City upon a Hill

A Puritan is a Christian Protestant group who wanted to “purify” the Church of England. To the rest of Europe the Puritans were too strict with the bible. This caused John Winthrop, as well as other Puritans, to move to America to practice their religion. They fled England because of fear for prosecution. The Puritan’s strict beliefs had turned into a cult in the eyes of Europeans. 

To John Winthrop moving to New England was important. Puritans had called all other religions false and they now had to prove that their religion was the right religion. He told the rest of the Puritans that they would be the “...City upon a Hill...”. This means everyone would have their eyes on them and everyone would be looking up to them. He then told them that those in Europe who kicked them out will turn their prayers into “Curses upon us [Puritans]”.  Winthrop tells these people that they can not mess up because they will be ridiculed if they do. He tells the Puritans that they had spoken about how perfect they were in the eyes of God for following the Bible word by word and they now had to prove it. 

Winthrop uses a fear tactic to get the Puritans to behave and listen to him. Like Jonathan Edwards, he uses imagery from the Bible, such as “...City upon the Hill...”, to establish an atmosphere of fear. He used the Bible because the Bible teaches to fear the all powerful God, so using words from the Bible establishes fear. Winthrop also uses syntax by saying a long sentence without pause. This is clever because without a pause the Puritans do not get the time to think and process the information. His strategic use of words kept their attention on what he is saying because he was establishing fear in them to follow the Bible and to follow him onto the “right path”. 

All in all, John Winthrop was a nut job who only cared about his reputation. Thus he forced, through fear, other Puritans to follow the Bible even more strictly than they already were. Puritans had came to the new land to practice their religion in peace. When they realized they were living in constant fear they began to slowly separate themselves from the Church. It had became too strict for the Puritans themselves so they began to rebel.