Mayflower Compact
BST Series
- Christian Nation?:
- Mayflower Compact
- Was America founded as a Christian Nation?
Study history for yourself and see the agreements, binding covenants that formed America such as the Mayflower Compact (1620)
This article is directly from and courtesy of CBN.
Just click here for the PDF document.
IT WAS A SLIGHTLY chilly april day in the year 1607 when
three tiny boats, scarcely bigger than twenty-first-century cabin
cruisers, appeared on the horizon of the Atlantic Ocean and sailed
toward the coastline of North America, where they dropped anchor
in deep water just offshore. One hundred twenty bone-weary English travelers then took their turns climbing down into long boats that deposited them onto the sandy beach.
After an agonizingly long journey during which the travelers
had been packed into their tiny vessels, they were intoxicated with
the feel of land under their feet and the scent of woods and flowers.
They scrambled up the adjoining sand dunes in search of wild
berries, fresh water, and firewood. The next three days were spent
in exploration and profuse apologies to one another for the contemptible attitudes many had displayed during their most trying
voyage. But they had come to settle a continent, not to beachcomb
on this point of land they named Cape Henry, after Henry, the son
of King James I of England.
On April 29, 1607, their spiritual leader, Reverend Robert Hunt,
Founding a Christian Nation
We, . . . Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the
Christian Faith, and the Honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do . . . solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick . . .
—Mayflower Compact (1620)
suggested they memorialize their landing in this New World. He directed that the seven-foot oak cross they had brought from Englandbe carried from one of the ships and planted firmly in the sand of what years later became the city of Virginia Beach, Virginia. These brave pioneer men and women then knelt in prayer around the rough-hewn cross and claimed this new land for the glory of God
and His Son, Jesus Christ.