The Mayflower Compact
Signing the Mayflower Compact 1620 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, 1899
When the Pilgrims arrived in America in 1620, they initially intended to sail to the colony of Virginia.
However, they found themselves north of their destination and outside of England’s colonial jurisdiction and charter.
In response, they together signed the Mayflower Compact to serve as a charter for founding their new colony of Plymouth.
The Pilgrims’ Mayflower Compact was quite unique and revolutionary.
● Most charters at the time were between a king and his inferior subjects.
● The Pilgrims’ pact was among equals who recognized God as their High Authority to sanction their agreement (They saw God as their king).
● The Pilgrims and Puritans derived this idea from the Bible, often citing Isaiah 33:22 which says that “God is our Judge, Lawgiver, and King.”
● As such, the Pilgrims’ compact was a strikingly new, democratic initiative that enacted the principle of self-government among equals.
● It created a civil self-government to govern their new colony by the people.
● At that time, self-governments did not exist anywhere else in the world.
The Mayflower Compact states:
We whose names are underwritten…do solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue here enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices…as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.
The Mayflower Compact was the Pilgrims’ first self-governing act in America. It initiated the principle and value of self-government that would endure and later become a key founding principle of the United States of America.
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Hallelujah!
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It certainly was an extraordinary document and agreement. I just now thought of Ezra and Nehemiah, who made a written document for the people in Jerusalem to sign, who had just returned from Babylon. It was between themselves and God their King, and they all signed their names to it; it was like an oath of fealty, to follow the Law. Wonder if the Pilgrims kind of got the idea from that?
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Good question. I would image yes, there is influence.
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Sure sounds like it, right?
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