Sermon? Treatise? or not by Winthrop at all?
Historian Francis J. Bremer in front of the Church of the Holy Rood, Southampton, UK, where he believes John Winthrop delivered his famous sermon to an assembly of puritan emigrants on the eve of their departure for New England - what became known as the Great Migration. Image: Barbara Bremer
Spurred by the 400th anniversary of the first arrival, in 1619, of slaves in what became the United States as well as the arrival of the Mayflower and the signing of the Mayflower Compact in 1620, Americans have been asked to consider anew our national origins and character. [1] [2]
Perhaps not since Life magazine published a series of essays on "Our National Purpose" has so much attention been paid to where we came from and where we are going.[3] As we look forward to the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Massachusetts the role of the puritan founders of that colony in shaping America will once again gain attention, and much of that will focus on John Winthrop, his lay sermon on "Christian Charity," and his assertion that the colony would be "as a City on a Hill."[4]
Gathering various judgments on Winthrop's sermon, the scholar Abram Van Engen wrote in 2020 that “A Model of Christian Charity has become so central to American traditions that one scholar has pronounced it the ‘Ur-text of American literature,’ another has declared it ‘the cultural key text’ of the nation, and still another called it ‘the best sermon of the millennium’.”[5]
“this sermon has been invoked by politicians more than any other piece of puritan writing. what do we know of it?”
It has been invoked more than any other piece of puritan writing by politicians of all stripes, including by Ronald Reagan and Michael Dukakis. Despite the widely acknowledged significance of the sermon, scholars in recent years have provided new insights into the text itself, its meanings, whether or not Winthrop even delivered it, and if so, where.[6] As we look ahead to the 2030 anniversary, let us review what we know of the sermon and Winthrop's message.
What do we know?
The place to start is with what we know about the sermon manuscript itself. There is only one contemporary copy, housed at the New York Historical Society, a digital copy of which is available here. The manuscript is not in John Winthrop's hand, but has been accepted as a copy of the sermon handwritten in Winthrop's time, one of several likely made and circulated in a form of scribal publication, i.e. multiple copies recorded by hand. Whether Winthrop himself wrote an original manuscript that was copied or the manuscript was copied from notes taken by someone who heard it is not known. We do know that various other materials setting forth the reasons for emigration and describing the conditions of the colony were copied by Winthrop's son Forth Winthrop. It would make sense if this sermon was also copied.
There are no eyewitness accounts of the sermon's delivery and only one contemporary reference to it. Henry Jessey (Jacie), a friend of the Winthrops who communicated with John Winthrop Jr. and some Englishmen considering joining the ongoing migration to New England, asked the younger Winthrop to send him a map, a copy of the charter, and "the Model of Charity."[7] In the early 19th century, members of the Winthrop family in New England and New York began to gather family papers, the bulk of which were donated to the Massachusetts Historical Society.
In 1809 Francis Bayard Winthrop donated 22 historical books and manuscripts, one listed as A Modell of Christian Charity, to the New York Historical Society. While that manuscript is clearly in a 17th century hand, a pasted-on cover sheet is likely in a 19th century writing, not a 17th century hand. This sheet stated that the sermon was "Written on Board the Arrabella on the Atlantick Ocean By the Honorable John Winthrop Esq. In his passage with the great Company of Religious people of which he was the Governor, from the Island of Great Brittaine to New England in the North America. Anno 1630."[8] The author of that statement or someone else subsequently added on the sheet that the people to whom this was addressed were "Christian Tribes" of which Winthrop was the "Brave leader and famous" governor.[9] When, around 30 years later, the "Model" first began to attract the attention of historians, that pasted-on sheet was uncritically accepted as a description of the manuscript.
John Winthrop, the “brave leader and famous” governor, elected in England in 1629, before the puritans departed for New England, to head the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Image: Wikicommons
A last comment on the manuscript itself. The 17th century individual who produced the actual manuscript headed the first page "Christian Charitie: A Modell hereof." Scholars have assumed that this represents the beginning of what Winthrop preached, but Abram Van Engen has done much to advance our knowledge of the sermon. His close reading of the text has led him to conclude that "the text that survives is nothing but a copy - and possibly just a copy of a copy. And that copy is corrupt."[10] He notes inaccurate scriptural citations, which Winthrop would not have committed.
“for all the law is fulfilled in one word, which is, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”
Most importantly, Van Engen offers a careful reading of the entire text compared to other puritan sermons, to argue that the beginning appears to be missing. Examining the messages that Winthrop was trying to convey, Van Engen argues that the biblical text that would have started the sermon, been expanded, and tied it together was Galatians 5: 13-14 - "For brethren, ye have been called unto liberty: only use not your liberty as an occasion unto the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the Law is fulfilled in one word, which is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."[11]
Sermon or publication?
Daniel Rodgers argued in 2018 in As a City on a Hill that the Model was not a sermon at all but a written treatise. Richard Gamble similarly argued in 2012, in In Search of a City on a Hill, that it was not a sermon. I don't find these arguments convincing, nor does Abram Van Engen. Those denying that it is a sermon preached by Winthrop assert that puritan preachers did not write their sermons out. This is not true. Those familiar with puritanism in this period know that preachers on occasion wrote out their sermons in full and at other times expanded them from preaching notes so as to have them published in print or for scribal circulation.
They might also reach print from notes taken by listeners. The sermon John Cotton preached to the New England emigrants on what I believe was the same day was soon in print; Winthrop's sermon was not, although the existence of the manuscript is evidence of scribal publication. It is possible that the text we have was expanded from notes by someone who heard it, who perhaps omitted the beginning if it didn't seem relevant to their situation. But the argument that this was a sermon and it was delivered by Winthrop is strong.
Or not by Winthrop at all?
Some who accept that it is a sermon deny that it was delivered by John Winthrop because he was a layman. Jerome McGann argues this on the basis that Winthrop "was a lawyer and an administrator, not a minister, and no lay sermons by Winthrop are extant."[12] This ignores the fact that lay preaching was common among puritans at the time, though rarely were lay sermons printed. After 1630 Winthrop recorded a number of occasions on which he travelled to neighboring towns and preached in the absence of a settled minister. I've elaborated on lay preaching in general in my Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism (Basingstoke, 2015) and One Small Candle: The Plymouth Puritans and the Beginning of English New England (New York, 2020).
John Morrill, editor-in-chief of the new edition of the papers of Oliver Cromwell, who is working on a biography of Cromwell, argues that Cromwell occasionally preached to puritan gatherings in the decades before the Civil War. Especially relevant is that the layman Robert Cushman preached a sermon in 1621 in the Plymouth colony that was published, A Sermon Preached at Plimoth in New-England December 9, 1621. In an Assembly of his Majesty’s faithful Subjects there inhabiting. Wherein is Showed the Danger of Self-Love, and the Sweetness of True Friendship (London, 1622). There are strong similarities between Cushman's call for community unity and Winthrop's message in the Model of Christian Charity.[13] And while not a clergyman, Winthrop often expressed himself on religious matters, such as when he spoke in a prophesying[14] on a visit to Plymouth and when he debated various issues raised by Anne Hutchinson and her followers.
Where was the sermon preached? And when?
The sermon has an important place in my biography, John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father (New York, 2003). I concluded after studying it that the identification of the sermon having been delivered on the Arbella - based on the 19th century attribution on the added page of the surviving manuscript - was wrong. If we agree that the sermon was intended for those joining him in the migration in the spring of 1630, as the content strongly suggests, then the idea that it was delivered on the Arbella must be discounted, for the passengers on that one ship represented but a small portion of those emigrating on all the ships in the fleet. I also discount the idea suggested by some that it was delivered upon reaching America because the various ships in the fleet arrived over a period of weeks and the full group was not gathered together in Massachusetts at one time. This leaves the likelihood that it was delivered prior to the departure, before the passengers had boarded the ships, in Southampton, England.
Hugh Dawson argued in 1991 that Winthrop’s sermon was preached in Southampton, on the same occasion as Cotton's departure sermon, and suggested that the date was March 21.[15] I accepted his argument as to Southampton but questioned the date of March 21 because letters Winthrop sent to both his wife and son from Cowes are an indication that the fleet had already left Southampton on that date.
“The times of persecution here in England”
We should always take great care reading a manuscript not in the author's hand because changes in tense and phrasing easily occur in copying. That being said, the text we have contains phrases strongly indicating that it was delivered in England - "the times of persecution here in England" and the last part of the statement "whatsoever we did or ought to have done when we lived in England, the same must we do and more also where we go."
Thus there is textual evidence as well as logic to suggest that the sermon was delivered in England, particularly Southampton. It is universally accepted that John Cotton accompanied families from Boston, Lincolnshire, to that port to see them off and that he preached his departure sermon, God's Promise to His Plantation (1630), there. Logic suggests that Winthrop would have preached on the same occasion rather than gather the waiting passengers twice.
The Southampton church where the puritans are likely to have heard Winthrop preach his Model of Christian Charity. Image: Barbara Bremer
Preaching at Southampton’s Church of the Holy Rood
But where in Southampton? It would have to have been a large hall to accommodate them, most likely a church. While researching my biography of John Winthrop, I reached out to Dr. Kenneth Fincham of the University of Kent, a specialist in the religious history of the period and chief editor of the Clergy of the Church of England online database. Fincham offered his views and directed me to a pair of young scholars who would be more familiar with the religious situation in Southampton at the time. Based on exchanges with them and my own research I concluded that the Church of the Holy Rood was the likely place for the sermons by Cotton and Winthrop.
One factor was the location of the church and its history as a place where departing groups had gathered for prayer since the Crusades. More important was the fact that there was a lectureship at Holy Rood, which made it likely that the parish had a puritan character since lectureships of this type were typically funded and frequented by puritans who sought a preaching ministry.[16] Restrictions were being imposed on lectureships at the time, as King Charles I was attempting to curb the puritan movement, but in areas where the puritan movement was strong these restrictions were not well enforced. Lecturers were not "paid by the lecture," so giving up a session to a visitor to preach would not have been an issue.
This image of John Winthrop appears on a Boston, Massachusetts, plaque erected by the city on its 300th anniversary. It reads: “Near this site was the first house in Boston of John Winthrop, born 1588, died 1649. Governor of Massachusetts for twelve years. First elected October 20, 1629. Brought the charter from England June 12, 1630.”
How should we mark the moment?
How should we commemorate this signal moment in history? Local authorities in Southampton could recognize formally that the sermons preached by John Cotton and John Winthrop were delivered in the Church of the Holy Rood. Southampton has long been proud of its connection with the Pilgrim story and the departure of the Mayflower. A new plaque commemorating these significant sermons and suggesting the Church of the Holy Rood as the likely location would take notice of an equally important event – the puritan Great Migration - and Southampton’s role in the settlement of New England.
As discussed by Rodgers, Van Engen, and others, the sermon was largely ignored till it was finally printed 1830s by the Massachusetts Historical Society. Even then, it was rarely referenced in histories of the United States. No one recorded their impressions of the sermon when it was delivered, which is one reason why some have doubted that Winthrop actually preached it. But this should not be surprising. While there were contemporary references to John Cotton's farewell to the Winthrop fleet, those were to the printed version. No testimony survives from someone who actually was present when Cotton delivered his sermon. Winthrop's sermon was likewise not remarked on by someone who heard it. The fact that it was not printed does not surprise me.
As I have written about elsewhere, the message (especially if we accept Van Engen's suggestion of a missing opening) was not remarkable. It was a call for exercising Christian love in a community setting that was commonplace at the time and expressed in numerous unpublished and published sermons, including Cushman's.
“winthrop never claimed exceptionalism. he hoped they would be a city on a hall, not the city on a hill”
Though the sermon was not printed in Winthrop's lifetime, the survival of the version we have is evidence of scribal publication. This was a common means of preserving and disseminating ideas. In some cases numerous copies of a scribal publication exist, in other cases only one copy survives, and there are some recorded manuscripts for which no copy remains.[17]
Not the city on a hill, but knit together
Winthrop’s Christian Charity sermon helps us to understand Winthrop's actions as governor of Massachusetts and how he helped to shape early New England society. But it was not until the 20th century that it assumed importance as the presumed origin of the idea of American exceptionalism. Van Engen indicates that since the 1950s, the sermon "has become fundamental to the meaning of America."[18] Winthrop's identification of his colony as a "City on a Hill," has been cited by President Reagan and other politicians to bolster claims of American exceptionalism.
Some of those who accept that linkage today find reasons to condemn the puritan leader and his vision. Yet this reading ignores the fact that Winthrop never claimed the colony was exceptional. Instead, he asserted his hope that if the colonists adhered to God's rule then they would be as a city on a hill, not the city on a hill.
Many Englishmen, puritans in particular, used the biblical phrase (Matthew 5: 14-16) to describe people and communities that drew the attention of those around them because they led exemplary lives, being models of Christian charity. This was what all people were called to, including but not limited to those embarking from Southampton in 1630. If they failed, they would suffer God's judgment.[19] This is a far cry from a claim of exceptionalism.
“We must delight in each other.. rejoice, mourn, labor and suffer together… our community as members of the same body”
If Winthrop's sermon is not the origin of American exceptionalism, then why is it important? Like Cotton's sermon, in a somewhat different way, it set forth the goals of the settlement, which were neither gold nor glory, but to live godly lives. It argued (as had Cushman almost a decade earlier) for the importance of placing the community over the desires of the individual, what I have (somewhat anachronistically) called the puritan "social gospel." One of the strengths of recent scholarship is that it points to the portions of the sermon that elaborate on this message, which explain, in essence, how people must behave if they want the community to be seen as a city on a hill.[20] For me, the key passage is not the reference to a city on a hill, but this aspirational passage:
…we must be knit together in this work as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other, make others conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body.[21]
This is the portion of the sermon that Governor Michael Dukakis drew upon when accepting the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1988, calling on Americans to recognize their mutual responsibilities.[22]
By modern standards, Winthrop and the puritans came to define their community more narrowly than we would wish. Nor did they always live up to their ideals in treating those counted members of their community. In remembering John Winthrop we need not ignore his faults or those of his fellow puritans. But we should not confuse the faults with the entirety of the story.[23] And in terms of his Christian Charity, there is much to say for Winthrop's words as a foundational ideal.
Francis J. Bremer is an advisor to the Partnership of Historic Bostons. He is professor emeritus of history at Millersville University of Pennsylvania and editor of the Winthrop papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
[1] I would like to thank David A. Lupher and Eve LaPlante for their suggestions.
[2] The New York Times Magazine touched off a debate over the role played by slavery and racism with publication of a special issue entitled The 1619 Project in 2019. The revised material and additional commentary has been published as The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story, created by Nikole Hannah-Jones (2021). A conservative group, the National Association of Scholars, responded with 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project (2020), edited by Peter W. Wood, which offered the Pilgrim story as the true origin of America.
[3] For a discussion of that project see John W. Jeffries, "The 'Quest for National Purpose' of 1960," American Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 4 (autumn, 1978), pp. 451-470.
[4] I have discussed the history of the commemoration of the founding of Massachusetts in Francis J. Bremer, "Remembering - and Forgetting - John Winthrop and the Puritan Founders," Massachusetts Historical Review, Vol. 6 (2004), pp. 38-69.
[5] Abram C. Van Engen, City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism (2020), citing Andrew Delbanco, Sacvan Bercovitch, and Peter Gomes.
[6] Recent works that deal with the sermon, in addition to Van Engen's book noted above, include Daniel T. Rogers, As a City on a Hill: The Story of America's Most Famous Lay Sermon (2018); Richard M. Gamble, In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and Unmaking of an American Myth (2012); and Jerome McGann, Culture & Language at Crossed Purposes: The Unsettled Record of American Settlement (2022).
[7] Winthrop Papers, III, pp. 188-189. Jessey did not date the letter and Jerome McGann has recently questioned the date of February 1634/5 suggested by the editors of that volume of Winthrop Papers. McGann points out that in asking for a copy of the “Model of Charity” he also requests a copy of A Posie for Gods Saints, which apparently was not published until 1642. The point still remains that Jessey, who was familiar with both the Winthrops, father and son, did request the sermon, and did so at a time when in England a call for community and mutual love would have been highly relevant.
[8] David Lupher has pointed out that this addition was deliberately archaized with the spelling of "Atlantick" and "Great Brittyaine."
[9] See Daniel T. Rodgers, As a City on a Hill: The Story of America's Most Famous Lay Sermon (Princeton, 2018), pp. 133-135. Further information on the text is to be found in Richard M. Gamble, In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and Unmaking of an American Myth (London, 2012), chapter four.
[10] Abram Van Engen, City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism (New Haven, 2020), p. 25.
[11] Van Engen, City on a Hill, pp. 25-35. For an earlier, more detailed analysis of this see Van Engen, "Origins and Last Farewells: Bible Wars, Textual Form, and the Making of American History," New England Quarterly, 86 (2013), pp. 543-592.
[12] Jerome McGann, "'Christian Charity', A Sacred American Text," Textual Cultures, 12 (2019), p. 43, and in his Culture & Language.
[13] David S. Lovejoy pointed out the similarity between Cushman's sermon and Winthrop's in "Plain Englishmen at Plymouth," New England Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 2 (Jun., 1990), pp. 232-248 and I have noted this in various places as well. David A. Lupher discusses some of the parallels between the lay sermons by Cushman and Winthrop in his Greeks, Romans, and Pilgrims: Classical Receptions in Early New England (2017), p. 291 n.70.
[14] "Prophesying" was an occasion, common among the Pilgrims and many other puritan congregations, where lay believers could exchange their ideas on a matter of faith or practice with clergy and other laity.
[15] Hugh Dawson, "John Winthrop's Rite of Passage: The Origins of the 'Christian Charity' Discourse," Early American Literature 26 (1991), pp. 210-231; and Dawson, "'Christian Charity' as Colonial Discourse: Reading Winthrop's Sermon in its English Context,” Early American Literature 33 (1998), pp. 117-148.
[16] Lectureships were established for visiting preachers to supplement the preaching of parish clergy when the sermons of the latter were deemed inadequate and were often funded by puritans. See Paul Seaver, The Puritan Lectureships: The Politics of Religious Dissent, 1560-1662 (Stanford, 1970).
[17] For discussions of scribal publication in the 17th century see David D. Hall, Ways of Writing: The Practice and Politics of Text-Making in Seventeenth-Century New England (Philadelphia, 2008); and Harold Love, The Culture and Commerce of Texts: Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England (UMass Press edition, 1993)
[18] Van Engen, City on a Hill, p. 4.
[19] I have made this point in my biography of John Winthrop, 179-183, and in more detail in my article "To Live Exemplary Lives: Puritans and Puritan Communities as Lofty Lights," The Seventeenth Century, VII (1992), pp. 27-39.
[20] I have been especially impressed with Rodger's analysis of this, though I disagree with much of what he says about Winthrop's intent and delivery.
[21] Rodger's As a City on a Hill, p. 307. This is from the appendix of Rodgers' book, which is a slightly modernized text of the entire sermon, with some errors in previous transcriptions silently corrected through examination of the manuscript.
[22] Rodgers, City on a Hill, p. 248, refers to Dukakis and also mentions similar references to Winthrop in speeches by Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
[23] At one point during the height of the Black Lives Movement, some members of the First Church Boston wished to take down the statue of Winthrop that stands outside their church, based on the governor's connection to slavery in early New England.