"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"
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DECEMBER
On Monday, November 11th, the boat was lowered, but was found to be
half-rotten and useless. It will require more than two weeks to repair
it. It was not until Wednesday December 6th that the Governor and
fifteen companions left the Mayflower to go ashore. It was
alternating rain and snow. They were suddenly attacked by Indians, but
they returned to ship safely and gave thanks to God.
The ship steered a course forty-five miles southwest,
where on Saturday, December 9th, a storm during the night tore away the
ship's rudder and drove it into the bay at Plymouth. The following day,
being the Lord's Day was spent in worship. And today, December 11th, the
Pilgrims land on Plymouth Rock.
One hundred and two passengers left Plymouth, England.
One, a man named William Butten, died by the way, but the Lord added a
child while at sea. For this reason the child was named "Oceanus"
Hopkins. Thus, one hundred and two people arrive in the New World.
"Being thus arrived in a good harbor," wrote Mr.
Bradford, "and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and
blessed the God of Heaven, Who had brought them over the vast and
furious ocean and delivered them from all the perils and miseries
thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their
proper element."
These people had spent nearly eleven years in Holland
as exiles. They were not interested in affluence: instead, they
confessed they were "strangers, and PILGRIMS on the earth." (Hebrews
11a;13b) They believed life to be a "pilgrimage." They lived under the
eye of God and therefore lived in the fear of God. They walked with God.
And the Lord was to teach these people to trust in His providential
care.
First, they had planned to anchor in the Hudson River.
Had they landed, hostile Indians would likely have massacred them. They
were not allowed to land and so sailed north to Plymouth. Plymouth, too,
was the site of hostile Indians, hut in the providence of God a
pestilence had wiped out the entire tribe four years before. No one was
left to dispute the possession of the place.
Second, in three months time, fifty-two of the one
hundred and two people died. If these had not died, in all likelihood,
all would have perished by starvation. Besides all this, in the
providence of God Spring came early the next year, and which likely
spared the remaining colonists.
Third, towards the end of March, an Indian appeared who
addressed them in English. His name was Samoset. He fold them he learned
English from the men on the fishing vessels that fished the coast
between the Kennebec and the Penobscot rivers. The following Thursday he
brought with him another Indian named Tisquantum, or Squanto, who was
the last member of the Patuxet tribe that had been annihilated by the
plague years before. To the surprise of the Pilgrims, this man had spent
three years in London and knew the streets there better than most of
them.
Squanto was one of twenty-four Indians whom Thomas Hunt
had lured aboard his ship in 1614 to sell as slaves in Spain. He escaped
and made his way to England, and entered the service of Sir Ferdinando
Gorges, and afterwards that of a London merchant who was treasurer of
the Newfoundland Company. Six months before the landing of the Pilgrims,
Captain Dermer had brought him back to Plymouth where he found himself
the sole survivor of his tribe. These two Indians taught the Pilgrims
how to survive.
Heavy sorrows had befallen them as they had lived to
see friends and family members snatched from them in death, but by the
end of the first year they had built seven dwelling houses and four
public buildings on the main street. One served for worship and town
meetings, the others as storehouses. While some of their smaller crops
failed, the twenty-one acres of corn that was tilled proved successful.
Furs were stored, and timbers were prepared for the next ship returning
to England. Finally peace was made with the Indians.
Is it any wonder the Pilgrims wanted to celebrate a
"Feast of Tabernacles" at the end of the first year in the New World?
The Pilgrims placed it on record they had "found the
Lord to be with them in all their ways and to bless their outgoings and
incomings, for which," they said, "let His Holy name have the praise
forever to all posterity!"
11, 1752 --Connecticut. Elisha Paine, a Baptist minister, has been
imprisoned because he has refused to pay the tax that is intended to
support the State Church. Today, he will write from Windham Jail to the
Canterbury assessors --
"To you, gentlemen, practitioners of the law,
from your prisoner in Windham Jail, because his conscience will not let
him pay a minister that is set up by the law of Connecticut contrary to
his conscience, and consent. The Roman Emperor was called ‘Pontifex
Maximus,' because he presided over civil and ecclesiastical affairs;
which is the first beast who persecuted the Christians that separated
from their established religion, which they called the holy religion of
their forefathers; and by their law, fined, whipped, imprisoned and
killed such as refused obedience thereto. We all own that the Pope or
Papal throne is the Second beast, because he is head of the
ecclesiastical and meddles with civil affairs; and, for which he is also
styled 'Pontifex Maximus', or 'Highpriest.' He also compels all under
him to submit to his worship, decrees and laws, by whips, fines,
prisons, fire and faggots. Now what your prisoner requests of you, is a
clear distinction between the ecclesiastical constitution of
Connecticut, by which I am now held here in prison, and the aforesaid
two thrones or beasts, in the foundation, constitution and support
thereof. For if by Scripture and Reason you can show they do not all
stand on the throne mentioned in Psalm 94:20, but that the latter is
founded on the Rock Christ Jesus, I will confess my fault, and soon
clear myself of the prison. But if this constitution hath its rise from
that throne, then come forth to the help of the Lord against the mighty,
for better is it to die for Christ, than to live against Him ... From an
old friend to this civil constitution, and long your prisoner, Elisha
Paine.”
In five days he will be released; but the
severity of the winter will not permit him to join his family that
suffers in a house, that, for want of his help remains unfinished.