John Winthrop's "Modell of Christian Charity" in a Wider Context

Abstract

John Winthrop's Modell of Christian Charity has probably enjoyed as much attention from historians as it did from Winthrop's shipmates aboard the Arbella in 1630. It offers an explicit statement, convenient for quotation, of the idea that the Bay Colony was in covenant with God, a chosen people, a new Israel. It has accordingly become the very emblem of the Puritan quest, the manifesto in which Winthrop proclaimed the place of Massachusetts as a city upon a hill. The document deserves the attention it has received and perhaps a little more. Historians have generally related it to the events that followed it. It represents the ideal by which the later actuality is measured or the key by which to explain the sense of mission that engaged first New England and then the United States. The validity of this interpretation is not in question, but a look at the context in which Winthrop was operating may enrich our understanding of what he was doing in his shipboard sermon. The Modell of Christian Charity was an explication of the love that flows from regeneration in Christ, and of the hope that this love would inform and sustain the holy experiment on which Winthrop and his companions were embarked. More immediately it was an appeal for subjection to authority. God himself, Winthrop said, had ordained that must be rich some poore, some high and eminent in power and dignitie; others meane and in subjeccion. This was the lesson, the model, which the rest of the sermon or essay was designed to uphold.' The passengers must have expected some iteration of the lesson, for it was the central platitude of sixteenthand