Puritan Beliefs In John Winthrop's A City Set On A Hill

Winthrop’s use of imperative language here further solidifies the idea that he is not a zealous fanatic, but someone

Kenneth Lockridge, A New England Town: The First Hundred Years (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1970)

In the sermon “City upon a Hill”, Winthrop states that “We shall be as a city upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall (behave badly) and cause God to withdraw his help from us”, in this he is saying that as long as the

John Winthrop's dream was for the Massachusetts colony to be respected by the world for how its people give to others in need and for the relationships people in the community had with each other. The Pilgrims and Puritans came to america to practice their own religion. When the Pilgrims arrived in America; they were supposed to be in Virginia. A storm set them off course and they ended up in Cape Cod. The Pilgrims decided to call the area Plymouth, and because there was no government there; they created a new government known as the Mayflower Compact. When the Puritans came 10 years later with John Winthrop. He wanted to make a government that was based around God and one that would be a good example for other colonies to follow in the future.

When looking into the history of the puritans one can find many things, however while reading “City Upon a Hill” and “The Divine Right to Occupy the land” one may then come up with the idea of the puritans being selfish.

In John Winthrop’s essay “City Upon a Hill”, Winthrop expresses his distinct views on the aims of the Puritans coming to New England. During the early 17th century in Europe, some groups separated from the Church of England. These groups were known as the Pilgrims, who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. This religion had a direct impact on religious ideas and culture in America. John Winthrop acquired a royal charter from King Charles I and created the Massachusetts Bay Colony. “City Upon a Hill” was written on the ship during the first mass Puritan migration to New England. This document provided the followers with a plan regarding their goals upon arriving in America. Winthrop firmly believes that the people who are willing to be fully

Ø City Upon a Hill- The term “City Upon a Hill” was a significant term that was said by a Puritan governor named John Winthrop when 11 ships sailed from England to Massachusetts. All of these people were the example of rightful living in the New World and were guided by the belief of Predestination, where God had already decided their ultimate fate. Governor Winthrop stated that: "We shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us."

The Puritans led their lives according to a strict moral code, centered around religion, which they had followed and conformed to. In addition conformity, Puritans believed, was crucial to uniting the community, and therefore resulted in anti-individualistic beliefs. However, when they deviated from the religious code they were threatened with banishment from the community and often experienced public shaming. Also the Puritans, whom had come to the colonies seeking religious freedom for themselves, cultivated a society that was intolerant of the practice of religious freedom for others. The Puritan influence enabled conformist tendencies based around a religious moral code which did not tolerate for deviation of Puritan beliefs that ultimately sacrificed individualism.

The Plymouth plantation is about the puritans struggles. They went through harsh storms, brutal illnesses, and had a hard time finding places to live. The puritans didn’t understand why they were having such a rough time. They thought that they did something wrong in God’s eyes. See puritans think that if good things happen to them they are doing right in God’s eyes. If something bad happens to them they think they are being cursed by God.

In 1630 John Winthrop, leader of the Puritans who would later establish the Massachusetts Bay colony, delivered his sermon “City Upon a Hill.” In it, he explained to his followers that an individual is one part of a larger body – and the only way that body would survive and prosper was if the individuals worked together.

Towns were seen as a social unit for the community of the Puritan society. Because of the close nit lifestyle, the Puritan ways tied the people to be religiously and socially connected to the town in a peaceful manor. Due to this the town did not need input from the colonial government of Britain. And the New England Colonies second to the Middle were the most peaceful within the thirteen.

Since the colonization of America there has been a dramatic attempt to establish a “more Perfect Union” that “secure(s) the blessings of liberty” (Constitution, pg. 104). These attempts began with John Winthrop’s desires to construct a society that, according to him, will be seen through the eyes of others as a “city upon a hill” (Winthrop, pg. 9). John Winthrop bases the concept of the city on a hill through the teachings of Christianity as he references the Bible to support his arguments in creating a society that is based on “Justice and Mercy” (Winthrop, pg. 2). In many ways Winthrop’s essay was not just an attempt to create a Christian society, but also an attempt to lay out his argument of creating the perfect community in where “members of the same body…partake on each other’s strength and infirmity” (Winthrop, pg. 9). Winthrop’s great experiment set forth the motion of the creation of

The theme of the text City Upon a Hill by John Winthrop is that good people have the role of being leaders, who make people strive to be better. John Winthrop was a preacher upon the Arabella which was a ship carrying hundreds of Puritans to Massachusetts from England to escape the religious persecution they were facing.This shows us that he was a brave soul who wanted to help others to get their religious freedoms. Throughout the story he states that he wanted to create a model society, he says that “for we must consider that wee shall be as a citty upon a hill”. It also stated that,”I shall shutt upp this discourse with the exhortation of Moses, the faithful servant of the lord, in his last farewell to Israel”. He quotes Moses speaking

John Winthrop and Jonathan Edwards were both religious leaders that lived centuries before the present time. They shared the same goal in persuading people into Christianity, yet differed greatly in the way they chose to develop their sermons. Winthrop, a Puritan who wrote based on new religious and social ideals, composed the famous sermon “A Model of Christian Charity.”

In 2006, U.S. senator Barack Obama stated in front of a large audience in New England,“It was right here, in the waters around us, where the American experiment began. As the earliest settlers arrived on the shores of Boston and Salem and Plymouth, they dreamed of building a City upon a Hill. And the world watched, waiting to see if this improbable idea called America would succeed.” John Winthrop’s original goal, manifested in Obama’s speech, was to build a city looked up upon by all others. This is what the American Dream is: wealth, fame, good education, equality, liberty, and freedom. The American Dream is not limited to Winthrop, nor did it begin with him. The dream starts even before the Puritans, back during the days of early