6 John Winthrop – A Model of Christian Charity

Biography

Winthrop was born into a wealthy land-owning and merchant family. He trained in the law and became Lord of the Manor at Groton in Suffolk. He was not involved in founding the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1628, but he became involved in 1629 when anti-Puritan King Charles I began a crackdown on Nonconformist religious thought. In October 1629, he was elected governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and he led a group of colonists to the New World in April 1630, founding a number of communities on the shores of Massachusetts Bay and the Charles River.

Between 1629 and his death in 1649, he served 18 annual terms as governor or lieutenant-governor and was a force of comparative moderation in the religiously conservative colony, clashing with the more conservative Thomas Dudley and the more liberal Roger Williams and Henry Vane. Winthrop was a respected political figure, and his attitude toward governance seems authoritarian to modern sensibilities. He resisted attempts to widen voting and other civil rights beyond a narrow class of religiously approved individuals, opposed attempts to codify a body of laws that the colonial magistrates would be bound by, and also opposed unconstrained democracy, calling it “the meanest and worst of all forms of government”.[2] The authoritarian and religiously conservative nature of Massachusetts rule was influential in the formation of neighboring colonies, which were formed in some instances by individuals and groups opposed to the rule of the Massachusetts elders.

A Model of Christian Charity (Background)

John Winthrop wrote and delivered the lay sermon that became A Model of Christian Charity either before the 1630 crossing to North America or while en route.[123] It described the ideas and plans to keep the Puritan society strong in faith, as well as the struggles that they would have to overcome in the New World. He used the phrase “city upon a hill” (derived from the Bible‘s Sermon on the Mount)[124] to characterize the colonists’ endeavor as part of a special pact with God to create a holy community.[125] He encouraged the colonists to “bear one another’s burdens” and to view themselves as a “Body of Christ, knit together by Love.”[126] He told the colonists to be stricter in their religious conformance than even the Church of England, and to make it their objective to establish a model state. If they did so, God would “make us a prayse and glory, that man shall say of succeeding plantations: the lord make it like that of New England.”[126]

Winthrop’s sermon is often characterized as a forerunner to the concept of American exceptionalism.[127][128] Recent research has shown, however, that the speech was not given much attention at the time of its delivery, unlike the farewell sermon of John Cotton.[123] Furthermore, Winthrop did not introduce any significant new concepts, but merely repeated what were widely held Puritan beliefs. The work was not published until the nineteenth century, although it was known and circulated in manuscript before that time.[129]

Source: John Winthrop. Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0; additional terms may apply.

A Model of Christian Charity (Selections)

Object. The wise man’s Eyes are in his head, saith Solomon, and foresees the plague; therefore, he must forecast and lay up against evil times when he or his may stand in need of all he can gather.

Ans. This very Argument Solomon used to persuade to liberality, Eccle.: Cast thy bread upon the waters, and for thou knows not what evil may come upon the land. Luke 26. Make you friends of the riches of iniquity; you will ask how this shall be? very well. For first he that guise to the poor, lends to the lord and he will repay him even in this life a hundredfold to him or his.– The righteous is ever merciful and his seed enjoyed the blessing; and besides we know what advantage it will be to us in the day of account when many such witnesses shall stand forth for us to witness the improvement of our talent.…

All these teach us that the Lord looks that when he is pleased to call for his right in anything we have, our own interest we have, must stand aside till his turn be served. For the other, we need look no further than to that of John 1. he who hath this world’s goods and sees his brother to need and shuts up his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him, which comes punctually to this conclusion; if thy brother be in want and thou canst help him, thou need not make doubt, what thou should do; if thou loves God thou must help him.

Quest. What rule must we observe in lending?

Ans. Thou must observe whether thy brother hath present or probable or possible means of repaying thee, if there be none of those, thou must give him according to his necessity, rather than lend him as he requires; if he hath present means of repaying thee, thou art to look at him not as an act of mercy, but by way of Commerce, wherein thou are to walk by the rule of justice; but if his means of repaying thee be only probable or possible, then is he an object of thy mercy, thou must lend him, though there be danger of losing it, Deut. 15. 7. If any of thy brethren be poor, thou shalt lend him sufficient. That men might not shift off this duty by the apparent hazard, he tells them that though the year of Jubilee were at hand (when he must remit it, if he were not able to repay it before) yet he must lend him and that cheerfully. It may not grieve thee to give him (saith he) and because some might object, why so I should soon impoverish myself and my family, he adds with all thy work for our Saviour, Math. 5. 42. From him that would borrow of thee turn not away.

Quest. What rule must we observe in forgiving?

Ans. Whether thou didst lend by way of commerce or in mercy, if he hath nothing to pay thee, must forgive, (except in cause where thou hast a surety or a lawful pledge) Deut. 15. 2. Every seventh year the Creditor was to quit that which he lent to his brother if he were poor as appears, ver. 8. Save when there shall be no poor with thee. In all these and like cases, Christ was a general rule, Math. 7. 22. Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you the same to them also.…

Quest. What rule must we observe and walk by in cause of community of peril?

Ans. The same as before, but with more enlargement towards others and less respect towards ourselves and our own right. Hence it was that in the primitive Church they sold all, had all things in common, neither did any man say that which he possessed was his own. Likewise in their return out of captivity, because the work was great for the restoring of the church and the danger of enemies was common to all…He who shuts his ears from hearing the cry of the poor, he shall cry and shall not be heard; Math. 25. Goes ye cursed into everlasting fire. I was hungry and ye fed me not, Cor. 2. 9. 16. He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly. Having already set forth the practice of mercy according to the rule of God’s law, it will be useful to lay open the grounds of it also, being the other part of the Commandment and that is the affection from which this exercise of mercy must arise, the Apostle tells us that this love is the fulfilling of the law,…

The definition which the Scripture gives us of love is this. Love is the bond of perfection, first it is a bond or ligament. It makes the work perfect. There is no body but consists of parts and that which knits these parts together, gives the body its perfection, because it makes each part so contiguous to others as thereby, they do mutually participate with each other, both in strength and infirmity, in pleasure and pain….

Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to doe justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other’s necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make other’s conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways. So that we shall see much more of his wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when he shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “the Lord make it likely that of New England.” For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. Soe that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are a going.

Source: Winthrop, John. (1630). A Model of Christian Charity. Hanover Historical Texts Project. In the public domain, modernized by Genevieve Shaker.