John Cotton’s Gods Promise to His Plantations

In part because of its embrace by handsome 20th century politicians, John Winthrop's Modell of Christian Charity (the one with "a City on a Hill"), has persisted as an object of fascination for 21st century scholars of religion in early America. Winthrop's lay sermon is the focus of not one, but two recent monographs. The murky nature of its provenance and wonky publication history of Modell make it easy to overstate its influence. Meanwhile, early Americanists, by and large, continue to sleep on a contemporary sermon with a much clearer textual history and a much larger role in shaping the nature of the 17th settlement of Massachusetts Bay. John Cotton's Gods Promise to His Plantations, his disquisition on 2 Samuel 7:10, (I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant it, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more) preached to the passengers of the Arabella on the eve of their departure from England replaces the idealism of Winthrop's vision of Christian community with a down and dirty blueprint for displacing Indigenous people and occupying their land. As Cotton concludes, the settlers can trade their "spirituals" for the Native "temporals," - effectively a real estate transaction where the English acquire title to New England in exchange for the good news about Jesus. As I will detail, early Americanists of all disciplines have been remiss in not making this sermon a focus of their research and especially their pedagogy.