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What is the religious tone of Winthrop's A Model of Christian Charity and the significance of the Moses references?
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The religious tone of Winthrop's A Model of Christian Charity is optimistic and compassionate. He envisions the Puritans establishing a city on a hill that will be a model for the rest of the world to follow. He uses Moses leading the Israelites to the Promised Land as the pattern for what the Puritans are doing in America.
Winthrop's tone in A Model of Christian Charity is one of optimism and compassion, as he looks forward with great hope and envisions the utopic society he believes his people can establish in the new land. He sees the English colonization of the Americas as establishing a city on a hill. Winthrop reminds his audience that the eyes of the world are on them. This is an unprecedented, God-given opportunity to build a city of God, a truly Christian kingdom, and he urges them to do so.
Winthrop emphasizes the need for this new community to take care of all its members with compassion and generosity. They need to build a new society that corrects the corruptions and cruelties of what was left behind in Europe. It is up to them to show the world that they can be a lantern illuminating the truth of how God wants his people...
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Winthrop's language is saturated in Biblical religious imagery. The references to Moses are a form of typology. Typology argues that the events of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) prefigure and provide a pattern for the events in the New Testament. Winthrop takes this out further, seeing in God's deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt under the leadership of Moses a pattern the Puritans are following in the New World. He describes America as a promised land given to God's faithful followers just as God gave Moses and his followers the promised land of Israel.
Winthrop's tone is hopeful, even loving, throughout this oration. He argues that those people involved in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony must do two things: take care of one another and remember that they are in a covenant, a kind of contract, with God. There is a threat, too, that if they forget either of these two charges, they will suffer greatly and feel an embarrassment that will be seen by the rest of the world. However, this threat is not the most important part of the piece. Winthrop argues that they all need each other: they must treat one another with justice and mercy. He even says that we must "perform . . . out of the same affection which makes [us] careful of [our] own goods . . . whatsoever [we] would that men should do to [us]." In other words, we must treat each other as we would want to be treated: kindly, charitably, and lovingly.
Further, Winthrop says,
when God gives a special commission He looks to have it strictly observed in every article; When He gave Saul a commission to destroy Amaleck, He indented with him upon certain articles, and because he failed in one of the least, and that upon a fair pretense, it lost him the kingdom, which should have been his reward, if he had observed his commission. Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into covenant with Him for this work. We have taken out a commission.
The people must follow God's laws, and if they do not, then they will break faith with God. In this case, "the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, and be revenged of such a people, and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant." There is biblical proof for this. On the other hand, should the people follow God's laws, God will "delight to dwell among us, as His own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways."
Winthrop references Moses in the final paragraph of this oration. In the particular chapter of Deuteronomy he cites, Moses speaks to Israel, saying that there are two options: remain faithful to God and God will reward you; reject God and God will curse you. Moses says that God
may have scattered you to the farthest countries on earth, but he will bring you back to the land that had belonged to your ancestors and make you even more successful and powerful than they ever were.
This line may feel particularly appropriate for Winthrop's group because they too are a people scattered far from their home (England), but there is the promise that they will someday be able to return home. The Puritans left England because they felt the Church of England had not done enough to distance itself from the corruption and materialism of the Catholic Church. The idea that they would be able to return home as a major success story, rather than as a splinter group, would be enticing indeed.
Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity" addresses the challenges of forming a new colony in the New World. His essay emphasizes the importance of maintaining a covenant with god, as referenced in Deuteronomy, while maintaining a voluntary community who agrees to live by god's laws, according to the Puritan tradition.
The essay seeks to demonstrate God's "mercy and justice" as long as members follow God's law which included the command to love one’s enemies and love one’s neighbor and caring for the poor.
The essay promotes the need for social order. The rich are asked to give to the poor, and Mr. Winthrop acknowledges the importance of reconciling the needs of the individual with the needs of the community.
Winthrop's position reflects the uncertainties of his time as settlers faced daunting challenges in the new world.
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