A Model of Christian Charity | John Winthrop

Plot summary

A sermon delivered by Winthrop as he and his fellow Puritan settlers were sailing to the New World to set up the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. It shows the sense of divine mission that motivated the Puritans to come to the New World.

Author and Date

• John Winthrop
• Born in Groton, England, in 1587
• Educated at Cambridge University
• Became a lawyer and then a justice of the peace by age 18
• Age 24 (in 1616): “I desire to make it one of my chief [goals] to have that grace to be poor on spirit.”
• Chosen to lead a group of Puritans to come to the New World
• Another Moses (Cotton Mather)?
• Sold his estate and came to Masachusetts Bay Colony in 1630
• Governed with moderation
• Force in MBC politics until death in 1649
• Written in 1630 aboard Arabella as ship was heading to New World

Historical Background

• Winthrop was a part of the Puritan leadership
• Wanted a NT form of church worship restored
• Did not want to separate from C of E
• As the movement got older (1620 onward), it began to attract a cross-section of English society
• Attracted some of most brilliant men of the age
• Unlike Separatists, Puritans do not give up everything to follow Jesus
• Not quite as hated as the Separatists, but still disliked by C of E leadership
• In 1625, Charles II becomes king of England after James I (1602-1625), who was a bit more tolerant of the Puritans (although not tolerant enough for William Bradford and the Separatists)
• In 1628, William Laud named Archbishop of Canterbury by King Charles II

- Gives king list of English clergy: O-Orthodox; P-Puritan

- Puritans (Ps) maked for suppression

• Now seems impossible to reform C of E from within
• Dilemma: Become Separatists or what??
• Solution: Reform C of E from America!
• Still loyal to C of E but all the way across the ocean
• Could in a few years show C of E what a reformed church would look like
• Puritans see the situation as proof of God’s providence at work
• Less than a week after king signs MBC charter, which had already moved through Parliament, he dissolved Parliament and scrutinized every document much more closely
• Would never have okayed it at this point
• Puritans actually come to power just over ten years later, in 1642, in the Glorious Revolution and leadership of Oliver Cronwell
• King Charles II executed in 1649
• Winthrop not sure whether he should go the New World
• Draws up list of pros and cons
• Decides that it was God’s will for him to go
• Elected governor
• Arabella sails in March 1630
• Many Cambridge-educated
• First sight of land in New World was fir-covered hills of Maine and stared at pine trees bigger than any he’d ever seen before, coming right down to the edge of the water
• Sails down the coast to Salem
• Over 1000 settlers, too much for Salem to absorb
• Moved to Boston three months after Arabella lands
• His son, Henry, who he had brought with him to the New World to “fix his wagon,” drowned in a fishing incident
• Agrees with Bradford and other Purtians that God made a covenant with them
• Warning: “If we shall negelect the observation of these articles…the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, be revenged of such a perjured people, and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.”
• Subsequent American history will indicate whether God is displeased or not

Themes/Observations

- keenly expresses America’s sense of destiny, a theme to be picked up again and again in American history (e.g., western expansion)

- can God enter into covenant with nations?

- captures the notion of covenant love

-discusses nature of a man’s love for his neighbor – what it could and should be

- shows the heart of a man square in the center of God’s will

- what it means to surrender to God