Archive for the ‘Charters’ Category

CONNECTICUT FOUNDED ON WORD OF GOD

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Part 2

Connecticut became the third established colony to have a constitution and receive a Charter. Prior to the Charter, several Connecticut communities had established constitutions based on the word of God.

Thomas Hooker (1586–1647) founded the Colony of Connecticut after dissenting with Puritan leaders in Massachusetts. He was a prominent Puritan religious and colonial leader, an ordained minister and was a great speaker and a leader of universal Christian suffrage. [1]

Connecticut calls itself the ‘Constitution State’ and there is a good reason for this. The founders of Connecticut created a significant charter for self-government entitled The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. This document became the first complete constitution in the New World. Moreover, it was based on a sermon by their founder, the Reverend Thomas Hooker. [2] In fact, it has also been called, “the first written constitution …in the history of nations.” [3]

Hooker’s sermon on May 31st, 1638 emphasized “the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by Gods own allowance,” and that “they who have the power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is in their power, also, to set bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them,” because “the foundation of authority is laid, firstly, in the free consent of the people.” [4] His advocacy was to establish a government of law and order by and subject to the will of the people and base it on the word of God. The final constitution was signed on January 14, 1639 and it was the beginning of our Republic and democracy. Thomas Hooker, for this reason, is a founding father to our United States Constitution that was written 150 years later.

Fundamental Orders of 1639

For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God by the wise disposition of his divine providence so to order and dispose of things that we the Inhabitants and Residents of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield are now cohabiting and dwelling in and upon the River of Connectecotte and the lands thereunto adjoining; and well knowing where a people are gathered together the word of God requires that to maintain the peace and union of such a people there should be an orderly and decent Government established according to God, to order and dispose of the affairs of the people at all seasons as occasion shall require; do therefore associate and conjoin ourselves to be as one Public State or Commonwealth; and do for ourselves and our successors and such as shall be adjoined to us at any time hereafter, enter into Combination and Confederation together, to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also, the discipline of the Churches, which according to the truth of the said Gospel is now practiced amongst us; as also in our civil affairs to be guided and governed according to such Laws, Rules, Orders and Decrees as shall be made, ordered, and decreed as followeth: [5]

This great constitution declares Divine Providence at its core, calls all settlers to be in a covenant “to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” and to be guided and governed according to the constitution based on God’s word.

[1] History of the United States of America, Henry William Elson, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1904
[2] The Book That Made America, How the Bible Formed Our Nation, Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., Nordskog Publishing, 2009
[3] History of the first Church in Hartford, George Leon Walker, Brown & Gross, 1894; as quoted in The Christian History of the Constitution: Christian Self-Government, Verna Hall, Page 249
[4] The Founding of New England, James Truslow Adams, The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1921; End Note: The text of the sermon has not survived and notes taken by some hearer are published in G.L. Walker, Thomas Hooker (New York, 1891), Page 125.
[5] Fundamental Orders of 1639, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library online at: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/order.asp

Posted in Charters, Constitutions, Founding Fathers, Puritans, Scriptures | No Comments »

THE PLYMOUTH PLANTATION

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

[Reading THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT (January 19th, 2010) blog before this story will help understand the events leading to the foundation of the Plymouth Colony]

A new era in history began on December 22, 1620 at Plymouth, Massachusetts. The pilgrims landed and their very first act was to kneel down and offer their thanksgiving to God, and by a solemn act of prayer, and in the name and for the sake of Christ, to take possession of the continent. By doing this, they repeated the Christian consecration which Columbus, more than a century before, had given to the New World, and so twice in the most formal and solemn manner it was devoted to Christ and Christian civilization. [1]

The Plymouth Plantation was to influence the direction of this nation in ways that many today do not realize. The day the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock has been canonized in American history. The Christian seed planted that day has birthed great fruit, blessed this nation and enriched the world. It speaks of the greatness of God and body of believers that were faithful in living according to God’s word.

A popular woman poet wrote a poem on the Pilgrims that ended with these words:

Turn ye to Plymouth’s beach, – and on that rock
Kneel in their foot-prints, and renew the vow
They breathed to God. [2]

The Plymouth Plantation was first a religious society, secondly an economic enterprise, and, last, a political commonwealth governed by biblical standards. The religious convictions of the Pilgrims were clearly expressed in the drafting of the Mayflower Compact, “. . . for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian Faith.” [3].

John Carver was the first Governor of Plymouth. He was key in the foundation of the settlement. In 1617 he became an agent representing the pilgrims in securing a charter and funding to establish a New World colony. He chartered the Mayflower and joined colonists that set sail from Plymouth, England in September, 1620. He in fact personally helped finance the expedition.

Unfortunately, although Carver survived the first winter where half the colony died, he only lived another year before his death. He was eulogized as being a pious, humble man who cared for the sick, labored to feed the hungry and “being one alsoe of a Considerable estate spent the Maine prte of it in this enterprise.” [4]

William Bradford became Governor after Carvers death in 1621 and became the Colony’s historian. He chronicles the history as they related up to the landing and completes the history of the settlement up to 1650. Bradford demonstrated the Pilgrims were motivated by evangelism:

“Last and not least, they cherished a great hope and inward zeal of laying good foundations, or at least of making some ways towards it, for the propagation and advance of the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in the remote parts of the world, even though they should be but stepping stones to others in the performance of so great work.” [5]

By the Pilgrim’s own words and the Governor’s historical record, the foundation of our nation, first and foremost, is as a Christian society.

[1] The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States, Benjamin F. Morris, American Vision, Inc., 2007, Page 66
[2] The Pilgrims, Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865); The American Commonplace Book of Poetry, George B. Cheever, Hooker & Agnew, 1841, Page 48-51
[3] America’s Christian History, Gary DeMar, American Vision, Inc., 1993, 1995
[4] Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, by William Bradford, edited by Samuel Eliot Morison (New York: 1991); Mourt’s Relation (Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth), from journals of pilgrims William Bradford and Edward Winslow, edited by Jordan D. Fiore (1985: Plymouth)
[5] Bradford’s History of the Plymouth Settlement, 1608-1650, rendered in Modern English by Harold Paget, E. P. Dutton & Company, 1909, 1920

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CHARTER OF VIRGINIA ESTABLISHED CHRISTIAN PURPOSE

Monday, January 18th, 2010

The beginning of our nation came through 13 independent colonies that had their own constitutions prior to the Declaration of Independence. The original Charters that established the colonies will demonstrate how we came to be a Christian nation.

The first settlement was the Jamestown Colony in Virginia (1607) followed by the Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts (1620). These Charters are the very foundation of America and the Christian religion was the underlying foundation of Charters. Essentially our ancestors firmly believed in and practiced total reliance on God’s providence. It was this faith that strengthened them to continue even in the face of more than half of the population that died.

The Charter from The London Company that financed this settlement clearly emphasizes the Christian character of their mission. The first Charter of Virginia set forth its purpose [1]:

“We, greatly commending, and graciously accepting of, their Desires for the Furtherance of so noble a Work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the Glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God,” [2]

The strong faith of these settlers began immediately after landing in May of 1607 with worship services led by the Reverend Robert Hunt. He was the Chaplain of the Colony and immediately had set up a place outside to work, study and write his sermons. Once settled in the fort, the whole company, except those who were on guard, attended regular prayer and services led by the Reverend Hunt. Charles Lemuel Thompson, when writing about this, said, “There the first seed for English Christianity on the American continent was sown.” [3]

Even more extraordinary is the fact that those that landed at Jamestown were not prepared for the hardships they encountered. Many were gentlemen, unaccustomed to hard labor. There were periods of depressing times, crushed hopes and difficult days. More than half of the original founders died! They reached a point when food was all but gone, yet they prayed in faith and God heard their prayers delivering the needed provisions through the Indians.

A few years later a new Governor of Jamestown, Lord de La Warr, arrived in 1610 and found the colony on the verge of collapse. Reverend Robert Hunt had died earlier in 1607, so his very first action was to organize a worship service and issue a biblical call for sacrifice and enterprise. [4]

From the very first, it is more than evident that the very foundation to our society was based on the Pilgrim’s firm belief in Jesus Christ and that God was sovereign over all things. B.F. Morris in his momentous work was able to conclude, “The Christian religion was the underlying basis and pervading element of all the social and civil institutions of the Virginia colony.” [4]

[1] America’s Christian Heritage, Gary DeMar, Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2003, Pages 14 and 15, Compiled
[2] The First Charter of Virginia; April 10, 1606 (Hening’s Statutes of Virginia, I, 57-66), The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library; Source: The Federal and State Constitutions Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America; Compiled and Edited Under the Act of Congress of June 30, 1906 by Francis Newton Thorpe, Washington, DC : Government Printing Office, 1909.
[3] The Religious Foundations of America, Charles Lemuel Thompson, Page 83, 1917
[4] The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States, B.F. Morris, George W. Childs, Philadelphia, PA., 1864, Page 94

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