UTOPIAN PROMISE - Annenberg Media

40 UNIT 3, UTOPIAN PROMISE
century romanticized visions of Native Americans as “noble savages”
relate to Puritan and Quaker ideas about Native Americans?
Why do you think the “noble savage” concept became so popular
later in American history?
Exploration: How do white Americans’ attitudes toward Native
Americans through the centuries compare to their attitudes toward
other non-white groups?
Puritan Typology: Living the Bible
The Puritans developed typology as a mode both for reading scripture
and for understanding the significance of historical and current
events. In its strictest sense, typology refers to the practice of explicating
signs in the Old Testament as foreshadowing events, personages,
ceremonies, and objects in the New Testament. According to typological
logic, Old Testament signs, or “types,” prefigure their fulfillment or
“antitype” in Christ. Applied more broadly, typology enabled Puritans
to read biblical types as forecasting not just the events of the New
Testament but also their own historical situation and experiences. In
this way, individual Puritans could make sense of their own spiritual
struggles and achievements by identifying themselves with biblical
personages like Adam, Noah, or Job. But this broad understanding of
typology was not restricted to individual typing; the Puritans also
interpreted their group identity as the fulfillment of Old Testament
prophecy, identifying their community as the “New Israel.”
Tied to their typological understanding of their communal identity
was the Puritans’ belief that they had entered into a covenant with
God. Like the Old Testament Hebrews, the Puritans felt themselves to
be a “chosen nation,” a people through whom God would fulfill his
divine plan on earth. Their covenant, however, was not the same as the
Old Testament covenant God had formed with the Israelites. The coming
of Christ had changed the terms of the contract, enabling them to
live under a “covenant of grace.” According to this doctrine, God had
freely extended salvation to the Puritans—salvation that did not have
to be earned through good works, only accepted with faith. Right
behavior would follow from acceptance of and faith in the covenant.
On an individual level, Puritans agonized over the status of their
covenant with God (that is, their election), but as a group they were
more confident. Having entered into voluntary church covenants, and
thus into a kind of national covenant with God, they were assured of
the centrality of their role in the cosmic drama of God’s plan. Like the
Israelites of old, they had received a “special commission” from God
and had come to the New World to fulfill their mission.
The typological implications of the Puritans’ covenant theology are
apparent in “A Model of Christian Charity,” the sermon John Winthrop
delivered on board the Arbella while traveling to New England.
Proclaiming that “the God of Israel is among us” and has formed a
“near bond of marriage between him and us, wherein he hath taken us
to be his,” Winthrop interprets the Puritans as the antitype of the Old