In his sermon, delivered by the puritan leader and future governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, while sailing to the New World on the ship Arbella, John Winthrop introduces the notion that the American community is divinely ordained and destined to be a model for the world.

We must knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the supply of others' necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience, and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others' conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work. that men shall say of succeeding plantations, "may the Lord make it like that of New England." For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.