Joseph Choi
HI-200-01
MAJ Matsui
Word Count:
Help Received: Biography
Critical Review of John Winthrop’s “A modell of a Christian Charity” (1630)
“A modell of a Christian Charity” by John Winthrop, describes Winthrop’s idealized society of “true” Christians to become one with God while loving one another. While effectivlely using the King James bible, as evidence, he urged Puritans to honor their duties and obligations, “or surely we shall perish” (Winthrop 8), through three main points: the first explained that God wants his people give gifts to others, the second proposed that the rich should give towards the poor and the poor should show gratitude through a spirit of obedience, the third emphasized that everyone in the community should love each other. Winthrop summarizes these ideas in his conclusion, “We must delight in eache other; make other's conditions our oune; rejoice together, mourne together, labour and suffer together, allwayes haueving before our eyes our commission and community in the worke, as members of the same body…” (Winthrop 8).
Winthrop explains that the main reason puritans were resettling to the New World was to build a society with its…show more content… Winthrop explains earlier that “There is a time when a Christian must sell all and give to the poor, as they did in the Apostles times” (Winthrop 2). Winthrop questions this concept by providing the moral dilemma of becoming poor after serving the poor. In which he answers by explaining that you must first serve the needs of your family before helping others. He then presents the problem of becoming “too” wealthy and rebuts this argument with the argument of the potential use of this wealth for the religious