(January 22, 1588–April 5, 1649), was the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630), being elected 12 times consecutively as its governor. In England, he was a member of the gentry, having been raised on the 500 acre estate his father had bought from Henry VIII. He had become a successful lawyer and strong Puritan leader. Oliver Cromwell pleaded with him to join the revolution against King Charles I, but he declined. He decided to flee for religious freedom, leading the English “Great Migration” to Salem in 1630. His journal, The History of New England, is a significant historical document. His son (1606–1676) and grandson (1638–1707), both named John Winthrop, were also governors of Connecticut.
On May 15, 1629, in a letter to his wife, John Winthrop wrote:
Be of good comfort; the hardest that can come shall be a means to mortify this body of corruption, which is a thousand times more dangerous to us than any outward tribulation, and to bring us into nearer communion with our Lord Jesus Christ, and more assurance of His kingdom.186
In June of 1630, ten years after the Pilgrims founded the Plymouth Colony, Governor John Winthrop founded the Holy Commonwealth of Massachusetts with 700 people sailing in eleven ships. This began the Great Migration, which saw more than twenty thousand Puritans embark for New England in the pursuing sixteen years.187
On June 11, 1630, aboard the Arbella, John Winthrop authored his work, A Model of Christian Charity, which became a guideline for future constitutional covenants of the Colonies:
It is of the nature and essence of every society to be knit together by some covenant, either expressed or implied. …
This love among Christians is a real thing, not imaginary … as absolutely necessary to the being of the Body of Christ, as the sinews and other ligaments of a natural body are to the being of that body. …
For the persons, we are a Company, professing ourselves fellow members of Christ, we ought to account ourselves knit together by this bond of love. … For the work we have in hand, it is by a mutual consent through a special overruling Providence, and a more than an ordinary approbation of the Churches of Christ to seek out a place of Cohabitation and Consortship under a due form of Government both civil and ecclesiastical.
Therefore we must not content ourselves with usual ordinary means. Whatsoever we did or ought to have done when we lived in England, the same we must do, and more also where we go. … Neither must we think that the Lord will bear such failings at our hands as He doth from those among whom we have lived. …
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, will expect a strict performance of the 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 each other 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, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world, we shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God and all professors for God’s sake; we shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whether we are going.188
In his private journal, Governor John Winthrop wrote:
I will ever walk humbly before my God, and meekly, mildly, and gently towards all men … to give myself—my life, my wits, my health, my wealth—to the service of my God and Saviour.189
Teach me, O Lord, to put my trust in Thee, then shall I be like Mount Sion that cannot be moved. … Before the week was gone … I waxed exceeding discontent and impatient … then I acknowledged my unfaithfulness and pride of heart, and turned again to my God, and humbled my soul before Him, and He returned and accepted me, and so I renewed my Covenant of walking with my God.190
The covenant between you and us is the oath you have taken of us, which is to this purpose, that we shall govern you and judge your causes by the rules of God’s laws … 191
On May 19, 1643, John Winthrop organized the New England Confederation among the Colonists of New Plymouth, New Haven, Massachusetts and Connecticut. They covenanted together under the Constitution of the New England Confederation:
Whereas we all came to these parts of America with the same end and aim, namely, to advance the kingdome of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to injoy the liberties of the Gospell thereof with purities and peace, and for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the gospell.192
In 1645, John Winthrop defined the duties of elected officials:
The great questions that have troubled the country are about the authority of the magistrates and the liberty of the people.
It is yourselves who have called us to this office, and, being called by you, we have our authority from God, in way of ordinance, such as hath the image of God eminently stamped upon it, the contempt and violation whereof hath been vindicated with examples of divine vengeance.193