11
A CITY UPON A HILL
On June 8, 1630, John Winthrop, standing at the rail of the Arbella, got his first sight of New England: the fir-covered hills of Maine. He stared in wonder at pines taller than any trees he had ever seen, coming right down to the boulders on the shore. The afternoon sun was shining, and an iridescent haze hung over the hills so that the firs seemed to glisten.
It was so much grander than he had expected. It was breathtakingly beautiful, but it was wild and savage too. This was not a land to be easily cleared and settled. His heart welled within him as it occurred to him that even this forbidding wilderness was a blessing, for it would discourage any who came for selfish reasons. A fresh, clear breeze came out to them over the sun-dappled waters, bearing the scent of those majestic pines, “and there came a smell off the shore like the smell of a garden.”1
During the next few days as they made their way down the rocky coastline, they frequently tacked in, close enough to pick out individual trees and catch their delightful fragrance. It had been a peaceful voyage. Carrying a year’s food supply, they did not have to arrive before the spring planting season, so they could afford to wait out the worst of the winter storms before clearing Southampton. In fact, so calm was the ocean in May that at one point Winthrop declared a fast day, in hopes of the Lord stirring up a moderate wind.
A peaceful passage may not seem particularly noteworthy, but in those days it was considered another manifestation of God’s special grace. As Edward Johnson, an amateur historian and a contemporary of Winthrop, put it in the opening words of his Wonder-Working Providences of Sion’s Saviour in New England, “Then judge, all you (whom the Lord hath given a discerning spirit), whether these poor New England people be not forerunners of Christ’s army, and the marvelous providences which you shall now hear, be not the very finger of God.” The first example in his highly enthusiastic compendium of instances of divine intervention makes an interesting point. In the first half of the seventeenth century, when so many ships were going down in storms or being taken by pirates and privateers, of the 198 vessels to set sail for New England only one was ever lost.2
We can imagine Winthrop at the rail on the afterdeck, wishing that his wife, Margaret, were at his side to share all of this beauty with him. But she was back at Groton, their family estate in Suffolk County, closing out their affairs with the help of John Jr. She had wanted to come but was due to give birth in April, just a few weeks after the expedition was to sail, and so she accepted that it was God’s will for her to wait until her husband should send for her. As they faced a lengthy separation, they agreed to pray for one another every Monday and Friday from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m.3
In the coming months Winthrop would write often to her, doing his best to console her:
My trust is that He who hath so disposed it, will supply thee with much patience. . . . The Lord is able to do this, and thou mayest expect it, for He hath promised it. Seeing He calls me to His work, He will have care of thee and all ours and our affairs in my absence; therefore, I must send thee to Him, for all thou lackest. Go boldly, sweet wife, to the throne of Grace.4
In another letter dated September 1630 he addressed her as if she were present: “I am sorry to part with thee so soon, seeing we meet so seldom. . . . So I kiss my sweet wife and my dear children, and rest thy faithful husband.”5
He knew that because they each were in God’s will, she would have the same inner peace that he now had. Then too, young John was with her and already at age twenty-three was showing remarkable maturity and judgment. No, Winthrop’s only concern at the moment was for his second eldest, Henry, who was with him on the Arbella. Henry was the opposite of John Jr. Seemingly determined to carve out a career as a wastrel, Henry had gone so far as to deceive his parents into permitting him to marry his cousin, with whom he was convinced that he was madly in love, by telling them that he had gotten her with child. This had turned out not to be the case, and Winthrop, after paying his son’s debts, had decided to put him under firm discipline for a while, counting on the rigors of the New World to straighten him out.
On the morning of June 11, they came upon a cheerful sight: a ship at anchor with half a dozen fishing shallops around her, all bobbing up and down. A little while later the captain informed Winthrop that they had Cape Ann in sight, which meant that they would be arriving in Salem harbor on next morning’s tide. Salem at last! After seventy-two days of waiting.
But the sight that greeted them the following morning was far from cheerful. Where was Salem? Surely this pitiful collection of huts and hovels and canvas shelters—surely this was not the first town of the Massachusetts Bay Company. It must be the remnants of their first camp, temporary housing that they had not bothered to dismantle. The main town must be further back in the woods.
But as the ship drew nearer, the truth sank in: this was Salem. And then the people came down to the shore, gaunt and ragged—glad to see the new arrivals, but something was wrong. It was something more than their thinness or the sorry condition of their clothing—something inside of them. They were listless, slow of movement, apathetic. The life was gone out of their expressions.
Deeply troubled, Winthrop quickly arranged for a private briefing on board ship by John Endecott, the brash, quick-tempered soldier who had acted as Governor for the now-defunct New England Company and was filling in as provisional Governor for the Massachusetts Bay Company until Winthrop should arrive as his replacement. From Endecott, Winthrop learned that of the sixty-six people who had come over with him in 1628 and the two hundred who had come with Higginson and Skelton the following year, scarcely eighty-five remained. More than eighty had died, while the rest had quit and gone back to England. Many of the remainder were intending to do the same, for “all the bread and corn among them [was] hardly sufficient to feed upon a fortnight.”6
It is not difficult to imagine the sort of exchange that probably followed: “But my good heavens, man!” Winthrop might have exclaimed, “What’s to become of the plantation? This is as bad as Jamestown. And these people aren’t fortune-hunters; they’re decent Puritans. You had ministers here, good ones. Is there no teaching here?”
“We have a teaching service on Thursdays,” Endecott might have retorted, “and two services on Sundays.” He sighed. “But it seems to do no good. They hear the words and nod—and nothing changes.” His voice trailed off in the same defeat that Winthrop had noted outside.
Winthrop spent that night aboard the Arbella, undoubtedly availing himself of the privacy of the captain’s cabin. It began to look as if the final curtain would ring down before the play could finish even the first act. Was it all for nothing? Had he not heard God, after all? Had his selfishness or pride put all their lives into jeopardy?
He might have walked over to the porthole then and looked out, recalling another time only a few weeks ago, when he had stood at this very port. . . .
Outside, a green-white wake trailed erratically behind them on the surface of the ocean, as they yawed this way and that under a lead-gray sky. He had been thinking for a long time about the plantation and the quality of life that they could have together. Now in a rush of inspiration it was all coming together in his mind. Like all people trained to work with words, he yearned to get out his writing box and ink and paper, but he restrained himself until the concepts were clearly formed.
The sea had moderated somewhat when he finally went to the chart table and took out the box. Selecting a quill, he sharpened it, dipped it into the wide-bottomed ink bottle, carefully removing the excess against the rim, and looked at the white sheet of paper before him.
What he would write next would rank in importance with the Compact that the Pilgrims had drawn up aboard the Mayflower. Indeed, he took their concept one step further. For while they had stated what they were about to do as a body politic of equal members—gathered by God to live for Him and to be governed by their mutual consent—Winthrop now spelled out why it would work. His definition of covenant love has seldom been equaled.
The words that went across the top of the sheet of paper read: A MODEL OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY. He went straight to the heart of the matter, beginning with some thoughts on the nature of a person’s love for his or her neighbor—what it could and should be, by the grace of God.
This love among Christians is . . . as absolutely necessary to the [well] being of the Body of Christ, as the sinews and other ligaments of a natural body are to the [well] being of that body. . . . We are a company, professing ourselves fellow members of Christ, [and thus] we ought to account ourselves knit together by this bond of love.
Then came the heart of his vision:
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 Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles. . . . If the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this Covenant and sealed our Commission, [and] will expect a strict performance of the Articles contained in it. But if we shall neglect the observance of these Articles . . . the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us.
Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man. . . . We must hold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience, and liberality. We must delight in each other, make one another’s condition our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our Commission and Community in this work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. . . .
We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when He shall make us a praise and glory, that men of succeeding plantations shall say, “The Lord make it like that of New England.” For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill.7
Standing now at the port and looking out at the New England night, Winthrop knew that it was God who had brought that previous time to his mind, as if to remind him that God would not have given him this momentous revelation if He had not intended it to be put to use.
Winthrop soon learned what had happened that winter of 1628–29. They had suffered a general sickness of the same sort that had stricken Plymouth during its first winter. In fact, Endecott had written to Governor Bradford, appealing for help. Bradford’s response was to send their doctor, Samuel Fuller, who had by now had abundant experience in treating cases of scurvy and constitutions gravely weakened by long sea voyages, as well as the various fevers and illnesses accompanying a sharp, cold winter.
Fuller stayed through the winter in Endecott’s house and helped substantially. Indeed, Endecott was so impressed that he named their settlement Salem, the Hebrew word for peace. This Separatist whom he had been prepared to dislike had manifested as much Christian love as any Puritan he knew. The two men had often talked late by the fire. And the more Endecott learned, the more respectful he became of what God was doing some forty miles down the coast.
Dr. Fuller was also a deacon, and Endecott was especially interested in the structure of their church. Under the leadership of Elder Brewster, the Plymouth church was organizationally separate from the civil authority under Governor Bradford. Yet it obviously exercised decisive moral influence over it. Separatist church leadership was provided by a pastor, a teacher, and a ruling elder, but these were chosen by the members of the church (not imposed by a presbytery or hierarchy of bishops). The right to choose freely their own spiritual leadership was zealously guarded as one of the basic tenets of their Christian faith. What was more, the Separatist church was open to all who cared to worship there. But to become a member of that church (and thus to be eligible to vote in both civil and religious elections), one had to convince the elders of the church of one’s personal, saving relationship with Jesus Christ and of the orthodoxy of one’s faith.
Winthrop may have had some private doubts about the wisdom of giving the right to vote to those who were not landholders (the idea of servants having equal voting rights with their masters smacked of “democracy”), but he held his tongue. From all reports, whatever else the people of Plymouth were doing, they were trying to do God’s will. And He seemed well-pleased with them, blessing them more abundantly each successive year.
What was more, while some of their practices might be decidedly unconventional, even radical, that was not necessarily a bad thing. For instance, they reelected their Governor every year. And every year Governor Bradford insisted that the day before the election be a holiday. They were to do nothing but pray and seek God’s will as to who He would have govern them.
The more Endecott listened to Dr. Fuller, the more convinced he became that this was the church model that God intended Salem to follow as well. Thus, when the Reverends Higginson and Skelton arrived, he told them of his decision. They insisted that they were loyal to the Church of England, but since they had not decided on any particular church structure before coming, they were open to Endecott’s proposals. (When one considers the combinations of timing and circumstance that produced the Congregational Church, it obviously seems to be God’s handiwork.) So Higginson and Smith were duly elected pastor and teacher, though their formal installation would have to wait until the arrival of the Governor.
Of the “gathering” of this first Puritan church in America, we have a vivid contemporary account from the ebullient Edward Johnson:
Although the number of the faithful people of Christ were but few, yet their longing desire to gather into a church was very great. . . . Having fasted and prayed with humble acknowledgement of their own unworthiness to be called of Christ to so worthy a work, they joined together in a holy Covenant with the Lord and with one another, promising by the Lord’s assistance to walk together in exhorting, admonishing and rebuking one another, and to cleave to the Lord with a full purpose of heart.8
As Endecott was relating the account of their covenanting with God and one another, we can imagine that Winthrop interrupted him: “That’s why it’s not working!” he might have exclaimed.
Endecott stared at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you see? They love God, and they’ve covenanted to obey Him, or they wouldn’t be here. But they’re not living out their covenant with one another. They don’t love one another enough to exhort, admonish, and rebuke. And at Plymouth they do. That’s the difference!”
“But,” Endecott objected, “the Separatists at Plymouth—the First Comers, as we call them—already had been a church for years before they came, and we’ve only just gathered here.”
“That’s all the more reason why we’ve got to live up to our covenant with each other.” Winthrop paused and looked straight at Endecott. “And it must begin with the leadership. Unless you and I demonstrate our own commitment to this plantation and to these people—unless you and I are willing to put our whole lives into the work here—we can’t expect them to. Well?”
Endecott met his gaze. “You can count on it,” he said.
“Good. Now, first of all, I want to get settled ashore right away. This house is large enough to accommodate both of us, is it not?”
“But Mr. Winthrop, this is your house; it belongs to the Governor. I’ll find lodgings elsewhere.”
“If you had room for Dr. Fuller over the winter, there is room for both of us, until we newcomers build places of our own.”
Before Endecott could reply, Winthrop went on to the next thing on his mind. “An hour before noon, have every able-bodied man and boy assembled in the center of town.” He thought for a moment. “And have the women come too, those who are healthy and are not needed to tend the sick.” He glanced at the height of the sun. “In the meantime I will see about getting my belongings ashore and stored.”
Winthrop started out the door and then turned back. “Oh, and tell the gentlemen—that would be Mr. Saltonstall, Mr. Pynchon, Mr. Nowell, and the others—that this includes them, too.” He smiled. “You’d better suggest that they wear old clothes.”
“Right, Mr. Winthrop,” Endecott said, and nodded.
Promptly at one o’clock he came to the open space in the center of the huts and shelters that was “town.” A number of people were already there, staring at their Governor in amazement. Dressed in worn boots and breeches and an old frayed shirt, he looked more like an indentured servant than a gentleman.
When most of the people had gathered, he addressed them: “The situation here is not exactly what we in England were led to expect.” There was some cynical laughter but mostly silence; the people were waiting to hear what would come next. “But I think it can be rectified without too much trouble. It is, however, going to require a good deal of hard work. By the end of the summer, every one of you is going to have a proper roof over your head. As for houses of your own, until we have them for all, more than one family will have to live together for the first winter.”
There was a marked current of unbelief. “How are we going to do it?” Winthrop asked the question for them. “By God’s grace and by helping one another.”
At that moment he was interrupted by the arrival of Richard Saltonstall and a friend, who were carrying on a conversation of their own. Saltonstall was wearing a white shirt with a ruff at the neck. Winthrop’s lips compressed; then he turned back to the rest.
“First of all, who among you has had any experience fishing?” Eight men raised their hands, and Winthrop conferred with Endecott. “All right, Packham and Kenworthy, each of you take three men, and on alternate days you will take turns using the shallop for fishing.”
He looked up from his lists. “Now, the women. Those of you who are able will do field work in the mornings. The rest will be under Mr. Skelton on nursing detail. Mr. Skelton? As of this moment, you are officially responsible for what you and Reverend Higginson have been unofficially doing all along: tending the sick. Only now you are going to have more help.”
Here he turned to the ailing pastor who, unable to stand any longer, had lowered himself to a stump. “Considering your condition, sir, you can help us most with your prayers—and a strong word on Sunday about what it means to serve God and one another.”
He returned his attention to the other minister. “Mr. Skelton, you will also be in charge of the food stores. I want an inventory taken daily, and I would appreciate your alerting me of any projected shortfalls, as far in advance as possible. Also, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you are to decide what the daily ration will be.” He looked around the circle. “Those of you who have your own stocks will be expected to forego your ration.”
He folded the lists and handed them to Endecott. “The rest of you will form into two work parties: those under forty with Mr. Endecott, and those over forty with me. Any questions?”
“I have one, John.” It was Richard Saltonstall. “You don’t really expect me to . . .”
“Yes, Richard, I really do.”
“But—common labor, John! I brought nine men with me to look after that sort of thing. And you brought more than I.”
Winthrop hesitated before replying: “Last August at Cambridge you put your name to an agreement that bound you as a Christian to be ready in your person to further this work. So did I. This work will not succeed unless every person is willing to give his all. We are all laborers in God’s vineyard, and that does not mean that, just because we can afford to, we pay someone else to do our work for us.”
Fuming, Saltonstall shook his head. “This is . . .”
“The way it’s going to be, I’m afraid,” replied Winthrop with a smile. “And there’s something else,” he added, looked around the group. “You need to know that I consider lateness to be not only impolite but a sin against God. This is His work, and He has called us to it. To steal His time is to blaspheme against what He is trying to accomplish here.”
He paused, letting that sink in. “Starting tomorrow morning we will meet here promptly at two hours past sunrise for daily work assignments. And bring something with you to eat at the noon hour. We will then work until four hours past noon, and the rest of the day is entirely your own.” There was laughter now.
“Any other questions?” There were none.
Without doubt, a miracle took place upon Winthrop’s arrival: a nearly dead colony was resurrected. From all reports, God’s single instrument in this resurrection was John Winthrop. Cotton Mather would describe Winthrop as Nehemias Americanus9—referring to the Old Testament leader who had brought the Israelites back from their Babylonian exile to the Promised Land and had directed the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. More important, Nehemiah had inspired them to resume their covenant with God.
To be sure, they endured the same general sickness that seemed to afflict every shipload of settlers. Scurvy and various fevers were common, and Winthrop said that “peas, pudding, and fish . . . were their ordinary diet.”10
A few days after their arrival, tragedy was piled on hardship. Winthrop suffered the grievous loss of his son, Henry, who drowned in a fishing accident. The death seemed to redouble his dedication to the business of planting the colony (much as a similar tragedy had affected William Bradford before him).
Letters from colonists to friends and family back in England told of Winthrop pitching in and working as hard as any of the others, never acting as if he were above the rest because he was Governor. He was referred to as a “discreet and sober man, giving good example to all the planters, wearing plain apparel such as may well beseem a mean [ordinary] man, drinking ordinary water. When he wasn’t engaged in his duties as Governor, he [put] his hand to any ordinary labor with his servants.” This was confirmed by a report stating that so soon “as Mr. Winthrop was landed, perceiving what misery was like to ensue through their idleness, he presently fell to work with his own hands, and thereby so encouraged the rest that there was not an idle person then to be found in the whole plantation.”11
By mid-July Winthrop was living in the new settlement of Charleston, and Watertown, Roxbury, Medford, Lynn, and Dorchester had been founded as well. Conditions were still severe—between April and December about two hundred people died. In late September, Winthrop and a large number of people moved to the Shawmut peninsula, where there was a good spring with much fresh water. They named the new settlement Boston.
That same month he wrote to Margaret that although they had endured “much mortality, sickness, and trouble” he believed that through it all “God had purged out corruptions, and healed the hardness and error of our hearts, and stripped us of our vain confidence in this arm of flesh, that He may have us rely wholly upon Himself.”12
Not all the settlers were choosing to rely on God and endure hardship until their fortunes improved. Nearly half those who came over that first year returned. But more than half of the settlers stayed, and there were far fewer graves dug that winter than there might have been. John Winthrop was a rock of stability, whose faith often stood in the gap for all of them. Abandon the colony? Never!
How critically important for us Christians is this business of commitment to one another—as vital for the Body of Christ today as it was four centuries ago. There are two great steps of faith in the Christian walk, and they correspond to the two great commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).
The first step of faith is the vertical commitment: when a person has discovered the reality of God and has experienced the miraculous gift of salvation in his Son Jesus Christ, he or she must also surrender his or her will to Christ as Lord and Master. Like our Lord, our attitude must be “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). And it is a covenant relationship, which means there are two parties to the agreement. As long as the Christian daily seeks to obey Christ, God will honor his or her obedience, often blessing the person beyond all imagining.
The vertical aspect of the covenant has to come first, just as the first and great commandment does. But as strong as it is, the vertical aspect alone, without a crossbar, is not the Cross of Christ.
The second step of faith is the horizontal commitment to one’s neighbor, including that specific local part of the Body of Christ to whom God calls one to be a part. And the effectiveness of that congregation in the wider community will be magnified to the extent to which its members mutually dedicate themselves.
This may be one of the reasons why God permits pressures to befall the Body of Christ. For wherever there is pressure or affliction, there is a corresponding increase in commitment to one another, as well as commitment to God. This, we believe, is the reason that God allowed the persecution and long exile of the Pilgrims: the four wretched months in which Saints and Strangers shared their plight in the belly of the Mayflower before being disgorged onto the new Promised Land and the four more months of general sickness, so that when they finally stood on their feet, they stood together as a body. And they were thus able to pass on to the Puritans a proven model by which to build.
“Every city or house divided against itself shall not stand,” Jesus told his disciples (Matt. 12:25 KJV), and with each New England church, God was building a house. As the Apostle Peter wrote to new Christians, “[Come] and, like living stones, be yourselves built [into] a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5 AMP).
In the rocky fields of New England, God was raising up a kingdom of stone houses, each stone in each house fitted into place by him. These stone houses were not only part of the groundwork for the Kingdom of God in America, but as we would come to see, they would lay the foundations for American constitutional government.