A Model of Christian Charity

“A Modell of Christian Charity” is a sermon written by John Winthrop, a Puritan lawyer who served as the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, an English colonial settlement around present-day Boston, and the second settlement in New England. A sermon is a speech on a religious subject, usually used for those delivered by clergy in Christian church services. The sermon’s epigraph (a short, introductory quotation or informational text) tells us Winthrop wrote on board The Arbella, a ship bearing Winthrop and colonists to New England in 1630. The sermon focuses upon how Christian communities should practice charitable action toward each other, and how this will help New England become a prosperous society blessed by God. The sermon is a foundational political and religious document of the United States, often quoted by politicians and referenced in histories of the nation.

This study guide uses the open access edition of Winthrop’s “A Modell of Christian Charity” published within the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1838, Series 3, Volume 7, Pages 33-48. This document is accessible electronically via https://history.hanover.edu/texts/winthmod.html.

The sermon begins giving three reasons God has made some people rich and some poor. First, this shows God’s glory in the variation of creatures. Second, it inspires the rich and poor to work together to manifest the Grace of God in different ways, the rich in mercy and temperance, the poor in faith and obedience. Third, creating wealth variation ensures all men need each other, and therefore must produce between them “bonds of brotherly affection” (34). From these bonds, men will see that their wealth is not a reflection of themselves, but God’s glory, in that all property truly belongs to God.

Winthrop gives two rules men should observe to create and foster these bonds of affection: Justice and Mercy. These are divinely sanctioned acts, and respectively represent “the lawe of nature and the lawe of grace, or the morrall lawe and the lawe of the gospel” (34). The moral law is concerned with dealings between men, and commands man to love his neighbour as himself. Man received this law “in the estate of innocency” (35), or at the time of his creation. The law of the Gospel (or the law of Grace) differs from this law as man received it in an estate of regeneracy, or at the time of Christ’s arrival, to regenerate humanity toward God. Therefore the law of the Gospel commands Christians to “Doe good to all, especially to the household of faith,” treating fellow Christians with unique levels of mercy and deference. This law of the Gospel also propounds “a difference of seasons and occasions” (35). This means that at different historical periods, the Christian community must either give more or give less in service to the Church. In short, charity is a necessary act in the eyes of God, is especially important between Christians, and helps to regenerate Christians toward God.

The next portion of Winthrop’s sermon deals with exercising the law of mercy through giving, lending, and forgiving. Framed as a sequence of rhetorical questions, and answers with frequent Biblical citations, Winthrop outlines specific frameworks by which Christians should engage in charitable acts.

First, people should give to others in measure of the abundance they have. Those that have more should give more, and if times are extraordinarily difficult, this should inspire people to give in extraordinary measure. This giving, however, is in proportion to the needs of one’s own family, as “it is without question, that he is worse than an infidell who through his owne sloathe and voluptuousness shall neglect to provide for his family” (36). This should not however lead to the excessive stockpiling of goods; these goods should go to the community. “Lay not upp for yourselves Treasures upon Earth.” Though we do this for fear of thieves and losses, we must give to protect others from these dangers. When we stockpile to provide for our family, we should remember that all Christians are one family: “John 1. he whoe hath this world's goodes and seeth his brother to neede and shutts upp his compassion from him, how dwelleth the loue of God in him?” (37).

When lending we must practice mercy, and if someone does not have the money to repay you, you must still offer what they need. If they do have the money to repay you, view it not as mercy, but a matter of commerce and govern the act by the rule of justice. If people can’t repay things given to them in mercy, we must forgive debts. Also, if there’s no repayment in commerce, we should also forgive—unless there is a surety or lawful pledge between us.

If our community is in peril, we should practice even more graciousness. Winthrop reminds that in the early Church, Christians gave away all their possessions, and in scripture there is no limit to how much one should give. However, scripture curses those that do not help God and his people.

Winthrop moves from discussion of giving, lending, and receiving to focus on the meaning of love between Christians. God places love in the soul as the motivation which finds its outward expression in giving, just as the chiming of a clock takes place not by striking on its chimes directly, but through its inner workings: “when wee bid one make the clocke strike, he doth not lay hand on the hammer, which is the immediate instrument of the sound, but setts on worke the first mouer or maine wheele; knoweing that will certainely produce the sound which he intends” (39).

In scripture, “love is the bond of perfection” (40). Winthrop compares it to a ligament that unites all the parts of the body together. In this comparison, Christ and his church represent a single body. Because of Christ, this body (the Christian community) moves as one form. The ligament is Christ, or his love (since Christ is love). From this Winthrop concludes that all Christians are a single body, and must work together to preserve each other, just as a body functions as one. It is this selflessness for the larger whole that caused Christ to lay down his body for the good of Christianity, and for many saints to do the same.

Winthrop next discusses love’s inspiration in Christians. God created Adam as the perfect model of mankind, and the love which he possessed was perfect. However, Adam’s fall caused the love of mankind to be a love that seeks for oneself only, not the community. This required Christ to come. Christ took possession of the human soul and re-fused it with love of God and our brother. This pure love regenerates humanity to the original, unfallen state of Adam, acting “like the Spirit upon the drie bones... It gathers together the scattered bones, or perfect old man Adam, and knitts them into one body againe in Christ, whereby a man is become againe a living soule” (42). In other words, allowing the love of Christ into oneself and expressing this love through charity redeems the human soul to a state of innocence and one-ness with God.

Winthrop argues that love naturally occurs when we recognize some likeness between ourselves and another. Lack of love, in turn, arises from contrariness in our inner nature. Therefore those joined together in Christ cannot help but to see likeness between themselves, and therefore must treat each other with love. This discovery of likeness in others is a delight for the soul, and causes people to wish to be as one body. Therefore, “among the members of the same body, loue and affection are reciprocall in a most equall and sweete kinde of commerce” (43). To “love and live beloved” (44) is paradise on Earth.

This leads Winthrop to four conclusions. First, love among Christians “is a reall thing, not imaginarie.” (44). Second, this love is integral to the Christian life, or the maintenance of “the being of the body of Christ, as the sinews and other ligaments of a naturall body are to the being of that body” (44). Third, this love is divine and above all other value. Fourth, this love rests in the care of Christians, who must keep it and allow it to knit them together.

Winthrop then draws out some applications to the colonial project, focusing on takeaways for the people, their work, the end of that work, and the means of that work. For people, “we are a company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ” (44). Christian colonists knit themselves together by love even though they’re distant geographically. They live in exercise of this love, and take comfort in their closeness to Christ due to it. For the work at hand, the Church of Christ consents for them to seek out a place of cohabitation under a civil and ecclesiastical form of government, and in this society the care of the public must trump the private, a law which Christians should enshrine in both conscience and policy. The end of this project is for Christians to excel for themselves, their community, and in the service of Christ, therefore improving the world. In means, Christians must conform their work to the pursuit of the above end. They must love each other dutifully, and care for their brethren as themselves. They must recognize that they have entered a covenant with God to do this work, and are under his commission to fulfill it or receive punishment for failing.

The only way to avoid this “shipwracke” (47), or punishment by God, is to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before God. To do this Christians must work together in all things. Doing this, Christians will see much more of God’s wisdom and greatness than they have ever seen in their lifetimes. Finding God among them, they will be able to defend against a thousand enemies with 10 men, and be as “a citty upon a hill” (47), or a shining example for other societies:

Wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when hee shall make us a prayse and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, "the Lord make it likely that of New England (47).

The sermon closes with a quotation of Moses to the Israelites before entering the Promise Land, exhorting them to keep their covenant with God or face destruction: “Therefore lett us choose life / that wee, and our seede / may liue, by obeyeing His / voyce and cleaveing to Him, / for Hee is our life and / our prosperity” (48).