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16 - The Pilgrim Fathers - The Great Controversy · Philosophy and Faith

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Speaker 1: Chapter sixteen The Pilgrim Fathers. The English Reformers, while renouncing
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Speaker 1: the doctrines of Romanism, had retained many of its forms. Thus,
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Speaker 1: though the authority and the creed of Rome were rejected,
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Speaker 1: not a few of her customs and ceremonies were incorporated
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Speaker 1: into the worship of the Church of England. It was
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Speaker 1: claimed that these things were not matters of conscience, that
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Speaker 1: though they were not commanded in scripture and hence were
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Speaker 1: non essential, yet not being forbidden, they were not intrinsically evil.
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Speaker 1: Their observants tended to narrow the gulf which separated the
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Speaker 1: Reformed churches from Rome, and it was urged that they
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Speaker 1: would promote the acceptance of the Protestant faith by Romanists
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Speaker 1: to the conservative and compromising. These arguments seemed conclusive, But
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Speaker 1: there was another class that did not so judge. The
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Speaker 1: fact that these customs tended to bridge over the chasm
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Speaker 1: between Rome and the Reformation was, in their view, a
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Speaker 1: conclusive argument against retaining them. They looked upon them as
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Speaker 1: badgets of the slavery from which they had been delivered,
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Speaker 1: and to which they had no disposition to return. They
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Speaker 1: reasoned that God has in his word established the regulations
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Speaker 1: governing His worship, and that men are not at liberty
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Speaker 1: to add to these or to detract from them. The
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Speaker 1: very beginning of the Great Apostasy was in seeking to
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Speaker 1: supplement the authority of God by that of the Church.
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Speaker 1: Rome began by enjoining what God had not forbidden, and
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Speaker 1: she ended by forbidding what He had explicitly enjoined. Many
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Speaker 1: earnestly desired to return to the purity and simplicity which
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Speaker 1: characterized the primitive Church. They regarded many of the established
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Speaker 1: customs of the English Church as monuments of idolatry, and
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Speaker 1: they could not, in conscience unite in her worship. But
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Speaker 1: the Church, being supported by the civil authority, would permit
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Speaker 1: no dissent from her forms. Attendance upon her service was
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Speaker 1: required by law, and unauthorized assemblies for religious worship were
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Speaker 1: prohibited under penalty of imprisonment, exile, and death. At the
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Speaker 1: opening of the seventeenth century, the monarch, who had just
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Speaker 1: ascended the throne of England, declared his determination to make
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Speaker 1: the Puritans conform or harry them out of the land,
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Speaker 1: or else worse, hunted, persecuted, and imprisoned, they could decern
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Speaker 1: in the future no promise of better days, and many
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Speaker 1: yielded to the conviction that for such as would serve God.
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Speaker 1: According to the dictates of their conscience, England was ceasing
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Speaker 1: forever to be a habitable place. They were at last
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Speaker 1: determined to seek refuge in Holland. Difficulties, losses, and imprisonment
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Speaker 1: were encountered, their purposes were thwarted, and they were betrayed
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Speaker 1: into the hands of their enemies. But steadfast perseverance finally
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Speaker 1: conquered and they found shelter on the friendly shores of
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Speaker 1: the Dutch Republic. In their flight, they had left their houses,
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Speaker 1: their goods, and their means of livelihood. They were strangers
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Speaker 1: in a strange land, among a people of different language
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Speaker 1: and customs. They were forced to resort to new and
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Speaker 1: untried occupations to in their bread. Middle aged men who
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Speaker 1: had spent their lives untilling the soil, had now to
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Speaker 1: learn mechanical traits. But they cheerfully accepted the situation and
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Speaker 1: lost no time in idleness or repining. Though often pinged
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Speaker 1: with poverty, they thanked God for the blessings which were
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Speaker 1: still granted them, and found their joy in unmolested spiritual communion.
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Speaker 1: They knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on
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Speaker 1: those things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their
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Speaker 1: dearest country, and quieted their spirits. In the midst of
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Speaker 1: exile and hardship, their love and faith waxed strong. They
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Speaker 1: trusted the Lord's promises, and he did not fail them.
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Speaker 1: In time of need. His angels were by their side
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Speaker 1: to encourage and support them. And when God's hands seemed
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Speaker 1: pointing them across the sea to a land where they
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Speaker 1: might found for themselves estate and leave to their children
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Speaker 1: the precious heritage of religious liberty, they went forward without shrinking,
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Speaker 1: in the path of providence. God had permitted trials to
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Speaker 1: come upon his people to prepare them for the accomplishment
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Speaker 1: of his gracious purpose toward them. The Church had been
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Speaker 1: brought low that she might be exalted. God was about
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Speaker 1: to display his power in her behalf, to give the
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Speaker 1: world another evidence that he will not forsake those who
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Speaker 1: trust in him. He had overruled events to cause the
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Speaker 1: wrath of Satan and the plots of evil men to
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Speaker 1: advance his glory and to bring his people to a
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Speaker 1: place of security. Persecution and exile were opening the way
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Speaker 1: to freedom. When first constrained to separate from the English Church.
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Speaker 1: The Puritans had joined themselves together by a solemn covenant
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Speaker 1: as the Lord's free people, to walk together in all
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Speaker 1: His ways made known or to be made known to them.
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Speaker 1: Here was the true spirit of reform, the vital principle
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Speaker 1: of Protestantism. It was with this purpose that the Pilgrims
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Speaker 1: departed from Holland to find a home in the New world.
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Speaker 1: John Robinson, their pastor, who was providentially prevented from accompanying them,
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Speaker 1: in his farewell address to the exiles, said, brethren, we
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Speaker 1: are now ere long to part asunder, and the Lord
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Speaker 1: knoweth whether I shall live ever to see your faces more.
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Speaker 1: But whether the Lord hath appointed it or not, I
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Speaker 1: charge you, before God and his blessed angels, to follow
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Speaker 1: me no farther than I have followed Christ. If God
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Speaker 1: should reveal anything to you by any other instrument of His,
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Speaker 1: be as ready to receive it as ever you were
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Speaker 1: to receive any truth of my ministry. For I am
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Speaker 1: very confident the Lord hath more truth than light yet
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Speaker 1: to break forth out of His Holy Word. For my part,
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Speaker 1: I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed churches,
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Speaker 1: who are come to a period in religion and will
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Speaker 1: go at present no farther than the instruments of their reformation.
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Speaker 1: The Lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw,
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Speaker 1: and the Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were
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Speaker 1: left by that great Man of God, who yet saw
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Speaker 1: not all things. This is a misery much to be lamented,
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Speaker 1: for though they were burning and shining lights in their time,
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Speaker 1: yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God.
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Speaker 1: But were they now living, would be as willing to
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Speaker 1: embrace further light as that which they first received. Remember
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Speaker 1: your church covenant, in which you have agreed to walk
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Speaker 1: in all the ways of the Lord made or to
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Speaker 1: be made known unto you. Remember your promise and covenant
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Speaker 1: with God and with one another, to receive whatever light
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Speaker 1: and truth shall be made known to you from His
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Speaker 1: written word. But withal take heed. I beseech you what
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Speaker 1: you receive for truth, and compare it and weigh it
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Speaker 1: with other scriptures of truth before you accept it. For
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Speaker 1: it is not possible the Christian world should come so
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Speaker 1: lately out of such thick anti Christian darkness, and that
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Speaker 1: full perfection of knowledge should break forth at once. It
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Speaker 1: was the desire for liberty of conscience that inspired the
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Speaker 1: Pilgrims to brave the perils of the long journey across
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Speaker 1: the sea, to endure the hardships and dangers of the wilderness,
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Speaker 1: and with God's blessing, to lay on the shores of
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Speaker 1: America the foundation of a mighty nation. Yet, honest and
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Speaker 1: god fearing as they were, the Pilgrims did not yet
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Speaker 1: comprehend the girl great principle of religious liberty, the freedom
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Speaker 1: which they sacrificed so much to secure for themselves, they
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Speaker 1: were not equally ready to grant to others. Very few,
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Speaker 1: even of the foremost thinkers and moralists of the seventeenth century,
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Speaker 1: had any just conception of that grand principle. The outgrowth
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Speaker 1: of the New Testament, which acknowledges God as the sole
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Speaker 1: judge of human faith, the doctrine that God has committed
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Speaker 1: to the Church the right to control the conscience and
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Speaker 1: to define and punish heresy, is one of the most
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Speaker 1: deeply rooted of papal errors. While the Reformers rejected the
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Speaker 1: Creed of Rome, they were not entirely free from her
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Speaker 1: spirit of intolerance. The dense darkness in which, through the
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Speaker 1: long ages of her rule, popery had enveloped all Christendom
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Speaker 1: had not even yet been wholly dissipated, said one of
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Speaker 1: the leading ministers in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. It
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Speaker 1: was toleration that made the world anti Christian, and the
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Speaker 1: Church never took harm by the punishment of heretics. The
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Speaker 1: regulation was adopted by the colonists that only church members
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Speaker 1: should have a voice in the civil government. A kind
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Speaker 1: of state church was formed, all the people being required
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Speaker 1: to contribute to the support of the clergy, and the
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Speaker 1: magistrates being authorized to suppress heresy. Thus the secular power
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Speaker 1: was in the hands of the church. It was not
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Speaker 1: long before these measures led to the inevitable result persecution.
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Speaker 1: Eleven years after the planting of the first colony, Roger
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Speaker 1: Williams came to the New World. Like the early Pilgrims,
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Speaker 1: he came to enjoy religious freedom. But unlike them, he
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Speaker 1: saw what so few in his time had yet seen,
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Speaker 1: that this freedom was the inalienable right of all, whatever
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Speaker 1: might be their creed. He was an earnest seeker for truth,
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Speaker 1: with Robinson holding it impossible that all the light from
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Speaker 1: God's word had yet been received. Williams was the first
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Speaker 1: person in modern Christendom to establish civil government on the
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Speaker 1: doctrine of the liberty of conscience the equality of a
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Speaker 1: pinions before the law. He declared it to be the
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Speaker 1: duty of the magistrate to restrain crime, but never to
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Speaker 1: control the conscience. The public or the magistrates may decide,
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Speaker 1: he said, what is due from man to man. But
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Speaker 1: when they attempt to prescribe a man's duties to God,
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Speaker 1: they are out of place, and there can be no safety.
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Speaker 1: For it is clear that if the magistrate has the power,
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Speaker 1: he may decree one set of opinions or beliefs to
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Speaker 1: day and another tomorrow, as has been done in England
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Speaker 1: by different kings and queens, and by different popes and
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Speaker 1: councils in the Roman Church, so that belief would become
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Speaker 1: a heap of confusion. Attendance at the services of the
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Speaker 1: established church was required under a penalty of fine or imprisonment.
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Speaker 1: Williams reprobated the law. The worst statute in the English
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Speaker 1: Code was that which did but enforce attendance upon the
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Speaker 1: parish church to compel men to unite with those of
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Speaker 1: a different creed. He regarded as an open violation of
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Speaker 1: their natural rights. To drag to public worship the irreligious
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Speaker 1: and the un willing seemed only like requiring hypocrisy. No
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Speaker 1: one should be bound to worship or, he added, to
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Speaker 1: maintain a worship against his own consent. What exclaimed his antagonists,
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Speaker 1: amazed at his tenants, is not the laborer worthy of
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Speaker 1: his hire? Yes, replied he from them that hire him.
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Speaker 1: Roger Williams was respected and beloved as a faithful minister,
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Speaker 1: a man of rare gifts, of unbending integrity and true benevolence.
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Speaker 1: Yet his steadfast denial of the right of civil magistrates
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Speaker 1: to authority over the church, and his demand for religious
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Speaker 1: liberty could not be tolerated. The application of this new doctrine,
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Speaker 1: it was urged, would subvert the fundamental state and government
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Speaker 1: of the country. He was sentenced to banishment from the colonies,
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Speaker 1: and finally, to avoid arrest, he was forced to flee
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Speaker 1: amid the cold and storms of winter into the unbroken
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Speaker 1: forest for fourteen weeks. He says, I was sorely tossed
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Speaker 1: in the bitter season, not knowing what bread or bed
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Speaker 1: did mean. But the ravens fed me in the wilderness,
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Speaker 1: and a hollow tree often served him for a shelter.
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Speaker 1: Thus he continued his painful flight through the snow and
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Speaker 1: the trackless forest, until he found refuge with an Indian
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Speaker 1: tribe whose confidence and affection he had won while endeavoring
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Speaker 1: to teach them the truths of the Gospel. Making his
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Speaker 1: way at last, after months of change and wandering to
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Speaker 1: the shores of Narragansett Bay, he there laid the foundation
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Speaker 1: of the first state of modern times that in the
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Speaker 1: fullest sense, recognized the right of religious freedom. The fundamental
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Speaker 1: principle of Roger William's colony was that every man should
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Speaker 1: have liberty to worship God according to the light of
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Speaker 1: his own conscience. His little state, Rhode Island, became the
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Speaker 1: asylum of the oppressed, and it increased and prospered until
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Speaker 1: its foundation principles civil and religious liberty became the corner
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Speaker 1: stones of the American Republic. In that grand old document
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Speaker 1: which our forefathers set forth as their bill of rights,
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Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence, they declared, we hold these truths
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Speaker 1: to be self evident, that all men are created equal,
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Speaker 1: that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,
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Speaker 1: that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
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Speaker 1: And the Constitution guarantees, in the most explicit terms, the
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Speaker 1: inviolability of conscience. No religious tests shall ever be required
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Speaker 1: as a qualification to any office of public trust. Under
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Speaker 1: the United States Congress shall make no law respecting an
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Speaker 1: establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The
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Speaker 1: framers of the Constitution recognize the eternal principle that man's
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Speaker 1: relation with his God is above human legislation, and his
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Speaker 1: rights of conscience Inalienable reasoning was not necessary to establish
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Speaker 1: this truth. We are conscious of it in our own bosoms.
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Speaker 1: It is this consciousness which, in defiance of human laws,
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Speaker 1: has sustained so many martyrs in tortures and flames. They
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Speaker 1: felt that their duty to God was superior to human enactments,
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Speaker 1: and that man could exercise no authority over their consciences.
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Speaker 1: It is an inborn principle which nothing can eradicate. As
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Speaker 1: the tidings spread through the countries of Europe, of a
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Speaker 1: land where every man might enjoy the fruit of his
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Speaker 1: own labor and obey the convictions of his conscience, thousands
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Speaker 1: flocked to the shores of the New World colonies rapidly multiplied. Massachusetts,
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Speaker 1: by special law, offered free welcome and aid at the
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Speaker 1: public cost to Christians of any nationality who might fly
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Speaker 1: beyond the Atlantic to escape from wars, or famine, or
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Speaker 1: the oppression of their persecutors. Thus the fugitive and the
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Speaker 1: downtrodden were, by statute made the guests of the Commonwealth.
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Speaker 1: In twenty years from the first landing at Plymouth, as
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Speaker 1: many thousand pilgrims were settled in New England to secure
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Speaker 1: the object which they sought. They were content to earn
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Speaker 1: a bare subsistence by a life of frugality and toil.
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Speaker 1: They asked nothing from the soil but the reasonable returns
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Speaker 1: of their own labor. No golden vision threw a deceitful
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Speaker 1: halo around their path. They were content with the slow
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Speaker 1: but steady progress of their social polity. They patiently endured
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Speaker 1: the privations of the wilderness, watering the tree of liberty
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Speaker 1: with their tears and with the sweat of their brow,
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Speaker 1: till it took deep root in the land. The Bible
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Speaker 1: was held as the foundation of faith, the source of wisdom,
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Speaker 1: and the charter of liberty. Its principles were diligently taught
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Speaker 1: in the home, in the school, and in the church,
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Speaker 1: and its fruits were manifest in thrift, intelligence, purity, and temperance.
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Speaker 1: One might be for years a dweller in the Puritan
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Speaker 1: settlements and not see a drunkard, or hear an oath,
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Speaker 1: or meet a beggar. It was demonstrated that the principles
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Speaker 1: of the Bible are the surest safeguards of national greatness.
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Speaker 1: The feeble and isolated colonies grew to a confederation of
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Speaker 1: powerful states, and the world marked with wonder the peace
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Speaker 1: and prosperity of a church without a pope and a
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Speaker 1: state without a king. But continually increasing numbers were attracted
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Speaker 1: to the shores of America, actuated by motives widely different
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Speaker 1: from those of the first pilgrims. Though the primitive faith
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Speaker 1: and purity exerted a widespread and molding power, yet its
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Speaker 1: influence became less and less as the numbers increased of
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Speaker 1: those who sought only worldly advantage. The regulation adopted by
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Speaker 1: the early colonists of permitting only members of the church
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Speaker 1: to vote or to hold office in the civil government
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Speaker 1: led to most pernicious results. This measure had been accepted
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Speaker 1: as a means of preserving the purity of the state,
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Speaker 1: but it resulted in the corruption of the church, a
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Speaker 1: profession of religion being the condition of suffrage and officeholding.
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Speaker 1: Many actuated solely by motives of worldly policy, united with
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Speaker 1: the Church without a change of heart. Thus the churches
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Speaker 1: came to consist to a considerable extent of unconverted persons,
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Speaker 1: and even in the ministry were those who not only
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Speaker 1: held errors of doctrine, but who were ignorant of the
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Speaker 1: renewing power of the Holy Spirit. Thus again was demonstrated
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Speaker 1: the evil results so often witnessed in the history of
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Speaker 1: the Church, from the days of Constantine to the present,
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Speaker 1: of attempting to build up the church by the aid
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Speaker 1: of the state, of appealing to the secular power in
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Speaker 1: support of the gospel of Him who declared, My Kingdom
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Speaker 1: is not of this world. The union of the Church
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Speaker 1: with the State be the degree never so slight. While
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Speaker 1: it may appear to bring the world nearer to the Church,
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Speaker 1: does in reality but bring the Church nearer to the world.
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Speaker 1: The great principle so nobly advocated by Robinson and Roger Williams,
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Speaker 1: that truth is progressive, that Christians should stand ready to
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Speaker 1: accept all the light which may shine from God's Holy
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Speaker 1: Word was lost sight of by their descendants. The Protestant
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Speaker 1: churches of America and those of Europe as well, so
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Speaker 1: highly favored in receiving the blessings of the Reformation, failed
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Speaker 1: to press forward in the path of reform. Though a
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Speaker 1: few faithful men arose from time to time to proclaim
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Speaker 1: new truth and expose long cherished error, the majority, like
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Speaker 1: the Jews in Christ's day or the Papists in theas
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Speaker 1: time of Luther, were content to believe as their fathers
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Speaker 1: had believed and to live as they had lived. Therefore,
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Speaker 1: religion again degenerated into formalism, and errors and superstitions which
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Speaker 1: would have been cast aside had the Church continued to
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Speaker 1: walk in the light of God's Word were retained and cherished.
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Speaker 1: Thus the spirit inspired by their reformation gradually died out,
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Speaker 1: until there was almost as great need of reform in
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Speaker 1: the Protestant churches as in the Roman Church. In the
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Speaker 1: time of Luther. There was the same worldliness and spiritual stupor,
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Speaker 1: a similar reverence for the opinions of men and substitution
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Speaker 1: of human theories for the teachings of God's Word. The
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Speaker 1: wide circulation of the Bible in the early part of
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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, and the great light thus shed upon
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Speaker 1: the world was not followed by a corresponding advance in
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Speaker 1: knowledge of revealed truth or in experimental religion. Satan could not,
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Speaker 1: as in former ages, keep God's word from the people.
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Speaker 1: It had been placed within the reach of all, But
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Speaker 1: in order still to accomplish his object he led many
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Speaker 1: to value it, but lightly men neglected to search the scriptures,
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Speaker 1: and thus they continued to accept false interpretations and to
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Speaker 1: cherish doctrines which had no foundation in the Bible. Seeing
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Speaker 1: the failure of his efforts to crush out the truth
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Speaker 1: by persecution, Satan had again resorted to the plan of compromise,
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Speaker 1: which led to the Great Apostasy and the formation of
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Speaker 1: the Church of Rome. He had induced Christians to ally themselves,
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Speaker 1: not now with pagans, but with those who, by their
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Speaker 1: devotion to the things of this world, had proved themselves
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Speaker 1: to be as truly idolaters as were the worshipers of
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Speaker 1: graven images. And the results of this union were no
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Speaker 1: less pernicious now than in former ages. Pride and extravagance
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Speaker 1: were fostered under the guise of religion, and the churches
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Speaker 1: became corrupted. Satan continued to pervert the doctrines of the Bible,
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Speaker 1: and traditions that were to ruin millions were taking deep root.
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Speaker 1: The Church was upholding and defending these traditions in instead
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Speaker 1: of contending for the faith which was once delivered to
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Speaker 1: the saints. Thus were degraded the principles for which the
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Speaker 1: reformers had done and suffered so much. End of Chapter sixteen,