Extended Book Reviews

By Bill Potter (PRF Board Member)

This lovely little book (127 pages) profiles the women who came to Plymouth on the Mayflower in 1620 and in the two subsequent ships, the Ann and the Fortune. Twenty-nine women and girls came aboard the Mayflower, and 15 died in that tragically fatal first winter in Plymouth.

We wonder at the courage and fortitude that they must have exhibited just to survive the trip in the overcrowded and cramped quarters below decks. No fresh water, no means of cleaning up or basic privacy, unrelieved sea-sickness, and the hurly-burly of oceanic travel lasting months in the Atlantic Ocean, combined to challenge the sanctification of people devoted to Christ, bereft of all comforts but hope in the resurrection. Yet all the ladies survived to confront the freezing winter without adequate shelter and food.

Annie Marble conveys the hardships and fortitude of the ladies, based on all the extant records of that expedition. As Charles Eliot rightly stated, “They just loved liberty and toleration and truth, and hoped [that] more of it . . . would come out of their industry, their devotion, their dangerous and exposed lives.”

In four short chapters, the author narrates the known communal and family life of the Pilgrim colony through their first two years. Tutored by Tisquantum and Hobomok, the boys and girls learned to gather clams and mussels on the shore and to “tread eels” on the river. The men and women learned of the hardiest grains and fruits most conducive to the area.

The Pilgrim families transplanted the central tenets of biblical worship as they sang the Psalms, heard the Word of God faithfully taught, and prayed incessantly for God’s blessing of their plantation. The Fortune arrived in November of 1621 with 35 new settlers, a number of whom married into the first families as well as provided needed skills. Hardships multiplied with drought, theft, and necessary rationing, but blessings came with children born, belt-tightening, and dogged perseverance.

The names and fates of the women who were added to the population from the following relief ships add to the interest of the book, as well as providing information of which the average reader may not be aware. The author follows out the stories of the main women to the end of their lives in Plymouth and the surrounding communities. This is an encouraging book for young people to read, as it successfully narrates the vital role played by the mothers and other ladies of Plymouth in the thriving and perpetuity of the colony. The author summarizes their faithfulness and sacrifice in the closing paragraph:

“We believe that they laughed sometimes, in the midst of dire want and anxiety, and we know that they prayed with sincerity and trust. They bore children gladly and they trained them ‘in the fear and admonition of the Lord.’ They were the progenitors of thousands of fine men and women in all parts of America today who honor the women as well as the men of the old Plymouth Colony.”

While not a foot-noted scholarly work, probably scorned by the weak-minded guardians of distaff modernity, the book is yet a potent reminder of the biblical family that became the seed corn of American culture and insured the survival of Reformation Christianity on the rocky soil of New England.

By Dr. Paul Jehle (PRF President)

Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing” narratives are “the most popular series of narrative histories in the world.” So says the jacket cover on his latest. Though I have read some of them, and have generally enjoyed them, this one caught my wife’s attention first. She knew it would pique mine, since I spent hours researching the Salem Witch Trials around the time of its 300th anniversary in 1992. (1)

The book can be put into four sections:

– Chapters 1- 3 – the “Puritan” precedent of “religious tyranny and intolerance”
– Chapters 4 -17 – the religious tyranny of the Witch Trials “led by Increase and Cotton Mather”
– Chapters 18 – 26 – resistance to “religious intolerance” is the seed of our constitutional freedom
– Chapters 27 – 32 – today’s “witch hunts” continue where one is guilty until proven innocent

(1) The “Puritan” Precedent of “Religious Intolerance”

The Prologue opens the book with the 1591 burning of Dame Eupharne MacCalzean, who was accused of being a witch. The obvious implication is that the religious tyranny of James VI of Scotland will soon be transferred to the Puritans, who ironically flee the tyranny of England, yet impose a new tyranny in New England …foreshadowing the Salem Witch Trials, which would follow 70 years later.

In the first three chapters, there are numerous cracks in the book’s foundational premises. First, the Pilgrims of 1620 are brush-stroked as being identical with the Puritans. Though the distinctions are minimal theologically, the Pilgrims more clearly practiced freedom of conscience, as well as maintaining the jurisdictional separation of church and state. However, both Pilgrim and Puritan embraced the Common Law,(2) where due process (innocent until proven guilty) was practiced.(3)

Second, some “facts” that are either false or taken out of context have significant consequences, such as:

– Captain Jones decided to anchor the Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor; no, it was the congregation;
– Plymouth Rock is a complete legend with no evidence; this ignores the veracity of eyewitness accounts; (4)
– the idea that Plymouth is governed by “religious law” rather than civil law; sloppy scholarship; (5)
– Bradford shut down Merry Mount as a destruction of religious freedom; no, he shut down anarchy;
– Bradford didn’t work, but spent all day reading the Bible; this was a mockery of his faith;
– that moral punishments by civil law were an invention of the Puritans alone; this is false.

The presumed premise that religion, specifically Christianity, is the main source of tyranny in church and state is a fallacy. These assertions, and others, make for a shaky foundation of blaming religion, and especially the Christianity of the Puritans, for all the ills of modern hysteria and political tyranny. We have been told that the excluding of religious premises from intellectual thought is what developed individual rights, toleration of differences, limited government, and a desire for universal education. This is false.

Eric Nelson summarizes this fallacy: “These innovations could not appear on the scene until religion had effectively been sequestered from political science.” But he then states his refutation of this premise that “…the traditional story I have just sketched puts things almost exactly backward.” (6) In other words, it was the Biblical premises brought by the Pilgrims and Puritans that sought to correct European thought, producing the theories of law, government, and education adopted in the United States!

(2) The Religious Tyranny of the Witch Trials “led by Increase and Cotton Mather”

Anyone who reads the records of the trials and takes careful note of the response of the judges will quickly see that the manifestations of demonic bondage among the children were real and impossible to act out, but the judges accepting “spectral evidence” and presuming the accused guilty until proven innocent deflected the personal responsibility away from the parents and children, violating their own theology. Though some of these facts are sporadically covered in the book, it’s what is left out that is concerning.

Though the Biblical doctrine of the pastors, including Increase and Cotton Mather, was sound on the existence of demonic spirits, nature of the demonic kingdom, and Christ’s victory over it, they neglected the bitter roots and jurisdictional discernment necessary to combat it, utilizing the civil sphere almost exclusively to combat a spiritual enemy. The Massachusetts Body of Liberties, written by Nathaniel Ward and accepted in 1641, declared due process in Articles 1, 31 and 47, and should have governed how they tried a supposed witch (covered in the 2nd clause of Article 94 on Capital Laws.) Thus it was not the Puritan law that persecuted supposed witches; it was the Puritan judges who neglected to follow them!

The “judicial supremacy” of the judges who created rules from the bench to accept spectral evidence of witchcraft violated the common law they professed to follow. The fact that at least 10 of the 20 executed in Salem were leading Christian citizens (including godly intercessors) gives the entire episode a cloud of true spiritual warfare where deception appeared to reign supreme. But the book’s presumption is that believing in spiritual warfare was a major part of the problem. This is the fallacy of a red herring, for history must always be interpreted within the context of its time, not in the supposed wisdom of the present.

The common law embraced by the Puritans, drawn from the Bible, differed in practice from some of the English civil law they fled from. Several pastors warned them before and during the trials, including Increase and Cotton Mather. The assumption of the book is that it was Christianity that eliminated due process, when the question should be: “Why did the Puritan magistrates in Salem in 1692 abandon the very common law that brought individual liberty into both England and New England?”

Both Increase and Cotton Mather cautioned against the use of “spectral evidence” (dreams and visions), but were also hesitant to interfere with court proceedings. Cotton Mather utilized prayer and deliverance, successfully curing some demonized and recommending this for Salem. As Salem’s Witch Museum declares, “Though famously associated with the Salem Witch trials, Mather (Cotton) was only peripherally involved in the events of 1692.… Along with other notable Boston ministers, Cotton Mather had warned against the use of spectral evidence and advised caution from the onset of the trials.”

Increase Mather, his father, is the one who wrote, “It were better that ten suspected witches should escape, than that one innocent person should be condemned.” (7) Both Increase and Cotton, unfortunately, did not intervene more strongly against the use of the pagan inventions for determining a witch’s guilt. But the premise that the church generally ruled society in New England as tyrannically as the state ruled the church in England is simply false.

(3) Our Democracy and Constitution defeat the “religious tyranny” of the Puritans

Chapters 18-26 chronicle the story of our founding as a nation through the eyes of Ben Franklin and others as they rose to prominence in the early 18th century after the trials had concluded. What is left out or hardly covered is that:

– the Legislature set a day of fasting and repentance in 1697.
– Ann Putnam, the 12-year-old main accuser, apologized for her role in 1706 (and was forgiven).
– Pastor John Wise of Ipswich opposed the Mathers’ desire for centralized control of churches, asserting the same fundamental premises brought forth in the Reformation that laid the foundation for the common law. It is interesting to note that Wise’s works in 1710 and 1717, written to assert the liberty of the churches, were republished in 1772 by Sam Adams, providing a clear link from Puritan theology to the Declaration and other founding documents. (8) Samuel Mather, son of Cotton, wrote An Apology for the Liberties of the Churches in New England in 1738, where he asserts his agreement with Wise. (9)

The book overstates the “controlling influence” of Increase and Cotton Mather on the subsequent founders as if they were all reacting to a dominant strain of church control over society. Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Sam Adams were influenced by the clergy of their day, such as George Whitefield and others, who clearly articulated the seeds of religious liberty. The Great Awakening revived Puritan theology as well as personal conversion. It is important to note that changes in the civil sphere (such as dethroning state-sponsored denominations) often take at least one generation before such truths are made into law.

(4) Today’s “witch hunts”

In chapters 27-32, the book details the very sad story of Ronald Hunkeler’s battle with demonic bondage and manifestations, and how this became the inspiration for the Exorcist movie of 1973. Though living a somewhat normal life for decades since his teen years, his “personal demons” cost him his marriage and relations with his children until his death at 84 years of age in 2020. Not only did the film cause unusual manifestations among its actors and on set, it also aroused a curiosity in the occult within the rising generation. Billy Graham’s caution that “there is a power of evil in this film, in the fabric of the film itself” was not taken seriously at the time, nor is it in the book.

The “Author’s Note” states: “Today, there is a new kind of witch hunt. Accusations mean guilt. The press drives that every day. No one is executed, but lives are ruined in terrible ways. And there is no forgiveness for actual transgressions. The cancel culture makes sure of that. Demonization has cast a terrible fear across the land.” He also writes that “due process is often ignored in the court of public opinion. Denials never deter destroyers.”

Are today’s witch hunts caused by the same power that caused Salem’s? The book concludes that “there were no real witches in Salem in 1692.” It also concludes: “Fear has returned. It is a mirror of Salem. Many good people turn away from the cancel culture corruption rather than criticize it. There is an active evil in our country. It is present for all to witness. There are now thousands of cases of shattered lives, with more emerging every day. Something is generating all this. Something.” With no anchor of Biblical faith, the “something” is vague, and in the book, tragically, there is no clear cause or solution.

Conclusion

The very Christianity and theology, along with the Common Law, brought by the Pilgrims and Puritans to New England’s shores, laid the framework and foundation for the jurisdictional separation of church and state, as well as religious and civil liberty, that flowered 150 years later. The Pilgrims modeled these truths in greater measure ahead of their time, and though the errors of Puritan government of church over state occurred tragically in 1692, they misapplied their own theology, clouding their legacy. The Puritans did not “invent” civil law having a moral base; all law is moral and rests on a religious premise of some kind.

The Witch Trials of 1692 represent an aberration of Puritan practice. For nine months a form of “judicial supremacy” reigned in Salem where people were guilty until proven innocent, and “spectral evidence” was taken as legitimate in a court of law. This was not the norm but the exception. The repentance for the travesty and the reparations that followed were just. The liberty declared in our Declaration, and protected in our Constitution, was the result of what was preached in the pulpits of colonial America 150 years prior to the ratification of these documents.

Increase and Cotton Mather (among others), in their zeal for a holy commonwealth, embraced a measure of centralization of their churches. But a majority of Puritans would agree with the seeds laid in Plymouth and would correct the errors of those who sought greater control from 1680-1720. It is also necessary to point out that the loss of the Massachusetts’ Charter, and the Glorious Revolution, played a distinct role in creating cultural chaos at the very time the Trials took place.

One of the greatest challenges we have in America today is the discernment of cause and effect. If we reject the root of Christianity and its rule of law, thinking it is the cause of tyranny, we will be deceived by the very devil that we presume does not exist. We will not eliminate tyranny, but only switch tyrants. Globalism today is an enhancement of real tyranny that should alarm us all, as well as reveal the fact that there is a demonic kingdom and not merely individual devils. Furthermore, we must see all spiritual warfare in the context of Biblical theology, which, in agreement with the Puritans, would declare that personal sin opens the door to demonic activity and possible possession.

Just as a lack of true applied Christianity was the source of the travesty in Salem in 1692, so the law and the gospel are the answer, as Cotton Mather demonstrated – and repentance for sin, prayer, along with personal responsibility, are its main weapons. If that had been the focus in 1692, not one individual would have died in Salem – not because there was no real spiritual warfare, or that witches did not exist, but because one is innocent until proven guilty, and an invisible crime with no witnesses cannot be proven in court. The Common Law, if applied, would have eliminated the travesty of 1692, and would also eliminate the same tragedy of today’s “witch hunts.”

______________________________________

1) Jehle, Paul, “Spiritual War: The Salem Witch Trials of 1692;” Proclaim Liberty Journal, Heritage Institute Ministries, Volume 3: Issues 3-4, December, 1992.
2) There are numerous sources that identify the common law heritage of Puritanism in the foundation of New England. Brent Winters’ Excellence of the Common Law (2008) is a case in point where he defines common law as: a) seeing every civil magistrate as a minister of God, to Whom he is responsible; b) God alone is Lord of the conscience, thus the individual has freedom of conscience; and c) obedience to any command contrary to God’s desire is always wrong (page 17). See also Chapter 3, “Roman Civil Law in Common-Law England,” which was the heritage brought by the Pilgrims and Puritans to New England.
3) See also H. Wayne House, general editor, The Christian and American Law, Kregel Publications, 1998, and Harry S. Stout, The New England Soul, Oxford University Press, 1986 where he documents that the Covenant theology of the Puritans was the base for our constitutional liberties.
4) Jehle, Paul, Thomas Faunce: “the man who saved Plymouth Rock,” Plymouth Rock Foundation, February, 2020.
5) Jehle, Paul, Journey of Faith: Why the Pilgrims Came, Plymouth Rock Foundation, 2020, where I document, on page 54, that the Pilgrim government did not require church membership in order to vote in civil affairs, and that this jurisdictional separation of church and state eventually was adopted by all the colonies, notwithstanding some Puritans holding to franchise suffrage.
6) Nelson, Eric., The Hebrew Republic, Harvard University Press, 2010, page 2.
7) Cotton Mather: Villain, Bystander, or Somewhere in Between? Salemwitchmuseum.com
8) See Jehle, Paul, “The Origin of the Declaration,” Plymouth Rock Foundation E-News, July, 2011.
9) Dexter, Henry Martyn, The Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years, 1880, as published in Hall, Verna’s The Christian History of the American Revolution: Consider and Ponder, page 103.

By Bill Potter (PRF Board Member)

The Wampanoag native of Patuxet, Tisquantum, known in the Pilgrim accounts as Squanto, played a central role in the story of the Pilgrims of Plimoth Plantation. He showed up on the advice of Samoset, an Abenaki sagamore from Maine who strode into the Plimoth Colony on March 16, 1621 to welcome the Englishmen! The Algonquian-speaking Squanto was nearly fluent in English, and without his providential arrival, the Pilgrim story might have been unnaturally ended, along with the well-known historical narrative of the Plimoth Colony and its legacy in America.

How does a historian reconstruct the life of an important character of the past whose cultural origins lie in a pre-literate society? Historian Andrew Lipman of Columbia University shows how modern researchers piece together multiple disciplines and tap into the collective memory of descendant tradition in Squanto: A Native Odyssey, without succumbing to overwhelming numbers of guesses and suppositions and substituting weasel-words for evidence.

Using newly uncovered deeds from Spanish archives (textual resources); archaeological artifacts like beads, pottery, seeds, animal bones, and DNA; the discovery of weather patterns by atmospheric scientists; linguistic clues like transliterated Bibles of the Wampanoag language; and oral tradition; Lipman “creates a vibrant palette with which to paint a new picture [of Squanto]” and to “extrapolate meaning and not just material facts.” Of course, he must still use such terms as “perhaps, possibly, probably, maybe, and likely when the concrete information is lacking.” He notes that in many languages, the word for “history” and the word for “story” are the same. The historian’s presuppositions still fashion that story, so the conclusions will not always agree with those of the reader.

The author is dependent on the major English Pilgrim written sources, as has always been the case with any book on the Pilgrim colony: Governor Bradford’s History of Plimoth Plantation, Bradford and Edward Winslow’s Mourt’s Relation, works by Captain John Smith of the Virginia colony of Jamestown fame, and ancillary documents related to trade and exploration. Lipman is writing a biography of Squanto, however, so his angle of view is that of the story of Squanto, the providentially placed subject, and the Wampanoag culture in which that garrulous and brilliant native was nurtured.

Extensive information exists regarding Wampanoag life, and Lipman offers insightful accounts of both their material and spiritual practices, including gender-differentiated children’s toys and the concept of “manitou,” referring to the diverse spirits believed to inhabit the natural world. They valued oratorical skills and memorized their genealogies, sometimes covering hundreds of years. The Patuxets spoke one of the estimated 40 Algonquian languages.

Contact and trade with Europeans began with the Spanish and English along the northeastern coast of North America well before the arrival of the zealous dissenters of 1621. Besides trade, natives had experienced the kidnapping of some of their young men, which subsequently engendered a wary hostility when the tall ships appeared.

The natives that had been lured aboard ship and hauled off to Europe were usually well-treated, and a few had been repatriated years later, Squanto being the one who would become the renowned interpreter and ally of the Pilgrims. He made four voyages across the ocean, a trip of some 12,000 miles, which began with his abduction to Malaga, Spain, and subsequent travel to England. He possibly saw or met Pocohontas or John Smith in England. During his long sojourns, disease nearly wiped out the Patuxet of his youth and likely carried off his entire family, as well as most of his village. On his own in a foreign land, he learned English and European ways that later placed him in a position of influence and authority among the Pilgrims.

The relationship between the Massasoit, chief Sachem of the Wampanoags, and the subsequent treaty and alliance with the Pilgrims, receives in-depth treatment, as do the traditions and interpretations of the current Wampanoag historians. As an ethno-historian, the author presents a compelling life of Squanto and the complex relationships established between the natives of the “Dawnlands” and the European settlers. Squanto himself played too strong a hand and alienated the Massasoit himself. The author’s skepticism about the origins of the iconic Plymouth Rock as well as some of the Englishmen’s interpretations of Wampanoag culture will rankle some historians of the Pilgrim fathers.

The final chapter grapples with the changing interpretations of Squanto at reconstructed Plimoth Plantation, now called Plimoth Patuxet Museums. The historiography of Squanto from the Wampanoag historians’ view has variously framed him as “an anti-hero” and a “distasteful symbol” of a collaborator who “brought about hard times and the near destruction of the Native people and their way of life,” to “the Patuxet man as a lone survivor who fell victim to his hubris and died an outcast from his people.”

Regardless of historians who reject the Christian view of Providence held by the Englishmen of the 17th Century and Reformed Christians today, scholarly efforts such as this biography of Squanto provide valuable insight into the Pilgrims’ life and experiences by viewing that period from an angle otherwise previously obscure or at least misunderstood. A Native Odyssey such as Squanto’s brings the culture of the time to life in ways that were previously terra incognita for the more Euro-centric historian.

By Gary Huffman (PRF Council of Advisors) and Mary Huffman (PRF Board Secretary)

Most people read on average about five books per year – especially in this age of media and technology. With so much competition for our time, books seem to have lost much of their appeal. They are not as naturally attractive as the lighted screens and sound effects and amazing animations that are equally available.

But books have not lost their value; they have remained constant. Still today, with all the audiovisual media, nothing can exceed the capacity of a book to capture a concept and to convey it fully and thoroughly, in a tangible, permanent way – making it possible to “see an idea” and to wrestle with it, holding it up and analyzing it in different lights.

It is said that the only difference in a person from babyhood to adulthood is the food we eat and the books we read. Of course, there is more complexity to it than that, but the statement makes a good point. Just as we take care to fill our bodies with nutritional food so that they grow and remain strong and healthy, so we should take care to fill our minds and hearts with good reading material so that they become strong and sound and wholesome. At an average rate of only five books per year, that is a pretty meager diet. Therefore, it is very important how we pick the books that we read.

Books should be true. They should affect us for good. They should be well-written so that we will not lay them down too soon.

Such a book is Pilgrims: Then and Now, by Gary Marks. And as a bonus, it’s extremely short and readable! It can be read in a sitting or two, and it will be well worth the little time it takes.

Gary Marks was the long-time pastor of the Church of the Pilgrimage, the same congregation descended from that Pilgrim congregation in the days of John Robinson and William Brewster. He was a recognized expert on the history of Plymouth Colony. As the pastor of the Pilgrim church himself, he studied extensively the life and writings of the Pilgrims’ pastor, John Robinson, and his own writing and teaching bear many similarities to Robinson’s. Marks had a pastor’s heart, with a love for God’s people, a steadfast loyalty to God’s Word, and a desire to see others come to love and obey the same Lord that he loved.

He has helped us well toward this end by writing this short, honest, and readable account of the Pilgrim colony.

He describes Plymouth Colony in a unique way, not telling the same story we have heard over and over. Rather, through his thorough research and acquaintance with the whole background of the Pilgrims and their pastor, and their historical and theological context, he tells the story through the framework in which they thought of it.

He identifies and communicates to us a concept that was natural and almost subconscious to them, but is foreign to many today – the covenantal nature of all of life. God is supreme, and by covenant – that is, by solemn, sacred, and formal promise – they pledged to follow God’s Word in all of life, both in their relation to Him and also in their relation to each other. God and His Word were central in all aspects of their lives together – civil, legal, social, ecclesiastical, etc.

As Gary Marks once explained: “The Pilgrims didn’t merely acknowledge the covenant but ‘owned’ it, made it internal and a primary aspect of their lives. There are instances in which some asked to renew the covenant on their deathbeds. The covenant is the link to the holy while we dwell upon this earth.”

In a remarkably brief yet thorough and insightful sketch, Gary Marks sets the Pilgrims in this context, tracing them from their earliest days, walking with them through their struggles, and honoring their successes. From their record he draws cogent implications for the present and future. His depth of scholarship is seen in his thorough familiarity with the subject – such that he can condense it down to the most pertinent points and communicate a large span of history and its whole framework of thought in a concise, easily absorbed package.

By recording the Pilgrim struggles, their heartaches, and their triumphs, overarched by their comprehensive covenant with God, he does us a good service. Life is made of this stuff, and we would be drowned by it all were it not for some solid anchor. Gary Marks shows us what that anchor must be – for personal life and for life in a church assembly or a civil society. That anchor must be nothing less than the sure and enduring Word of God.

In his account, Gary Marks captures the Pilgrims’ soul with all its force and impulse. He pulls us into the stream of their lives until we are there, standing on the railing of the Mayflower, with the salty wind driving us onward with this noble band. He shows us how the covenant shaped them and prodded them to take each new step. He shows us how to build on the same foundation and face our own daunting challenges, our own contrary winds, turbulent waters, unknown fears, and daily hardships. For us today, he draws careful application from Pilgrims “then” for Pilgrims “now.”

By Gary Huffman (PRF Council of Advisors) and Mary Huffman (PRF Board Secretary)

Have we as a country ever been more confused about our historical and theological foundations than we are today?

Men and women bow down to the state as though it were its own foundation and itself a god. We look to pagan civilizations, to worldly wisdom, to ancient platitudes – seeking vainly to grasp some ever-fleeting sense of meaning in our country’s culture and legal structure.

Where did we get our current legal system that has functioned so well for over two centuries? Did it evolve slowly over time? Did we get it from other cultures and civilizations? Did we invent it ourselves?

John Eidsmoe joins us in the search. In his three-volume set, Historical and Theological Foundations of Law, he reviews our own history, and he reviews ancient civilizations and their law codes. In this survey, the true foundation emerges. He discovers the Hebrew Bible in its unique, exalted place in all the world. In studying ancient civilizations and their legal codes and structures, it becomes clear that the Bible, the only law code written by the hand of God, has been disseminated throughout the world; wherever it is known and followed, there is blessing and prosperity, but where it is disregarded, there is decay and corruption.

Exodus chapter 20 is the entire law in 10 short statements: the Ten Commandments. These are followed by applications in the succeeding chapters of Exodus.

John Eidsmoe believes that this God-given law was known by ancient civilizations and can be seen, though often in corrupted form, in many of their laws and records. He sees this giving of the law in Exodus as the foundation for all of law – the foundation for all of our historical and theological roots.

Throughout history, much of the evidence for this can be traced, which John Eidsmoe does in this three-volume set. Why does the Chinese character for “boat” consist of the three symbols for “vessel,” “eight,” and “soul?” Does that sound like the eight souls saved on the vessel of the ark? Why do all cultures have flood legends? Why do some cultures tell stories of deities coming down to a mountain to give law? Do these sound like echoes from the Pentateuch, the law of God?

What about other references to God’s law that are more explicit? Alfred the Great based his law code on Exodus chapter 20 through 23. In the 17th century, the Pilgrims wrote their laws based on the text of the Bible.

John Eidsmoe submits that whether consciously or subconsciously, ancient civilizations have written or orally transmitted their legal systems based on this law in Exodus. He cites many exciting and intriguing examples, involving ancient laws and stories that bear striking similarity to those in the Pentateuch. He also shows the perfection and supremacy of God’s law. The closer a culture is to adherence to it, the greater the prosperity and blessing on that country. The further it strays from that law, the more corruption and decay.

Even in modern times, as corrupt and confused as our culture is today, the Ten Commandments and Biblical law are still often a subconscious foundation and are called upon to guide men and their moral activities. John Eidsmoe goes through all of this, showing how even recent court cases draw upon the Ten Commandments as their rational basis. We have strayed far as a country, but there are still a few lingering evidences of our original foundation.

Every deed is either lawful or unlawful, and all laws follow someone’s morals. As secular as many in leadership want to make out law to be today, the truth is – all laws are religious and moral, even those that try to be neutral. The only question is: whose morals are they following? Are they the morals God has given in His Word to guide and bless us, the morals upon which we were founded? Or are they “morals” that are man-made and diametrically opposed to all that God says? Oh, how we ought to be in submission to the God who established the perfect, most enduring law code of all time, enshrined in His Word the Bible – the only foundation of true blessing and prosperity.

John Eidsmoe assists us greatly in these considerations and in our moral endeavors by providing us the history, the theology, and the foundation of all right law, the Law of God. He confronts the swirling confusion and corruption of our day, and calls us to return to the purity and simplicity of the Bible.

By Gary Huffman (PRF Council of Advisors) and Mary Huffman (PRF Board Secretary)

Does the world seem to abound with distressing events and with unrestrained perversion and corruption? Is this a new thing?

2,000 years ago, Paul wrote: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21).

These problems are not new. They have been around as long as sin has been in the world. We often tend to idolize the days past and to speak of the “good ol’ days.” While there have been ages and regions of more and less decay, often the times we think of as the “good ol’ days” were in reality times of great distress and corruption, the “good” being forged out of fire, not borne of celestial breezes.

Such was the case in the days of the Pilgrims. On the throne was a pervert and tyrant. Moral debauchery, political treachery, and cultural decay abounded. Yet it was in this very environment that the Godly men and women we call Pilgrims were raised up. They did not let the sin of the day discourage or paralyze them. They met it head-on and warred against it with pulpit, pen, prayer, and personal piety. When they were driven out of their homes, through prison, threats, and persecution, they despaired not, but trusted the Lord to open a way for them to live lives of holiness even in the face of the most daunting challenges.

This is the context of the Pilgrim story – not some idyllic caricature in which a happy band sailed smoothly across untroubled waters, met a smiling Indian, held a feast, and lived happily ever after; rather, it was an intense struggle for Biblical fidelity against all odds to the contrary.

To see the reality of the struggle and the true story of the Pilgrims, the single best source is the classic by Governor William Bradford himself, Of Plymouth Plantation – a firsthand account of the daily life and unfolding events of the Pilgrim endeavor.

William Bradford was for many years the governor of the colony. He writes a very vivid and personal account of their struggles, their ambitions, their lofty desires, and the real-life experience of grit in their teeth and sickness and sorrow. He does not forget to record their triumphs and their gratitude. He gives the whole context by beginning with the Pilgrims’ origin in England and the Netherlands, continuing through their voyage on the Mayflower, their landing at Plymouth, the severe trial of the first winter, and the early years of the colony.

William Bradford shows how the Pilgrims dealt charitably with the “strangers,” sometimes as sin-laden as the culture they had left behind. He shows the peace that was arranged with the Wampanoag sachem, Massasoit, another challenge of interacting with a sin-corrupted culture. He shows how the Pilgrim leadership kept their eye on the goal, creating a culture that was beneficial to the coming generations.

Current historian Caleb Johnson has given us a good edition of this book. He fills it with his own commentary which comes when it is needed. These comments are very crisp, necessary, helpful, timely, and insightful.

Caleb Johnson also includes an excellent set of appendices, which includes lists of men who were in the venture as well as the original source documents, which are both scholarly and wonderfully helpful.

Johnson shows how deeds were negotiated, how conflicts were settled, and how daily life was arranged.

Some of the lesser-known Pilgrims might be nothing but names to us. Johnson provides short biographical notes that bring these real men, women, and children to life.

The Pilgrims came to the New World to place steppingstones for us. But to follow in their footsteps, we need to know their true history. Governor William Bradford gave us their history as he wrote this account firsthand while he lived it. Now Caleb Johnson, by editing Bradford’s book and providing wonderful notes, helps us to make the next step in the right direction, and to teach us by the Pilgrim example how we, too, may face a culture of decay not with a defeatist outlook but with triumph and confidence – though it may be costly.

If you have only one Pilgrim book in your library, this should be it: Of Plymouth Plantation, written by William Bradford and edited by Caleb Johnson.

By Gary Huffman (PRF Council of Advisors) and Mary Huffman (PRF Board Secretary)

A post on social media goes viral. Government officials suppress it. Sound like a modern problem?

This battle, raging today in the realm of electronic information, is as old as time itself. Since men have been able to publish their thoughts, the war of ideas and of who gets to control and shape those ideas has been raging.

The story of the Pilgrims reads like a current battle over words and ideas, as king and subjects duked it out over whose voice would be heard in the great debates of the day.

One such publisher of “viral” books was the Pilgrim Edward Winslow. It takes men of great understanding and great courage to articulate hard truths against a tide of opposition. Edward Winslow was one such man. He was well-educated and highly regarded in his youth. His future seemed bright in his native England, but the future of comfort he gave up by a series of wise but sacrificial decisions.

His printing skill he had in common with another, William Brewster, who also shared his Separatist convictions, seeking to separate from the corruptions of the Church of England. Together and individually, they printed tracts exalting Christ and His supremacy in the church, and casting shadows over high church religion and the king’s headship over Christ’s church.

Particularly inflammatory was the book Perth Assembly. This book argued against The Five Articles of Perth, which sought to impose episcopal polity and worship on the Church of Scotland while also imposing the king as head of the church and extra-Biblical ceremonies in worship.

James I of England sided with the general assembly in Perth in imposing episcopacy on Scotland. The opposition expressed in Perth Assembly brought the king’s ire down upon the Separatists in general and upon the spreaders of this material (Brewster and Winslow) in particular.

But they remained steadfast. They had already moved from Scrooby, England to Leiden in the Lowlands. But the long reach of the church made them fugitives even in their own homes. By necessity now, the Separatists sought a place where they could practice their religion in truth and simplicity, without men’s impositions and usurpations.

Winslow and his brother Gilbert were among those who settled upon a voyage to the northern parts of Virginia. When Providence steered their course north of Virginia, Edward Winslow, William Bradford, John Carver, and William Brewster took leadership roles in asserting the need for a covenant among themselves and with others of the strangers that made the voyage. They called this covenant The Mayflower Compact. They considered it binding upon all who signed it, and regarded it as an instrument of government among them.

The difficulties of the first winter were immense. Winslow survived, but his wife did not. Later that year, he remarried the recently widowed Susanna White. Continuing as he had done this far, his family became one of the most important families in Plimoth Colony and in shaping history since then.

Because of his skill and courage, Edward Winslow became the negotiator with the Wampanoag tribe and a friend to their sachem (chief), Massasoit. He also negotiated trade relations, especially in the north around the Kennebec River. There he had to deal with the native population, the French, the Dutch, and all who plied the waters of that region.

Several times, Winslow was called upon to return to England to negotiate the terms of their compact with the merchant adventurers who had originally invested in the colony, and with businessmen who continued to support the colony. When in Plimoth, he was usually Assistant to the Governor. He himself served three terms as Governor, too.

In the course of time, all of his brothers came to the New World and took up posts of importance and influence. His sons, too, became important leaders in the second generation of the Pilgrims.

In English affairs, he sided with the Protestants and the Parliamentarians against King James’s successor, Charles I, in the English Civil War. This brought him a close friendship with Oliver Cromwell during the Commonwealth, when Cromwell was Lord Protector of England. It was during this time that Winslow became de facto ambassador for Cromwell in settling relations both on the continent and then in the New World.

Perhaps the most significant contribution that Edward Winslow made to future generations was a piece of writing that he accomplished in the early years of Plimoth Colony called Good Newes from New England. Declaring God’s mighty power to sustain His people in this overwhelming undertaking, Winslow wrote this short book to preempt any disappointment in England or on the continent among those whose prayers the Pilgrims desperately needed and upon whose business relationship they depended – whose withdrawal of support could mean disaster for the fledgling colony.

This book, so effective in its day, has survived until now against the opposition of kings and detractors. If you want to know the Pilgrims, if you want to hear from one of their leaders in his own bold and fresh words contrary to what kings and officials might say, if you want to read how they faced similar struggles to ours and how God blessed and prospered them in the face of daunting odds and overwhelming challenges, then to you, may Good Newes from New England be, indeed, good news.