John Winthrop's A Model Christian Charity

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In the sermon “a Model Christian Charity”, by John Winthrop, He delivers a religious based outline of the moral expectations he had for his puritan community. In an attempt to create a perfect Christian society, and to also sway people to behave in a hope to unite the colony and be successful. I believe that he had good intentions in presenting this sermon, but his “rules” were extremely biased, and always seemed to benefit the puritan society. Looking to create a bible commonwealth, Winthrop presented evidence from the bible to convince the settlers aboard the Arbella that god has this expectation of how to behave in society. He does this in hopes of thriving in the new world and creating a “New England”. Another benefit of his sermon is that in the perfect Christian society, he colonist will live unified, making them much stronger in a place where they are starting from scratch. I think Winthrop knew they were to face adversity like never before, so he used the puritan beliefs to create a stronger, tighter knit bond between one another. Winthrop and his puritans were coming to the new world, for England in a sense, the last thing Winthrop wanted to do was fail in the new world. Towards the end of the sermon Winthrop says, “Whatsoever we did, or ought to have done, when we lived in England, …show more content…

He was trying to create a model community so he is as viewed as this great, man, and it would present him as a more honorable leader. As well, as benefit the colony’s morale by creating a societal norm, or expectations on “how god intended us to live”. With that being said , this is a very religious point in time, so by involving the puritan’s faith, there was a lot of stock put in the things he said. Winthrop made the religious pep talk in order to keep the puritans leaning on one another, to keep a new, otherwise lawless world as civilized as it could possibly