THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT

Choosing whom to serve

"As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord."

Joshua 24:15 NLT

A momentous document

"The date was November 11, 1620, and the place was the Mayflower, anchored off the coast of Cape Cod. One hundred and two passengers, including 34 children had spent seven weeks crossing the ocean from England. Among them were 27 adults and 14 children who were Pilgrims, separatists who had fled England for Holland, yet wished to retain their English heritage. They made arrangements with the Virginia Company to settle just south of the Hudson River within the northernmost boundary of the Virginia Charter. However, fierce winds blew them off course to the north — to the shores of Cape Cod.

They realized they would be on their own since they had no agreement with the New England Company. On board the ship some of the non-Pilgrim bonded servants and those hired by contract greeted the decision to settle in Cape Cod as an opportunity for rebellion. The Pilgrim leadership saw that they must act quickly to prevent a mutiny.

The result came to be known as the Mayflower Compact, the first time in recorded history in which free men covenanted together to form a civil government with the authority to enact laws that the people promised to obey.

Before leaving the Netherlands, the Pilgrims had knelt on the dock to ask God's blessing on their voyage. After the first winter on Cape Cod, 47 people died, leaving only three families intact. These humble Christian men and women were to be the seeds of what would become the United States of America."

adapted from The One Year® Book of Christian History by E. Michael and Sharon Rusten (Tyndale) pp 632-33

THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT

In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November [New Style, November 21], in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth.

Anno Dom. 1620.

Signing the Mayflower Compact by Edward Percy Moran

John Carver

William Bradford

Edward Winslow

William Brewster

Isaac Allerton

Miles Standish

John Alden

Samuel Fuller

Christopher Martin

William MullinsWilliam White

James Chilton

John Craxton

John Billington

Richard Warren

John Howland

Steven Hopkins

Edward Tilly

John Tilly

Francis CookThomas Rogers

Thomas Tinker

John Rigdale

Edward Fuller

John Turner

Francis Eaton

Moses Fletcher

Digery Priest

Thomas Williams

Gilbert WinslowEdmond Margeson

Peter Brown

Richard Bitteridge

Richard Clark

Richard Gardiner

John Allerton

Thomas English

Edward Doten

Edward Liester

John Goodman

George Soule