John Winthrop's A Model Of Christian Charity
English attorney John Winthrop represented the new gentry that had flourished under the Tudor regime, but despite his privileged position Winthrop became increasingly disenchanted with the oppressive and corrupt Stuart monarchy. A time when Charles I, a true believer of the divine right of kings, decided to rule without parliamentary consent, and imprison Puritan parliamentary leaders in 1629. Winthrop penned A Model of Christian Charity in response to his disillusionment on his way to New England on the Arbella in 1630, joining the first large contingent of Puritans who left England in order to establish the godly commonwealth. Leaving behind his lay life as a modest gentleman, ahead lay the wilderness and a vision that English circumstances had frustrated.It can be read, as can so many Puritan statements as "restorationist," that is envisioning a social order in New England that would recapture the serenity of a imagined English past of a well-defined place for all, with clearly understood and easily fulfilled obligations within the social hierarchy. It laid out the model for transition as Winthrop saw it, seeking
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to apply scriptural virtues to the circumstances and challenges he and the colonists would face in creating their new social and political order.
Delivered in first person plural, Winthrop suggests that the Puritans should be one undiversified group for which he speaks, stating more than once that they are “knit together” as “one man” in a bond of common cause and common destiny. Meaning every individual’s fate was bound to and subject to that of the group, these ideas were nothing new however with George Gifford asserting in 1612 that “all true believers are knit together by one spirit”. But while Winthrop wanted his congregation to agree on certain doctrinal fundamentals he was aware there may have been differences of opinion on doctrinal non-essentials, and believed in unity rather than uniformity made for a community.
While for contemporaries the sermon was undoubtedly not too dissimilar from most Puritan teachings the prominence the sermon has today would no doubt be unthinkable.
There is only one brief reference to the Model of Christian Charity that has survived from the seventeenth-century occurring in a request by the Reverent Henry Jacie. In a letter written about February 1634 where he asks John Winthrop Jr. to obtain the Model of Charity, among other things. Subsequently there is no clear mention for two centuries, and no reference to anyone having heard it. Even so it was likely the Sermon was likely performed onboard the Arbella, facilitated by the close quarters. If they were educated men they may have understood that they were hearing a succinct statement on Protestant, and more particularly, Puritan teaching on the state and on man’s relationship to
it.
to apply scriptural virtues to the circumstances and challenges he and the colonists would face in creating their new social and political order.
Delivered in first person plural, Winthrop suggests that the Puritans should be one undiversified group for which he speaks, stating more than once that they are “knit together” as “one man” in a bond of common cause and common destiny. Meaning every individual’s fate was bound to and subject to that of the group, these ideas were nothing new however with George Gifford asserting in 1612 that “all true believers are knit together by one spirit”. But while Winthrop wanted his congregation to agree on certain doctrinal fundamentals he was aware there may have been differences of opinion on doctrinal non-essentials, and believed in unity rather than uniformity made for a community.
While for contemporaries the sermon was undoubtedly not too dissimilar from most Puritan teachings the prominence the sermon has today would no doubt be unthinkable.
There is only one brief reference to the Model of Christian Charity that has survived from the seventeenth-century occurring in a request by the Reverent Henry Jacie. In a letter written about February 1634 where he asks John Winthrop Jr. to obtain the Model of Charity, among other things. Subsequently there is no clear mention for two centuries, and no reference to anyone having heard it. Even so it was likely the Sermon was likely performed onboard the Arbella, facilitated by the close quarters. If they were educated men they may have understood that they were hearing a succinct statement on Protestant, and more particularly, Puritan teaching on the state and on man’s relationship to
it.