JOHN WINTHROP (1588–1649)

If William Bradford was the key figure in the plantation at Plymouth, his counterpart in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony was undoubtedly John Winthrop. Winthrop, who was born in
England in 1588, came from a wealthy and influential Sussex family. He spent two years at
Cambridge, married at seventeen (and was thereafter a most devoted husband), and entered
upon a distinguished career as justice of the peace and attorney at the Inner Temple. When
the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded in 1629, however, with an eye to the New World
settlement, Winthrop. joined the group, accepted the position of governor, and supervised the
journey to Charlestown, Massachusetts, on board the Arbella in 1630. Like Bradford.
Winthrop was governor of. his colony almost uninterruptedly until his death in 1649.
Winthrop’s great quality was a sort of genius for creating and maintaining order in the
theocratic society of Boston. He quickly sensed a threat to that order and (except perhaps in
the case of Anne Hutchinson) met that threat with calmness and foresight. He strongly
opposed the divisive opinions of Roger Williams, but he retained his real fondness for that
incorrigible but extremely winning disturber of the peace; and it was Winthrop who sent
secret word to Williams of his impending arrest in 1636, giving Williams time to escape to
Rhode Island.
From A Model of Christian Charity (1630)

The following sermon was preached on board the Arbella, en route to the New World, in the
spring of 163o. It is the most forthright statement of that world’s “great design.” The Bay
Colony, Winthrop says, is to be “a model of Christian charity. If the settlers will follow the
counsel of Micah—“to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God”—then God
“shall make us a praise and a glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations: ‘The Lord
make it like that of New England!’ ”
The Puritans, Winthrop told them, would be in a situation of extreme visibility: “For
we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.”

***

God Almighty in His most holy and wise providence hath so disposed of the condition of
mankind as in all times some must be rich, some poor; some high and eminent in power and
dignity others mean and in subjection.

The reason hereof:

First, to hold conformity with the rest of His works, being delighted to show forth the
glory of His wisdom in the variety and difference of the creatures and the glory of His power,
in ordering all these differences for the preservation and good of the whole, and the glory of
His greatness: that as it is the glory of princes to have many officers, so this great King will
have many stewards, counting Himself more honored in dispensing His gifts to man by man
than if He did it by His own immediate hand.
Secondly, that He might have the more occasion to manifest the work of His Spirit:
first, upon the wicked in moderating and restraining them, so that the rich and mighty should
not eat up the poor, nor the poor and despised rise up against their superiors and shake off
their yoke; secondly, in the regenerate, in exercising His graces in them—as in the great ones,
their love, mercy, gentleness, temperance, etc., in the poor and inferior sort, their faith,
patience, obedience, etc.
Thirdly, that every man might have need of other, and from hence they might be all
knit more nearly together in the bond of brotherly affection. From hence it appears plainly
that no man is made more honorable than another or more wealthy, etc., out of any particular
and singular respect to himself, but for the glory of his creator and the common good of the
creature, man. Therefore God still reserves the property of these gifts to Himself (Ezek. 16.
17). He there calls wealth His gold and His silver, etc. (Prov. 3. 9). He claims their service as
His due: “Honor the Lord with thy riches.” All men being thus (by divine providence) ranked
into two sorts, rich and poor, under the first are comprehended all such as are able to live
comfortably by their own means duly improved, and all others are poor, according to the
former distribution.
There are two rules whereby we are to walk, one towards another: justice and mercy.
These are always distinguished in their act and in their object, yet may they both concur in
the same subject in each respect: as sometimes there may be an occasion of showing mercy to
a rich man in some sudden danger of distress, and also doing of mere justice to a poor man in
regard of some particular contract.
There is likewise a double law by which we are regulated in our conversation, one
towards another: in both the former respects, the law of nature and the law of grace, or the
moral law or the law of the Gospel—to omit the rule of justice as not properly belonging to
this purpose, otherwise than it may fall into consideration in some particular cases. By the
first of these laws, man, as he was enabled so, withal [is] commanded to love his neighbor as
himself; upon this ground stand all the precepts of the moral law, which concerns our
dealings with men. To apply this to the works of mercy, this law requires two things: first,
that every man afford his help to another in every want or distress; secondly, that he perform
this out of the same affection which makes him careful of his own good according to that of
our savior (Matt. 7. 12): “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you.” This was
practiced by Abraham and Lot in entertaining the angels and the old man of Gibea.
The law of grace or the Gospel hath some difference from the former, as in these
respects: first, the law of nature was given to man in the estate of innocency, this of the
Gospel in the estate of regeneracy. Secondly, the former propounds one man to another as the
same flesh and image of God, this as a brother in Christ also, and in the communion of the
same spirit, and so teacheth us to put a difference between Christians and others. “Do good to
all, especially to the household of faith.” Upon this ground the Israelites were to put a
difference between the brethren of such as were strangers though not of the Canaanites.
Thirdly, the law of nature could give no rules for dealing with enemies, for all are to be
considered as friends in the estate of innocency; but the Gospel commands love to an enemy.
Proof: “If thine enemy hunger, feed him: love your enemies, do good to them that hate you.”
(Matt. 5. 44).
This law of the Gospel propounds likewise a difference of seasons and occasions.
There is a time when a Christian must sell all and give to the poor as they did in the apostles’
times; there is a time also when a Christian, though they give not all yet, must give beyond
their ability, as they of Macedonia (II Cor. 8). Likewise, community of perils calls for
extraordinary liberality, and so doth community in some special service for the church.
Lastly, when there is no other means whereby our Christian brother may be relieved in this
distress, we must help him beyond our ability, rather than tempt God in putting him upon
help by miraculous or extraordinary means. . . .
1. For the persons, we are a company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ,
in which respect only, though we were absent from each other many miles, and had our
employments as far distant, yet we ought to account ourselves knit together by this bond of
love, and live in the exercise of it, if we would have comfort of our being in Christ. This was
notorious in the practice of the Christians in former times, as is testified of the Waldenses
from the mouth of one of the adversaries, Aeneas Sylvius: Mutuo solent amare gene
antequam norint—they used to love any of their own religion even before they were
acquainted with them.
2. For the work we have in hand, it is by mutual consent, through a special overruling
providence and a more than an ordinary approbation of the churches of Christ, to seek out a
place of cohabitation and consortship, under a due form of government both civil and
ecclesiastical. In such cases as this, the care of the public must oversway all private respects
by which not only conscience but mere civil policy doth bind us; for it is a true rule that
particular estates cannot subsist in the ruin of the public.
3. The end is to improve our lives to do more service to the Lord, the comfort and
increase of the body of Christ whereof we are members, that ourselves and posterity may be
the better preserved from the common corruptions of this evil world, to serve the Lord and
work out our salvation under the power and purity of His holy ordinances.
4. For the means whereby this must be effected, they are twofold: a conformity with
the work and the end we aim at; these we see are extraordinary, therefore we must not content
ourselves with usual ordinary means. Whatsoever we did or ought to have done when we
lived in England, the same must we do, and more also where we go. That which the most in
their churches maintain as a truth in profession only, we must bring into familiar and constant
practice: as in this duty of love we must love brotherly without dissumulation, we must love
one another with a pure heart fervently, we must bear one another’s burdens, we must not
look only on our own things but also on the things of our brethren. Neither must we think that
the Lord will bear with such failings at our hands as He cloth from those among whom we
have lived. . . .
Thus stands the cause between God and us: we are entered into covenant with Him for
this work; we have taken out a commission, the Lord hath given us leave to draw our own
articles. We have professed to enterprise these actions upon these and these ends; we have
hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to hear us and
bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this covenant and sealed our
Commission, [and] will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it. But if we
shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and
dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal
intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out
in wrath against us, be revenged of such a perjured people, and make us know the price of the
breach of such a covenant.
Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck and to provide for our posterity is to follow
the counsel of Micah: to do 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
others’ necessities; we must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness,
patience and liberality. We must delight in each other, make others’ 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. 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 like 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. So 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 going.

And to shut up this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithful servant of
the Lord, in his last farewell to Israel (Deut. 3o): Beloved, there is now set before us life and
good, death and evil, in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to
love one another, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His ordinance and
His laws and the articles of our covenant with Him, that we may live and be multiplied, and
that the Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it: but if our hearts
shall turn away so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced and worship . . . other gods, our
pleasures and profits, and serve them, it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish
out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it.

Therefore, let us choose life,