Pastoral Encouragement to Mayflower Pilgrims

John Robinson was the pastor to the Mayflower pilgrims. He wrote a letter of 5 encouragements to fuel their spirts as they embarked on their voyage to the New World. All 5 are as relevant today as they were in 1620.

1. KEEP SHORT ACCOUNTS WITH GOD. The man whose “sin being taken away by earnest repentance and the pardon thereof from the Lord, sealed up unto a man's conscience by His Spirit, great shall be his security and peace in all dangers, sweet his comforts in all distresses, with happy deliverance from all evil, whether in ‘life’ or in death.”

2. DON’T BE EASILY OFFENDED BY MEN. “Watchfulness must be had that we neither at all in ourselves do give, no, nor easily take offense being given by others… in my own experience few or none have been found which sooner give offense than such as easily take it. Neither have they ever proved sound and profitable members in societies, which have nourished this touchy ‘demeanor’… your intended course of civil community will minister continual occasion of offense, and will be as fuel for that fire, except you diligently quench it with brotherly forbearance.”

3. DON’T BE OFFENDED BY GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY OVER YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES. “How much more heed is to be taken that we take not offense at God Himself, which yet we certainly do so oft as we do murmur at His providence in our crosses, or bear impatiently such afflictions as wherewith He pleaseth to visit us. Store up, therefore, patience against that evil day, without which we take offense at the Lord Himself in His holy and just works.”

4. PRIORITIZE AFFECTION FOR THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH. “A fourth thing there is carefully to be provided for, to wit, that with your common employments you join common affections truly bent upon the general good… as men are careful not to have a new house shaken with any violence before it be well settled and the parts firmly knit, so be you, I beseech you, brethren, much more careful that the house of God, which you are and are to be, be not shaken with unnecessary novelties or other oppositions at the first settling thereof.”

5. ESTABLISH CIVIL ORDER WITH GODLY LEADERS FOR THE GOOD OF ALL MEN. “Lastly, whereas you are become a body politic, using amongst yourselves civil government, and are not furnished with any persons of special eminency above the rest, to be chosen by you into office of government; let your wisdom and godliness appear, not only in choosing such persons as do entirely love and will promote the common good, but also in yielding unto them all due honor and obedience in their lawful administrations, not beholding in them the ordinariness of their persons, but God's ordinance for your good; not being like the foolish multitude who more honor the gay coat than either the virtuous mind of the man, or glorious ordinance of the Lord. But you know better things, and that the image of the Lord's power and authority which the magistrate beareth, is honorable...”