English: First page of "A Modell of Christian Charity" as published in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, vol. 7 (1838): 31–48. This is page 31. The Massachusetts Historical Society attributes the text to the John Winthrop, the governor for Massachusetts Bay Colony, and historically many have attribute it to Winthrop. However, scholarship in the twenty-first century explains that the actual authorship of the sermon is disputed. See Jerome McGann, "'Christian Charity,' A Sacred American Text: Fact, Truth, Method", Textual Cultures 12, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 27–52; Abram C. Van Engen, City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism (Yale University Press, 2020), 296; Michael Ditmore, "That Early New England, This Early New England, and Some of the Next", Early American Literature 57, no. 1 (2022).: 237–258, here 239. The actual author may be John Wilson or George Phillips.

The Massachusetts Historical Society also reports the sermon was given aboard the Arbella (a ship), but according to McGann there is also a possibility it was actually given in England.

The page is browned. The text is in a serif font and is as follows (material in square brackets added by this Wikipedia editor):

A MODEL OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY

WRITTEN

ON BOARD THE ARBELLA, ON THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

By the Hon. John Winthrop Esqr. In his passage (with a great company of Religious people, of which Christian tribes he was the Brave Leader and famous Governor;) from the Island of Great Brittaine to New-England in the North America. Anno 1630.

[a horizontal line]

CHRISTIAN CHARITIE

A Modell hereof.

God Almighty in his most holy and wise providence hath soe disposed of the condition of mankinde, as in all times some must be rich, some poore, some high and eminent in power and dignitie; others mean and in submission.

The Reason hereof.

1. Reas: First to hold conformity with the rest of his world, being delighted to show forth the glory of his wisdom in the variety and difference of the creatures, and the glory of his power in ordering all these differences for the preservation and good of the whole; and the glory of his greatness, that as it is the glory of princes to have many officers, soe this great King will haue many stewards, counting himself more honoured in dispensing his gifts to man by man, than if he did it by his owne immediate hands.

2. Reas: Secondly, That he might haue the more occasion to manifest the work of his Spirit: first upon the wicked in

[the page ends]