The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 3

I. Historical Setting for the Great Colonial Venture

Let us now note the historical setting for the great colonial venture. In 1602 a group of earnest church people in England entered into a covenant to worship God “without humane Inventions and Additions.” For this they accepted banishment to the Netherlands. The exiled Pilgrim Fathers, fleeing from England, under the reign of James I (1603-1625), settled in Leyden, Holland, in 1608. Seeking civil and religious liberty for themselves, holding the Calvinist faith, and desiring to establish congregational churches, they found conditions so unfavorable at Leyden that about a hundred men, women,, and children resolved and arranged to Emigrate to New England. ¹ PFF3 19.2

The Pilgrim Fathers were determined to follow the increasing light that God had for them. This is clearly expressed in the parting counsels oL their pastor, JOHN ROBINSON (ca. 1575-1625), ² in 1620, just before they started on their long journey to the New World. Referring to the solemnity of the parting, and admonishing them to follow him “no further than he followed Christ,” Robinson declared himself “very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy Word.” And after deploring the condition of the Reformed churches that “would goe no further then the instruments of their Reformation,” he illustrated his point thus: PFF3 20.1

“As for example, the Lutherans they could not be drawne to goe beyond what Luther saw, for whatever part of Gods will he had further imparted and revealed to Calvin, they will rather die then embrace it. And so also, saith he, you see the Calvinists, they stick where he left them: A misery much to bee lamented; For though they were precious shining lights in their times, yet God had not revealed his whole will to them: And were they now living, saith hee, they would bee as ready and willing to embrace further light, as that they had received. Here also he put us in mind of our Church-Covenant (at least that part of it) whereby wee promise and covenant with God and one another, to receive whatsoever light or truth shall be made known to us from his written Word: but with all exhorted us to take heed what we received for truth, and well to examine and compare, and weigh it with other Scriptures of truth before we received it; For saith he, It is not possible the Christian world should come so lately out of such thick Anti-christian darknesse, and that full perfection of knowledge should break forth at once.” ³ PFF3 20.2

True to that vision of increasing light, the colonial leaders of those rigorous early decades laid much stress on prophecy. Moreover, this interest was not limited to the clergy. As the years lengthened, prominent laymen-college presidents, teachers, physicians, historians, soldiers, governors, judges, and officials in other public offices-wrote in the intriguing field of prophecy with a clarity often surpassing that of the Reformers. Indeed, the symbols and phrases of prophecy, and their related time periods, were common in the thinking and writing of the early American church. PFF3 20.3

During the early years of the reign of Charles I (1625-1649), thousands of Puritans emigrated to New England, having secured charters from the king. In 1628 a second Massachusetts colony—of nonconformist Puritans—settled at Salem, and a larger colony established itself on Massachusetts Bay in 1630, equipped with capable civil leaders and well-educated ministers. The Massachusetts Bay colonists professed loyalty to the Church of England, but they were pronounced in opposition to the forms and ceremonies of the English Church. They proceeded to establish a theocracy with citizenship dependent : upon fellowship in a church. PFF3 21.1

Similar colonies, strongly Presbyterian in sentiment, were formed in Connecticut by Puritans from Massachusetts Bay, and in New Haven by London Puritans, under the leadership of John Davenport. ⁴ Then came the founding of Providence in 1636 by the Separatist Roger Williams, whose opposition to theocratic government so irritated the Massachusetts authorities that his banishment was decreed. This was followed by the founding of the Rhode Island colony and the first American Baptist church. In 1638 another company, likewise forced to leave Massachusetts, settled in Rhode Island, and later joined Williams in setting up a constitution providing for democracy and liberty of conscience ⁵ PFF3 21.2

The Puritans of England had fled from persecution to the virgin soil of the New World, where they might worship God more freely. But they no sooner found an asylum for themselves than they began to persecute those differing from them. Despite the fact that as dissenters they themselves had been driven to seek refuge from oppressive rules of the state church, they tried to establish a Puritan theocracy in New England, with their civil code based on the Bible and the enjoyment of civil rights dependent upon profession of the accepted religion. But in the struggle for independence and civil liberty, the guarantee of freedom of worship according to the dictates of conscience came in for due consideration, especially in Rhode Island, as will be noted later. PFF3 21.3

Such is the historical setting for the American exposition of prophecy. The scores of illustrious men—strong, independent thinkers who had fled the tyranny of the Old World—to whose testimony we shall listen, were scattered throughout all these colonies, holding to different forms of doctrinal faith, yet having remarkable unity on the basic principles of prophetic interpretation. Again we shall see the determining influence that both the true and the false understanding of prophecy exerted in colonial America, as had been the case in the Old World through the centuries. PFF3 22.1