For Winthrop, the human body is a convenient way to think about the unity and interdependence of humanity. Just as the body’s disparate organs and tissues are joined by “ligaments” into one organism, so too are disparate persons joined together by “the bond of brotherly affeccion,” or “the bond of love,” into a functioning and compassionate society. Winthrop uses this metaphor several times throughout his sermon to emphasize the organic ease with which love unifies people, encouraging the colonists to work together in their new society and not to attempt an opportunistic self-reliance. The body image becomes doubly significant when Winthrop mentions the body of Christ, the original symbolic embodiment of all mankind.
The Human Body Quotes in A Model of Christian Charity
[…] love is the bond of perfection. First it is a bond, or ligament. […] it makes the worke perfect. There is noe body but consists of partes and that which knitts these partes together gives the body its perfeccion, because it makes eache parte soe contiguous to other as thereby they doe mutually participate with eache other, both in strength and infirmity in pleasure and paine, to instance in the most perfect of all bodies, Christ and his church make one body […].
The Human Body Symbol Timeline in A Model of Christian Charity
