A Model of Christian Charity

“Therefore God still reserves the property of these gifts to himself as Ezek. 16. 17. he there calls wealthe, his gold and his silver, and Prov. 3. 9. he claims theire service as his due, honor the Lord with thy riches.” 

Winthrop uses two sequential Biblical citations to remind his congregation that their wealth, like their very lives, does not belong to them. Instead, it belongs to God. God placed wealth on this earth to serve as a vehicle for charity, which God demands. Therefore, in expressing charity, we “honor the lord with our riches.”

“There are two rules whereby we are to walk one towards another: Justice and Mercy [...] There is likewise a double Lawe by which wee are regulated in our conversation towardes another; in both the former respects, the lawe of nature and the lawe of grace, or the morrall lawe or the lawe of the gospel [...] By the first of these lawes man as he was enabled soe withall is commanded to love his neighbour as himself. Upon this ground stands all the precepts of the morrall lawe, which concernes our dealings with men. […] The lawe of Grace or of the Gospell hath some difference from the former; as in these respects, First the lawe of nature was given to man in the estate of innocency; this of the Gospell in the estate of regeneracy […] and soe teacheth to put a difference between christians and others. Doe good to all, especially to the household of faith.” 

Winthrop outlines the laws of Justice and Mercy, which correspond respectively to the law of nature or moral law, and the law of grace or law of the Gospel. Though Winthrop confuses his point with the multiplicity of names, his main argument is that God designed all humanity to act morally toward one another. Since the time of Christ, who arrived to “regenerate” humanity toward God, this law has changed to emphasize especially that all Christians should bear exemplary love and mercy to other Christians.

“This lawe of the Gospell propounds likewise a difference of seasons and occasions. There is a time when a christian must sell all and give to the poor, as they did in the Apostles times.” 

Referencing the intense charity and self-inflicted poverty of early Christian congregations, Winthrop draws an implicit comparison to the duty of his Christian colonists. This has the effect of uniting new economic and social demands on Christians with an ancient religious history. It also shows that charity has always been a demand of well-practiced Christianity.

“He that giues to the poore, lends to the lord and he will repay him even in this life an hundredfold to him or his.” 

Since God demands charity, God will reward those who practice it in the next life. Winthrop urges his congregation to sacrifice temporary wealth in this life for an eternity of wealth in the next. 

“As 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. Soe the way to drawe men to the workes of mercy, is not by force of Argument from the goodness or necessity of the worke […] but by frameing these affections of loue in the hearte which will as naturally bring forthe the other, as any cause doth produce the effect.” 

In an extended simile (note the “as”), Winthrop describes the function of love in the souls of men. God wishes us to express mercy (i.e. charity) toward each other. Instead of clearly showing us this is necessary, God inspires us at the source of charity by placing love in our souls. Therefore charity is the expression of a divine love. Charity emerges like the ringing of a clock emerges from the unseen movement of its parts.

“The deffinition which the Scripture giues us of loue is this. 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, giues the body its perfection, because 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. To instance in the most perfect of all bodies; Christ and his Church make one body; the severall partes of this body considered a parte before they were united, were as disproportionate and as much disordering as soe many contrary quallities or elements, but when Christ comes, and by his spirit and loue knitts all these partes to himselfe and each to other, it is become the most perfect and best proportioned body in the world.” 

In an extended metaphor, Winthrop describes love as a ligament uniting the Christian community, or “body” of Christ. Christ, the embodiment of love, sets disparate parts of the body in union; in acting out the will of Christ, we allow the entirety of the Christian community to function as one. This is an invocation of Winthrop’s Christian readers to think not only of their own success in the New World, but see themselves as part of a larger Christian project, which has the single aim of a new society under God.

“[O]ur 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, found such a natiue sensibleness of our infirmities and sorrowes as he willingly yielded himselfe to deathe.”

Both man and God, Christ had a human body but also transcended it. Christ sacrificed his human body for the benefit of his divine body, namely all of Christendom. Christ’s sacrifice reminds us of the necessity to make sacrifices for our fellow Christians.

“Adam in his first estate was a perfect modell of mankinde in all their generations, and in him this loue was perfected in regard of the habit. But Adam, rent himselfe from his Creator, rent all his posterity allsoe one from another; whence it comes that every man is borne with this principle in him to loue and seeke himselfe onely, and thus a man continueth till Christ comes and takes possession of the soule and infuseth another principle, loue to God and our brother.” 

God designed Adam to be a perfect model of man, and placed within him a “perfected” love for all his fellow humans. However, the consequence of Adam’s fall was misunderstanding the value of communal love, and the birth of selfishness. Therefore, Christ had to come to man, and his role is to take hold of the human soul and reinvigorate it through communal love. As such, to love in a Christian community is a redemption of the individual soul toward the purpose for which God originally created the soul.

“When this quallity [of love] is thus formed in the soules of men, it workes like the Spirit upon the drie bones. Ezek. 39. bone came to bone. 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.” 

Continuing a focus on the Christian body, Winthrop tells us that if we act in love toward our fellows in Christ, God will redeem us. Because of Adam’s fall, our souls remain lost until we allow Christ, who is love, into our hearts. This is also a subtle signal that the act of Christian charity is important to the final judgment when our bones will rise from the Earth to enter either heaven or damnation.

“Among the members of the same body, loue and affection are reciprocall in a most equall and sweete kinde of cornmerce.” 

This short sentence is one of the most succinct argumentative statements in the work, and condenses much of Winthrop’s previous argumentation. Christians, who are “members of the same body,” will find that love and affection between them is a naturally pleasing economic arrangement. This will produce “an equall and sweete kind of commerce:” one that is pleasant (sweet) and one that will help all people in the community (equall) to thrive.

“In regard of the pleasure and content that the exercise of loue carries with it, as wee may see in the naturall body. The mouth is at all the paines to receive and mince the foode which serves for the nourishment of all the other partes of the body; yet it hath noe cause to complaine; for first the other partes send backe, by severall passages, a due proportion of the same nourishment, in a better forme for the strengthening and comforting the mouthe. 2ly the laboure of the mouthe is accompanied with such pleasure and content as farre exceedes the paines it takes. Soe is it in all the labour of love among Christians.” 

Winthrop explains his system of collaborative commerce between Christians through the metaphor of a mouth. The mouth must do all the work of chewing food, yet this food distributes throughout the body for energy. However, the mouth has no reason to complain, as it is the distribution of food throughout the body that gives the mouth its own ability to find and chew more food. So Christians who disperse funds throughout their community should recognize these funds return to them through the communal benefit of the group. This is a continuation of the idea of all Christianity as a single physical body.

“From the former Considerations arise these Conclusions.—1. First, This loue among Christians is a reall thing, not imaginarie. 2ly. This loue is as absolutely necessary to the being of the body of Christ, as the sinews and other ligaments of a naturall body are to the being of that body. 3ly. This loue is a divine [...] [and] makes us nearer to resemble the virtues of our heavenly father. 4thly It rests in the loue and wellfare of its beloued” 

Winthrop makes some summative statements based on his arguments so far. Christian love exists and is necessary to the maintenance of Christian community (represented as the body of Christ). This love brings us closer to God as it brings us closer to his original design for us. The responsibility for the practice of this love (it’s “wellfare”) rests in our hands.

“It is by a mutuall consent, through a speciall overvaluing providence and a more than an ordinary approbation of the Churches of Christ, to seeke out a place of cohabitation and Consorteshipp under a due forme of Government both ciuill and ecclesiasticall. In such cases as this, the care of the publique must oversway all private respects, by which, not only conscience, but meare civill pollicy, dothe binde us.” 

For a brief moment near the end of his sermon, Winthrop’s language shifts toward a more legal and less theological tone: Winthrop relies upon his background as a lawyer and shows a strong sense of the system of government he intends for the colony. His ideal government is one in which civil and divine law should match, as individual conscious and public policy should also match. In other words, Winthrop intends for a religious government closely united to Christian doctrine in the formulation of its laws.

“We are entered into Covenant with Him for this worke. Wee haue taken out a commission. The Lord hath given us leave to drawe our own articles. Wee haue professed to enterprise these and those accounts, upon these and those ends. Wee have hereupon besought Him of favour and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to heare us, and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath hee ratified this covenant and sealed our Commission, and will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it; but if wee shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends wee have propounded, and, dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnall intentions, seeking greate things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely breake out in wrathe against us.”

Winthrop sees the establishment of Christian community in the New World as a covenant made with God, identical to the covenant God made with the Israelites. Just as with the Israelites, keeping this covenant will reward the settlers, but failure to keep this covenant (through not practicing mercy) will cause the destruction of this new society by God.