A City on a Hill John Winthrop is incredibly smart. The sermon that he delivered while en route to Massachusetts was the perfect thing to prepare his new colonists for life in a foreign land. Backing up his calls for brotherly love and forgiveness with direct scripture quotes, he lays out why exactly the Puritans need to act justly and kindly. The question and answer format of his sermon is laid out in an easy to understand logic that seems to be backed up with doctrine at every step. He even explains why class divisions exist among not just those in England (which they were escaping), but why they naturally will exist in America as well. His sermon gives way to the kind of governor that he would be in the coming years, one who is very …show more content…
His sermon focuses in part on the classic golden rule that is iterated again and again in any Christian community, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” As such, the poor should be treated with justice and mercy in the same way as the rich. The heavy focus on love that Winthrop uses, no doubt inspired a feeling of unity in his listeners. Unity would make or break the colony once they arrived in New England, and John Winthrop definitely knew that. Things could not operate the same way they did back in Great Britain as everyone was responsible for the success or failure of the colony. The possible looming failure on the horizon is apparent in the last section of his sermon in which he warns his followers, “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.” He speaks of a covenant with God, similar in some ways to that of the Jewish people. He claims that if they break the covenant and steer off the path of righteousness, then “the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, … and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.” From what I know about the Christian God, his wrath is usually quite harsh and very deadly. I’m willing to bet that these lines both chilled some listeners to the bone and inspired religious fervor in others.
Introduction. The new boundaries and opportunities in the seventeenth century grew and challenged an idea of religious liberty. The lifestyle of the first colonists in the New England was heavily influenced by religion and church. Settlers considered that success of social life depends on the obedience to God’s will. The governor John Winthrop maintained and developed this idea. With a help of his Speech to the Massachusetts General Court in 1645, he summed up and explained an important idea of liberty. Winthrop did not only define a blessed way for a better life of the community but also clarified the role of citizens through the analogy of women’s position in the society. His concept of natural and moral liberty turned up to be suitable and clear for the settlers. With a help of well-built speech, Winthrop emphasized and explained correlation among society, authority, and God in the New World.
John Winthrop’s “Model of Christian Charity” was delivered to the colonists bound for Massachusetts Bay Colony to unite them and help them become a model community for England. Through his use of metaphors and biblical allusions, Winthrop is able to thoroughly convey the importance of remaining unified to his very religious Puritan audience. Previous attempts of colonization in America, such as Roanoke, the lost colony, had created a negative view of colonization. Previous colonists were also only focused on profit and did not build a stable community, which led to their downfalls. Therefore, Winthrop tells his audience that they must work together “as one man”. This metaphor compares the group of colonists to a single person who has one mind
John Winthrop was born on (12 January 1587/88 – 26 March 1649). He was the 3rd governor and the founder of Massachusetts bay colony.John Winthrop (12 January 1587/88 – 26 March 1649) was an English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the second major settlement in New England, following Plymouth Colony. The religious beliefs were Anglican.Origins of the Puritan Faith. The Puritan religious faith originated in England during the early 1600s. The Puritans believed that the Anglican Church, the state's religious institution of England, needed to be purified of the influence of the Catholic religious faith. The population was strongly Puritan, and its governance was dominated by a small group of leaders who were strongly influenced by Puritan religious leaders.Its governors were elected, and the electorate were limited to freemen who had been examined for their religious views and formally admitted to the local church. As a consequence, the colonial leadership exhibited intolerance to other religious views, including Anglican, Quaker, and Baptist theologies.There economy was (fishing, corn, livestock), Manufacturing (lumbering, shipbuilding). There Climate/Geography – Colonists in the New England colonies endured bitterly cold winters and mild summers. Land was flat close to the coastline but became hilly and mountainous farther inland. Soil was generally rocky, making farming
Taken as a whole, Winthrop's message of love was his technique to unite his Puritan followers in the New World.
John Winthrop, a Puritan leader, was an example of this. When the Puritans landed in Massachusetts, he wrote a speech known as A Model of Christian Charity that gave instructions to the people on how they needed to act, proclaiming that they must be “A city on a hill [, for] the eyes of all people are upon us.” Historically, Puritans were known for their religious beliefs, shown in the forms of upholding the law of God, living in tight knit communities, and putting the conditions of others before their own. This speech was written to encourage the colonists to express those qualities in great measures, and to not do what was considered to be wrong. Contrarily, the leadership in Virginia was not invested in the good of the people. The Governor, Sir William Berkeley, did not trust, nor was he satisfied with, the residents of the colony. After a Dutch attack in 1673, he appealed to the King to send English reinforcements, since there were not enough trustworthy men to defend the borders. He believed that as soon as they saw the enemy gain on them, they would defect. This shows that although Berkeley sought to keep the colony safe, he did it out of lack of trust and scorn of those below him, differing from John Winthrop’s standards of equality and solid community. Berkeley sought to increase his prosperity, as well as that of his friends, by establishing unfair taxes in Virginia. The people were upset,
Firstly, John Winthrop earned the reputation of a compassionate and just judge over a decade of service, but he came to realize that it would be impossible to reach fame and fortune in England without substituting his Puritan values. In 1629, stockholders came together and elected John Winthrop as lead of the company, which existed due to the vast amount of opposition that the Anglican Church received from the Puritan community. John Winthrop believed that his fellow Englishmen should join him in his idea that the company must subsist bound together with mutual consent to be
Within the colony of Massachusetts, religion played an important role in shaping the community’s people and interests. The reason for the Puritans move to North America was to escape the convictions the Christians of England were placing on them (Divine, 89). Winthrop and his followers believed that in this new land they must create a place where they could come together as a people and build the perfect religious society (Divine, 90). In a speech about his vision for the land, John Winthrop said, “We must delight in each
In the colony of New England, religious freedom from England was the main attraction to many who wanted to live freely. Too many times, the religion of many families was turned away and neglected which lead to a desire for an entirely new settlement where these families could live freely based upon their own philosophies. The religion of Calvinism was the main attraction; it became the theological credo of New England Puritans. Not only that but Separatists searching for a place for purified protestants found Massachusetts once they arrived off the coast of New England in 1620. According to John Winthrop, “So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” (Doc 1). John Winthrop’s intended audience was to the people of New England and is shown by the repetition of “we” and “our” to remind them of their growth but at the same time staying true to God and being an example for the “eyes of all people”. As governor speaking to the people of New England, Winthrop demonstrates the pillar of religion that is keeping the entire colony at peace and unified. Furthermore, in the Articles of Agreement, it states that diversity and equality are what makes New England special. By having a
In the early 1600’s, John Winthrop grew up in a very wealthy family. He attended college at 15 and at 17 he was married. Winthrop loved his wife very much but at times he thought maybe too much (he remarried 3 times because his first 2 wives passed away). As a Puritan, Winthrop dedicated his life to God, but as he got older, England’s government made it harder and harder to be a Puritan, due to the fact that the king said outright he hated Puritans. Winthrop went on to study law and eventually became a common attorney in the court of wards; though Winthrop was happy to get this job, it kept him away from his family. After a short while in this position, Winthrop began to feel less and less important, as Puritans were the
A Model of Christian Charity is a sermon by John Winthrop. He gives this sermon aboard the Arbella in 1630. John Winthrop began his and his Christian's journey with words for guidance and inspiration. He starts his sermon by stating that God created the rich and the poor. He created them for different reasons, in order to manifest his exertion in the areas of mercy, love, gentleness, faith, patience and obedience. Religion is used as a way of connecting with the Puritans. He also uses references from the bible to prove his points. He talks about how God has created the three laws, and how if you follow them you will be
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.
Adapting a Puritan lifestyle drastically affected Winthrop’s perspective on the world and his role in it. He knew that he could not completely disconnect himself from it “as monks and hermits do” (Morgan 6) so he had to adapt to the struggle of finding a balance of his role of worshiping God and “lending his hand to shape [the world]” (Morgan 14).
The influence that Winthrop’s speech had could easily be seen throughout the northern colonies. Because many of the northern colonies were founded for religious reasons, religion played a large role in everyday life during these times. If you were found to violate your contract with god you were kicked out of the colony, forced to live in the woods with the Indians where, more often the not, they would kill you. Roger Williams was an example of this. He criticized many of Winthrop's views on the Puritan society such as the right of the Puritans to seize Native American land (Henretta, 47). Williams and his followers were exiled from the colony, and ended up starting their own colony, named Rhode Island, where inhabitants would have the freedom to practice whatever religion they wanted too. This is yet another example of a colony founded purely for religious purposes. Other colonies were also founded for the same reasons as Rhode Island. Thomas Hooker, for example, founded Connecticut, for almost the exact same reasons Rhode Island
The section of the sermon that compares the new colony with a city upon hill starts out with instruction to follow the council of Micah. This council that Winthrop refers too is the Old Testament Book of Micah. Micah was an Old Testament Prophet, who in the middle of his oracles of judgment, revels the Lord's wonderful promise of a glorious future. Verse 6:18 of Micah states "He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you. But to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God". This
Throughout the sermon, John Winthrop makes himself very clear about what he wants the Massachusetts Bay Colony to accomplish when he establishes it. He desires it to be a strictly religious society that will act as an example for the rest of the colonies. Winthrop lays out a plan of exactly how he wants the colonists to act