JOHN WINTHROP (1588-1649)
-John Winthrop lived at a time in which the economic and religious upheaveals of the
time brought forth a large emigration of people to New England.
-He was born in Groton, England. At fourteen he entered Trinity College and within two
years he had married the first of four wives. By eighteem he was justice of peace and
shortly thereafter a steward for the manor on which he had been raised. He would later
describe this period as his “wild and dissolute” boyhood.
-Although he was not personallly oppressed byt the economic hardships that had
befallen England in the 1620s he was distressed at the economic and religious
conditions around him. Also, the monarchy in England was growing hostile to
Puritanism which resulted in the silencing of ministers.
-On the Cambridge Agreement of 1629 the Congrationalist Puritans decide to plant a
colony in New England. The Charter which granted the right to settle made no provision
for a designated meeting place for the administration of the Company, which freed it to
establish a government in New England.
-Winthrop envisioned a “City of God” which rested on an Utopian view of society. He
fully expected that the hardships found there would test their sainthood.
-Despite their Utopian view, however, Winthrop longed for the transformation of
abstract Christian ideals into concrete gestures that would pervade daily living.
-He was governor of the Massachusets Bay Company for twelve of the the nineteen
years which he lived there. He was integral in influencing the social, political and
religious growth of the colony.
-A Modell of Christian Charity is a sermon probably delivered at Southampton before
the departure of the fleet . It provides his blueprint for the “City upon a Hill”. It is
written as series of questions answers and objections, a rethorical strategy that reflecs
Withrop’s legal training.
-The sermon was, in part, a plea for a real community in which “the care of the public
must oversaway all private respects”.
