This essay examines Edmund Morgan's biography of John Winthrop through the lens of the Puritan dilemma — the paradox of living in the world without being of it. It explores how this tension shaped Winthrop's decisions about emigrating to the New World, establishing a covenant-based government, and responding to religious dissenters such as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. The essay also considers how Winthrop's struggles with separationism, Arminianism, and Antinomianism prefigured broader conflicts in American history, including immigration tensions, the Revolution, and the Civil War, arguing that the fundamental question of what people of principle owe to society remains relevant across all ages.
The Puritan Dilemma, as Edmund Morgan describes it in his biography of John Winthrop, entails the paradox inherent in the Puritan requirement of living in the world without being of it.
The paradox further entails that the Puritan must seek salvation, while at the same time a person is helpless to be anything other than evil. God is the only one with the power to give and effect salvation, while human beings are unable to find salvation for themselves. The paradox lies in the fact that people are obliged to search for the salvation that can never be found unless it has been preordained by God. This salvation was ordained before each person was born, and thus it is useless to search for it unless it had been given in the first place.
Another part of the paradox is that the world should be reformed in the image of God's kingdom. On the other hand, the world is not curable; it is inevitable that the world is sinful and evil. Also with regard to the world, Puritanism requires that a person work to the best of his or her ability, and that good things in the world are to be enjoyed as God's gift to people. Still, these pleasures are to be enjoyed only with one's attention fixed entirely on God.
This is the dilemma with which John Winthrop struggled, and with which Morgan concerns himself in the biography. One of the manifestations of this dilemma in Winthrop's life is his desire to travel to the New World. The question was whether this travel was selfish — driven by a desire to separate himself from England, perceived as impure — or whether it was motivated by a desire to establish a purer community for Christ. Winthrop eventually came to the conclusion that the journey was divinely inspired, and proceeded to what would become the United States.
Once Winthrop dealt with the question of emigrating, the next problem was how to govern the colony. The concept of a covenant with God plays a central role here. God's people are bound to him by a covenant, which gives rise to the idea that people among themselves should have a covenant regarding how to obey God's laws and how to deal with the world surrounding them. Thus, the church became integrated with the state as a single entity, functioning to perform the will of God on earth.
Another manifestation of the Puritan dilemma is the figure of Roger Williams. According to Williams, it was necessary for each person to publicly renounce his or her connection with the Catholic Church and its errors. Nonetheless, Winthrop saw danger in Williams's ideas, recognizing that they would prompt a personal withdrawal from the world and into oneself. The danger in this is that such complete withdrawal would ultimately lead to the belief that one's own vision of God is the only true version.
Thus, while some degree of withdrawal is necessary in order to maintain a holy lifestyle, Winthrop felt that it was still necessary to function within the world as it exists, and to maintain some connection to what others believe and think regarding God.
"Hutchinson's doctrines challenge Puritan social order"
"Winthrop navigates corrupt foreign states pragmatically"
"Winthrop's struggles prefigure American national conflicts"
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