Reflection Of John Winthrop's A Model Of Christian Charity

Winthrop approached his audience with the idea that we should show love and affection towards our brothers. According to Winthrop: 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 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, our community as members of the same body.

In March of 1629, The Company of Massachusetts Bay Colony was granted a charter from King Charles I to emigrate to New England. At the beginning of their new journey, English Puritan, John Winthrop, preached his sermon of "A Model of Christian Charity", as the new found governor of the colony. Winthrop's specific teachings in this sermon were God's new expected life of the Puritans. The Puritans were expected to live in this way as an appreciation to their God, if he had brought them to New England safely. Luckily, the Puritans landed in New England after all the hardships and troubled waters they encountered on the high seas.

Why did Winthrop think that the Puritans were a special people? And why did he believe they had to be especially careful in their new endeavor? Puritan wanted to reform their church and opposed to the corruption of the Church of England so they moved to the New World. John Winthrop wanted to show England that their way was wrong; therefore he wanted to prove it to them by presenting that the Puritans have a successful colony.

Thesis: Francis J. Bremer advocates the need to understand the New England colonists’ struggling attempts to define the perimeter fence - not just their positions - in order to help us define the limits of acceptable behavior and beliefs today. Main Points of Evidence: I. The Puritans had different opinions on how they lived their life. A. John Winthrop believed that they were unworthy of God’s love and imperfect.

John Winthrop was born on January 22, 1588 himself and his immediate family belonged to a class of people in New England known as “The Gentry”. This was a class of people that typically dominated the society between 1540 through 1640. Therefore, John Winthrop being a part of this class, became accustomed already to a position of

This journal, “Of Plymouth Plantation”, which was from Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 1, written by William Bradford between 1630 and 1651, and edited by Samuel Eliot Morison in 1953, describes the story of the pilgrims who sailed from Southampton, England, on the Mayflower and settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. Those pilgrims were English Christians in the 16th and 17th centuries and religious separatists who saw no hope of reforming the Church of England from within; therefore, they hoped to separate from the Church of England and form independent local churches in another place. In order to , those pilgrims overcame many obstacles. The author had used the power of rhetoric, especially in the use of the three rhetorical

The Puritan’s goal of coming to the New World was not to create a new life, but to create the ideal model of living for the “corrupt” inhabitants of England. This was coined “The Errand”, the Puritans desire to establish a City Upon a Hill that others could look up to and imitate in order to receive God’s grace. The Puritans failed at building their City Upon a Hill (creating a perfect religious, economic, and political community), however the long-term effects of their efforts have influenced American moral politics throughout its history. The Puritans forever had the attitude of a community that had successfully established a City Upon a Hill. The Puritan lifestyle was heavily influenced not only by religion, but also inside of that, morality.

The New Englanders took religion seriously, making unitary laws according to Puritan standards. John Winthrop, later chosen as the first Massachusetts Bay Colony governor, was seeking religious freedom. Wishing to inspire the colonists to dwell in brotherly unity, he summoned them together to remind them “that if we [colonists] 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.” On the other hand, those in the Chesapeake region came for the wealth that America promised. They were there to become prosperous or die trying.

The ideas constructed by the Puritans were not simply a principal starting point for American culture because they were the first in the country, but because they offered distinct ways of thinking that are still deep-seated in our culture today. Although many of the ideas of Puritans have evolved or vanished over time, it is important to give credit to the Puritan writers and thinkers such as John Winthrop and John Cotton who offered ideas that were new at the time and that stayed with the American consciousness—culturally, socially, and politically. “John Winthrop's legacy can be seen primarily in the fields of government, commerce, and religion. It was religion that would most impact John's life; his religion would ultimately impact the

The values that early American writers considered most important were piety, courage, and industry. They were highly honored by the large Puritan population, and these values helped them survive the beginning of the colonies. Overtime, however, different values were stressed more than others. For example, in “Of Plymouth Plantation,” written around 1620, Bradford chooses to write about the piety, courage, and industry of all the settlers in his settlement. In 1630, Winthrop gave his sermon “A Model of Christian Charity,” and in it he motivates his audience using piety and industry as reasons to succeed.

For example, In the speech of John Winthrop, he claimed that it is yourselves who have called us to this office, and, being called by you, we have our authority from God, in way of an ordinance. This piece of words of John Winthrop reflected that the New Englanders believed that they received the authority from God to do their own decision, and that highlighted the position of liberty in New Englanders’ opinion. Moreover, Puritans established a new religion system which can be considered as another point to enhance the liberty. The traditional bishops’ authorities were not the core of Puritans’ religion and, instead, they wanted to eliminate or reduce the authority of the bishops by increasing the authority of local congregation. Puritans liberated themselves from the rigid church system, and promoted Congregational Church which was ran by the Puritans their own and invested the democracy idea which can be reflected by their meeting and voting behavior.

John Winthrop, a non-separating Puritan, was a leading figure in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony that described the goal of this colony in his City Upon a Hill speech in which he says, “We must consider that we shall be as a city

Puritans are Europeans who escaped religious persecution from the Church of England. The Puritans age likely varies from children to adults. However, it’s apparent that Winthrop is appealing more towards Puritan males to create their ideal utopia. Winthrop evokes God to entice the colonist to fruitfully colonize the land. He uses nationalism, religion, and imagery to entice the colonist into creating a bountiful colony.

The arrival of the first Europeans in the Americas is dramatically captured through the many writers who attempted to communicate what they saw, experienced and felt. What is more, the very purposes of their treacherous travel and colonization are clearly seen in their writings; whether it is poetry, history or sermons. Of the many literary pieces available today, William Bradford and John Winthrop’s writings, even though vary because the first is a historical account and the second is a sermon, stand out as presenting a clear trust in God, the rules that would govern them and the reason they have arrived in the Americas. First of all, William Bradford provides an in-depth look into the first moment when the Puritans arrived in the Americas. In fact, he chronicles the hardships they face on their way to Plymouth, yet he includes God’s provision every step of the way.

Essentially, Puritans are expected to follow a strict set of religious and moral guidelines from which their actions and morality are derived. According to Hall’s A Reforming People, these moral expectations first introduced by the pilgrims were the driving force behind the power that the Puritan ministry had over society: “Ministers and laypeople looked first to congregations as the place where love, mutuality, and righteousness would flourish, and second to civil society. …Alongside love, mutuality, and righteousness they placed another set of values summed up in the word “equity.” Employed in a broad array of contexts, the concept of equity conveyed the colonists’ hopes for justice and fairness in their social world.”