Page 13 - Heavenly Signs III by Mel Gable

11

CHAPTER 2: PRESENCE OF GOD – 1620

The Mayflower Compact was a written agreement composed by a consensus of the new settlers arriving at New

Plymouth in November 1620. They traveled across the ocean on the ship named the Mayflower which became
anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Mayflower Compact was
drawn up with fair and equal laws and for the general good of the settlement. It was decided that the Compact
should reflect the will of the majority. The Mayflower’s passengers knew that the New World’s earlier settlers
failed due to a lack of government. They hashed out the content and eventually composed the Compact for the
sake of their own survival in the “Presence of God.” The adult male members on the Mayflower signed the
Compact. Being the first written laws for the new land, the Compact determined authority within the settlement
and was used and observed until 1691. This established that the colony was to be free of English law. It was
10
devised to set up a government from within themselves and was written by those to be governed.

Mayflower Pilgrims

The original document is said to have been lost, but the writings of William Bradford’s journal Of Plymouth
Plantation and in Edward Winslow’s Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Both documents are in
10
agreement and accepted as accurate. The Mayflower Compact reads as a covenant in the “Presence of God.”

Mayflower Compact:

"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names
are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread
Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God,
of England, France and Ireland, King, Defender
of the Faith, & Having undertaken for the Glory
of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith,
and the Honour 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 ourselves
together into a civil Body Politick, 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 hereunto
subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleventh
of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord,
King James of England, France and Ireland, the
eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno
Domini, 1620."
Bradford's transcription of the Mayflower Compact (1646)