a thousand; so the light kindled here has shown unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation.

– William Bradford of Plymouth

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.

- 1 Corinthians 1:27

In these days of darkness, it is profitable to remind ourselves of the Pi1grim fathers who endured great hardship for the cause of Christ. It is an easy matter to eulogize them for their courage and faithfulness, and many have done so with eloquence. However, it was their idea of covenant that we find difficult to understand in our day. Speakers will describe with passion the ordeal of the sufferings at Plymouth; yet completely overlook the vision for America which gave the Pilgrims hope.

Much of what is happening today reflects rival opinions of national origin and destiny. The humanist sees a secular beginning to this nation and sees a vision for the future which rules out any divine dimension. The Christian, on the other hand, (if he is truly informed), believes in an America with a Biblical foundation, one which is badly eroded, yet worthy of restoration.

The movement toward Christian Separatism in America today is a return of the Pilgrims and witnesses to a desire to rebuild our culture upon the foundation laid by our Pilgrim forefathers. Some groups of American Patriots identify the Constitution as our national foundation. Others include the principles of the Declaration of Independence. But the Christian Separatist goes farther back to the Mayflower Compact and our covenant with God. He does not neglect the Constitution (our national charter) or the Declaration of Independence (our national manifesto), but also, he is careful not to overlook the Compact or the Articles of Federation (our national covenant). The Christian Patriot affirms that our national foundation was laid upon the rock, Jesus Christ.

I am one of those who believe that America has a God-ordained calling and destiny. I believe that in the acts of Divine Providence, the Almighty did cut a Covenant with the Pilgrim Fathers and elected America as His latest instrument in the mission of the Church. God ratified the American vision as it was conceived in the minds of the Pilgrims, namely, to establish a civilization governed according to a perfected understanding of the Holy Scriptures. From such a Holy Commonwealth would flow a witness to all the earth of the Dominion of Jesus Christ.

It was for the love of their Savior and the vindication of His honor that the Pilgrims hazarded their lives and toiled with the rocky soil of New England. They knew that He was promised by His Father the nations of the earth. These First Comers were determined to give Him the first: a new nation birthed in the howling wilderness, unpolluted by the antichristian systems of Europe.

The Pilgrims had no grandiose dreams about building a world empire. They merely wanted to create a nation where God's Word governed society. A light, an example, to the nation was their objective. If they succeeded, they felt there was no greater teacher than a happy example which would be emulated, voluntarily, by other nations which God would call.

THE ISSUE OF THEOCRACY

That the Pilgrims wanted a theocracy in the literal sense of the word is certain. They wanted God to rule over them. However, the mediator of that rule could not be king or pope. It could only be the Holy Bible.

Was this a call to anarchy? No. It was a call to self-government. It was a call to a republican form of government. For a republican form of government is the extension of self-government through ones representatives. Thus, it is one voluntarily submitted to. A king must rule with the sword. A pope must rule by the terrors of hell. But a republic rules by prior consent.

The error of some of the American Puritans was that a theocracy should be mediated by the ordained clergy. This is the form of theocracy that comes to the minds of most people when the idea of theocracy is mentioned. They fear that the acts of elected officials will be subject to review by the ministers of organized Christianity. This is not what the Pilgrims understood a theocracy to be. Ordained ministers are available for advice if the advice is requested. But, there is no institutional subordination of state to church.

Therefore, if we understand theocracy to mean the rule of Christ through His followers by the ballot box, yes, the Pilgrims did practice it. If by theocracy is meant the rule of Christ by any mediator other than the Holy Scriptures as taught by the Holy Ghost, then no, such was against Pilgrim doctrine.

THEIR DOCTRINAL DISTINCTIVES

With little exception, the Pilgrims of the Mayflower were reformed in their theology. They were reformed Catholics: they were returning to the orthodoxy of the Old Catholic Church, before it was polluted by the dogma and superstition of Rome and Byzantium.

Although the work of John Calvin left its mark on Pilgrim theology, as it did in all of Europe, the Pilgrims were wise enough to see that the human mind is not capable of an infallible system of theology. They perceived the Reformation as just begun. And this pioneer spirit was to produce over the next two centuries the greatest development, of Christian theology in church history.

The Pilgrims knew that there were new frontiers in theology and Christian experience to explore. They sought to build upon the foundation of Luther and Calvin, but not to be limited by them. John Robinson, the large-hearted pastor of the Pilgrims, so much as said so in his farewell counsel. According to John Winslow's account:

We are now ere long to part asunder, and the Lord knoweth whether ever he should live to see our faces again. But whether the Lord had appointed it or not, he charged us before God and his blessed angels, to follow him no further than he followed Christ; and if God should reveal any thing 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 very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy word. He took occasion also miserably to bewail the state and condition of the Reformed churches who were come to a period in religion, and would go no further than the instruments of their reformation. As for example, the Lutherans, they could not be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw; for whatever part of God's will he had further imparted and revealed to Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it. And so also, saith he, you see the Calvinists, they stick where he left them, a misery much to be lamented . . . For saith he, it is not possible the Christian world should come so lately out of such thick anti-christian darkness, and that full perfection of knowledge should break forth at once. (emphasis added)

THE LEGACY OF JOHN WYCLIFFE

The Pilgrims owed much of what they were to the ministry of a man that preceded them by two centuries - John Wycliffe.

John Wycliffe_, who is commonly called the "morning star of the Reformation," succeeded in establishing foundations that to this day have yet to be shaken.

It was a tradition of dissent that was later known as "separatism."

Like the ancient Hebrew prophets, Wycliffe of Oxford exposed to the blinding illumination of the Holy Scriptures the corruption of the religious and civil rulers of his day. They rejected his message. So taking the first translation of the Bible in the English language, he and his Lollards (lay preachers) went to the common people and wrought such a reformation, that England and the world have never been the same since. Declaring that the Bible was for "the government of the people, by the people, and for the people," he challenged any man or institution which exalted itself to be above or coequal with God's inscriptured Word.

Heavy persecution seemed to end the movement, but the tradition of Dissent established by Wycliffe and sustained by the printed Bible survived in the multitude of private, and sometimes secret, conventicles which dotted the English countryside. The Separatists of Scrooby, from which would come the Pilgrims, belonged to one of those dissenting conventicles.

John Wycliffe, however, stands at the head of a different branch of the Protestant Reformation. And the Pilgrims provide a compelling illustration.

SEPARATISM & THE COVENANT IDEA

The Plymouth Colony was a commonwealth, as close to a democracy that was scripturally and historically possible. And because of this Protestant covenantalism, they built the truest Christian community and civilization in human history. They believed the Christian receives no authority compelling the conscience except the Holy Bible and the vow. This belief required that all institutions be voluntary and made indispensable the covenant idea.

Since the use of force to sustain social institutions was eliminated by Separatist doctrine, a mechanism was needed to assure the peace and safety of society. The Pilgrims looked to Biblical teaching on the Christian vow of covenant.

(The use of force had its place in society, but only in a defensive posture, not in a coercive one. Here lies an important difference between the Separatists and Anabaptists. The latter saw a completely voluntary society that lacked the procedure for social change, except revolution. The Pilgrims believed authority established by prior consent, and open to change according to Biblical conditions, was sufficient to preserve liberty and deserving of obedience.)

Separatism was most obviously manifested in church polity, namely, Congregationalism. However, the logic behind it was not limited to church polity. It affected other areas of life, as we shall see.

The separatism of the Pilgrims consisted primarily in their rejection of hierarchical churches. They rejected state-run churches, as well as church-run states. Roman Catholics and European Calvinists tended toward church-run states, although they differed in method (Papists were episcopal and Calvinists were presbyterian). Anglicans and Lutherans tended toward state-controlled churches. Again, the method differed. Anglicans were monarchial; Lutherans were oligarchial.

Protestant covenantalism (or separatism) provided a balance between the one and the many, an equilibrium between liberty and order.

The home was held together by the vow of the marriage covenant. The state functioned in terms of the citizen's oath of allegiance. Commerce was governed by contractual agreements. And the church was built through the sacraments, the acts of covenant renewal.

Keenly aware of the sovereignty of God and of His providential rule, the Pilgrims regarded any usurpation by any human institution of the Divine will as revealed in the Sacred Scriptures to be treason and apostasy against God. They were protestant in the proper sense of the ward. "Sola Scriptura": only God's Word as contained in the Holy Bible was the Divine instrument upon the earth which bound the conscience. All institutions were held subordinate to God's authority.

The covenantal idea governed every Pilgrim decision. "Tota Scriptura": they saw a united scripture - one Testament (one expression of Divine will) containing two covenants (two economies of atonement). This covenantalism not only demonstrated itself in their willing obedience to all of God's Law (both Old & New Testaments), but also in their conduct socially. Operating on the basis of the reliability of a Christian's word of honor, the Pilgrims externalized their church polity into civil affairs.

With a vow of loyalty, the Pilgrims covenanted with each other to stand together for perpetuity. That covenant made them a people.

They were Christ's freedmen, united with each other by a common sovereign (Christ), a common law (the Bible), and a common ethnic bond (a church in covenant of mutual and perpetual union). They were equals in government, both in church and civil matters.

In its origin and its development in New England, Christian Separatism emphasized the primacy of Christian self-government. All human institutions and associations grew out of this concept of the godly man. The Christian, having covenanted with God, is then trusted to form governments in other spheres, whether they be civil, family, church, or commercial. All institutional hierarchies were voluntary: synods, confederacies, corporations, and so on.

Therefore, what happened can be described in this way: separatism manifested itself in "church polity as congregationa1ism. In civil government, it took sides with localism, and in commerce, it tended toward free enterprise.

THE SEPARATISM OF THE AMERICAN PURITANS

The separatism of the Pilgrims made them unpopular with the Puritans. They were eagerly desirous not to be confused with their schismatic doctrines. Separatists were the ones who wanted "reform without tarrying for any." They were willing to leave the Church of England and form new congregations obedient to the Scriptures. Even if it required geographical relocation, Separatist were ready to pursue the quest for a purified Christian body.

The Pilgrims were an admirable sample of these "purest of the purifiers," and eventually won over American Puritans. This is an important fact; for in the "Great Migration" of the 17th century, the Puritans came to far outnumber the Pilgrims.

The truth of this is evidenced in the church polity adopted by the Puritans: "for it was not episcopal or presbyterian; it was congregational." And remember, Congregationalism is separatism embodied in church government.

In the words of the great Presbyterian divine, Charles Hodge:

How came Congregationalism to be generally established in New England? The answer is that the first settlers were Congregationalists. They belonged to that division of the Puritans . . . and thus the mould into which the additional settlers were cast, as they successively arrived, was fixed at the beginning.

Like the growth of a newly broken path into a highway, so New England and the nation followed the ways of the Pilgrims. Never perfectly, but sufficiently so, Americans followed a different path than other nations of the earth, a path made for liberty. By the power of their example, the Pilgrims became the cornerstone of American civilization.

* * *

I am deeply indebted to Verna M. Hall as my primary source for quotes and general information used in this essay. See her monumental collections The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America, Christian Self-Government, The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America, Christian Self-Government With Union, and The Christian History of the American Revolution, published by the Foundation for American Christian Education, Box 27035, San Francisco, CA 94127.