John Winthrop

1588-1649

Life

Homes

England (1588-1630)
Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630-1649)

Occupation

lawyer
governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony

Religion

Puritan

Chronology

1588: born in Groton, England
1629: elected governor of Massachusetts Bay Company
1630: delivers A Model of Christian Charity on Arbella
1630: arrives in New England
1637: "A Defense of an Order of Court Made in the Year 1637"
1637: "John Winthrop's Christian Experience"

Issues and themes

After William Bradford and his Separatist Puritans left England around 1609 and later sailed to America in 1620, many English Puritans continued to believe that they could reform the Church of England, which they believed was corrupt. In 1630, however, about 700 of these Puritans, led by John Winthrop, followed Bradford's example and traveled to America, where they set up the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Puritan scholars have suggested various reasons for this exodus. Perry Miller has argued that Winthrop and other Puritans saw their project as an "errand into the wilderness" and believed they could reform Christianity by setting up a model of God's kingdom in America. Other scholars, notably Andrew Delbanco, have suggested that many of the Puritans who migrated in the 1630s had other goals; some, for example, apparently were fleeing the corrupt morality of England.

InThe Model of Christian Charity, Winthrop uses tenets of Christianity and his own sense of reason to write a political sermon designed to prepare the Puritans for their difficult project in America. This public work not only explains the Puritans' belief in a covenant with God, but shows the pragmatism that helped early settlers survive in the wilderness. What is more, this work foreshadows other American writers' interest in community, as Delbanco has noted: "His Arabella sermon is the first great communitarian statement in American literature-a 'pre-libation,' as the Puritans would have called it, of Edwards, of Melville, of Whitman in their hortatory modes. And it shares with such successors the fact of its fleetingness, which is why it is the best measure of how quickly and how far the Puritan aspiration fell" (74). Of course, the very fact that Winthrop made this statement may be read as a sign that he expected disunity; one is more likely to plead for love and cooperation among a divided people than among an already unified group.

Winthrop's journal, which he composed in the 1630s and 1640s, also reveals details of Puritan politics and theology, particularly in its treatment of the dissenters Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams. Finally, "John Winthrop's Christian Experience" belongs to the class of Puritan introspective writing, a genre later used by Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards.

Work

A Model of Christian Charity

Delivered as a sermon in 1630 aboard the Arbella
Publication: 1838
Why, according to Winthrop's sermon, does civilization have classes? Why do you suppose Winthrop chooses to justify this condition as the Puritans are heading to America? The introduction to this period in The Norton Anthology of American Literature contrasts the sentiments expressed here with those of a century and a half later. Why had ideas about class changed so dramatically in a century and a half?
What analogy does Winthrop use to emphasize the need for the Puritans in American to love and support one another. How does he develop this analogy? Do you find it effective? Why or why not? Why is love even more important to this group of people than it is to others?
In what ways is this piece of writing a sermon? In what ways is it a political essay?
Analyze this passage: "In such cases as this, the care of the public must oversway all private respects, by which, not only conscience, but mere civil policy, doth bind us" (110).
Winthrop writes: "We must not look only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren, neither must we think that the Lord will bear with such failings at our hands as he doth from those among whom we have lived; and that for three reasons" (110). What are the three reasons?
What does Winthrop mean when he says that these Puritans have a "covenant" with God?
The most famous passage from this sermon is this one: "For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill" (111). What does Winthrop mean? What implications does this statement have for the Puritan project?

Bibliography

Delbanco, Andrew. The Puritan Ordeal. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989.
"John Winthrop." Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. 100-101.
Miller, Perry. Errand into the Wilderness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956.
Winthrop, John. A Model of Christian Charity. Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. 101-112.

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