Although they lived on the same continent, John Winthrop and Benjamin Franklin lived in very different worlds. These men are similar in some respects, but overwhelmingly they are different. For example, John Winthrop and Benjamin Franklin can be considered leaders in their time frame. Winthrop led the Puritans; Franklin led his country to war. Both men also possessed many of the same virtues such as patience and work ethic. Despite these similarities, John Winthrop and Benjamin Franklin had a different style of living and a different philosophy of life. These differences are most notable in regards to religion, economics, and science.
Perhaps the greatest difference between Winthrop and Franklin was their view of religion. Winthrop, a devout Puritan, governed Massachusetts Bay. Every aspect of life in a Puritan colony revolved around religion. The most important thing in order to establish Winthrop’s “city upon a hill,” “was the need for the people to obey their governors and for the governors to obey God. If they did, God would adopt and protect the wilderness colony as He had the ancient Jews” (Nash & Graves 31). Puritanism reflects the notion of pre-destination, indoctrinated by Calvinism, in which there are only two kinds of people: the elect and the non-elect. The elect were the people, usually ministers and high-ranking officers, who have been chosen by God to go to Heaven. The non-elect then, were the people who were not chosen. Fran...
Have you ever wondered whose hands our country was in at the start of our time? Captain John Smith was one of the first American heroes. He was the first man to promote a permanent settlement of America. William Bradford was a Puritan who was courageous and determined to set up a colony where citizens could worship freely. Although both of these men were two of America’s heroes, they had more differences than known.
Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers to the United States, was not a patriot but a mere loyalist to England before the dissolution between England and the colonies occurred. Sheila L. Skemp's The Making of a Patriot explores how Benjamin Franklin tried to stay loyal to the crown while taking interest in the colonies perception and their own representation in Parliament. While Ms. Skemp alludes to Franklin's loyalty, her main illustration is how the attack by Alexander Wedderburn during the Privy Council led to Franklin's disillusionment with the British crown and the greater interest in making the Thirteen Colonies their own nation. Her analysis of Franklin's history in Parliament and what occurred on the night that the council convened proves the change behind Franklin's beliefs and what lead to his involvement in the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin was the colonial agent representing Massachusetts in Parliament in Britain.
In the 1700’s the Puritans left England for the fear of being persecuted. They moved to America for religious freedom. The Puritans lived from God’s laws. They did not depend as much on material things, and they had a simpler and conservative life. More than a hundred years later, the Puritan’s belief toward their church started to fade away. Some Puritans were not able to recognize their religion any longer, they felt that their congregations had grown too self-satisfied. They left their congregations, and their devotion to God gradually faded away. To rekindle the fervor that the early Puritans had, Jonathan Edwards and other Puritan ministers led a religious revival through New England. Edwards preached intense sermons that awakened his congregation to an awareness of their sins. With Edwards’ sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” he persuades the Puritans to convert back to Puritanism, by utilizing rhetorical strategies such as, imagery, loaded diction, and a threatening and fearful tone.
In the 1600’s, America was the new world, and the land of opportunity, which spurred settlers to travel to the region seeking religious freedom or economic success. However, as the colonies of New England and Chesapeake were settled, they had contrasting viewpoints on how they should live, and manage their newly occupied settlements. These viewpoints correlated to specific problems arising in each area. For example, the New England colonies experienced the witchcraft scare, and the Chesapeake colonies experienced civil uprisings like Bacon’s rebellion. To better understand why these colonies experienced contrastingly different problems, a closer look is required of the two colonies social, economic, and religious viewpoints, which contributed
The founder and governor John Winthrop gave the famous sermon of “City on a Hill” and led the persecuted Puritans from England to this land and established the Massachusetts Bay. He hoped to build safe place as a Christina commonwealth as an example to show the world. He was a capable governor and a faithful follower of God. When Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson challenged his authority, they were both banished and went south to establish their own colonies. It might be that his exclusion of people with different believes made him a model of intolerant religious ruler, but at the same time his actions showed another form of democracy. He led the colonists who were Puritans and who shared the same belief of him onto a life of prosper and stability in their land, and he never prevented anyone who disagreed with him from leaving and establishing their ideal place somewhere else. However, living in Massachusetts meant that people should follow the local law. This shows another similarity in the situations today where people in a certain legal area could choose what they want separately from other parts of the country like only four states in te States now legalize marijuana for recreational use. In this way, John Winthrop made a colony bear a democratic spirit as opposed to people yelling for their individual
In Ben Franklin’s essay Queries on a Pennsylvania Militia he asks the question “Whether from the Purity of our Lives and the Sanctity of our Manners, we have any more Reason to expect the immediate Protection of Heaven than the rest of our Neighbors?” (Franklin 224). The Quakers would most likely answer yes we do. They believe that God will save the colony of Pennsylvania. They have stated that God “for the sake of ten righteous Persons would have spared even the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah,” (Kinsey, a). I believe we can safely assume that Franklin did not see it that way and because of this we can see the differing stances of these two groups of people. The Quakers believed religion would save them, while Franklin took a more pragmatic approach, believing that God would not come down from the heavens and spare Pennsylvania for the sake of ten righteous souls. We see a very different world view in these two answers and also part of the conflict that eventually leads to the Quakers withdrawal from the public arena. This conflict is the Quaker’s desire for a passive government, following the guidelines ...
John Winthrop and Benjamin Franklin were both leaders in their time. They had very different views on common issues, which is very apparent in the works used in the document provided for this paper. The two men had differences in topics such as; logical thinking, religion, and views on government control. John Winthrop was more of a strict man who didn't see the option of questioning issue, where as Benjamin Franklin chose to have a more open mind about each issue he dealt with.
As the regions began to expand and develop, their motivations for settlement helped to mold their societies. New England was a place where men sought refuge from religious persecution and was established as a haven for religious refugees. Despite this reason for settling, the New Englanders still attempted to spread their own beliefs of religion. As illustrated by John Winthrop in his Model of a Christian Charity, he preached to his fellow colonists that “we shall be a city upon a hill” (Doc A) exemplifying the Puritans’ aspirations of a Holy Utopia. He and countless other New Englanders practiced the belief that they must all work together. They were determined to “mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work.” The Articles of Agreement plainly laid out the basis for the New England region. These articles made New England a cosmopolitan mix of rich and poor families, all being in possession of land and resolute in doing God’s work (Doc D). However, while the New Englanders settled to create a Holy Utopia, the people of the Chesapeake were concerned not only with their religious freedom, but also ...
Religion was the foundation of the early Colonial American Puritan writings. Many of the early settlements were comprised of men and women who fled Europe in the face of persecution to come to a new land and worship according to their own will. Their beliefs were stalwartly rooted in the fact that God should be involved with all facets of their lives and constantly worshiped. These Puritans writings focused on their religious foundations related to their exodus from Europe and religions role in their life on the new continent. Their literature helped to proselytize the message of God and focused on hard work and strict adherence to religious principles, thus avoiding eternal damnation. These main themes are evident in the writings of Jonathan Edwards, Cotton Mathers, and John Winthrop. This paper will explore the writings of these three men and how their religious views shaped their literary works, styles, and their historical and political views.
Idea of God’s providence permeated throughout the thoughts and writings of the leaders of the early English colonists to America. Contemporaries take for granted the religiosity of the New England colonists, but for the Chesapeake Bay, especially around Jamestown, God’s providence gave explanations for why certain things happened the way that they did and acknowledged the presence of God everywhere that they went. The settlers of the Chesapeake Bay area were discoverers, adventurers, (primarily) men who sought wealth, riches, and authority in a land untouched; a “land as God made it” while those who chose to lead New England came for very different reasons and saw themselves as the chosen, the ones tasked with carrying onward and outward, to escape persecution and conduct their lives and religion the way that they wanted to. Out of these differences, there developed two separate, but connected, understandings of and uses for God’s providence.
In 1630, the Massachusetts Bay Company set sail to the New World in hope of reforming the Church of England. While crossing the Atlantic, John Winthrop, the puritan leader of the great migration, delivered perhaps the most famous sermon aboard the Arbella, entitled “A Model of Christian Charity.” Winthrop’s sermon gave hope to puritan immigrants to reform the Church of England and set an example for future immigrants. The Puritan’s was a goal to get rid of the offensive features that Catholicism left behind when the Protestant Reformation took place. Under Puritanism, there was a constant strain to devote your life to God and your neighbors. Unlike the old England, they wanted to prove that New England was a community of love and individual worship to God. Therefore, they created a covenant with God and would live their lives according to the covenant. Because of the covenant, Puritans tried to abide by God’s law and got rid of anything that opposed their way of life. Between 1630 and the 18th century, the Puritans tried to create a new society in New England by creating a covenant with God and living your life according to God’s rule, but in the end failed to reform the Church of England. By the mid 1630’s, threats to the Puritans such as Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and Thomas Hooker were being banned from the Puritan community for their divergent beliefs. 20 years later, another problem arose with the children of church members and if they were to be granted full membership to the church. Because of these children, a Halfway Covenant was developed to make them “halfway” church members. And even more of a threat to the Puritan society was their notion that they were failing God, because of the belief that witches existed in 1692.
According to both Winthrop and Rowlandson, if one has true faith in God, he will be able to witness God's mercy in his own life. Winthrop clearly underscores this point in his sermon, where he stresses that the Puritans must uphold their covenant with God in order to have a harmonious and successful colony. If one is faithful and obedient to God, he will be the recipient of God's providence: "Now 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 pe...
Benjamin Franklin’s father, a candle maker, wanted to give one of his sons as a tithe. He chose Franklin, his tenth son. He sent him off to be educated as a clergyman. Because he was not a successful student, he was sent back to his father after only two years. When he was thirteen he was sent to his brother to learn to be a printer. While he was there he educated himself by reading various books. He thought his intelligence was being limited so he ran away to start his own printing company. After he retired, he turned to science and became an inventor. On the other hand Edwards had a much different background. Both his father and grandfather were ministers. At the age of thirteen he was sent to Yale Collage and four years later graduated with an advanced degree in theology. He then served as a pastor in New York City for a short time but returned to Yale College as a tutor. He later married and after two years of marriage his grandfather died and he was chosen to take his grandfathers place at the pulpit. All this said, you can see that Franklin and Edwards lived vary different lives.
Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were two very influential figures in American political history. Even though they both were in two different eras, they shaped the American government and the way people think about it. They both have similarities, but they do have differences as well that includes political rights, religious rights and even economic rights.
Even though Edwards agrees with the Puritan orthodoxy that good works could not lead to salvation, he did not accept that people were fated to salvation or damnation regardless of how they lived their lives. Puritan orthodoxy says that your fate is predetermined, and no matter what you do you can't change where you are going. If you are going to heaven that won't change, and if you are going to hell that won't change either! So why not just live your life and do whatever you want? Edwards did not accept the idea of predetermined fate but, instead said that your fate could only be determined through God. If you believe in Christ and have faith this is they way to heaven! He even mentions that it's never too late to turn from your evil ways no