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John winthrop the journal essay
John winthrop essay
John winthrop the journal essay
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All three of these early American writers conveyed their own ideas of success, Winthrop and Wheatley through religious means and Benjamin Franklin through his hardworking life story. John Winthrop implicitly defines success on a community level, seeking to be the model Christian Civilization. God commands his followers to show love and mercy to their neighbors, enemies, and fellow believers ensuring the community is knit together with love. Success lies in the embodiment of this love because "Christians are of one body in Christ" and as Winthrop said, "the ligaments of this body which knit together are love". Winthrop weaves passages from the Bible into his work to support his Christian principles of success. To reinforce his points in "A Model of Christian Charity" Winthrop uses the straightforward format of claim, support, challenge, rebuttal and conclusion. This format is repeated to create an organized argument for his Christian ideals. He asserts that only by following the commandments to "love the Lord our God, …show more content…
She captured the white, pro-slavery audience of her time by using the sophisticated language they respected as well as focusing on the good she derived from her slavery experience. She insisted that her abduction from Africa, "the land of errors", was by "gracious hand", implying the slave traders had actually done her a service by bringing her to America where she had been saved (Wheatley). Complimenting and thanking her pro-slavery audience allowed Wheatley to catch the attention of her readers and share her true message about the Savior. The saving of peoples' souls was her main concern, even when talking about the deceased George Winthrop, she furthers her mission; “he pray’d that grace in ev’ry heart might dwell, he long’d to see America excel” (Wheatley). For Phillis Wheatley, success was the saving of another soul by
There may not be two more contrasting characters of early America then Thomas Morton and John Winthrop. Morton was nicknamed, "Leader of Misrule" while Winthrop was seen as the "model of [a] perfect earthly ruler" (147). These two figures not only help settle a new land, they also had firsthand knowledge of each other. They are not two people that lived years apart from each other but rather they lived concurrently. With two such polarizing people living in a small new land, there was bound to be at least one disagreement. We are fortunate to have writings from each of these two fascinating men. One can't help but be thoroughly entertained when reading the words that each man left behind. Morton was the rebellious and raucous and Winthrop was the conservative preacher. Each had different ideas and ideals for what America was to become. Their two opinions could not differ much more from the other but they both weren't quite right. It seems that America has found a middle ground. Perhaps these two help set the path to where we stand now.
Wheatley was born in West Africa around 1750, and was captured when she was 7. John Wheatley purchased Phillis for his wife, Susanna; together they taught Phillis how to read and write, and as early as 12, Phillis was writing poetry and her first poem had been published. Wheatley’s poems implicitly advocated for racial equality, while condemning slavery. Her work received some negative feedback from political figureheads, such as Thomas Jefferson. White America classified a human as having the ability to read, write, and reason; therefore, leaving no room for the uneducated Africans, seeing Africans as nonhuman. Jefferson claimed Wheatley’s work was not literature because the moment he admitted Wheatley’s work was indeed literature, he would have had to admit she was a human being. The way Phillis Wheatley handled the adversity she faced is admirable. Wheatley definitely impacted American history, and “owes her place in history to advocates of inequality” (Young 1999
Readers unfamiliar with Phillis Wheatley may wonder of her background and who she was in particular to be able to gain rights to be mentioned in early American literature. Wheatley was born in 1753 and was captured by Africans, and sold to an American family known as the Wheatley’s. She quickly became a member of the Wheatley family, living in the home, and being tutored on reading and writing.
In Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity”, he expresses his ideas and opinions on the difference within the body of Christians, wealth in a spiritual society. In today’s modern view of Christian charity, Christians tend to spread charity through simply giving to the less fortunate, or spreading God’s endless love through acts of kindness. While many believe that John Winthrop’s writing does not connect with today’s view of Christian charity, “A Model of Christian Charity” shares certain aspects of writing with the modern Christian notion of what charity should be. Examples of Christian charity would be, the spiritual obedience of helping the poor, and the idea that Christians must stick together in troublesome times.
Winthrop, John. "from a Modell of Christian Charity." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. Canada: DC Heath and company, 1990. 226-238.
[This is an introduction sentence, wow amazing, I can’t believe I made it to the third page.] I believe that if John Winthrop were to suddenly come back to life in order to witness the Salem witch trials, he would first consider it the work of the devil, then later disapprove of the actions taken by Parris and his supporters. In order to break down this argument, one must draw upon Winthrop’s sermon, A Modell of Christian Charity, and his traditional Puritan values.
Phillis Wheatley overcame extreme obstacles, such as racism and sexism, to become one of the most acclaimed poets in the 18th Century. Her works are characterized by religious and moral backgrounds, which are due to the extensive education of religion she received. In this sense, her poems also fit into American Poetry. However, she differs in the way that she is a black woman whose writings tackle greater subjects while incorporating her moral standpoint. By developing her writing, she began speaking out against injustices that she faced and, consequently, gave way to authors such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Countee Cullen.
The poetry of Phillis Wheatley is crafted in such a manner that she is able to create a specific aim for each poem, and achieve that aim by manipulating her position as the speaker. As a slave, she was cautious to cross any lines with her proclamations, but was able to get her point across by humbling her own position. In religious or elegiac matters, however, she seemed to consider herself to be an authority. Two of her poems, the panegyric “To MAECENAS” and the elegy “On the Death of a young Lady of Five Years of Age,” display Wheatley’s general consistency in form, but also her intelligence, versatility, and ability to adapt her position in order to achieve her goals.
There exists only love for enemies in Winthrop’s mind. He believes in following God through the Gospel. Both authors have totally opposing opinions on how an enemy should be treated in
John Winthrop was a pioneer for religious freedom in America. As one of the early settlers sailing west on the Arbella, he composed a sermon called A Model for Christian Charity. Winthrop’s sermon is the framework for creating the spiritual colony that he envisioned and a way to unite the people coming to a new land. The people traveling west were not from one group but rather came from many groups and backgrounds. Winthrop knew that in order to succeed in the wilderness these individuals would have to give up some of their individuality for the greater good of the colony. Winthrop felt that religion was the ultimate way to accomplish this and that Christ was the perfect model to follow. In one passage he says:
Wheatley, Phillis, and Margaretta Odell. Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and a Slave. Boston: Geo. W. Light, 1834. eBook.
Destiny is not arranged by God anymore in Franklin and Emerson’s view, so that develop individual self’s desire of exploring their potentials becomes necessary to succeed. Withholding various definitions of success, Benjamin Franklin and Ralph Waldo Emerson coincidentally stick with the same principle: everyone can succeed if he or she works hard enough. They have controversies over what is success, but the spirit of upward mobility exits in both of the authors and the time
In “On Being Brought From Africa To America” Phillis Wheatley speaks directly from her experience of coming to America, and how she became very religious on her arrival, so she uses her religious beliefs to explain how lucky she was to be in America and how she made a lot of achievements. Phillis Wheatley was a young black female poet, who started discovering her love for writing when she came to America, although it was illegal to educate black people she found a way to teach herself to read and write, even though a lot of people of her race were told that they weren’t good enough to deserve to be Christians and also to enjoy the advantage of being a citizen in America, Wheatley overcame these immense obstacles and she was so grateful for the chance to be a part of the Christian word and also to hear the word of Christianity, she was also very happy that she was brought to America where she has the opportunity to read and write. “Phillis” wasn’t her real name but her master named her that because the slave ship she boarded to come to America was named Phillis.
One instance that Winthrop uses brotherly love is: “[t]here is likewise a double lay by which we are regulated in out conversation one towards another in both the former respects: the Law of nature and the law of grace, or the moral law or the law of the Gospel, to omit the rule of justice as not properly belonging to this purpose otherwise than it may fall into consideration in some particular cases” (Winthrop 104). From this, Winthrop is saying that every man of God should treat another man of God the way they want to be treated. Edwards, on the other hand, says, “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire” (Edwards 285). The comparison of “Pit of fire” and “Pit of hell,” are common themes in Edwards’s sermon. Some would argue that this is unnecessary and will only push people away from God and scare them, but Edwards has a different view on this. At the end of Edwards sermon he says, “[a]nd now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners; a day wherein many are flocking to him, and
John Winthrop, in his sermon, A Model of Christian Charity,” not only lays out the mission ahead, as he sees it, for the settling of the New Land, but he lays the foundation for American society. Seeing the founding of this colony as a holy, sacred mission, Winthrop contends that absolute unity, even conformity, must be insisted upon. Through his diction and use of metaphor that both reinforce that unity and combine the sacred and governmental, his targeted biblical and historical allusions, and his dramatically shifting tone, Winthrop elevates unity to a sense of urgency, arguing that the Puritans’ colonial effort resides comfortably in the history of the world and God’s relationship with it: the stakes could not be higher. Throughout his sermon, Winthrop’s figures of speech related to bonds and