William Brewster (1567-April 1644) was a founder of the Plymouth Colony in New England. He helped lead the Separatist movement in England, 1606, allowing the nonconformists to meet for worship at his home in Scrooby, England. He escaped religious persecution by fleeing with the Separatists to Holland, 1608. There he taught at the University of Leiden, Holland, and published religious books which were banned in England. Sailing with the Pilgrims on the Mayflower, he signed of the Mayflower Compact, 1620. Elected a ruling elder of the Plymouth Colony, he performed a major role in the civil and religious affairs of the colony.
Governor William Bradford gave account of William Brewster's influence on the Separatist movement from its early beginnings:
<Mr. Brewster went and lived in the country...till the Lord revealed Himself further to him. In the end, the tyranny of the bishops against godly preachers and people, in silencing the former and persecuting the latter, caused him and many more to look further into things, and to realize the unlawfulness of their episcopal callings, and to feel the burden of their many antichristian corruptions, which both he and they endeavoured to throw off....
After they had joined themselves together in communion, as was mentioned earlier, he was a special help and support to them. On the Lord's day they generally met at his house, which was a manor of the bishop's, and he entertained them with great kindness when they came, providing for them at heavy expense to himself. He was the leader of those who were captured at Boston in Lincolnshire, suffering the greatest loss, and was one of the seven who were kept longest in prison and afterwards bound over to the assizes.
After he came to Holland he suffered much hardship, having spent most of his means....Towards the latter part of those twelve years spent in Holland, his circumstances improved...for through his knowledge of Latin he was able to teach many foreign students English. By his method they acquired it quickly and with great fluency, for he drew up rules to learn it by, after the manner of teaching Latin; and many gentlemen, both Danes and Germans, came to him, some of them being sons of distinguished men....
He labored in the fields as long as he was able; yet when the church had no other minister he taught twice every Sabbath, and that both powerfully and profitably, to the great edification and comfort of his hearers, many being brought to God by his ministry.> 1567WB001
In 1608, after the agreement to separate from the church of England, the Separatists of the Scrooby congregation covenanted together to form a church:
<They shook off the yoke of antichristian bondage, and as ye Lord's free people, joyned themselves (by a covenant of the Lord) into a church estate, in ye fellowship of ye Gospel, to walke in all his wayes, made known or to be made known unto them, according to their best endeavours, whatsoever it should cost them, the Lord assisting them.> 1567WB002
Dutch historian, Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs (Ph.D. Leiden, 1976), in his article, "1621: A Historian Looks Anew at Thanksgiving," gives insight into how Dutch history and culture influenced the Pilgrims' thanksgiving.
While in Leiden, Holland, the Pilgrims experienced the city's annual fall thanksgiving, which commemorated the lifting of Spain's siege of Leiden in 1574 where half the city's population had died of starvation. The Spanish Duke of Alba, called the "Iron Duke," was notorious for his "show no mercy" treatment of the other rebellious Dutch cities: Mons, Mechelen, Zutphen, Haarlem, Alkmaar, and Naarden, where every man, woman and child was massacred.
The Dutch citizens of Leiden knew if they surrendered they would be killed as an example for others not to rebel. With their will bolstered to resist, the Dutch broke the dikes allowing sea water to flood the Spanish troops, then rescuers came on flat boats bringing herring and white bread to the starving citizens.
William Brewster's friend, Jan Orlers, wrote of Leiden's Thanksgiving:
<Every year throughout the city a General Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving...held and celebrated on the Third of October, to thank and praise God Almighty that he so mercifully had saved the city from her enemies.> 1567WB003
On December 15, 1617, William Brewster and the congregation's pastor, John Robinson, wrote a letter from Leiden, Holland, to Sir Edwin Sandys, a London financier, in which they explained the Separatists' situation and plans:
<Knit together as a body in most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the lord, of the violation whereof we make great conscience, and by virtue whereof we so hold ourselves straitly tied to all care of each other's good, and of the whole by everyone and so mutually.> 1567WB004
In 1629, when a church was founded at Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, William Brewster made this comment:
<The church that had been brought over the ocean now saw another church, the first-born in America, holding the same faith in the same simplicity of self-government under Christ alone.> 1567WB005
In 1644, Governor William Bradford wrote of the death of Mr. William Brewster:
<About the 18th of April died their reverend elder, my dear and loving friend, Mr. William Brewster, a man who had done and suffered much for the Lord Jesus and the Gospel's sake, and had borne his part in the weal or woe with this poor persecuted Church for over thirty-five years in England, Holland, and this wilderness, and had done the Lord and them faithful service in his calling. Notwithstanding the many troubles and sorrows he passed through, the Lord upheld him to a great age.> 1567WB006
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1567WB001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). William Brewster, 1644, as described in William Bradford (Governor of Plymouth Colony), The History of Plymouth Plantation 1608-1650 (Boston, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856; Boston, Massachusetts: Wright and Potter Printing Company, 1898, from the original manuscript; rendered in Modern English, Harold Paget, 1909; NY: Russell and Russell, 1968; San Antonio, TX: American Heritage Classics, Mantle Ministries, 228 Still Ridge, Bulverde, Texas, 1988), pp. 314-319.
1567WB002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). William Brewster, as described in William Bradford (Governor of Plymouth Colony), The History of Plymouth Plantation 1608-1650 (Boston, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856; Boston, Massachusetts: Wright and Potter Printing Company, 1898, from the original manuscript; rendered in Modern English, Harold Paget, 1909; NY: Russell and Russell, 1968; San Antonio, TX: American Heritage Classics, Mantle Ministries, 228 Still Ridge, Bulverde, Texas, 1988), p. Verna M. Hall, The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America-christian Self-Government with Union (San Francisco: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1976), p. 185. Marshall Foster and Mary-Elaine Swanson, The American Covenant-The Untold Story (Roseburg, OR: Foundation for Christian Self-Government, 1981; Thousand Oaks, CA: The Mayflower Institute, 1983, 1992), p. 69. 1567WB003. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). William Brewster's friend, Jan Orlers, writing of Leiden's Thanksgiving.
1567WB004. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). William Brewster, December 15, 1617, in a letter written from William Brewster and the congregation's pastor, John Robinson, from Leyden (Holland) to Edwin Sandys, a London financier. William Bradford (Governor of Plymouth Colony), The History of Plymouth Plantation 1608-1650 (Boston, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856; Boston, Massachusetts: Wright and Potter Printing Company, 1898, 1901, from the Original Manuscript, Library of Congress Rare Book Collection, Washington, D.C.; rendered in Modern English, Harold Paget, 1909; NY: Russell and Russell, 1968; NY: Random House, Inc., Modern Library College edition, 1981; San Antonio, TX: American Heritage Classics, Mantle Ministries, 228 Still Ridge, Bulverde, Texas, 1988), pp. 34-35. Sacvan Bercovitch, ed., Typology and Early American Literature (Cambridge: University of Massachusetts Press, 1972), p. 104. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Glory of America (Bloomington, MN: Garborg's Heart 'N Home, 1991), 11.16.
1567WB005. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). William Brewster, 1629, comment after a church was founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Leonard Bacon, The Genesis of the New England Church (New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1874), p. 475. Marshall Foster and Mary-Elaine Swanson, The American Covenant-The Untold Story (Roseburg, OR: Foundation for Christian Self-Government, 1981; Thousand Oaks, CA: The Mayflower Institute, 1983, 1992), pp. 88-89.
1567WB006. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). William Brewster. 1644, Plymouth Governor William Bradford recounting the death of Mr. William Brewster, The History of Plymouth Plantation 1608-1650 (Boston, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856; Boston, Massachusetts: Wright and Potter Printing Company, 1898, from the original manuscript; rendered in Modern English, Harold Paget, 1909; NY: Russell and Russell, 1968; San Antonio, TX: American Heritage Classics, Mantle Ministries, 228 Still Ridge, Bulverde, Texas, 1988), p. 314.