A Model of Christian Charity

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1838

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Symbols & Motifs

The City Upon a Hill

Near the end of Winthrop’s sermon, in his discussion of New England’s potential as an ideal society before God, he states, “wee must consider that wee shall be as a citty upon a hill” (47). This is a reference to Matthew 5:14, part of the Sermon on the Mount, a collection of Christ’s moral sayings and teachings. In the Bible, Christ tells his flock, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.” The location of cities upon hills was common in ancient times, as it allowed easy defensibility against attackers. Here, however, the passage represents the role of Christian communities as beacons of light for the rest of the world. Though Winthrop immediately precedes this allusion mentioning God’s power to defend against enemies, perhaps channeling this militaristic meaning of the passage, its statement of hope is clearly his main intended meaning: “wee shall make us a prayse and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, ‘the Lord make it likely that of New England’” (47). This passage is among the most cited sections of Winthrop’s sermon, and has been frequently connected to ideas of American exceptionalism as a model for other societies.

A New Covenant

Winthrop understands the Christian settlement of New England as a covenant (divine pact) with God: “We are entered into Covenant with Him for this worke. Wee haue taken out a commission” (46). Covenant is a crucial concept in Judeo-Christian history. Judaism originates when Abraham makes a covenant with the God of Israel, declaring that Abraham and his descendants will follow only this God, and in return God will grant them the kingdom of Israel. This eventuates in the deliverance of Moses and the Israelites into the promise land. Winthrop sees the settlement of the New World as a direct continuation of this covenant, and an opportunity for a new promise land. However, this divine contract has the same stakes it had for the Israelites: “When he gave Saule a commission to destroy Amaleck, Hee indented with him upon certain articles, and because hee failed in one of the least, and that upon a faire pretense, it lost him the kingdom, which should have beene his reward” (46). The keeping of a Christian covenant founded on charity and love is the only way, in Winthrop’s mind, that God will bless New England and ensure its survival. Without a covenant, God will destroy New England.

The Ligament and the Body

Roughly halfway through his sermon, Winthrop compares the bond of love between Christians to the role of ligaments in uniting the parts of the body: “Love is the bond of perfection, first it is a bond or ligament. […] There is noe body but consists of partes and that which knitts these partes together” (40). This ligament of love is a “bond of perfection” because it helps the diverse members of the Christian body live as one. It “makes eache parte soe contiguous to others as thereby they doe mutually participate with each other, both in strengthe and infirmity, in pleasure and paine” (40). As love is a ligament to the body of Christians, so this body of Christians is synonymous with the very body of Christ: “true Christians are of one body in Christ” (40). Christ himself has lain down his own body in sacrifice for the good of the Christian body: “our Saviour whoe out of his good will in obedience to his father, becomeing a parte of this body and being knitt with it in the bond of loue […] willingly yielded himselfe to deathe to ease the infirmities of the rest of his body [i.e. the Christian community]” (41). As such Christ is the “embodiment” of Christian charity: “Christ comes, and by his spirit and loue knitts all these partes to himselfe and each to other […] the ligaments hereof being Christ, or his love, for Christ is love” (40). The lesson for Christians is to live in their body as Christ has, understanding themselves as unified with all other Christians, serving them, and through this finding the salvation of their body in heaven.