09/17/11
LEARNING FROM THE PAST HOW TO ESTABLISH
REFORMED CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENT IN A PAGAN LAND
The sad reality is that the USA currently is a pagan land, like so many nations past and present. It is governed according to principles divorced from scripture. Indeed, to argue from scriptural principles as a basis for civil law is regarded as un-Constitutional in the USA.
But we do enjoy one advantage in America: we can learn from our forefathers how they by God’s blessing established reformed Christian government in a pagan land. When our Pilgrim and Puritan forefathers arrived in America they arrived in a pagan land. The indigenous population knew little of the Bible and at least at first were hostile to its principles. So what did our Pilgrim and Puritan forefathers do? And how can what they did be instructive to us?
Let’s first recognize what they did not do. They did not form a political alliance with anti-Christian inhabitants and together with them elect a civil government. (This is essentially the method Christians involved in the Republican and Democratic Parties have been trying to employ for decades, and it has not worked, nor is it right.) The Pilgrim and Puritan forefathers did not even form a political alliance with Anglicans in America and elect a civil government comprising Anglicans and Puritans, much less with infidels.
What they did is illustrated in this account of New Haven, Connecticut:
“On the 26th day of July, 1637, Rev. John Davenport, Mr. Samuel Eaton, Theophilus Eaton, Edward Hopkins, Thomas Gregson, and their company arrived at Boston. They were invited to continue there or in that vicinity. This proposal they rejected, for they were determined to settle a new colony. Accordingly, in the fall of that year, Mr. Eaton and others explored the country along the sea-coast, west of Connecticut River and finally fixed upon Quinipiack, as the place of their settlement. On the 30 Mar 1638, the company sailed from Boston, and in about two weeks arrived safe at the place of their destination. On the 18th April, the first Lord's day after their arrival, the people attended public worship under a large oak, and Mr. Davenport preached to them from Matth. vi, 1. Soon after their arrival, they held a day of fasting and prayer, at the close of which, they solemnly entered into a plantation covenant, finding themselves, "That as in matters that concern the gathering and ordering of a Church, so also in all public offices which concern civil order; as choice of magistrates and officers, making and repealing laws, dividing allotments of inheritances and all things of like nature, they would all of them, be ordered by the rules which the scripture held forth to them." By this covenant they were regulated the first year. On 24 Nov 1638, Theophilus Eaton, Esq., Mr. Davenport and other English planters, made their first purchase of Momauguin, sachem, of that part of the country, and his counselors. The English promised to protect Momauguin and his Indians from his enemies, and that they should have sufficient planting ground between the harbor and Saybrook fort. The purchasers also gave the sachem and his counselors -- "12 coats of English cloth, 12 alchemy spoons, 12 hatchets, 12 hoes, two dozen knives, 12 porringers, and 4 cases of French knives and scissors." This contract was signed by Momauguin and his council on the one part, and Theophilus Eaton and John Davenport on the other part. Thomas Stanton was interpreter. By the oppression of the Mohawks and Pequots, this tribe was then reduced to about 40 men. On the 11 December, 1638, they purchased another large tract, which lay principally north of the former purchase. This was bought of Montowwese, son of the great Sachem at Mattabeseck, (now Middletown). It was 10 miles long, north and south, and 13 miles in breadth. For this tract, they gave 13 coats and allowed the Indians ground to plant, and liberty to hunt on it. These purchases "included all the lands within the ancient limits of the old towns of NEW-HAVEN, BRANFORD and WALLINGFORD, and almost the whole contained within the present limits of those towns, and of the towns of EAST-HAVEN, WOODBRIDGE, CHESHIRE, HAMDEN and NORTH-HAVEN. On the 4 June, 1639, all the free planters of Quinipiack convened in a large barn of Mr. Newman's and formed their constitution. Sixty-three names were subscribed to it on that day, and about fifty more were added soon after.” - http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genepool/newhaven.htm
What is described here regarding New Haven follows the same basic pattern of many other reformed Christian settlements, including Plymouth, Massachusetts; Newark, New Jersey; and many others. A group of Christians would covenant to form a reformed Christian community, purchase land where they could form the community, and then formed and established the reformed Christian community. Many of the covenanted reformed Christian communities then would form alliances and confederations together, such as the New England Confederation. The first to start this pattern was the Pilgrim colony of Plymouth, begun by a modest number of reformed Christian households. Once people saw how God blessed the Plymouth community, others were willing to follow their example. Then when people saw how God blessed the Pilgrim and Puritan communities of America, many back in Britain as well as far beyond wanted to replicate the blessing in their own land. “Praying towns” of Native American converts to Christianity arose as well here in North America.
This same basic pattern can be followed today. A group of people can join and covenant together to seek to form a reformed Christian community. They can locate a favorable location and purchase the property there. They can then form a model reformed Christian community with reformed Christian civil government, or at least one that seeks to move the community in that direction as much as politically feasible at the current time. If God so blesses, others might follow this example. The history of our American Pilgrim and Puritan forefathers thus offers us an excellent tutor for today.