John Winthrop: the misunderstood Puritan

The sensual, joyous leader Puritan Massachusetts

"Why did an extreme form of Protestantism appeal to so many of the English? . . . The life and story of John Winthrop provides one good answer."

"Winthrop began keeping a diary at age nineteen, and his writing has the obsessive intensity of any religious seeker's private record. He worried about his love of hunting, which bothered others, risked a stiff fine, and took up too much of his time. His resolve to give up shooting was made easier by the fact that he hardly ever hit anything. But this itself was a sign - if he could not do something well, it was an indulgence to continue.

There was just one problem with Winthrop's endless resolutions and good intentions: He knew he was doomed to fail. In fact, all he gained was to feel worse when he not only indulged in his old weaknesses but broke his new vows.

John seemed to have enjoyed having sex, which was just as it should have been for a Puritan. The challenge for Puritans was to partake of all of the goodness God brought to the world, including sexual relations between husband and wife, but never to become too attached to any of those pleasures . . . A Puritan had to be 'in' the world of temptation and pleasure, but not 'of' it, not ruled by those passions.

[when his second wife died] 'I cannot serve two masters,' he realized. If he remained too attached to the world, he could not love God.

John Winthrop was now entering into the heart of a Puritan's most difficult and precious experience. He understood that he must be in the world yet not attached to it, yet he realized that as a creature of the world he could not maintain this balance. 'There was never any holy mediation, prayer, or action that I had a hand in' that succeeded, he realized. All that was left was complete submission to God. 'I neither hope nor desire to stand by mine own strength, wisdom, etc., but only by faith in Christ Jesus.'

But then came the miracle. Just when he had lost hope of making any spiritual progress on his own, God 'filled me with such power of faith, sense of his love, etc., as has made my heart melt with joy.

This was the essence of Puritanism - the change of heart, or soul, that came when a person strove to do good, admitted his absolute failure, humbled himself before God, and, against all expectations, felt God's love and mercy."