City on a Hill
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Last Revised November 2003
Spendlove Genealogy
The New England colonies have often
been called "Bible Commonwealths" because they sought the guidance of the
scriptures in regulating all aspects of the lives of their citizens." *1
"Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the
United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and
women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise passionately
held religious convictions and fled Europe. The New England colonies, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were conceived and established "as plantations
of religion.".... They enthusiastically supported the efforts of their leaders
to create "a city on a hill" or a "holy experiment," whose success would
prove that God's plan for his churches could be successfully realized in
the American wilderness....
"Puritans were English Protestants who wished to reform and purify the Church
of England of what they considered to be unacceptable residues of Roman Catholicism.
In the 1620s leaders of the English state and church grew increasingly unsympathetic
to Puritan demands. They insisted that the Puritans conform to religious
practices that they abhorred, removing their ministers from office and threatening
them with "extirpation from the earth" if they did not fall in line. Zealous
Puritan laymen received savage punishments. For example, in 1630 a man was
sentenced to life imprisonment, had his property confiscated, his nose slit,
an ear cut off, and his forehead branded "S.S." (sower of sedition).
On the occasion of the Church's centennial in 1930, the First Presidency declared:
"It was not by chance that the Puritans left their native land and sailed
away to the shores of New England, and that others followed later. They were
the advance guard of the army of the Lord, [foreordained] to establish the
God-given system of government under which we live … and prepare the way
for the restoration of the Gospel of Christ." 21
Beginning in 1630 as many as 20,000 Puritans emigrated to America from England
to gain the liberty to worship God as they chose. Most settled in New England,
but some went as far as the West Indies. Theologically, the Puritans were
"non-separating Congregationalists." Unlike the Pilgrims, who came to Massachusetts
in 1620, the Puritans believed that the Church of England was a true church,
though in need of major reforms. Every New England Congregational church
was considered an independent entity, beholden to no hierarchy. The membership
was composed, at least initially, of men and women who had undergone a conversion
experience and could prove it to other members. Puritan leaders hoped (futilely,
as it turned out) that, once their experiment was successful, England would
imitate it by instituting a church order modeled after the New England Way.
" *1
1. LC Information Bulletin. (May 1998).
Faith of Our Forefathers Religion and the Founding of the American Republic.
LC Exhibition on Religion and the Founding of the American Republic. [On-line].
Available:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9805/religion.html
21 Quoted in James R. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (1965-75), 5:279-280.