1608–1620

English Separatists: Holland, the first Baptist church and the Mayflower (1608–1620)

Shelley: soon after Hampton Court some Puritans refused to wait for change in the Church of England and began to hold services “in the biblical spirit”; they are called Separatists because they intended to form a separate Church. In 1608 the congregations of Scrooby and Gainsborough moved to Holland: the first settled in Leiden, the second in Amsterdam. From the Leiden group came the Pilgrim Fathers, who sailed on the Mayflower in 1620, and from the Amsterdam group – in Shelley’s account – the first Baptist church (1609).

Key points

• Shelley: most Puritans thought separation from the Church of England too drastic, but after Hampton Court groups began worshipping “in the biblical spirit”. In 1608 the Scrooby and Gainsborough groups moved to Holland for safety and freedom of worship: the first to Leiden, the second to Amsterdam. After ten years in Holland the Scrooby group of pastor John Robinson saw their children forgetting their homeland and language; in September 1620 about a hundred pilgrims sailed from Plymouth on the Mayflower and in November landed where Plymouth, Massachusetts now stands. First Baptist Church: in 1609 Smith baptized himself and then forty congregants; the “Anabaptist” influence remains an open question
• First Baptist Church: John Smith, studying the Greek New Testament, found no infant baptism and made confession of faith the basis of the church

People

• John Robinson
• John Smyth

Place

Scrooby, Leiden, Amsterdam, Plymouth