John Winthrop

JOHN WINTHROP

(1588-1649)

Father = lawyer
born in Groton, England
estate = purchased from Henry VIII
prosperous farm
JW = advantaged
$$$
member of the gentry class
Cambridge University
exposed to PURITAN ideas
Puritan grievances with COE:
anything Papal, Roman
esp. hierarchy of clergy
traditional Catholic rituals
change from within
not Separatists (like Pilgrims)
17: married
4 wives
16 children
lawyer
thought to be priest
served as Justice of the Peace
obtained a government office
attorney at Court of Wards & Liveries (1627-29)
country squire at Groton for 20 years
1620s:
economic Depression (couldn’t rely on Daddy’s money)
Charles I = anti-Puritan, pro-RC papacy
strong influences on Charles –
wife = French princess of RC king, Henry 4
Bishop Wm. Laud (Bishop of London, soon Archbishop of Canterbury) = anti-Puritan, saw them as schismatic threat
JW would have lost ALL if openly expressed Puritanism
had lost government office in 1629
 AMERICA
March 1629:
“The Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England”
merchants (ardent Puritans)
received charter from Council for New England
guise of business – not religious – venture
sold his English estate & took his family
October 1629:
JW = elected governor
1629-49
elected 12 x, 1631-48
April 8, 1630:
700 emigrants
on Arbella
350-ton flagship of the flotilla
named for Lady Arbella, wife of Isaac Johnson, the highest-born person in the group
farm on Mystic River in Boston
?:
petty tyrant
father figure
steward of MBC orthodoxy, crush all threats (Anne Hutchinson)
sanctimony (AH’s banishment, excommunication, misfortunes & death)
against the Puritan Civil War, 1642+

“MODEL of CHRISTIAN CHARITY”
sermon
delivered either just before departure or upon the seas
ideals of harmonious Christian community
perfectly selfless community
reminder: this = Christian enterprise
reminder that they’re an EXAMPLE to the rest of the world
ex. of failure or success
original manuscript = lost
copy made during JW’s lifetime
Mass. Historical Society published in 1838
Cotton Mather @ John Winthrop:
JW = perfect earthly ruler

dream = impossible to realize **********
Bradford, Winthrop
Columbus, de las Casas
“could have been”

“MODEL of CHRISTIAN CHARITY”

1630, 1838

A Model Hereof

God has ordered humans
some = rich, some = poor
inequality

The Reason Hereof

reasons for inequality in human society –

to conform w/structure of the rest of creation
“ordering” in animal kingdom
better for Man to dispense His gifts than Him
to manifest His spirit
restraining the wicked
so rich won’t eat poor, nor the poor revolt against the rich
moderate the regenerate, in their love, mercy, temperance, faith, patience, obedience,…
to ensure each needs each
community
“that every man might have need of other”
“brotherly affection”
no man is inherently better than another except for God
– God makes the rich rich, the poor poor

2 RULES:
(1) JUSTICE
(2) MERCY

LAW of NATURE
moral law
love thy neighbor
do unto others

LAW of GRACE
law of the Gospel
differences between Nature & Grace
nature:
state of innocence
men = equal, image of God “brothers in Christ”
puts difference between Christians & non-Christians
grace:
state of regeneracy
love thy enemies
love beyond your abilities
don’t ignore & hope for a miracle – do something!

Q&A:
1) giving
“measure”
give what “God hath blessed him”
objection: “worse than infidel” if don’t provide for family
answer: meant for sloth & voluptuousness
objection: store, “foresee the plague”
answer: when you give to the poor, you lend to the Lord, & the Lord will repay him
materialism
2) lending
if they need it & can’t repay, give & don’t expect return
if they need & can repay, give & expect return as in business
commerce = justice
3) forgiving
forgiveness of debt
after 7 yrs.
4)
socialism, communism
“all things in common”
MERCY:
can’t force conversion
“the way to draw men to works of mercy, is not by force of argument from goodness or necessity of the work”
love
LOVE
“‘Love is the bond of perfection.’”
Love = bond, ligament….knitting together theBODY of Christ
BODY of CHRIST:
we = all 1 body in Christ
help each other
community
a habit of the heart
“native desire”
until it becomes a habit
not the brain, reason
but heart, emotion
“to strengthen, defend, preserve, & comfort the other”
Jesus = model
lay down your lives for each other –
“yielded Himself to death to ease the infirmities of the rest of His body”
total obedience to God the Father & became one of this Body
apostles
saints & martyrs
ORIGINAL SIN
Adam:
the Fall of Man
 broke apart the 1 Body
selfish, greed, materialism
Christ:
reunited Body
return of the soul
united w/Love
SOUL
love = from the soul
soul = returned to the 1 Body
no Christian = no soul
like will to like:
“simile simili gaudet” (similis simili gaudet)
like takes pleasure in like
Soul = attracted to Soul
 so members of the Body = are attracted to each other
love, help, defend each other
flesh of my flesh
selflessness
love = always requited (not like human unrequited love)
soul’s pleasure = finding its mate (soul mate)
conclusions a love:
real, not imaginary
necessary – joins Body
divine – makes us resemble God = “in His “image”
continual exercise – use it or lose it (prayer, meditation)

why I wrote it
persons
“knit together in this bond of love”
work
what we’ll need to do
“by mutual consent”
community, convent
to seek out a place of cohabitation
“cohabitation” = living together – community
civil & ecclesiastical government
bound by conscience
bound by civil policy
end
goals =
to improve our lives to do more service to the Lord (do God’s work)
to comfort & increase of the Body of Christ (conversion)
to preserve us & posterity from corruptions of the world (saints in sinful world)
to work out our salvations under God’s ordinances (live by His rules)
means
means to those ends
love brotherly w/o dissimulation, subterfuge, dishonesty
love one another w/pure heart fervently
bear each other’s burdens
Lord = won’t tolerate such failings
this = a marriage  more jealous of our love & obedience
He = sanctified in those that come near Him
When God makes a deal, He expects “strictly observed in every article
CONTRACT:
God: safe passage to America, MBC
Puritans: live by His laws & , 1 Body,
What’s at stake:
breach of contract (“breach of such a covenant”)
= materialism, don’t strictly perform His rules
reward =
God’s blessing if -
community
“together” x5
punishment =
God’s displeasure, lack of favor
ruin
death
2nd FALL of MAN ****
reasonable assumption
b/c of what happened the last time a human broke a contract w/God
sin & death entered the world
like OLD TESTAMENT:
see more of God’s wisdom
God = “among us” (like Eden, like God of Israel)
God will be on our side against enemies
God will make us/our plantation the praise & glory of world
*“we shall be a city upon a hill”*
Mt. 5.14-15
eyes of the world = on us –what’s at stake
if we fail
reflects badly upon God – power for His enemies
the word “Puritan” will be a bad word, bad association
shame

THEMES:

covenant
contract
breach of
expectations for both sides
community
we’re in this together
Body in Christ
selflessness
Love
Mercy
Scriptures = #1, authority, examples
true role models =
God, Jesus, saints, bible
examples
God, Jesus
Bible
Puritans
History =
process, working out of God’s plan
Old Testament- Puritans
Logic
reasons
examples
irony:
says that reach people by EMOTION
yet proves by LOGIC
dream = impossible to realize **********
Bradford, Winthrop
Columbus, de las Casas
“could have been”

Questions for Discussion

How does the text of John Winthrop's Model of Christian Charity follow the process of the American Jeremiad? Does Winthrop emphasize one component over the others?
The Puritan community seemed to thrive on a constant state of peril. Can you think of modern examples in which threat is necessary to sustain public life?
How is the Puritan rhetoric of love different than our contemporary concept of love? Which one seems preferable to you?
What are some recent examples in which the notion of America as a city on a hill has entered public dialogue?

Britannica encl.:

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we're on a mission from God

“JOURNAL”

1630-49, 1825
mouse vs. snake
mouse = Christians
snake = Satan, evil
mouse wins =moral for them to persist in fight against evil
Anne Hutchinson
1591-1643
follower of John Cotton
extreme positions –
elect = superior to others, b/c of personal union w/God
denied that good works = sign of God’s favor
justification = by faith alone
nothing to do w/piety or worldly success
faith vs. works
other “errors:
proper moral conduct doesn’t = sign of justification
no sanctification = evidence of justification
had revelations (that she’d be punished by Puritans, that God would punish them)
soul
was mortal (fall)
now immortal (Christ)
no resurrection of the body
get another body
no inherent righteousness
swaying others to her side
(false sheep – false prophet)
court
“lecture” “general session”
read charges
plead
try to reason w/her – bring her around
banished
but since the winter  house arrest at another’s house
75 followers = “disarmed” – severe punishment
banished #2
by end of the month
house arrest, own house, while wait
“manifest evil”
back to England
she glorified in her sufferings
she & hers tried to buy land in Plymouth
Pilgrims denied her
heard @ her errors
bought land from Indians (Narragansett)
Rhode Island
has a “child”
“monstrous birth”
6 weeks premature
came out “confusedly knit together”
27 “globes” & lumps
= symbol of God’s displeasure
= symbol of her corruption of God’s natural truth
Earthquake where she & others = praying = God’s displeasure
death by Indians
moved to Dutch territory
Bronx, NY
killed her & 16 others
drove cattle into house & burned it
her daughter =
taken by Indians (8)
returned after peace (12)
to Puritans, but had forgotten language
didn’t want to be there, wanted to stay w/Indians
sanctimony???
reveling in her misfortune, deformed stillborn
happy in her murder

she =
false prophet
corruption of God’s rules, laws
heretic
symbol of all heresy of the bible, stray from the Bible
symbol of Roman Catholic Church, Church of England (?)
and what happens to them, what they produce
Puritans =
kind –
didn’t banish her in winter
tried to reason w/her, bring her back into the fold
just –
by Biblical law
hold like a court
reasonable –
tried to reason w/her, get her to see the “error” of her ways
how to deal w/heresy
Anne Hutchinson - Hutchinson's beliefs in Arminianism and Antinomianism and her weekly study sessions where she taught those beliefs to dozens of Bostonians touched off the greatest showdown between civil and religious authority in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Henry Vane- Supporter of Anne Hutchinson and governor in 1636, as a replacement for Winthrop.
Antinomianism -·A belief in Massachusetts Bay supported by Anne Hutchinson, which held that when God intervened to save someone that person became possessed by the Holy Spirit and therefore ceased to operate of his or her own free will.
Arminianism -·The belief that a person could choose his or her destiny–therefore in direct opposition to the Puritan belief of predestination.