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 LIFE 
 
 ANNE HUTCHINSON; 
 
 WITH A SKETCH OF THE 
 
 AINTENOMIAN CONTROVERSY IN MASSACHUSETTS; 
 
 GEORGE E. ELLIS. 
 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 Mrs. Anne Hutchinson has never yet had a 
 biographer, though history is so largely indebted 
 to two of her lineal descendants, Thomas Hutch- 
 inson, Governor of Massachusetts, and James Sav- 
 age, the laborious editor of the Journal of Govern- 
 or Winthrop, the father of Massachusetts. Nor 
 are there any known materials for a biography of 
 Mrs. Hutchinson, in the strictest sense of that 
 word. But for a detail o^ the circumstances and 
 events, which alone have caused her name to live, 
 the materials are ample. A curious inquirer 
 might be glad of more information concerning 
 her hfe in England, so far as it would explain 
 her character and opinions, showing under what 
 influences she had been educated, and what 
 help she there found in attaining her peculiar 
 views. Her history and experience in the new 
 world are identified with the controversy, which 
 originated in her instructions to an assemblage 
 of women. It would be impossible to make her 
 life a subject of record without finding the whole 
 
170 PREFACE. 
 
 interest of the work in that controversy. And so 
 her biography must be written, as a part of local 
 history, made prominent in our annals by the 
 intensity and the extension of the feeling which 
 once attached to it. I have gone no further into 
 the metaphysics of the controversy than absolute 
 necessity required, having written the fewest 
 possible particulars of a strictly theological char- 
 acter. Incidental allusions to all the interests, 
 and to the prominent men of the colony at that 
 time, are required by the course of the events 
 which are to be related. 
 
 The documents preserved among the manu- 
 scripts in the Massachusetts State-House, and the 
 pamphlets and volumes referred to in the foot 
 notes, are authority for the statements in the text 
 to which they refer. The narrative in general is 
 composed from these specified materials, by a fair, 
 or at least an intentionally candid estimate of their 
 fidelity to truth ; when they tell the same story 
 in different ways, the variance of representation 
 being supposed to arise from natural feeling or 
 prejudice. 
 
ANNE FJUTCHINSON 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introductory Observations upon the Experience and 
 Situation of the Colonists of Massachusetts. — 
 Their religious Policy. — The Vexations and 
 Trials which they encountered. — Their Suf- 
 ferings from their own Errors. — Examples of 
 their scrupulous and timid Spirit in Religion. 
 
 The Antinomian controversy in New England, 
 like most other religious controversies, bears for its 
 synonyme the name of an individual, the prime 
 mover of the strife, and the prominent sufferer by 
 the result. In this case, that individual was a 
 woman. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson has thus be- 
 come one of the historic persons of our annals. 
 Her character, opinions, and experience may 
 therefore fill some pages with matter as interest- 
 ing as it is important. She was but one of a 
 series of sufferers, one of a line of witnesses, 
 by whose endurance and testimony religion has 
 
172 
 
 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 gained of real power more than what it has lost 
 of arbitrary force for the consciences of human 
 beings. 
 
 If Providence had designed to offer to the 
 colonists of Massachusetts a succession of oppor- 
 tunities for discovering the error, and impolicy, 
 and utter futility of their recognized principle of 
 constraint of conscience in religion, it would 
 seem, humanly speaking, as if no train of events 
 could have been more wisely adapted to such 
 an end, than that which actually constituted their 
 experience. It is a somewhat curious fact, that 
 during the lives of the first generation of settlers 
 upon the soil of Massachusetts, not a single year 
 passed by, in which they did not bring the civil 
 power to bear upon a strange succession of per- 
 sons obnoxious for a religious tenet. Perhaps, 
 however, so noble a principle as that of unlimited 
 religious freedom is the offspring of too long a 
 period, the growth of too enlarged a culture, to 
 have reached its maturity in centuries of time, or 
 even amid a company of persecuted exiles con- 
 stituting a church of devout Christian believers. 
 Religious bigotry, of all human infirmities, is the 
 least willing to look upon its own likeness in the 
 glass, and much more to study the reflection of 
 its features, so that when it turns away it may 
 not forget the lesson. Mrs. Hutchinson was not 
 the first person to propose to the Bay colony a 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 173 
 
 lesson, which took its life from the principle of 
 religious freedom. She and her companions 
 found a place of refuge, in their banishment, 
 through the friendly agency of Roger Williams, 
 who had but just before proclaimed a doctrine in 
 Massachusetts, which would have silenced the 
 Antinomian controversy, or at least have left 
 the name of Mrs. Hutchinson to natural oblivion. 
 He, however, who should decide that there 
 was nothing to explain, and even in a degree to 
 palliate, the measures taken by Massachusetts 
 against the succession of persons who poured 
 contempt upon her religious bigotry, must have 
 read her history without candor. The explana- 
 tion of her course is to be found in the spirit of 
 the age, the same over Christendom ; a degree 
 of palliation for her measures is insured by a 
 peculiar delusion, which was honestly and pain- 
 fully entertained by the colonists, and by their 
 position. An intimate acquaintance with the 
 facts connected with their harsh proceedings 
 against Roger Williams, Mrs. Hutchinson, the 
 Baptists, and the early Friends, will at least 
 give to the persecutors the benefit of this plea, 
 that the same error and weakness, which led 
 them into intolerance, kept them also in con- 
 tinual disquiet, called up before them a series of 
 trying vexations, and visited them with plagues 
 of their own creation. Mrs. Hutchinson and 
 
174 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the other sufferers felt the blows, which were 
 inflicted by persons possessed of an evil spirit, 
 and who were first convulsed and crazed by its 
 inward workings, before they found a meas- 
 ure of relief by striking at outward objects. 
 The spirit of persecution vexed its subjects as 
 much as its objects, the persecutors as much as 
 the persecuted. As this view of the matter will 
 help to illustrate many pages of our early history, 
 and will especially throw light upon the experi- 
 ence through which Mrs. Hutchinson was led, a 
 few facts and observations embraced in it may 
 be here in place. 
 
 The English company, whose agents and ser- 
 vants planted the colony of Massachusetts Bay, 
 was originally designed simply for purposes of 
 trade, and to extend the King's dominions. The 
 permanent settlement on the spot, however, was 
 made by those agents and servants chiefly as a 
 religious enterprise. It is doubtful if any other 
 than a religious impulse would have sustained 
 the undertaking, as all previous enterprises of 
 like character had failed through lack of some- 
 thing. The Separatists, a peculiar class of dis- 
 senters from the English church, had found a 
 wilderness home at Plymouth in 1620, and had 
 seen the first fruits of the hard soil eight years 
 before the Non-Conformists, another class of dis- 
 affected believers, had begun at Salem, and ten 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 175 
 
 years before the charter officers and fifteen hun- 
 dred people were seated at Charlestown, Boston, 
 Dorchester, Watertown, Mystic, and Lynn. An 
 intensely religious spirit swayed with sufficient 
 power the breasts of enough of the Massachu- 
 setts company to overawe and control the few, 
 who might have merely assumed it, or been in- 
 diffi3rent to it. Religion was the food and com- 
 fort of their souls. It was far more ; it was the 
 consuming fire which ate up all their attach- 
 ments and remembrances of home, all their re- 
 grets at leaving it, all their inclinations to re- 
 pine at hardships, and very many, though not 
 all, of their baser passions. Boston was the cen- 
 tre of their united religious action. They came 
 together for religious exercises more frequently 
 than for all other purposes ; and when they met 
 for any other purpose, they sanctified it at the 
 beginning and the close with religious exercises. 
 They found in the Old or in the New Testa- 
 ment, but chiefly in the former, an instance or 
 warrant for all parts of their wilderness work ; 
 for constituting a church, for setting the bounds 
 of a town, for electing magistrates or captains, or 
 for conducting an Indian war. " Moses his ju- 
 dicials " promised to be a sufficient code of stat- 
 utes, till a new one could be formed ; and even 
 when a new code was formed, these were its 
 basis. 
 
176 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 To one who loves to explore and imagine 
 past scenes and incidents, it is easy to call back 
 the primitive appearance of Boston under the 
 planting of its primitive English settlers. The 
 peninsula, crowned with its three conical hills, 
 fringed with sea-marshes, and reposing upon a 
 bay whose rivers almost severed it from the 
 continent, was soon occupied in preference to 
 Charlestown, the original settlement, because of 
 an excellent spring of water which it contained. 
 The ^' old planter" found upon the peninsula 
 was William Blackstone, who, as if ominously of 
 what was to follow, very soon moved away to 
 the region where Roger Williams afterwards 
 found a refuge. The surface of Boston was an 
 extended pasture, with but few trees. The first 
 few years of its English occupancy saw it dotted 
 with thatched clay cottages and huts, and a meet- 
 ing-house of the same materials. More substan- 
 tial but very small dwellings soon appeared. 
 William Coddington, a fast friend of Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson, and an exile with her, built the first brick 
 house. Winding foot-paths, the same that are 
 now streets, connected all these severed dwell- 
 ings with each other, and with the humble place 
 of worship, which bore the same relation to the 
 new town as does the centre of the web to its 
 radii and circles. The simile might even be car- 
 ried further. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 177 
 
 The inhabitants of those dwelHngs were all 
 neighbors. They had laborious work to do, but 
 all the time not spent in work was given to 
 religious discourse ; none to reading, save the 
 reading of the Bible ; none at all to relaxation. 
 Prayer was unceasingly offered. Sacred terms 
 were the only epithets of language. Chapters 
 of Scripture, which even the most pious moth- 
 ers now allow their children to skip over, were 
 then as familiar as the beatitudes of the Sermon 
 on the Mount ; and the personal examples and 
 traits of the Old Testament characters could be 
 " instanced " as readily as the conversion of St. 
 Paul. When, within less than ten years after 
 the settlement, an attempt was made to shorten 
 the length of time which, to the serious detri- 
 ment of husbandry, was spent in lectures and 
 in administering church discipline, the Court re- 
 ceived something more than a reprimand from 
 the ministers, and was forced into the humble 
 work of apology. There was then no news- 
 paper, no library, no daily mail, no club, no 
 merely social gathering, in Boston. Intelligence 
 was received from across the water as often, 
 indeed, as now. Whole fleets arrived, some- 
 times, in a month, and news, not always fresh, 
 on average periods of a week ; so great was 
 then the impulse which brought " unconformable 
 persons " to New England. Still the intelligence 
 
 VOL. VI. 12 
 
178 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 received by the ships was mostly rehgious intel- 
 ligence ; and the books that came by them were 
 the books of those days, the small quarto con- 
 troversial tract, or the large folio Body of Di- 
 vinity, the funeral sermon of a favorite preach- 
 er, or the tractate upon church policy. They 
 were but fuel to feed a flame already burning 
 bright upon the same material. 
 
 Now, it is a perfect marvel to us of our day, 
 that the colonists of Massachusetts were not pre- 
 pared to expect the very cases of religious va- 
 riance and strife, which they encountered. They 
 ought to have looked for them as much as for 
 their crops. For experience has proved, in op- 
 position to theory, that religious combinations, 
 and leagues cemented by offices of piety and 
 covenants of doctrinal belief, are not favorable 
 to union and social peace. A favorite phrase 
 in our ancient church covenants, by which the 
 members agreed " to keep mutual watch and 
 ward " over one another, will doubtless have a 
 terrible sum of strife charged upon it in the 
 judgment of the great day. 
 
 Entering into such a covenant in letter and 
 in spirit, the colonists should have expected just 
 what befell them. The whole tendency of Puri- 
 tan teaching was to educate men and women 
 to those very notions and opinions, the succes- 
 sive development of which caused such dismay. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 179 
 
 The only wonder is, that so few were devel- 
 oped, and that these were so moderate in their 
 eccentricities. There was in the colony, from 
 its commencement, at least one university-taught 
 scholar for every two hundred inhabitants ; but 
 all the people were prophets. There were fre- 
 quent meetings of the brethren of each church 
 for religious discourse ; and " prophesyings," and 
 questions, and criticisms, were expected and al- 
 lowed in connection with the services of public 
 worship. What other result, then, could have 
 followed than that which befell ? The colonists 
 were constantly in a state of uneasiness, anxi- 
 ety, and disquietude, and perfectly amazed that, 
 in a pattern which once suited all, individual 
 critics were successively suggesting one and 
 another improvement. 
 
 We must likewise take into view the extreme 
 conscientiousness and the timid superstition of 
 the colonists. Such instances as the following 
 are found in their records ; indeed, make up 
 those records. The revered Cotton, so long 
 tried and proved in England, within a week 
 after his arrival, " exercised " on Lord's day af- 
 ternoon before the Boston church, which he had 
 come to teach ; and, as he was then propound- 
 ed for admission, he offered in baptism his son 
 Seaborn, who came into existence on the pas- 
 
180 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 sage, as the name imports. '' He gave two rea- 
 sons why he did not baptize it at sea, (not for 
 want of fresh water, for he held sea water 
 would have served ;) first, because they had no 
 settled congregation there ; secondly, because a 
 minister hath no power to give the seals but 
 in his own congregation." * Six months after- 
 wards, the same excellent gentleman discoursed 
 at "Thursday Lecture," when ''a question was 
 propounded about veils." A dispute was raised 
 upon a difference of opinion between the min- 
 ister and the magistrate Endicott, and only the 
 interposition of Governor Winthrop prevented a 
 downright quarrel.f About a year after the ar- 
 rival of Winthrop's company, he, as Governor, 
 with the Deputy Dudley, and Elder Nowell, 
 went in midsummer to Watertown, to confer 
 with the pastor and elder there "about an opin- 
 ion which they had published, that the churches 
 of Rome were true churches." The Court after- 
 wards took the matter in hand, and endeavored 
 to procure the dismission of Elder Brown for 
 the above opinion, and for " maintaining other 
 errors withal, and being a man of a very vio- 
 lent spirit." The controversy, so begun, led 
 
 * Winthrop's Journal, Savage's edition, Vol. I. p. 110. 
 t Ibid. p. 125. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 181 
 
 through many visits of interference to his dis- 
 mission, for an exhibition of passion and temper 
 into which he had been goaded.* 
 
 A superstitious fear early sent the spirit of 
 division among the people of Charlestown. The 
 inconvenience of the ferry had induced them 
 to give up joining in the worship of their breth- 
 ren, soon after the church had removed across 
 the river, and they had settled a pastor for them- 
 selves. But the scruples of some led them to 
 question their right to separate ; and even after 
 calling two councils of the ministers, they could 
 not peaceably decide the matter.f Again, Mr. 
 Lothrop, the first minister of Scituate, who had 
 been imprisoned in London as a Non-Conformist 
 preacher, and who came over with Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson, desired leave of the Boston church to be 
 present at the Lord's supper, "but said that he 
 durst not desire to partake in it, because he 
 was not then in order, (being dismissed from 
 his former congregation,) and he thought it not 
 fit to be suddenly admitted into any pther, for 
 example sake, and because of the deceitfulness 
 of man's heart." J 
 
 These are specimens of the extreme and 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. pp. 58, 67, 95. 
 t Ibid. p. 127. t Ibid. p. 144. 
 
182 
 
 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 timid conscientiousness or superstition which con- 
 tinually harrowed the subjects of it with anxi- 
 ety, and led them to fear agitation, causing 
 them to suffer as much as they could inflict by 
 a mistaken principle of religion. These were all 
 trivial questions. It would be impossible either 
 to excite or to extend an interest in them now 
 in the same regions. But then they were mat- 
 ters of a deeply conscientious import ; and trivial 
 as to us they may seem, they nevertheless indi- 
 cate one great step of advance beyond the 
 themes of scholastic disputation in a preceding 
 age, and the questions then debated ; as, for in- 
 stance, whether Adam would have sinned had it 
 not been for Eve, and whether a dead priest 
 could say mass. 
 
 It is not wonderful, that with such elements 
 for agitation amongst them, and constituting the 
 essence of their peculiar opinions, the Massachu- 
 setts colonists should have been exposed to a con- 
 stant succession of infelicitous and quarrelsome 
 experience. Their custom of calling for the 
 advice of all the churches in differences of the 
 most trifling, and often of the most private char- 
 acter, might even lead an uncharitable reader of 
 their history to conclude, that they made dis- 
 sensions for the sake of settling them, or keeping 
 them open, in a pious way. The wonder is, that 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 183 
 
 they ever agreed. They needed no importation 
 from abroad of the vagaries and eccentricities, 
 which had just begun to swarm in England, 
 such as, in their hydra-headed and chameleon- 
 colored varieties, are portrayed by Edwards, Feat- 
 ley, and Pagitt. In such a state of things, the 
 colonists had every reason to look for trouble 
 and strife. Not only were they at the mercy of 
 " disordered and heady persons," but they pro- 
 duced from among themselves a large number, to 
 whom those expressive epithets would apply. 
 Winthrop adds all the redeeming claims of 
 candor and sincerity to weaknesses, which may 
 be excused only by being accounted for. It is 
 pleasant to observe that magnanimity and for- 
 bearance were not wholly wanting, but mingled 
 some of their genial elements in the waters of 
 strife. 
 
184 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Arrival of Mrs. Hutchinson in Boston. — Her 
 Fellow-Passengers. — Parentage and Relation- 
 ship. — Religious Experience in England. — 
 Her Object in coming to New England. — 
 Admission to the Church in Boston. — Her 
 Course on the Passage. — Opinions concerning 
 her, and, her friendly and useful Services 
 in Boston. — The first Expression of her 
 Opinions. 
 
 The preceding sketch may present to us an 
 idea of the state of things to which Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson was introduced, when she arrived at Boston 
 in the ship Griffin, September 18th, 1634. The 
 Reverend John Lothrop, as already mentioned, 
 and the Reverend Zechariah Symmes, afterwards 
 minister of Charlestown, came with her. What 
 opinion the former gentleman adopted of her 
 and of her embryo views on the passage, we have 
 no means of knowing, as he does not appear in 
 the proceedings relating to her. Mr. Symmes, 
 however, took a prominent part against her, and 
 averred that his suspicions of her were aroused 
 before they left England. The same ship brought 
 over a copy of the commission lately granted to 
 the two archbishops and ten of the privy council 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 185 
 
 as a committee to regulate all foreign plantations, 
 and authority to call in patents or charters. By 
 this commission the charter of the Massachu- 
 setts company, which Winthrop had brought 
 with him, was demanded on the ground of com- 
 plaints already made near the throne by per- 
 sons who, returning from Boston, had brought 
 charges against the government of the colony. 
 The adroitness of the Court found means, in 
 this and in repeated calls of the same character, 
 to evade the demands by pleading in turn piety 
 and loyalty, as the surrender of the charter would 
 have been fatal to their existence.* 
 
 The Reverend Thomas Welde, of Roxbury, 
 one of the most zealous of the opponents of Mrs. 
 Hutchinson, and the writer of a brief but most 
 dolorous pamphlet upon the troubles caused by 
 her, says that she 'vvas '' the daughter of Mr. 
 Marbury, sometimes a preacher in Lincolnshire, 
 after of London." She was the wife of Mr. 
 William Hutchinson, a man of a good estate, 
 who had resided at Alford in the same shire. 
 Winthrop, whose judgment was biased, in rela- 
 tion to her at least, says that her husband " was 
 a man of a very mild temper and weak parts, 
 
 * This valuable parchment document, after escaping 
 many hazards, is now reverently displayed in the chambers 
 of the Secretary of State, at the State-House in Boston. 
 
186 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and wholly guided by his wife." * He appears 
 to have been a peaceable man, well esteemed 
 and much trusted before his wife involved him 
 with her own troubled course. The records of 
 the first church in Boston bear the following 
 entries; "26th of 8th month (October) 1634. 
 William Hutchinson, merchant," admitted a 
 member ; and "2d of 9th month (November) 
 Anne Hutchinson, wife of our brother William 
 Hutchinson," admitted a member. The Rever- 
 end John Wheelwright is spoken of as her 
 brother, but we are ignorant how the relation 
 was formed. He was even more closely allied 
 to her in opinions and sufferings. 
 
 In the account which Mrs. Hutchinson gave 
 of herself when brought before the Court, she 
 entered into her religious experience in England. 
 Her statements very much resemble those, which 
 the first of the sect called Quakers soon after 
 gave, relating their unsatisfied thirst and hunger 
 under the preaching, which was dispensed in the 
 parish churches of England, their desire for 
 light, their inward struggles, the exercises of 
 their spirits, and the flashing of convictions into 
 their breasts, sometimes through the instrumen- 
 tality of Scripture, by the forced concentration 
 of the thoughts and their perpetual occupation 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 295. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 187 
 
 upon a single text, but more frequently •' by 
 way of revelations," that is, of mysterious prompt- 
 ings referred to the spirit of God. We have 
 but little testimony concerning Mrs. Hutchinson, 
 which does not come from her opponents. That 
 her mind had been intensely exercised upon the 
 great problems of religion, as well as upon the 
 records and doctrines of revelation, is very 
 evident. 
 
 With those allowances to human infirmity 
 which the best and wisest do need, but which 
 only the best and wisest know how to yield, and 
 with a further allowance to the overwhelming 
 reproaches and the incessant examinations to 
 which she was subjected, and which may ac- 
 count for all the error justly charged upon her, 
 nothing can be discovered or inferred in this age, 
 from any known record, which sullies her ma- 
 tronly or her religious character. She must have 
 been richly endowed with gifts of wisdom and 
 of grace. She exhibited great inward resources, 
 with much of patience. She displayed no worse 
 or greater religious perversity than that of en- 
 thusiasm ; and this only in a form different from 
 those which it assumed in the conduct of her 
 opponents. To the class of thinkers and rea- 
 soners to which she belonged, and which in- 
 cludes many whose names are attached to the 
 wildest sects of the period of the English Com- 
 
188 
 
 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 monwealth, we are indebted, not for the discov- 
 ery, but for the warm recognition, and the 
 earnest and eloquent assertion, of some of the 
 profoundest spiritual truths. These zealous sec- 
 tarians likewise brought out the power of many 
 great practical lessons of Christianity. 
 
 Mrs. Hutchinson had been interested and fed 
 by the preaching of Cotton and Wheelwright in 
 England ; no other met her condition and wants. 
 The object of her change of home was, that she 
 might enjoy the ministry of the exiled preacher at 
 St. Butolph's, in Boston, Lincolnshire, in compli- 
 ment to whom the metropolis of New England 
 received its English name. Mr. Cotton had been 
 acquainted with her at home, and regarded her 
 and her family as estimable. 
 
 It is not probable that what was peculiar in 
 her opinions had attained to any very definite 
 form or shape before she left England. But 
 opinions, and peculiar ones, she had at home ; 
 far she "vented them" on shipboard, and startled 
 ^ome of the passengers. The Reverend Mr. 
 Symmes had his fears aroused concerning her, 
 and imbibed a dread or dislike of her notions, of 
 which she afterwards felt the effects. On his ar- 
 rival, he gave notice of her eccentricities, her spec- 
 ulations, and her " revelations," to Mr. Haynes, 
 then Governor, and to the Deputy, Dudley. It 
 would seem as if she had had " a revelation " as 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 189 
 
 to the length of the passage. A consultation was 
 had among the ministers and elders concerning 
 her, when she was propounded for admission to 
 the church, the consequence of which was, as we 
 have seen, that her admission, though granted, 
 was delayed after her husband had been received. 
 Of course, when notoriety and dissension had 
 spread wide the knowledge of her opinions, with 
 definitions and inferences not proposed by her- 
 self, she was accused of having dissembled by 
 concealment or explanations. 
 
 Mr. Welde expressed both his opinion and his 
 feeling in reference to her, by describing her as 
 ''a woman of a haughty and fierce carriage, of 
 a nimble wit and active spirit, and a very voluble 
 tongue, more bold than a man, though in under- 
 standing and judgment inferior to many wo- 
 men." * Josselyn, the voyager, received such 
 an account of her in his visits to Boston, as to 
 affix to her name the epithet of the '' American 
 Jezabel," f as also does Welde. The wearisome 
 Johnson, who makes up for withholding names in 
 the controversy, by freely decking the hideousness 
 and folly of the strife, calls Mrs. Hutchinson " the 
 masterpiece of women's wit." I Winthrop, with 
 more of courtesy, and probably as much more of 
 
 * Welde's Short Storij, &c. p. 31. 
 
 f Josselyn's Jlccount of Two Voyages^ &c. p. 257. 
 
 X Wonder- Working Providence, Ch. 62. 
 
190 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 truth, describes her as " a woman of a ready wit, 
 and bold spirit." * Her husband took the free- 
 man's oath, March 4th, 1635, (N. S.) and was at 
 once received to honor and place as a representa- 
 tive of Boston in the General Court.f Mrs. 
 Hutchinson immediately attracted attention to 
 herself by acts and offices of kindness, and was 
 known as '' a woman very helpful in the times of 
 childbirth, and other occasions of bodily disease, 
 and well furnished with means for those pur- 
 poses." { Her kindness thus led her to perform 
 services where the best feelings may certainly be 
 exercised to advantage, but in which, according 
 to the world's experience through long time, the 
 spirit of gossiping and of superstitious story- 
 telling, to say nothing of personal scandal, finds 
 a vent. 
 
 The scenes and personages to which Mrs. 
 Hutchinson was thus introduced, and the oppor- 
 tunities there afforded, were admirably adapted to 
 work out the most harm, and in the worst way, 
 from any elements of discord which she might 
 put in commotion. For such services as she 
 could render on occasions of anxiety, when the 
 presence of mind and the all-enduring patience 
 of a woman are the only available and efficient 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 200. 
 
 f Massachusetts Court Records, Vol. I. under date. 
 
 i W aide's Short Storj, p. 31. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 191 
 
 resources, especially in the emergencies of a new 
 colony, she must have been held in high regard, 
 for she was a volunteering friend, not a hireling. 
 It is singular that none of our writers refer to 
 her personal appearance, not even to say wheth- 
 er or not she was at all indebted to good looks 
 for any measure of influence. Their uniform 
 silence on this point is, however, significant of a 
 lack of any extraordinary personal charms. It 
 is certain that Mrs. Hutchinson soon obtained a 
 very great influence. She was brought into 
 relations of close intimacy with a large number 
 of persons, and made herself welcome to their 
 warmest sympathies. 
 
 When public attention was drawn to her, she 
 had already won to herself, directly or indirectly, 
 the large majority, indeed all but some half-dozen, 
 of the members of the Boston church. She had 
 used her opportunities of intimacy and confidence 
 to inquire into the spiritual state of her female 
 friends, at times when they were peculiarly sus- 
 ceptible of impression. She usually warned 
 them, (and this was in fact the burden of her 
 heresy,) against trusting too much to ''gifts and 
 graces," which was but a " a legal way ; " and 
 she led them to seek, in a phrase made im- 
 mensely popular, for "• the witness of the Spirit," 
 and the righteousness of Christ. 
 
192 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 CHAPTEP*. III. 
 
 FiTst public Notice of Mrs. Hutchinson and her 
 Opinions. — The two Covenants. — Her Meet- 
 ings of Women. — Antinomianism and Familisin. 
 — Revelations. — Political Influences. — Gov- 
 ernor Vane and Reverend John Wheelwright 
 her Friends. — The Effects produced by her 
 Teachings. — Peculiar Exposure of Massachu- 
 setts, and Reasons for dreading Heresies. 
 
 The high-minded and devout John Winthrop, 
 the father of the Massachusetts colony, a careful, 
 and generally a most candid journalist of his 
 own times, mal\£s the first mention of Mrs. 
 Hutchinson, in connection with her obnoxious 
 doctrines, under date of the latter part of October, 
 1636, when she had been in the colony but a little 
 more than two years. His words are, " One 
 Mrs. Hutchinson, a member of the church of 
 Boston, a woman of a ready wit and bold spirit, 
 brought over with her two dangerous errors ; 
 first, that the person of the Holy Ghost dwells 
 in a justified person ; second, that no sanctifica- 
 tion can help to evidence to us our justification. 
 From these two grew many branches ; as, first, 
 our union with the Holy Ghost, so as a Christian 
 remains dead to every spiritual action, and hath 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 193 
 
 no gifts nor graces, other than such as are in 
 hypocrites, nor any other sanctification but the 
 Holy Ghost himself." * 
 
 The same abstruse, and to many persons unin- 
 telligible character, which goes through this whole 
 controversy, meets us at its very commencement. 
 It will be observed also that Winthrop, after 
 stating fairly the two great points defining the 
 acknowledged views of Mrs. Hutchinson, pro- 
 ceeds to draw from them inferences, though he 
 wrote out but one, intending more. This draw- 
 ing of inferences will be found to have consti- 
 tuted the great mischief of the whole controversy ; 
 for the inferences were invariably bad, though 
 good ones might have been as readily deduced 
 from her views. Mrs. Hutchinson had employed 
 two years with remarkable industry in behalf of 
 others, considering that she had not a small 
 family of her own. While she was understood 
 to be anxious for the general spiritual welfare 
 of the large circle of her intimate friends, she 
 was held by all in high esteem for godliness. 
 
 Her earnest dissuasives to them against trust- 
 ing to an outside righteousness, to the tokens of 
 piety set forth in deeds and virtues, which was 
 only confiding in a " covenant of works," were 
 well received ; and she was understood as only 
 
 * Winthrop's Journal, Vol. 1. p. 200. 
 VOL. VI. 13 
 
194 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 enforcing the appeals of the ministers when she 
 recommended an entire reliance upon the " cov- 
 enant of grace," the free, unpurchased witness of 
 the Spirit, communicated from Christ to the 
 heart of the believer. So far she had love from 
 many, approval from most, and credit from all. 
 She was soon understood, however, to point very 
 significantly to examples of those who trusted in 
 the one or the other of these two covenants, and 
 these examples were chosen not from the letters 
 of the alphabet, nor from the world at large, but 
 from the church communion and from the min- 
 isters. She criticised characters and sermons, 
 and went to hear that she might afterwards 
 judge, approving or condemning. 
 
 The fact, that Mrs. Hutchinson confined her 
 efforts and gifts almost entirely to females, by 
 no means proves that she was indifferent about 
 making converts from the other sex. On the 
 contrary, she may have exercised her wisdom in 
 choosing the method best adapted to move the 
 whole community with the most effect. Nearly 
 the whole of the Lord's day was of course de- 
 voted to the public exercises. There was a 
 meeting also on Saturday evening, at which 
 women were present, and they mingled with the 
 numerous assemblies for constituting churches, 
 and for ordaining ministers and elders. There 
 were, however, meetings of the brethren for re- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 195 
 
 ligious discourse, from which women were ex- 
 cluded. Mrs. Hutchmson thought she was sup- 
 plying a deficiency, when she instituted a meet- 
 ing for her own sex. This enterprise of hers 
 met with favor, rather than with disapprobation, 
 at first. From fifty to eighty, and even one 
 hundred, females met at her house, listening with 
 devoted interest to her more than metaphysical 
 distinctions of the two covenants. For one pe- 
 riod she held two such meetings weekly, and 
 the nominal purpose of them was for the repe- 
 tition and the impression of the sermons deliv- 
 ered by Mr. Cotton on Sunday, and at his 
 Thursday lecture. His sermons met with her 
 full approval, as did also those of her brother, 
 Reverend John Wheelwright, who had left his 
 university honors and his ministry in London, 
 to share the lot of the exiles. But the sermons 
 of the other ministers in the Bay, who were 
 occasionally heard in Boston, received more or 
 less of censure from Mrs. Hutchinson. At any 
 rate, she found in the sermons, which she crit- 
 icised, examples looking towards the two differ- 
 ent covenants. 
 
 After a careful perusal of the whole ensuing 
 controversy, a reader finds himself possessed of 
 a moderately clear idea of the matter at issue, 
 though the technical phrases and the wire-drawn 
 distinctions of polemics are freely used. Yet it 
 
196 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 is not easy to convey in few words a fair rep- 
 resentation of the controversy, without attempt- 
 ing to define the great points on which it de- 
 pended. 
 
 Antinomianism and Familism are words ex- 
 pressing opinions, which were much dreaded of 
 old in Massachusetts, and it was under these 
 two forms of pestilential heresy that the opinions 
 of Mrs. Hutchinson were not unjustly classed. 
 The Antinomians, as a sect, had brought them- 
 selves into public notice in Germany about a 
 century before this time ; though they in fact 
 only revived, with local and circumstantial va- 
 riances, the anti-Judaizing party of the first cen- 
 tury of the Christian church. The sect appeared 
 in England, with a hundred other sects, as pre- 
 liminaries to the Commonwealth. The real idea 
 or sentiment, which gave life to the sect, is ex- 
 pressed in its name, (opposition to legalism :) 
 though this was only the negative which corre- 
 sponded to the positive point, exaltation of the 
 Gospel. The real intention and object of its 
 members were, not to discountenance good works, 
 but to put them into their right place, as the 
 necessary fruits of piety, not its proofs ; to se- 
 cure a state of the heart, which would make evi- 
 dence of holiness, rather than a form of life, 
 which might only assume the show of it. They 
 preached repentance and holiness from the cov- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 197 
 
 enant of Christ, not from the decalogue and the 
 Law of Moses. They taught that the Gospel 
 has superseded the Law. 
 
 Now, however clearly the distinction here 
 drawn may have been defined in the mind of 
 John Agricola, the recognized foreign leader of 
 the Antinomian sect, it is easy to see to what 
 imputations his views would be liable, and how 
 readily and how grossly professed disciples, as 
 well as enemies of the sect, might pervert them. 
 This sect, like most other sects, suffered in pub- 
 lic repute by having inferences drawn from its 
 tenets ; by having its negative rather than its pos- 
 itive opinions brought into notice ; and by serving 
 as a sanctuary for unscrupulous and outrageous 
 pretenders to its protection. The distinction just 
 stated was very soon lost sight of. Antinomian- 
 ism came to signify a doctrine, which superseded 
 the necessity of good works, which taught that 
 virtue did not promote, nor vice hinder, salva- 
 tion ; that the commission of sin would not affect 
 the eternal state of a believer ; indeed, that 
 nothing which a believer might do could be sin. 
 
 Familism defined another sect, of German ori- 
 gin, which likewise found an ancestry in the 
 first Christian age, and which was imported into 
 England at a time prolific of religious vaga- 
 ries and fancies. The Familists, or "Family of 
 Love," maintained that the deep and all-absorb- 
 
198 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ing feeling of divine love within the breast was 
 the very essence of religion, the bond of union 
 between believers, and between them and God. 
 They held that all opinions, doctrines, forms, 
 and modes, are but of trifling consequence com- 
 pared with this, and that it was a matter of 
 perfect indifference what were the sentiments of 
 professed Christians, if their hearts burned with 
 the pure flame of love. The oil which was to 
 feed that flame, the offices, methods, and efforts 
 for keeping alive the spirit of piety, were thus 
 most strangely disesteemed, and most unphilo- 
 sophically nullified. The disciples of this creed 
 seem to have realized the description of the five 
 unwise virgins in the parable, carrying lamps, 
 but forgetting the oil, which, when consumed, 
 needed replenishing. The inevitable abuses of 
 such a creed are obvious. 
 
 Even with the best and purest disciples of 
 both these sects, the doctrine of " immediate 
 revelations," either through the forcing home to 
 the convictions of some sentiment or example 
 from the Scriptures, or wholly independent of 
 the Scriptures, was acceptable. An "immediate 
 revelation " does, in fact, signify an illumination 
 brought about without the agency of the Scrip- 
 tures ; and the belief of such a favor enjoyed, 
 as well as the pretence to it, could not fail to 
 be a fruitful source of irregularity and fanati- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 199 
 
 cism. The outrages, which had been perpetrated 
 on the continent of Europe by some who as- 
 sumed the names of these sects, and especially 
 the recent frenzies of the Anabaptists at Mun- 
 ster, exceedingly alarmed the colonists of Mas- 
 sachusetts, and they felt it to be a matter of 
 life and death for them to guard against the 
 first advances of such heresies among themselves. 
 
 Such were the baneful and dreaded corrup- 
 tions of faith, with which the views expressed by 
 Mrs. Hutchinson were at once identified by those 
 most in alarm concerning them. Of the two 
 chief points above stated in the words of Win- 
 throp, one, as we shall see, was soon put at rest, 
 and the subsequent controversy turned upon the 
 other point, with its inferences, namely, upon 
 sanctification as being or as not being an evi- 
 dence of justification. In other words, the great 
 question was, whether a life, witnessing moral and 
 religious obedience and holiness before men, is 
 or is not evidence that an individual is in a 
 justified or accepted state before God. 
 
 Mrs. Hutchinson was understood to maintain 
 the negative on this question ; that is, she was 
 regarded as affirming, that a state in which man 
 is justified before God precedes and is independ- 
 ent of his obedience of the law of holiness. 
 The attempt to prove, or to find a ground of 
 confidence for, our justification by means of out- 
 
200 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ward sanctification, she pronounced to be a walk- 
 ing by a covenant of works ; she looked to a 
 far higher covenant, that of grace. The mo- 
 ment this distinction is stated, we instinctively 
 perceive that it could not fail to bring into dis- 
 credit the formal and methodical observances of 
 the scrupulous forefathers of New England. The 
 outward manifestations of piety were then much 
 regarded, and stringently enforced ; perhaps their 
 importance was exaggerated ; they certainly were 
 open to the charge of too much resembling dis- 
 play ; for not only was a grave and reverent 
 bearing expected, but austerity in looks, and 
 sanctimoniousness in dress and phrase, were con- 
 sidered all-essential. 
 
 Political influences and jealousies mingled in 
 the strife from its commencement. Henry Vane, 
 son and heir of Sir Henry Vane, a privy coun- 
 cillor, arrived in Boston, October 6th, 1635, 
 and, as appears by the records of the First 
 Church, was admitted a member in less than a 
 month afterwards, (" 1st of 9th month.") He 
 took the freeman's oath on the 3d of March fol- 
 lowing.* From the hour of his arrival, he was 
 unwisely and undeservedly exalted into a rival 
 with the well-proved and judicious Winthrop. 
 Vane was but twenty-four years of age, and 
 
 * Court Records, Vol. I., under date. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 201 
 
 though of sincere purposes and honest impulses, 
 he was far from possessing at that time the 
 wisdom, which Milton's sonnet afterwards attrib- 
 uted to him. He was esteemed and patronized 
 by Lord Say and Seal, the fast friend of the 
 colony ; and this was a high recommendation in 
 his favor. 
 
 But his chief claim to the enthusiastic regard 
 and the almost idolatrous affection in which he 
 was held, was found in his puritanical predilec- 
 tions. In early youth, he turned from the fol- 
 lies and the gayeties of the life to which he 
 was born, and was gradually led into the ways 
 of a mystical if not of a fanatical pietism. With 
 noble and generous qualities of heart, and with 
 spotless purity of soul, he nevertheless lacked 
 a well-poised judgment and the calm penetra- 
 tion which looks at the bearings as well as at 
 the profundity of truth. On his return to Eng- 
 land from a continental tour, he clipped the 
 locks which signified the young Cavalier, and 
 gave hope that he would even reduce his hair 
 to the puritan standard. It was with grief, that 
 his father and his royal master heard of the 
 alienation of young Vane from church and state 
 attractions. That master, already looking out 
 upon the clouds which soon after gathered the 
 tempest that wrecked his kingly fortune and life, 
 could not but regard each instance of such alien- 
 
202 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ation as ominous of what was to follow. By 
 his advice, the piety-stricken youth was allowed 
 to visit the plantations in New England, with 
 the hope that experience would wean him from 
 his offensive tendencies. 
 
 On May 25th, 1636, Vane was elected Gov- 
 ernor of Massachusetts by the General Court, 
 and after so brief a sojourn as made it impossi- 
 ble that he should know the spirit and the po- 
 sition of those over whom, in all his immaturity 
 of judgment, he was placed, by a haste and zeal 
 which were not wise. Not only was he thus 
 elected to the highest office, but the honor was 
 accompanied by unusual demonstrations of pop- 
 ular interest, and by the discharge of volleys from 
 all the ships in the bay. It will be seen that 
 the ensuing difficulties were aggravated by this 
 hasty measure ; for Vane joined with Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson, and his fall was identified with hers. 
 
 The Reverend John Wheelwright, brother or 
 brother-in-law of Mrs. Hutchinson, shared her 
 sufferings, and was, in fact, as prominent a suf- 
 ferer as herself. He had been a clergyman and 
 a Non-Conformist minister in England, and, with 
 his wife Mary, was admitted to the Boston church, 
 June 12th, 1636. 
 
 Such was the state of things, and the timid- 
 ity about new opinions, when public attention 
 was drawn to Mrs. Hutchinson. The discovery 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 203 
 
 was like the discovery of a conflagration, which 
 has kindled at night and behind a wall. It 
 may well be inferred that her weekly lectures 
 were very attractive, in the absence of all ge- 
 nial social gatherings. She possessed a wonder- 
 ful memory, and had no slight ability both for 
 generalization and abstraction. The textual com- 
 position and the mechanical arrangement of the 
 sermons of that day, facilitated their criticism at 
 her meetings, and notes were taken very gener- 
 ally. People from the adjoining towns heard of 
 the meetings, and it was but natural that some 
 women, not of the Boston church, should soon 
 find a way to them. Great life and interest were 
 imparted by the perfect freedom of remark, of 
 objecting and of questioning, which was allowed. 
 It would have been very strange, if her visitors 
 had not been intensely engaged in this occupa- 
 tion, which, considering the circumstances, was 
 so fascinating ; and it would have been more 
 than strange, if heresies and scandals had not 
 been conceived at those meetings. 
 
 The character and abilities of Mrs. Hutchin- 
 son, " her profitable and sober carriage," were 
 held in such esteem, that it required no little 
 independence and self-assurance on the part of 
 any one to send a glance of scrutiny into her 
 assemblies, or to bring into question the whole- 
 someness of their repasts. Peace reigned long 
 
204 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 enough to allow the leaven to work its way ; 
 and when the eyes of magistrates and ministers 
 were opened, they saw at once the whole evil, 
 which was then past their power to redress, 
 though they set about it with all their zeal. 
 
 All sorts of persons were found to have been 
 attracted by her spells, and involved in her ten- 
 ets. Cotton and Wheelwright among the min- 
 isters ; Vane the Governor, with Dummer and 
 Coddington, among the magistrates ; many of the 
 deputies of the towns who had frequented Bos- 
 ton, with large numbers of the military and the 
 yeomanry, were her abettors or disciples. The 
 watchwords of the new party were heard at town 
 meetings, at trainings, in public worship, in family 
 prayers, in the blessing before meat, and in the 
 grace after meat. Children asked each other 
 whether their parents stood respectively for the 
 covenant of grace, or for the covenant of works. 
 Mr. Welde says, " And now was there no speech 
 so much in use, as of vilifying sanctification, and 
 all for advancing Christ and free grace, and the 
 whole pedigree of the covenant of works was set 
 forth with all its complements, beginning at 
 Cain." Again, the same writer says, " Now 
 the faithful ministers of Christ must have dung 
 cast on their faces, and be no better than legal 
 preachers, Baal's priests. Popish factors, scribes, 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 205 
 
 Pharisees, and opposers of Christ himself."* Per- 
 sonaUties and insults were largely employed. At 
 the close of public worship, sermons and prayers 
 were criticised. 
 
 The ministers in the colony were classified, and 
 the former most approved signatures of piety 
 were seen, with the new eye, as the mark of Cain. 
 There was a wandering of church members from 
 their own places of worship on the Sabbath, 
 either because their own preacher did not edify, 
 or because another preacher did not, and they 
 were set upon hearing, that they might afterwards 
 criticise and have matter for objection. Some 
 of the more zealous turned their backs and left 
 the assemblies, when preachers whom they did 
 not wish to hear stood up in the desk, or exer- 
 cised from the deacon's seat. Mrs. Hutchinson 
 set an example for this offensive proceeding, 
 by leaving the meeting-house when the pastor 
 Wilson was to speak. Letters not compliment- 
 ary, but sometimes far from it, were addressed to 
 the ministers, questioning their doctrine; and all 
 the manifold provocations of religious wrangling, 
 with all the exaggerations of calumny to increase 
 them, began to alienate those whose hearts had 
 previously been united by seemingly indissoluble 
 ties. 
 
 * Welde's Short Storyy &c. Preface, and p. 32. 
 
206 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Such were the elements of discord in Boston. 
 Such elements could not work in it, even at this 
 da}', without strife. Thus offensive in themselves, 
 and equally offensive in the mode of their prom- 
 ulgation, were the opinions and the practices 
 which were identified with Mrs. Hutchinson. 
 Before any public notice was taken of her course, 
 and long before any arbitrary measures were 
 commenced against her party, all the mortifying 
 and estranging effects just mentioned had been 
 brought about. Had there been therefore no 
 public proceedings against Mrs. Hutchinson and 
 her friends, or had the whole action against her 
 been confined to the church of which she was a 
 member, even then the colony would not have 
 escaped a severe agitation. Thus it will not do 
 to charge upon the interference of the public 
 authorities the deplorable results, which had al- 
 ready occurred ; before they interfered, they had 
 borne much more than they could have been 
 expected to bear at all without uneasiness. 
 
 One other particular should be noted, to bring 
 us into the position for fair judgment correspond- 
 ing to that which the opponents of the new opin- 
 ions occupied. From the very beginning of the 
 controversy, its political and civil bearings and 
 its seditious tendencies were foreseen. Church 
 and state were even more one at that time in 
 New England, than in the mother country. The 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 207 
 
 Massachusetts authorities stood in constant dread 
 about their charter, a surrender of which was 
 repeatedly and imperiously demanded of them. 
 No one thing endangered their possession of the 
 charter so much, as representations made to the 
 throne and council of any thing like riotous or 
 disorderly proceedings in the colony ; and there 
 were enough to carry such reports. 
 
 The colonists had likewise a new and a strange 
 way of ecclesiastical polity to keep in credit. 
 They were nervously sensitive to the epithet of 
 Brownists or Separatists, and aimed at simple 
 Congregationalism, which was a middle way be- 
 tween Independency and Presbyterianism. They 
 were inquired of, and impugned, for their church 
 method, even by those who were equally alienated 
 with themselves from the prelacy and formalism 
 of the English Establishment. Every instance of 
 disorder, to which their system admitted facilities, 
 was circulated in England with a glad sorrow, so 
 that their anxiety and pride, as well as their fear 
 of heresy, were enlisted to keep out all eccentric 
 and mischievous characters and opinioris. 
 
 Many stories to their discredit had already 
 been told on the other side of the water ; and in 
 this present controversy, it is evident that they 
 were actuated to a great degree by a desire to 
 keep themselves in good esteem with some, and 
 to retrieve their suffering reputation with others 
 
203 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 at home. They had been reported there, without 
 any allowance on the side of charity, for each of 
 their acts of severity ; and the story of the Browns, 
 of Sir Christopher Gardiner, of Roger Williams, 
 and other aggrieved persons, lost nothing by trans- 
 mission. It was essential to the interests of the 
 Massachusetts colony to keep oft' the reproach 
 of being composed of all sorts of consciences. 
 They must silence this charge, already whispered, 
 to gain the double end of being left in peace by 
 the foreign authorities, and to draw over worthy 
 and profitable settlers. 
 
 The following extract from the eccentric Ward, 
 of Ipswich, will show that the importance of this 
 consideration has not been exaggerated. " Such 
 as have given or taken any unfriendly reports of 
 us New English should do well to recollect them- 
 selves. We have been reputed a colluvies of 
 wild Opinionists, swarmed into a remote wilder- 
 ness to find elbow-room for our fanatic doctrines 
 and practices. I trust our diligence past, and 
 constant sedulity against such persons and cour- 
 ses, will plead better things for us. I dare take 
 upon me to be the herald of New England so far 
 as to proclaim to the world, in the name of our 
 colony, that all Familists, Antinomians, Anabap- 
 tists, and other enthusiasts, shall have free liberty 
 to keep away from us, and such as will come, 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 209 
 
 to be gone as fast as they can, the sooner the 
 better." * 
 
 Any one who will read the by no means 
 wearisome tractate of Robert Baylie, the Scotch 
 Presbyterian, entitled " A Dissuasive from the 
 Errors of the Times," will appreciate the force 
 of these last suggestions. In that volume, the 
 dissensions among the Brownists and Separa- 
 tists at Arnheim, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and 
 London, are set down without any loss in the 
 method of their representation. It was published 
 just after the troubles with Mrs. Hutchinson, 
 which form some of the aggravations of the 
 volume ; but its contents were matters of present 
 experience and of earlier warning in Massa- 
 chusetts, whose proceedings in her case we are 
 now prepared to review. 
 
 * The Simple Cobler of Agawam in America. London ; 
 1647. p. 3. 
 
 VOL. VI. 14 
 
^10 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Excitement in Boston. — Means taken to 
 allay it. — Reverend John Cotton and the Con- 
 ference of Ministers. — Motion in the Boston 
 Church to settle Mr. Wheelwright, opposed by 
 Deputy-Governor Winthrop. — Offence taken. 
 — Disputation in Writing. — Governor Vane's 
 Proceedings. — The Court consults the Elders 
 
 on the Controversy. — Hugh Peters. — Mi 
 Wilson's Speech. — Discord and Contention. 
 
 On the first disclosure of the influence which 
 Mrs. Hutchinson had already wrought, there was 
 much of fair and comparatively of judicious 
 effort used to win her and her followers from 
 their opinions, before recourse was had to arbi- 
 trary and compulsory measures. There were 
 many private interviews between the prominent 
 parties, and numerous conferences in the public 
 assemblies. It was honestly supposed, at first, 
 that the differences would not grow to dissen- 
 sions. Wisdom and charity together, or a little 
 increase of either at the beginning, would have 
 softened and perhaps averted the catastrophe. 
 The agitation began in the Boston church, and 
 to that it would doubtless have been confined in 
 its most exciting features, but that, in the spirit 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 211 
 
 of a self-imposed obligation, which we might 
 judge uncharitably did we call it intermeddling, 
 the other ministers of the colony, assembling on 
 occasion of the General Court in October, 1636, 
 took up the matter with much warmth of zeal. 
 
 The Reverend John Cotton, the teacher, was 
 from the first implicated on the side of Mrs. 
 Hutchinson and her supporters. Whether any 
 adroit policy on her part exaggerated or mis- 
 construed his apparent and unsuspecting per- 
 sonal regard ; whether she originally derived her 
 leading views from him, and erred by departing 
 from the qualifications they received from his 
 lips ; whether she availed herself of his high 
 standing, for countenance and protection ; wheth-. 
 er he at first sympathized with her, was pleased 
 with her approval, and subsequently deserted her 
 from timidity, from pliancy, or from changed 
 convictions ; these are questions which will pre- 
 sent themselves as alike interesting and material 
 by and by. It is certain, however, that Mrs. 
 Hutchinson herself, her friends, and her enemies, 
 presumed, at the beginning, that the sympathy of 
 the honored teacher was on her side. Her ad- 
 herents were wont to say, that they held only 
 what Mr. Cotton held. He was even their idol ; 
 and it may be — let the candor of history decide 
 — that the other ministers were not wholly above 
 being influenced by the comparisons which she 
 
212 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 was known to draw. Cotton's subsequent ac- 
 count of his relation to the obnoxious party was, 
 that in their earlier disclosures of opinion they 
 cautiously qualified their views, so as to keep 
 them in harmony with his own ; but that, as they 
 advanced in numbers and boldness, they dis- 
 sembled, practised reserve before some only to 
 secure a very free license before others, and 
 made him, in his ignorance, though to his great 
 discredit, " the stalking-horse " of their heresies 
 and vagaries. 
 
 The report had gone abroad that the ministers 
 out of Boston preached a covenant of works. 
 This offensive charge, made more odious, because, 
 as above suggested, it was aggravated by a com- 
 parison, they regarded as a sufficient warrant for 
 seeking, by a private conference with Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson and Mr. Wheelwright, to acquaint them- 
 selves with the new opinions. The intent of the 
 ministers was, if they could possess the ground, to 
 warn or admonish the Boston church concerning 
 their diseased members, in order to prevent the 
 infection from spreading over the other churches. 
 Cotton, too, stood on the defensive. The result 
 of this conference was, that Cotton and Wheel- 
 wright satisfied the ministers by agreeing, as they 
 alleged they had preached, " that sanctification 
 did help to evidence justification ; " that is, that 
 outward boUness was, to a degree, testimony to 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 213 
 
 a righteous state within. As to the other princi- 
 pal point in agitation, it appeared that, while Mr. 
 Cotton consented with other ministers to *' the 
 indwelhng of the person of the Holy Ghost," 
 Mrs. Hutchinson and Wheelwright held what 
 amounted to a personal union of the Holy Ghost 
 with the believer. 
 
 The next measure tending to strife, was a 
 movement on the part of members of the Boston 
 church, who had become fascinated by the new 
 dispensation of grace, to call Wheelwright as their 
 teacher. This measure had been proposed to 
 the church on Sunday, October 23d, 1636, and 
 the proposition was brought up for action on the 
 following Sunday. Throughout the whole agita- 
 tion in that church, the pastor, Wilson, and its 
 most honored member, John Winthrop, led and 
 guided the opposition to Mrs. Hutchinson and 
 her brother. Indeed, when the strife was at the 
 highest, there were only five in that whole com- 
 munion who kept upon the side of the other min- 
 isters and churches of the Bay. In the measure 
 now proposed, Wilson was of course restrained 
 to silence, and he left to Winthrop the difficult 
 task of opposing a hasty popular impulse. Win- 
 throp was faithful and wise. He met the meas- 
 ure with decided objections. He urged, that 
 the church was already well supplied with minis- 
 ters whose hearts, minds, and spirits the members 
 
214 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 knew ; whose prayers, counsels, and labors had 
 been blessed. He said, that, thus supplied, there 
 was no need of putting the peace of the churcli 
 at hazard, as would be done by calling one whose 
 spirit they did not know, and who in judgment 
 did in fact seem to differ. 
 
 Winthrop could not well say less than this ; 
 for Wheelwright had kept a marked reserve and 
 distance from the intimacy of the other ministers. 
 The devout and single-handed opponent of the 
 excited inclinations of those whom he addressed, 
 proceeded to allege two objectionable sentiments, 
 which Wheelwright had uttered in a sermon ; 
 namely, " that a believer was more than a crea- 
 ture," and "that the person of the Holy Ghost 
 and a believer were united." Governor Vane 
 replied by expressing his wonder at Winthrop's 
 remarks, as Mr. Cotton had but lately uttered 
 his approval of Wheelwright's doctrines. Mr. 
 Cotton averred that he did not remember the 
 first of the objectionable statements, and desired 
 WheeKvright to explain what he meant. Wheel- 
 wright allowed he had uttered them, and referred 
 to the occasion. An attempt being made for a 
 reconciliation, Mr. Winthrop candidly said, that 
 though he and Wheelwright might perhaps come 
 to an agreement, and though he held in reverence 
 the godliness and abilities of the candidate, so 
 that, if occasion called, he could be content to 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 215 
 
 live under his ministry, '' yet, seeing he was apt to 
 raise doubtful disputations, he could not consent 
 to choose him to that place." * The church then 
 gave over the purpose, that Wheelwright might 
 be called to a new church about to be gathered 
 at Mount Wollaston, now Braintree. 
 
 Winthrop's opposition, however, gave offence, 
 which spent itself in open censure of his remarks 
 in the congregation. With the dignified sincerity 
 and frankness which characterized him, he took 
 the earliest opportunity, being the next day, to ex- 
 plain and justify himself. He was censured for 
 the publicity of his remarks, which, it was said, 
 ought at least to have been preceded by some 
 private dealing with Wheelwright. He acknowl- 
 edged this error, but affirmed that when he heard 
 the objectionable sentiments, they occurred in a 
 discourse the doctrine of which was sound, and 
 therefore supposed the words were spoken figura- 
 tively ; but he had since learned that Wheelwright 
 held the sentiments literally, and laid stress upon 
 them. To the charge of having spoken with 
 bitterness, he replied by alleging his w^rm tem- 
 perament, which made him earnest in serious 
 things, though still he loved Wheelwright, and 
 honored the gifts and graces of God in him. 
 The third and severest censure against this 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 202. 
 
216 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 faithful defendant was, that he had attributed to 
 Wheelwright heresies which he did not entertain. 
 
 To this he replied that he had since spoken 
 with the brother, who denied entertaining the 
 two opinions which had been specified. Here 
 we may presume to think, that it would have 
 been most wise for Winthrop to have stopped. 
 But he proceeded to show, by the mischievous 
 process of drawing inferences, that Wheelwright 
 did nevertheless hold the sentiments, as they 
 followed from his acknowledged belief of a real, 
 that is, a personal union of the Holy Ghost with 
 the believer, so that "a believer must be more 
 than a creature, viz., God-man, even Christ 
 Jesus." There is, said Winthrop, a true union, 
 a union of sympathy and relation, between hus- 
 band and wife ; but as they still remain a man 
 and a woman, it is not a personal union.* We 
 must allow that Winthrop's logic was unexcep- 
 tionable as logic ; but he should have known that 
 syllogisms will not always apply to favorite the- 
 ological tenets, and that a doubtful disputant will 
 not always abide by the views, which may be 
 shown '' by necessary consequence " to follow 
 from his expressed opinions. 
 
 Winthrop concluded by submitting to the 
 church to judge about the doctrine, hoping that 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. 1. p. 203. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 217 
 
 Cotton would clear it up, as in good measure he 
 had done. He likewise affectionately requested 
 of Wheelwright, that as estrangement and vari- 
 ance grew so readily and rankly from the use of 
 words, which tended to doubtful disputation, "and 
 had no footing in Scripture, nor had been in use 
 in the purest churches for three hundred years 
 after Christ," but were of human invention, they 
 might be forborne. Winthrop referred to the 
 phrases, " person of the Holy Ghost," and " real 
 union;" and though he said that he did not in- 
 tend to dispute the matter, as having no calling to 
 It, " yet, if any brother desired to see what light 
 he walked by, he would be ready to impart it 
 to him." No reply was made, and Winthrop 
 soon after wrote out his views on the subject, 
 fortified with Scripture, and sent them to Mr. 
 Cotton. No man could do the work better 
 than he. 
 
 A disputation in writing followed. The ques- 
 tion at issue was too alluring to both parties 
 alike, and neither could probably have been put 
 to silence upon it at the cost of life. The 
 agreeable maxim of our day, that evil has its 
 mission as well as good, leads us to hope that 
 this disputation afforded a certain wilderness 
 joy to the worn exiles of Christ. It was in the 
 midst of the alarms caused by the Pequots ; and 
 we may be sure that those of the Pilgrims, who 
 
218 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 were then fighting with carnal weapons, had the 
 easiest and probably the less passionate war- 
 fare. The disputation was between Governor 
 Vane, Mr. Cotton, and Mr. Wheelwright, of the 
 one party, and Deputy-Governor Winthrop and 
 Mr. Wilson, on the other. Winthrop judiciously 
 labored to keep out from use " terms of human 
 invention," and to confine certain other terms 
 to their scriptural use ; then the indwelling of 
 the Holy Ghost would be rightly understood in 
 the same way as the indwelling of the Father 
 and the Son. But whether this indwelling was 
 by gifts and power only, or by any other manner 
 of presence, as the Scripture did not explain, 
 *'it was earnestly desired that the word person 
 might be forborne." Whether this disputation 
 was thought to promise an end to strife, or to 
 risk an increase of it, it is difficult to say ; but 
 though it seems to have been amicably con- 
 ducted, the very fact that it was confined to a 
 few made all more excited about the matter. 
 
 A circumstance now occurred, which, while 
 somewhat mysterious and unexplained in its 
 character, doubtless contributed much towards 
 deepening in contention the party lines, which 
 disputations and conferences had already defined. 
 Governor Vane had privately made known to 
 the council, that it was necessary for him, for 
 reasons of a private nature, to return to England. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 219 
 
 A special Court was convened on this account, 
 December 7th, 1636,* when he made known the 
 necessity of his departure, some of the council 
 vouching for the cogency of the reasons, though 
 they were not of a nature to be imparted to the 
 whole Court. Time was taken to consider the 
 matter. The next day, one of the magistrates 
 displayed much pathetic regret at the loss of 
 such a governor at such a time, when the French 
 and Indians caused such alarm. 
 
 Vane was affected by sympathy to tears ; and, 
 being carried away for a moment by his feelings, 
 he protested that, though the reasons for his 
 departure vitally concerned his whole outward 
 estate, yet he would not leave at such a crisis, 
 did he not foresee the inevitable judgments of 
 God hanging over them for their dissensions, 
 while he himself lay under the scandalous im- 
 putation of being the chief cause of them. He 
 thought it best, therefore, that he should give 
 place for a time. But the Court would not 
 allow his departure on these grounds. Then, 
 soon recalling his discretion and his manliness, 
 he insisted that his private estate gave him cause 
 enough for departing, and excused his hasty 
 utterance, as of passion, not of judgment. The 
 
 * Court Records, Vol. I., under date. See also Win- 
 throp, Vol. I. p. 207. 
 
220 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Court then granted him liberty to go, though it 
 seems that it was on his promise to return, which, 
 however, he needed not to redeem. A week 
 afterwards, a representation was made to the 
 Court that the Boston church would not allow the 
 Governor to depart on the reasons alleged, and 
 he, as an obedient child of the church, con- 
 sented to remain. 
 
 On the supposition that Vane would return 
 to England forthwith, provision had been made 
 for calling a Court of Elections on the 15th 
 of the month, to supply the vacancy; but the 
 determination of Vane to abide by the wish of 
 the church rendered a new choice unnecessary, 
 and it was quietly determined to retain him in 
 office. A Court of Deputies, however, had assem- 
 bled without the magistrates, and they advanced 
 the controversy one step farther by calling the 
 elders of the churches to advise measures for 
 pacifying the increasing and bitter contentions. 
 Governor Vane laid the occasion before the min- 
 isters in the First Church, where the sessions of 
 the Court were held. Mr. Dudley and Winthrop 
 advised great plainness and frankness of speech, 
 that every thing might be laid open. Vane 
 approved the advice, but showed some irritated 
 feeling, because, without his privity, the min- 
 isters had already been considering the matter 
 in a church way, and had drawn out a list of 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 221 
 
 the points on which Mr. Cotton differed, as 
 was supposed, from them, asking of him expUcit 
 answers, which he had promised. 
 
 Upon Vane's expression of his offence on this 
 account, the plain-spoken and famous Hugh 
 Peters, minister of Salem, took up the matter, 
 and told the Governor next day that the spir- 
 its of the ministers were much saddened by 
 his jealousy of their meetings. Vane excused 
 his speech as sudden and mistaken. Mr. Peters 
 then went on, without excess of deference, to 
 tell the Governor that before he came, less than 
 two years since, the churches were at peace. 
 He also "besought him humbly to consider his 
 youth, and short experience of the things of 
 God, and to beware of peremptory conclusions, 
 which he perceived him to be very apt unto." 
 Mr. Peters significantly hinted that, from his ex- 
 perience in the Low Countries, he had observed 
 that pride was a principal cause of new opin- 
 ions, and that new notions lift up the mind, 
 while idleness likewise tended to the same effect. 
 Vane replied, " that the light of the gospel brings 
 a sword, and the children of the bondwoman 
 would persecute those of the freewoman." * 
 
 This certainly must be regarded as peremp- 
 tory, though it may have been wholesome lan- 
 
 * Wiiithrop, Vol. I. p. 209. 
 
222 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 guage on the part of Mr. Peters, who had been 
 in the country no longer than Vane, and was not 
 yet forty years of age. Wilson, the pastor, made 
 a speech which gave great offence to the friends 
 of Mrs. Hutchinson. He bewailed sadly the 
 condition of the churches, and foresaw irreparable 
 breaches if the alienations were not healed, while 
 he laid all the blame upon the new opinions. 
 This speech, together with Mr. Cotton's sermon 
 the same day, at Thursday lecture, and the 
 prophesyings in the meeting-house after it, set 
 the parties in open conflict. It appeared that 
 Governor Vane, the magistrates Coddington and 
 Dummer, and the ministers Cotton and Wheel- 
 wright, with the large majority of the Boston 
 church, made common cause widi Mrs. Hutchin- 
 son about justification. By all these Mr. Wilson 
 was severely censured for his speech in the Court, 
 and the church indeed were about to admonish 
 him ; but this measure was prevented by Cotton, 
 
 It is one of the very few alleviations of this 
 whole controversy, that the chief church of the 
 colony retained, until death called them away, 
 the pastor and the teacher who were thus at 
 first ranked on different sides, and that they 
 never parted friendship. Wilson vindicated his 
 speech on the ground that great plainness was 
 necessary, and had been called for. He, how- 
 ever, received very harsh treatment from former 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 223 
 
 friends, even to insults and reproaches, but had 
 grace given him to bear them, and even to Hsten 
 to a " grave exhortation " from his colleague, 
 sustained chiefly by Winthrop. The next day, 
 however, he preached, and had an opportunity 
 of presenting his side, which he did with such 
 success, that even Vane bore public testimony 
 to him. Several letters, of a friendly, but of a 
 very plain and argumentative character, passed 
 between Winthrop and Cotton, in reference to 
 Wilson's speech, which his colleague continued 
 to regard as objectionable. These letters, by 
 Cotton's permission, were shown to Wilson. 
 
 While thus the leaders of the controversy, 
 perfect masters of the tactics, met in fair con- 
 flict, a host of absurd notions was brought into 
 light as the alleged consequences of the new 
 views ; these notions bearing the more objec- 
 tionable and alarming features of Antinomianism. 
 The publicity and popular occasions of the dis- 
 pute put the words and passions of the contro- 
 versy, without its distinctions and issues, into 
 the mouth of the pubUc. For there was then, 
 as now, a public, whose voice in such matters is 
 like the spray that parts from the ocean wave, 
 which annoys and drenches the poor mariners, 
 while it does not help to bear up or to guide the 
 tossed ship. Some even went the whole length 
 of maintaining, '' that a man might attain to any 
 
224 AxMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 sanctification in gifts and graces, and might have 
 spiritual and continual communion with Jesus 
 Christ, and yet be damned." Certainly, the pro- 
 spective fate of the "dry trees," if any there were 
 in the colony, must have been deplorable enough, 
 if the green trees were subject to such a thorough 
 anomaly of relation between cause and effect. 
 
 The most bitter enemy of Puritanism would 
 have desired no higher joy for a prelatical appetite, 
 than to have looked upon the Boston church at 
 this moment of its spiritual desertion. The wild- 
 est fancies issued like the forked tongues of other 
 than a pentecostal inspiration from the mouths 
 of a few men and women ; and the meek piety 
 which mourned in silence waited to number the 
 vials, till the opening of the seventh should pour 
 its woe upon the enchanted and fallen church 
 of the Lord Jesus in the wilderness. Revela- 
 tions, the last dread scourge of fanaticism, were 
 now to be looked for ; and what might be their 
 prompting none could know. But four or five 
 of that covenanted company of disciples, who 
 should even have prayed for, rather than con- 
 tended about, the divine love of the FamiHstic 
 creed, but four or five beHeved as they be- 
 lieved before. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 225 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Mr. Cotton examined. — A Day of Fasting. — 
 Passengers for England. — Boston Church. 
 
 — The Question raised by Mrs. Hutchinson. — 
 Personalities. — Conference of Ministers. — 
 Greensmith fned for Contempt. — Mr. Wheel- 
 ivright proceeded against. — Judgment upon him. 
 
 — Remonstrance from the Boston Church. — Tu- 
 mult at the Court. — Winthrop chosen Governor. 
 
 — Conduct of Vane and his Friends. — Dispu- 
 tations. — Mr. Wheelwright. — A neiv Measure 
 of the Court. — Conduct of the Disaffected to 
 Winthrop. — Departure of Vane. 
 
 Mr. Cotton being still involved with the 
 obnoxious party, and being regarded as the in- 
 dividual through whose supposed approval it re- 
 ceived constant accessions, the ministers proceed- 
 ed to a rigid examination of his views. Either 
 Mrs. Hutchinson sought, or he encouraged, a very 
 close intimacy. The ministers took offence at 
 some opinions which he had himself expressed, 
 and at others broached by members of his church, 
 of whom he entertained a high regard, and with 
 whom he was very familiar. They drew up a 
 paper, embracing sixteen points of inquiry, to 
 which they desired his full answers. To some 
 
 VOL. VI. 15 
 
226 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of these he replied to their satisfaction, but left 
 them still in anxiety about others. Copies of 
 these papers, being circulated, spread yet wider 
 the excitement, and the ministers made a re- 
 joinder to his replies. 
 
 January 20th, 1637, (N. S.,) was observed as 
 a public Fast throughout all the churches of the 
 jurisdiction on account of their dissensions and 
 the trouble with the Pequot Indians. To this 
 day of sad observance the words of the prophet 
 of solemn things were most signally applicable. 
 It was a " Fast for strife and debate." All the 
 ministers took occasion to preach and pray on 
 the subject which distracted all minds. The 
 spirit of mfatuation seems to have seized alike 
 upon teachers and their flocks. Mr. Wheel- 
 wright, as we shall soon see, was called to ac- 
 count for his use of the day. 
 
 A ship being about to sail for England with 
 many passengers, early in February, Mr. Cotton 
 took advantage of the first Sunday, the third day 
 of that month, to attempt to soften and relieve 
 the disgraceful and melancholy reports, which 
 he well knew some of those passengers would 
 carry home with them. As has been already 
 hinted, even the most discreet of the exiles here 
 felt a deep anxiety about the opinions and slan- 
 ders, which were circulated concerning the colony 
 in England. They had reason now to dread the 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 227 
 
 true and uncolored representation of facts, alike 
 as it affected the good esteem of their church 
 order, and as it might decide, unfavorably to 
 them, the intentions of worthy persons who med- 
 itated a removal hither. Cotton preached in a 
 deprecatory strain, and sought, doubtless with a 
 feeling which must either have choked or set free 
 his eloquence, to put the best construction upon 
 the state of things. He bid the passengers in- 
 form their brethren, that all the strife was about 
 magnifying the grace of God, for which both 
 parties contended ; the one party seeking to ad- 
 vance the grace of God within us, (justification,) 
 the other, to advance the grace of God towards 
 us, (sanctifi cation.) Cotton would have them thus 
 encourage Christians to come over^ because, if 
 they were seeking for grace, they would be sure 
 to find it of one or another sort. 
 
 Mr. Wilson followed with his exercise, and 
 declared that he knew none of the elders or 
 brethren of the churches, who did not labor to 
 advance, in a Scripture sense, the free grace of 
 God in justification, though he insisted upon 
 the use and necessity of sanctification.* Had 
 the town of Boston been furnished at that time 
 with a powerful fire-engine, the discharge of its 
 contents indiscriminately upon that heated as- 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. 1. p. 213. 
 
228 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 sembly would doubtless have been the most 
 effectual extinguisher of the strife. Wilson, of 
 course, gave offence ; but, as Winthrop vv^ith great 
 simplicity says, he so cleared the subject, that 
 " no man could tell (except some few who knew 
 the bottom of the matter) where any differ- 
 ence was." 
 
 The spirit of discord was now at its height. 
 The controversy had now become principally 
 concentrated on the question. What is the best 
 evidence a person can have of justification, that 
 is, of being in an accepted state before God? 
 It was of the very marrow of Puritan divinity, 
 that which prevailed in our churches, that out- 
 ward sanctification, practical holiness of life, was 
 the best evidence. Mrs. Hutchinson and Wheel- 
 wright taught that the Spirit of God, by a pow- 
 erful application, begat in the breast, or sent 
 home there, or directly revealed, a powerful as- 
 surance of justification ; a question on which if 
 there be any perplexity, it may be easily resolv- 
 ed by the relation between cause and effect 
 though, after all, the contest between the dis- 
 putants was, which of the two, sanctification or 
 justification, was the cause, and which the effect. 
 The case seems to be paralleled when an accused 
 person is brought before a court of justice. If 
 he wish to depart from the method of law, and 
 insist upon his own conviction of his innocence, 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 229 
 
 he may proceed to prove it, and the court will 
 listen, but his inward convictions must be sus- 
 tained by demonstrable facts. 
 
 It is, however, easy to understand the alarm 
 which was experienced from the literal decla- 
 ration of justification as assured independently 
 of sanctification. The doctrine not only brought 
 under contempt the methods and tokens of ex- 
 ternal obedience, but it also opened a wide door 
 to let in immediate revelations, enthusiasms, and 
 rhapsodies. It was at this stage of its vitality, 
 that Antinomianisn moulted, and turned into 
 Familism. The stanch Captain Underbill, a 
 famous Low Country soldier, and one of our lead- 
 ers in the Pequot war, when afterwards brought 
 under durance for his heresies and for the im- 
 moralities growing out of them, went the whole 
 length of avowing all the worst tenets of both 
 sects. He averred that " he had lain under a 
 spirit of bondage and a legal way five years, and 
 could get no assurance [of his being justified] 
 till at length, as he was taking a pipe of tobacco, 
 the Spirit sent home an absolute promise of free 
 grace with such assurance and joy, as he never 
 since doubted of his good estate, neither should 
 he, though he should fall into sin." This last 
 clause was by no means without meaning in his 
 case, as he afterwards freely confessed the guilt 
 of the foulest immoralities with which he was 
 
230 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 charged, and he was also brought to doubt most 
 painfully concerning " his good estate." * 
 
 The evils of heresy and contention were now 
 aggravated by a spirit of censoriousness, person- 
 ality, and slander. The members of the Boston 
 church roamed about among the other churches, 
 and listened to the ministers only to criticise and 
 ridicule. The small artillery of popular discourse 
 and remark kept open wounds between friends. 
 This offensive battery is graphically described by 
 Welde, the minister of Roxbury. " Now, after 
 our sermons were ended at our public lectures, 
 you might have seen half a dozen pistols dis- 
 charged at the face of the preacher." Winthrop 
 says it was ''as common to distinguish between 
 men as being under a covenant of grace, or a 
 covenant of works, as in other countries between 
 Protestants and Papists." It was not strange 
 that several persons in the colony actually *' fell 
 distracted." 
 
 What especially grieved some of the ministers 
 was the fact, that persons, who had received reli- 
 gious impressions from them in their former par- 
 ishes in England, had been by them turned from 
 sin, and, not being able to endure their absence, 
 had followed them, in the devotion of love, to the 
 wilderness, were now estranged in their affec- 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 270. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 231 
 
 tions, professed they had received no good from 
 their preaching, and even mahgned their ben- 
 efactors. Nothing but a zeal, which was holier 
 than passion, retained some of the ministers to 
 this thankless service. 
 
 The ministers assembled in conference during 
 the session of the Court which met March 9th, 
 1637 ; and, such was the all-absorbing interest of 
 the controversy, they agreed to put off all lectures 
 for three weeks, and bring the matter to some 
 issue. In the Court the great majority was, from 
 the beginning to the conclusion of the strife, in 
 strong opposition to the new opinions, which 
 reigned supreme in the Boston church. Mrs. 
 Hutchinson was sustained by the powerful though 
 questionable influence of Governor Vane, by the 
 pulpit gifts and the kindred aifection of Wheel- 
 wright, and by a measure of sympathy from the 
 " famous John Cotton." By the open or indi- 
 rect agency of these four advocates, the whole 
 metropolis of the colony was set in opposition to 
 the ministers and deputies of the other towns. 
 In the Court, therefore, Winthrop and Wilson 
 found their sole comfort. The speech, which 
 Wilson had made during the last session, was at 
 this session approved ; and the record of this ap- 
 proval, together with the case of an infliction upon 
 a private individual for contempt, makes up the 
 only reference in the court book at this time to a 
 
232 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 subject which engaged more attention than all 
 others.* 
 
 Mr. Edward Rawson, the secretary of the 
 Court, was exceedingly chary of recording what 
 he might have supposed would have won no 
 posthumous honor to his pen. We learn from 
 Winthrop, that the treatment which had been 
 visited upon Wilson for his speech led the Court 
 to ask advice from the ministers, as to its authority 
 in things which concerned the churches. They 
 agreed that no member of the Court ought to be 
 questioned for any speech made there, by the 
 church, unless the Court granted the church leave ; 
 because the Court might have reasons in secrets of 
 state for extending this protection to its members ; 
 the ministers also agreed that the Court might 
 proceed against all heresies and errors of a church 
 member, without waiting for the church to deal 
 with him, except when those heresies and errors 
 were of a doubtful character, in which case they 
 should first be referred to the church. From the 
 attempt which was made to fix upon the prime 
 mover of the proceedings against Wilson, and 
 from other casual hints, it would seem that one 
 who could not well be named, though he sat at 
 the Court, was significantly pointed at. In other 
 
 * "The Court did approve of Mr. Wilson's speech, in 
 their judgments." Court Records, Vol. L, under date. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 233 
 
 words, Governor Vane was the object of quiet 
 censure. 
 
 The case just referred to was that of Stephen 
 Greensmith, who, in the words of the record, 
 '' for affirming that all the ministers (except Mr. 
 Cotton, Mr. Wheelwright, and, he thought, Mr. 
 Hooker) did teach a covenant of works, was for a 
 time committed to the marshal, and after enjoined 
 to make acknowledgment to the satisfaction of 
 every congregation, and was fined forty pounds, 
 and standeth bound in one hundred pounds till 
 this be done, both the satisfaction be given to the 
 ministers and the churches, and the court be 
 satisfied for the fine." Failing to appear, he 
 forfeited his recognizances and was afterwards, 
 committed, being the first of the free talkers 
 among the great public upon whom the legal 
 penalties of the controversy were visited. It 
 was in vain that he appealed to the King.* 
 
 Mr. Wheelwright was called up before this 
 Court, and questioned about the sermon which he 
 had preached upon the Fast in January, as tending 
 to contempt and sedition. It being kliown that 
 this measure was intended, nearly all the mem- 
 bers of the Boston church offered a petition to the 
 Court, requesting that as freemen they might be 
 present in cases of judicature, and also desiring 
 
 * Court Records. 
 
234 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the Court to declare whether it had power, in 
 cases of conscience, to act before the church had 
 acted. This petition or remonstrance was, in 
 view of the circumstances, '' taken as a groundless 
 and presumptuous act," and was rejected, with 
 the answer, that the Court, when acting judicially, 
 was always open, but, for consultation and prepa- 
 ration in causes, might and would be private. 
 Mr. Wheelwright's sermon was then produced, 
 and its doctrine was justified by him. Read by 
 us at the present day, with a knowledge of the 
 passions then at work, it is easy to understand 
 how it gave ofTence ; but it can be called seditious 
 only by construction, being for the most part 
 composed of Scripture references, of exhortations 
 founded upon them, and of answers to objections. 
 The text (Matthew ix. 15) indicates the general 
 drift of the discourse, which was, the true mean- 
 ing, method, and uses of fasting among Christians, 
 largely illustrated by Old Testament passages. 
 
 After this foundation is well laid, a transition is 
 made to the great points then at issue, as defined 
 by the covenant of grace and the covenant of 
 works. In this part of the discourse, spiritual 
 fires and burnings, holy warfare, figurative armor 
 and battles, with an occasional reference to the 
 dangers in church and commonwealth, which are 
 to be boldly risked for the sake of Christ's truth, 
 constitute the matter upon which the charge of a 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 235 
 
 seditious tendency was based. As already said, 
 this charge could be sustained only by drawing 
 inferences at a venture, and by imputing to 
 Wheelwright sentiments held literally, though 
 expressed by figures. At any other time, and 
 under different circumstances, no hearer would 
 have thought of putting such a construction on 
 the sermon. Indeed, each of the whole of the 
 first generation of ministers, who came hither, had 
 probably said more in their English pulpits, which 
 might have been charged as seditious, than Wheel- 
 wright said here. The sermon pronounced some 
 stringent censures upon those who walked by a 
 covenant of works, or maintained that sanctifica- 
 tion was an evidence of justification. 
 
 The ministers being called, they alleged that 
 they maintained this doctrine ; and so, by syllo- 
 gistic reasoning. Wheelwright was, after a long 
 debate, found guilty of sedition and contempt, 
 his offence being aggravated by his having em- 
 ployed an occasion designed to heal all differ- 
 ences as a means for kindling and increasing 
 them.* Governor Vane and some few other 
 
 * A large portion of what appears to be the original 
 manuscript of this discourse is preserved in the archives of 
 the Massachusetts Historical Society. An endorsement says, 
 "that it was left in the hands of Mr. John Coggeshall, who 
 was a deacon of the church in Boston." A perfect copy of 
 the sermon is likewise in the possession of the Society, 
 
236 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 members of the Court dissented from the judg- 
 ment against Wheelwright, and sent in a protest, 
 which, because it wholly justified him, the Court 
 refused to receive. A large part of the church 
 in Boston hkewise sent in a remonstrance or 
 petition to the Court, alleging their grief at this 
 proceeding against Wheelwright; asserting that 
 there was nothing of sedition in the preacher, the 
 doctrine, or the approvers of this discourse ; sug- 
 gesting that the fear of sedition might be but a 
 method of the old serpent, " the ancient enemy 
 of free grace," and advising the rulers to con- 
 sider the danger of meddling against the prophets 
 of God.* 
 
 No action was taken at the time upon this 
 afterwards famous petition. It bore powerful 
 names upon it, and the Court probably showed 
 no little policy in waiting for what even Win- 
 ihrop calls "a fair opportunity." The paper was 
 hastily drawn up when the judgment of the 
 
 received from the State-House, and bound in the first volume 
 of Hutchinson's Papers. Doubtless many copies of it were 
 taken, besides the notes, or " heads," which many of our 
 ancestors were wont to treasure with tlie zeal which the 
 Romanist fixes upon relics. 
 
 * This " Remonstrance " is given by Welde, in his pam- 
 phlet, p. 21, and is thence copied by Savage into his 
 Appendix to the first volume of his invaluable edition of 
 Winthrop. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 237 
 
 Court against Wheelwright was made known. 
 Sentence against him was also deferred. The 
 Court inquired of the ministers whether it might 
 enjoin silence upon him ; but they, not being 
 clear on that point, advised that he should be 
 commended to the care of the Boston church, 
 which was done, he being enjoined to appear at 
 the next Court. 
 
 The state of feeling in Boston may easily be 
 imagined. In the strife about the two covenants 
 of grace and works, the people, the ministers, and 
 the rulers, appear to have well nigh slipped from 
 under the influence of either. Boston was the 
 head-quarters of Mrs. Hutchinson's force. She 
 had forsaken the public assembly when Wheel- 
 wright was proceeded against, and had in fact set 
 up an assembly of her own. The Court felt 
 itself in Boston as in the state of imjperium in im- 
 perio, and was moreover greatly incensed against 
 the majority of the church, and of course of the 
 influential people of the town, on account of the 
 remonstrance or petition. It therefore being de- 
 sirable to escape from the overwhelniing forces 
 of male and female tongues, a motion was made 
 that the next Court of Elections should be held 
 at Newtown, (Cambridge.) Governor Vane re- 
 fused to put the question to vote. Deputy-Gov- 
 ernor Winthrop, as he lived in Boston, was disin- 
 clined to put the question unless the Court 
 
238 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 required it; so the service was laid upon Mr. 
 Endicott, of Salem, and the motion was carried. 
 
 The spirit of discord wrought in manifold ways 
 which have not been chronicled. Historic fancy 
 can however fill in the touches, which will give 
 expression and reality to the well defined features 
 of the great picture. One little incident, that 
 implies very much, is recorded. The church 
 of Concord kept a day of humiliation at Cam- 
 bridge on the 6th of April, 1637, for the ordination 
 of elders. From this ceremony, Vane, Cotton, 
 Wheelwright, and all the Boston church of any 
 note, absented themselves, as they would not be 
 concerned in the ordination of legal preachers, as 
 they accounted Bulkeley and Jones. The coloni- 
 zation of Connecticut by people from Massachu- 
 setts was largely advanced, at this period, by the 
 dread of the Antinomian influences which pre- 
 vailed in and around Boston. 
 
 The Court met at Cambridge, on the 17th of 
 May, 1637, when rare and shameful scenes were 
 enacted, the grave and sober Pilgrims being pre- 
 sented in a most ridiculous plight. It is not re- 
 corded that any blows were absolutely inflicted ; 
 but the technical import of " assault and battery " 
 was fulfilled beyond the letter, and far into the 
 spirit, as, while warm words and angry epithets 
 were exchanged, the conflicting brethren laid 
 hands upon each other. The people of the other 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 239 
 
 towns besides Boston had repented of the choice 
 of the youthful Vane for Governor; and discovered 
 the mistake into which they had been led by 
 their enthusiasm. This devoted champion of 
 Wheelwright and Mrs. Hutchinson, besides all 
 his private influence, embarrassed the proceedings 
 of the Court. The electors assembled with the 
 determination to eject him, that they might re- 
 store the well approved Winthrop. The session 
 commenced at one o'clock, and Vane insisted 
 upon opening the proceedings by reading a peti- 
 tion from Boston. The petition was about '' the 
 pretence of liberty," though it looked askance 
 towards revoking the proceedings against Wheel- 
 wright, and would have occupied the whole day 
 in debate. 
 
 Winthrop opposed the reading as out of order, 
 elections being the chief and the first business. 
 Others sustained him in his opposition. But 
 Vane, with a few to support him, insisted upon 
 reading the petition ; and, after much waste of 
 time and dire confusion, the large majority, upon 
 division, was for election. Still Vane would 
 not yield, till the tumult so increased that he left 
 his place and departed. The assembly being in 
 the open air, upon a warm day, the Reverend 
 Mr. Wilson mounted into a tree, and from the 
 branches of the same offered the first example 
 in this country of a kind of eloquence which, 
 
240 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 having a lower theme than he had, is satisfied 
 with a stump. His speech had its effect. Win- 
 throp was chosen Governor ; Dudley, deputy ; the 
 other assistants or magistrates were all taken from 
 among those, who " owned a covenant of works," 
 and Vane, Coddington, and Dummer, of the 
 opposite party, were left out. This election, from 
 which the so called Antinomians had expected, 
 through the influence of the country deputies, 
 a decisive triumph, resulted in their defeat. The 
 Boston people had delayed sending their deputies 
 to the Court, until the election should have been 
 concluded ; but the discomfited party went home 
 warm from the strife, and the next morning sent 
 to the Court, as their representatives, Vane, Cod- 
 dington, and Hough, all zealous friends of Mrs. 
 Hutchinson. 
 
 Irritated by this defiance, the Court found means 
 for refusing to receive them, on the plea that 
 two of the freemen of Boston had not legal notice 
 of the election. The deputies returned home ; 
 but the resolute citizens of the metropolis, setting 
 an example which their descendants have never 
 yet disgraced, made a new choice, and returned 
 the same three gentlemen the next morning, the 
 Court being compelled to receive them. Even 
 the honored Winthrop was made, for a season, 
 to bear some personal slights in Boston. The 
 sergeants had been wont to attend Vane as Gov- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 241 
 
 ernor to and from the courts and public worship, 
 but they laid down their halberds and went 
 home. It being a voluntary service on the part 
 of the sergeants, they could not be compelled to 
 it ; and though the Court offered to provide for 
 Winthrop the honor of the four halberds, he 
 was content to take two of his own servants for 
 the work. 
 
 The fact, that there was no press in the coun- 
 try at this time, was probably an essential relief 
 to the controversy and the people. But numer- 
 ous writings were penned and circulated. The 
 magistrates put forth an apology to justify their 
 proceedings against Wheelwright. His friends 
 issued a remonstrance, in which, as Winthrop says, 
 they garbled the offensive sermon, and altered 
 the sense of the objectionable passages. The same 
 disingenuousness Winthrop charges upon " a 
 small tractate " by Wheelwright upon the prin- 
 cipal doctrine of his sermon. The other minis- 
 ters replied to the sermon by a scriptural exam- 
 ination and " confutation " of it. This answer of 
 theirs Mr. Cotton in turn examined, in order to 
 present the differences, which he did " in a very 
 narrow scantling." Mr. Shepherd, of Cambridge, 
 preached the sermon to the newly elected magis- 
 trates, and reduced the differences to a still more 
 compact compass, so that only the most acute 
 
 VOL. VI. 16 
 
242 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 persons could discern where the parties disa- 
 greed. 
 
 Winthrop very judiciously remarks that a rec- 
 onciliation would have been easy, " if men's af- 
 fections had not been formerly alienated, when 
 the differences were formerly stated as fundamen- 
 tal." Readers shall have the benefit of seeing, 
 in Winthrop's own words, how close the par- 
 ties came together. " In these particulars they 
 agreed ; first, that justification and sanctification 
 were both together in time ; second, that a man 
 must know himself to be justified before he can 
 know himself to be sanctified ; third, that the 
 Spirit never witnesseth justification without a 
 word and a work." There are those to whom 
 this harmony is intelligible. A smaller number, 
 however, will understand the difference, which 
 was, '^ whether the first assurance be by an abso- 
 lute promise always, and not by a conditional 
 also, and whether a man could have any true 
 assurance, without sight of some such work in his 
 soul as no hypocrite could attain unto." * The 
 difference is by no means trifling, for it enters 
 into and constitutes two distinct systems even of 
 Christian faith. 
 
 Mr. Wheelwright appeared, as enjoined, to 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 221. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 243 
 
 receive a sentence which, as may well be con- 
 ceived, the Court was reluctant to pass. Advan- 
 tage was taken of a day of humiliation about to 
 be observed, as a preparation for a Synod which 
 was soon to follow, to respite him until August. 
 The Court, having now full power, wished to show 
 some magnanimity, and to prove that "the tu- 
 multuous course, and divers insolent speeches," 
 which it encountered, did not move it to crush a 
 crippled foe. A suggestion was made to Wheel- 
 wright, that it might be well for him to win 
 mercy by retracting his expressions. He replied, 
 that if he had been guilty of sedition, he ought 
 to be put to death, and that if he was proceeded 
 against, he should appeal to the King's Court, 
 as he would retract nothing. The Court was 
 equally firm, alleging that if judgment were had 
 in his case again, it would be the same, but that 
 if the synod should give any new light upon the 
 matter, it would be gladly embraced. It was 
 at this Court that Massachusetts provided one 
 hundred and sixty men to go forth in the ex- 
 pedition against the Pequots. The leader and 
 the chaplain were chosen by lot. We learn from 
 Welde, that even this enterprise against a com- 
 mon enemy was affected by the agitation caused 
 by Mrs. Hutchinson. The lot falling upon Wil- 
 son as chaplain, none of the " choice members '* 
 
244 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of Boston would accompany him, or even bid 
 him farewell.* 
 
 There being at this time reason to fear, that 
 the Antinomian party would receive a reenforce- 
 ment from members of a church in England under 
 the ministry of Mr. Brierly, an order was passed 
 that no town or person should receive any stran- 
 ger resorting hither with intent to reside in this 
 jurisdiction, or allow any lot or habitation to any 
 such, without permission of one of the council, or 
 two others of the magistrates.! This order is one 
 evidence among many which appear on our rec- 
 ords, that our fathers never meditated the free 
 opening of their patented and purchased territory 
 as a place of refuge to all sorts of consciences, 
 but designed it, as a man designs his house, as a 
 place of peace, comfort, and discipline, for those 
 who are of one mind, and feeling, and interest. 
 Our fathers are often judged as if they cherished 
 the former purpose ; a principle which they never 
 recognized is set up for them, and then they are 
 condemned for not acting by it. 
 
 That order of Court appears to us arbitrary. 
 So it appeared to some of that day ; but whether 
 because of their liberality, or because it excluded 
 their friends, it would be difficult to decide. 
 
 * Welde's Short Story, &c. p. 25. 
 f Court Records, Vol. 1., under date. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 245 
 
 Cotton was opposed to it, and, as will after- 
 wards appear, meditated a removal from the 
 jurisdiction, in company with Davenport. Gov- 
 ernor Winthrop wrote a declaration of the in- 
 tent and equity of tlie order, and defended it. 
 To this, Vane wrote a reply, which, in turn, was 
 followed by a rejoinder from Winthrop. These 
 papers show considerable acumen of argument, 
 and exhibit but little of the baser spirit of con- 
 troversy, though by no means deficient in tart- 
 ness. Estimated by the principles, which have 
 been assured to our day by the heats and per- 
 plexities of a former age. Vane will appear to 
 have had the nobler side ; but by the principles 
 religiously recognized at the time, Winthrop sus- 
 tained his ground.* 
 
 Vane and Coddington showed their temper 
 or sense of injury in various ways, as, after their 
 discomfiture at the election, might have been 
 expected of them. They left the seats appro- 
 priated for the magistrates in public worship, 
 which Vane had occupied from his first arrival, 
 and took places with the deacons, though Win- 
 throp sent to them desiring them to sit with him. 
 On the day appointed for a Fast, on occasion 
 of the Pequot war, they deserted the Boston con- 
 
 * These three documents are preserved in Hutchinson's 
 valuable "Collection of Papers," pp. 67-100. They fur 
 nish an admirable illustration of the losric of the time. 
 
246 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 gregation, and spent the day with Wheelwright 
 at Mount Wollaston, listening to him. We may 
 well imagine that while such freaks and distem- 
 pers appeared among the magistrates, the ordi- 
 nary sort of people would take their own pecu- 
 liar way for showing their feelings. 
 
 The slights, which Winthrop received in Bos- 
 ton, were however made up in a measure by 
 the honors which attended him in a summer tour 
 through Lynn, Salem, and Ipswich, where the 
 military and the people did him reverence be- 
 yond his wishes. He had much to endure in 
 the place of his residence ; and his magnanimity 
 and Christian spirit are testified abundantly by 
 his passionless record of daily occurrences. He 
 relates with perfect calmness one insult put upon 
 him, in proof of his remark that " the differences 
 grew so much here, as tended fast to a separa- 
 tion." The young Lord Ley, not yet a man, son 
 and heir of the Earl of Marlborough, arrived in 
 Boston on the 26th of June, 1637, on a visit 
 of curiosity and observation. Governor Win- 
 throp invited Vane, in company with this honored 
 youth, to dinner ; but Vane not only refused, 
 '^ alleging by letter that his conscience withheld 
 him," but also at the same hour took Lord Ley 
 to Noddle's Island to dine with Mr. Maverick.* 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 232. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 247 
 
 About this time, a brother of Mrs. Hutchin- 
 son, with some other friends of Mr. Wheelwright, 
 arrived in Boston ; and they being persons es- 
 pecially to be dreaded by the party in power, 
 the recent order of Court about residence was 
 made applicable to them. To save others from 
 danger, Governor Winthrop gave them leave to 
 sojourn four months, and this was the cause of 
 increased contention. 
 
 On the 3d of August, 1637, Henry Vane and 
 Lord Ley sailed for England. The partisans and 
 friends of the late Governor made an occasion 
 of his departure, large numbers waiting upon him 
 to the boat, and some accompanying him in the 
 boat to the ship out in the harbor, while volleys 
 of shot and double salutes spoke defiance or 
 reproach to his enemies in the compliment to 
 himself. Winthrop remained at his place at the 
 Court, and did not join in the parade, but had 
 given order to the military officer to provide for 
 the honorable dismission of his temporary rival 
 in the affections of the Bay colony. 
 
 It is pleasant to observe, that there Js no rec- 
 ord of any rancorous expression or uncourteous 
 deed by Winthrop in relation to Vane. That the 
 father of the Massachusetts colony felt keenly 
 the treatment he had received, directly and in- 
 directly, in church and state, on the account of 
 
248 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 this young man, there can be no doubt; but he 
 wisely concealed, or religiously controlled, the 
 outward exhibition of his feeling. Nor did Vane 
 bear any umbrage to the colony, from which he 
 retired with less of regard and reverence than 
 he received on being introduced to it. From 
 his marked career either as a fanatic or apostle 
 of freedom, as friend or foe may call him, and 
 in his dismal fate on the scaffold, his character 
 perplexes us, because it presents traits not usu- 
 ally found in men of public fame or political 
 education. Lord Say and Seal lost his regard 
 for Vane, or rather changed the character of 
 that regard. But Vane, to the great credit of 
 his real principles, found satisfaction in being, in 
 England, the true friend of the colony. 
 
 No very critical eye or judgment is neces" 
 sary to assure or persuade us that the depart- 
 ure of Vane was hailed as an inexpressible relief. 
 We observe, that as soon as his powerful in- 
 fluence, whether openly or covertly exercised, 
 was withdrawn, the opposers of Mrs. Hutchin- 
 son's party began to pursue their desired ends 
 with more freedom. It is easy to found upon 
 this fact a specification of a general charge of 
 unfairness, which some may think it right to 
 add to that of bigotry, against the Massachusetts 
 government. But with the best light, which re- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 249 
 
 search will throw on this controversy, a candid 
 judgment will be likely to conclude, that no 
 moral quality was disproportionably displayed by 
 either party. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Synod at Cambridge in 1637. — Prepa- 
 rations for it. — Interest in it. — Proceedings, 
 — Opinions adduced without Names. — Offence 
 given. — Inferences from Mrs. Hutchinso7i's 
 Opinions. — Errors confuted. — '^ Unsavory 
 Speeches.''^ — Mrs. Hutchinson and Mr. Wheel- 
 wright not satisfied or won over. — Decisions 
 of the Ministers on several Questions. — Mr. 
 Cotton changes his Course. — Result of the 
 Synod. — Mr. John Higginson. 
 
 The conferences which had been already held 
 among the ministers, in reference to the opin- 
 ions identified with Mrs. Hutchinson, suggested 
 the meeting of a larger number in a freer way, 
 for the purpose of clearing up the grounds of 
 variance. It was agreed that a Synod should 
 be held, beginning on the 30th of August, 1637. 
 Preparations of various kinds, but all tending 
 
250 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 to the same result, that of giving extension 
 and heat to the strife, were made for this Syn- 
 od, the first assembly of the kind which the 
 light of the sun ever shone upon in this westi 
 ern hemisphere. The twenty-fourth day of the 
 month was observed by fasting and prayer 
 throughout the churches of the jurisdiction. The 
 ministers held many previous interviews and dis- 
 cussions together; and as they earnestly sought 
 to acquaint themselves with each other's views, 
 some advances were made towards reconcilia- 
 tion between Cotton, Wheelwright, and Wilson. 
 The last professed, that in the speech by which 
 he had given such offence, he did not refer to 
 opinions expressed by the two former in the 
 open congregations, but to opinions, which he 
 specified, that had been privately uttered. He 
 had indeed made the same disclaimer before ; 
 but it does not appear to have been fully re- 
 ceived until this time, when it was thought so 
 much of that Cotton referred to it in the pub- 
 lic services, and it was allowed that the rest of 
 Wilson's speech, considering the freedom of the 
 Court, was inoffensive. 
 
 Another preparation for the Synod was the 
 collecting together of the " erroneous opinions " 
 which were in circulation over the country. 
 This was a most injudicious and deplorable work. 
 Their number was raised to eighty-two, and 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 251 
 
 would, probably, have gone much higher, had 
 more time been allowed for raking them together, 
 as such things increase in an arithmetical ratio. 
 Mr. Wilson returned from the Pequot expedi- 
 tion, which had ended in ruin to that formidable 
 tribe of savages ; and Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone, 
 accompanying him, brought with them the scalps 
 of the dreaded chiefs, so that one fear was now 
 calmed. The famous Mr. Davenport, who had 
 arrived in Boston on the 26th of June, made 
 himself sufficiendy acquainted with the contro- 
 versy excited by Mrs. Hutchinson to preach the 
 Thursday lecture, on the 17th of August, and to 
 enter into the thickest of the strife. Mr. Cotton 
 followed him with an exposition to prove, that, 
 in undertaking any weighty business like war, 
 the rulers should advise with the ministers, and 
 instanced '' David in the case of Ziglag." All 
 these intended preparations for the Synod were 
 aggravations of the controversy. 
 
 The Synod, or assembly, sat at Newtown, 
 (Cambridge,) on Wednesday, the 30th of August, 
 1637, all the teachers and elders thmugh the 
 country, including some lately arrived but not 
 settled, and the magistrates, being members of it. 
 The session continued through three weeks, with 
 open doors and full liberty of speech. Bulke- 
 ley and Hooker were the moderators through- 
 out the long dehberation. The latter divine 
 
252 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 had at first objected to the holding of such an 
 assembly, as tending to more distraction, and 
 to the consumption of time which could ill be 
 spared ; and he had recommended in its stead, 
 that the questions in dispute should be sent over 
 to some of the godly brethren in England. Mr. 
 Shepherd, the minister of the town where the 
 assembly was held, opened the deliberations with 
 prayer. Probably a convention organized at the 
 present day, for the reception of intelligence from 
 the presumptive inhabitants of the moon, would 
 not be regarded with a more intense and consum- 
 ing anxiety, than was this New England Synod 
 by the high-wrought zeal of our devout fathers. 
 After the choice of the moderators, the erro- 
 neous opinions which were in circulation over 
 the country, and which had been previously gath- 
 ered together, were read, as also the texts of 
 Scripture which were abused to their support, 
 and certain " unsavory speeches," which had 
 been uttered in the course of the previous agi- 
 tations. Eighty-two erroneous opinions consti- 
 tuted the list, they being principally inferences 
 which the ingenuity of the ministers could draw 
 from Mrs. Hutchinson's prominent views, or rash 
 and ill-advised extremes of sentiment, which one 
 or another individual had been heard to express. 
 The array and specification of such a host of 
 errors, often boldly stated, that they might lose 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 253 
 
 nothing of their repulsiveness to the orthodox, 
 and not ascribed to any individuals by name, 
 gave great offence to some who were obnox- 
 ious to censure, as if all these errors were as- 
 cribed to them. They complained that the 
 colony was brought under great reproach by 
 such a hideous catalogue of unclaimed and un- 
 appropriated theological notions, and they de- 
 manded that the names of the individuals, who 
 respectively held them, should be declared. 
 
 To this demand it was replied, that it could 
 be proved that all these errors were professed 
 by some in the country, and that, as the Synod 
 was held in regard to opinions, and not to per- 
 sons, there was no need of appropriating them 
 to individuals, or of giving names. Still, a 
 great clamor was raised that the witnesses, the 
 evidence, and the advocates of these opinions, 
 should be brought forward; and nothing but a 
 threat that a magistrate would interfere if the or- 
 der of the assembly was disturbed, brought the 
 offended party to a measure of restraint. Some 
 members of the Boston church, with their friends, 
 protested against the policy which thus attempted 
 to bring their cherished opinions into contempt 
 by merging them in a hateful fellowship; and 
 they left the assembly in indignation. 
 
 The drawing of inferences was, from first to 
 last, the aggravation of this controversy. This 
 
254 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 list of eighty- two floating errors seems, as we 
 should judge, to have been made out for the 
 sake of drawing dangerous conclusions from the 
 few simple and well defined sentiments, which 
 were held by Mrs. Hutchinson and her brother. 
 The ministers saw or apprehended these con- 
 clusions, and they took this method of making 
 clear to the mass of the people matters which 
 they did not understand, but on account of which 
 they were ready to fight. Though no large or 
 full exhibition has been made in these pages of 
 the religious opinions held with such clearness, 
 and put forth with such power, by Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson, yet the reader, relieved of what might be 
 wearisome details, will understand that her lead- 
 ing idea was, that a w^ork wrought by the Spirit 
 of God within the breast was the all-essential 
 thing to witness a state of justification ; and that 
 outward methods, graces, and virtues, could be 
 no substitute for this, were secondary, and com- 
 paratively unimportant, and might, indeed, if 
 stress w^ere laid upon them, delude a professor 
 into a fatal error about his state. 
 
 Good as well as bad inferences might be drawn 
 from this leading tenet ; but it is observable, that 
 by far the larger number of the "eighty-two 
 erroneous opinions " are such as she would never 
 have uttered, though some of her followers might 
 have felt bound, in adherence to supposed con- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 255 
 
 sistency, to abide by them. It is evident on 
 the whole, that in that hst her views are car- 
 icatured, ungenerously represented, and to all 
 intents and purposes perverted. We find in the 
 list such alleged errors as the following. "■ Error 
 16. There is no difference between the graces 
 of hypocrites and believers, in the kinds of them." 
 ^' Error 22. None are to be exhorted to believe, 
 but such whom we know to be the elect of God, 
 or to have his Spirit in them effectually." "Error 
 39. The due search and knowledge of the Holy 
 Scripture is not a safe and sure way of searching 
 and finding Christ." " Error 43. The Spirit acts 
 most in the saints when they endeavor least." 
 " Error 59. A man may not be exhorted to any 
 duty, because he hath no power to do it." 
 *' Error 64. A man must take no notice of his 
 sin, nor of his repentance for his sin." " Error 
 76. The devil and nature may be cause of a 
 gracious work." 
 
 Such conclusions as these might have been 
 drawn to infinity from the leading sentiment 
 which Mrs. Hutchinson, even during the sitting 
 of the assembly, continued to inculcate in her 
 attractive meetings in Boston. But with equal 
 or even less ingenuity, conclusions might have 
 been drawn looking to an opposite tendency, 
 advocating self-communion, devout meditation, 
 
256 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 an ordering of the inner thoughts, a cleansing of 
 the breast, in which, as a temple, the Spirit of God 
 doth dwell, and pure and frequent worship within 
 the chambers of the soul. It cannot, however, be 
 denied or put out of sight by a candid umpire, 
 that Mrs. Hutchinson did maintain some danger- 
 ous and alarming opinions, which she advanced 
 likewise in a way to wound the feelings of some 
 devout and faithful Christians, to obstruct the 
 success of their labors, to resist the force of their 
 teachings, and to lead those willing to err into 
 foolish and ruinous delusions. Doubtless she 
 felt some grievances of the same sort from those, 
 who withstood her unintermitted exhortations 
 and prophesyings. 
 
 The first week of the session of the assembly 
 was spent in discussing these erroneous opinions, 
 conclusions, or inferences, with constant refer- 
 ences to the '' unsavory speeches," which kept 
 them company. Texts of Scripture, with brief 
 and condensed arguments, were set down after 
 each specified heresy. The condemnation of the 
 errors was subscribed by nearly all the elders and 
 delegates of the churches ; but some who assent- 
 ed to the condemnation would not take part in 
 the subscription, which was to them '' a word of ill 
 sound." 
 
 The errors were then condensed and classified 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 257 
 
 under a few general heads, first nine, then five, 
 then three. These were debated for a fortnight, 
 the arguments being prepared in the forenoon, 
 and presented in the afternoon, in writing. This 
 was in fact a protracted disputation between 
 Wheelwright and Cotton on the one part, and 
 the other ministers upon the other part. It is 
 evident that, Wheelwright being regarded as in- 
 corrigible, the ministers spent their efforts on 
 Cotton. Five questions relating to the connec- 
 tion between sanctification and justification Avere 
 put to him ; the Synod replied to his answers to 
 these questions ; he examined these replies ; and 
 the Synod closed with rejoinders. Thus Cotton 
 was at last brought to a show of accordance with 
 his brethren. Winthrop gives the five points of 
 agreement, which it is not necessary to copy, be- 
 cause, if they are not unintelligible, it may safely 
 be said that there is not a man or a woman in 
 Massachusetts, who would be afraid to risk sal- 
 vation for time and eternity, as far as they are 
 concerned, upon either view of them. But nei- 
 ther the sister nor the brother was won.* 
 
 The last day of the assembly was occupied in 
 the discussion of four subsidiary questions, which 
 the controversy had made important. These 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 239. 
 VOL. VI. 17 
 
258 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 questions are signified by the decisions upon 
 them, which were as follows. Though it was 
 thought allowable for a few women, meeting 
 together, to pray and edify one another, yet such 
 meetings as Mrs. Hutchinson held in Boston, 
 where, before a large company, she statedly 
 exercised " in a prophetical way " upon doctrines 
 and expositions, were declared disorderly and 
 without rule. It was agreed that a private mem- 
 ber, by permission of the elders, might wisely 
 and sparingly put a question for information after 
 sermon ; but criticisms and bitter reproaches, hke 
 to what prevailed, were utterly condemned. It 
 was decided that a person refusing to come and 
 receive the censure of his church might be pro- 
 ceeded against in his absence, though it was 
 thought better that his presence should be com- 
 pelled by the magistrate. Lastly, the assembly 
 determined that a church member had no right 
 to absent himself from the ordinances, where he 
 belonged, on account of an opinion not funda- 
 mental ; and that his church might deny him a 
 dismission to any other, if he sought to go merely 
 on account of that opinion. 
 
 These four decisions show us very significantly 
 what sort of extra and secondary grievances 
 mingled with the dispute about the two cove- 
 nants. Before the breaking up of the assembly, 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 259 
 
 Governor Winthrop, deserted for the moment by 
 his guardian angel of good discretion, suggested, 
 in view of the peaceable and comfortable conclu- 
 sion of the Synod, that such a one be held once 
 a year, or at least the next year, to settle what 
 remained, " or if but to nourish love." The mo- 
 tion was liked, but not concluded. He also 
 proposed that the ministers, who were differently 
 maintained, should point out the rule most agree- 
 able to the gospel for the manner of their sup- 
 port. This they prudently dechned, lest their 
 interested concern should be misconstrued. Mr. 
 Davenport preached an appropriate concluding 
 sermon, summing up the purpose and results of 
 the assembly, on the text, Philip, iii. 16. The 
 expenses of the members of the assembly were 
 borne by public charge, as were those of the 
 ministers and elders who came from Connecticut. 
 The 12th day of October following was observed 
 in all the churches as a day of thanksgiving, for 
 the defeat of the Pequots and the success of the 
 Synod ; but because of the latter designation, many 
 of Boston kept away from the exercises. ^ 
 
 Thus ended the first ecclesiastical convention 
 in New England, an occasion which but few of 
 that soil would now number among its historic 
 honors, though in moral characteristics it certainly 
 fell not one whit below the ancient or modern 
 
260 
 
 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 councils which constitute themselves the repre- 
 sentatives of Christ's church. In one sense it 
 wholly failed of its object ; indeed, it failed in 
 ever} other sense, save in that it deepened the 
 lines and raised the walls of division ; and by 
 defining where the balance of power lay, made 
 preparation for the subsequent civil proceedings, 
 the interference of temporal power, without which 
 an ecclesiastical tribunal is but little dreaded, and 
 accomplishes even less. 
 
 The writer of this sketch has, by good fortune, 
 fallen upon a loose paper which gives evidence 
 that even the magistrates and ministers, after 
 due deliberation, cared not to make public the 
 journal of the Synod. This paper is a petition 
 from Mr. John Higginson, son of the Salem 
 minister, and afterwards of Guilford, Connecticut, 
 by which it appears that he was employed by the 
 magistrates and ministers to take down in short 
 hand all the debates and proceedings of the Synod. 
 He performed the work faithfully, and having 
 written out the voluminous record, "at the ex- 
 pense of much time and pains," he presented it 
 to the Court in May, 1639. The long time that 
 elapsed may indicate the labor. The Court 
 accepted it, and ordered that if approved by the 
 ministers, after they had viewed it, it should be 
 printed, Mr Higginson being entitled to the 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 261 
 
 profits, which were estimated as promising a hun- 
 dred pounds. The writer waited with patience 
 while his brethren examined it, and freely took 
 their advice. Some were in favor of printing it ; 
 but others advised to the contrary, " conceiving it 
 might possibly be an occasion of further disputes 
 and differences both in this country and other 
 parts of the world." The writer himself having 
 scruples, he did not dare to print, though he had 
 an offer of fifty pounds, but delivered it to the 
 Court again, in May 1641 ; and as the magistrates 
 and ministers concluded that it would not be 
 wise to give the document to the world, he 
 asked for remuneration, and modestly hinted at 
 the offer of fifty pounds. A promise was made 
 to him, that the case should be considered when 
 the treasury was in better condition. He re- 
 newed his petition on the 9th of August, 1643.* 
 I can find no evidence on the record that his 
 labor was ever remunerated by a public grant. 
 
 * This petition may now be found among the bound 
 papers in the State House, Boston, in the first volume 
 of papers labelled " Ecclesiastical," p. 186. 
 
262 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Contentions increase. — Mrs. Hutchinson con- 
 tinues her Meetings. — The Court resolves, upon 
 favoring Circumstances, to act decisively. — The 
 Remonstrance from the Boston Church. — Treat- 
 ment of the Boston Deputies. — Mr. Wheelwright 
 again before the Court. — His Examination and 
 Defence. — His Sentence. — Action of the 
 Court against several Individuals who justified 
 the Remonstrance. 
 
 New developments of trouble and opposition 
 continued to show to the authorities of Massa- 
 chusetts, if they would but have seen it, the sad 
 impolicy of their first intermeddling in a contro- 
 versy, begun in the sitting-room of a nimble- 
 witted female, and engaged with the abstrusities 
 of metaphysical divinity. Of course something 
 of pacification might have been looked for, as the 
 result of the assembly, had its deliberations been 
 pursued with moderation and concession. Some 
 effect must have been produced upon the minds 
 of the new party, who acknowledged the rule 
 of church organization. But Mrs. Hutchinson's 
 friends had been driven in indignation from the 
 assembly at its very opening hour, by having 
 their views slanderously, as they thought, turned 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 263 
 
 out, in indiscriminate confusion, from a perfect 
 dragnet of erroneous and unsavory notions, to 
 which any scoffer or fanatic might contribute one 
 or more. She, therefore, with Wheelwright and 
 her other zealous friends, though " clearly con- 
 futed and confounded in the assembly," still 
 resolutely maintained all her expressed opinions, 
 and added to them. Her disciples used all 
 their energies to propagate her sentiments, in 
 spite of the bitter ahenations and the dire con- 
 fusion which ensued, and though they knew of 
 the reserved force by which the magistrates 
 could back their ecclesiastical decree. Mr. Cot- 
 ton henceforward, having learned better the spirit 
 of the majority of his flock, or foreseeing ruin 
 from their tendencies, or being turned from some 
 convictions which he once shared with them, or 
 making a sacrifice of principle to some lower 
 motive, to whatever cause charity or rigid jus- 
 tice may ascribe the fact, Mr. Cotton hencefor- 
 ward ceased to be the adviser or the advocate 
 of Mrs. Hutchinson. He never became her ene- 
 my; nor, as far as can be discovered now, did 
 any one who was ever her friend. 
 
 Mrs. Hutchinson continued her meetings, 
 and Mr. Wheelwright his preaching, both main- 
 taining that the diflference between them and 
 their opponents was as wide as between heaven 
 and hell; and their friends would scornfully turn 
 
264 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 their backs upon any preacher of a " covenant 
 of works." Mr. Wilson, both on account of 
 his place and his views, received the most of 
 this insulting treatment. The magistrates and 
 the leaders out of Boston were certainly not 
 unmindful of these irritations, though they chose 
 to find, in the apprehensions of popular tumult, 
 and even of public hostilities, a reason for taking 
 some salutary and decisive measures just at this 
 moment. They alleged that a remedy might 
 soon be too late, and they were favored now 
 by a peculiar advantage, if they could reconcile 
 it to their consciences to use it. 
 
 Mr. Welde does not scruple to refer the oppor- 
 tunity, now presented to the Court, to " a special 
 providence." Vane was expected, according to 
 his promise once given, to return, but his pow- 
 erful influence was now withdrawn. Cotton 
 could not be counted upon by one party above 
 the other. Many of Mrs. Hutchinson's friends, 
 seeming to have a presentiment of what await- 
 ed them, meditated a removal from the juris- 
 diction, and had gone in various directions to 
 look for a new settlement. The Court sitting on 
 the 2d of November, 1637, resolved to make the 
 remonstrance, which had been hastily drawn 
 up and presented by more than sixty members 
 of the Boston church, after the judgment against 
 Wheelwright on the 9th of March preceding, 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 265 
 
 the occasion of a civil process. The remon- 
 strance or petition, Hke the sermon which it 
 justified, could be made seditious only by con- 
 struction. The violence of this construction, or 
 at least the forced reasoning which detected se- 
 dition, will serve to show how much real alarm 
 of tumult existed, or how determined the au- 
 thorities were to put down the agitators. The 
 remonstrance, in deprecating the charge of se- 
 dition by " the effects of Mr. Wheelwright's 
 doctrine upon the hearers," said, " it hath not 
 stirred up sedition in us, not so much as by 
 accident. We have not drawn the sword, as 
 sometimes Peter did, rashly, neither have we 
 rescued our innocent brother, as sometimes the 
 Israelites did Jonathan ; and yet they did not 
 seditiously." These allusions the Court chose 
 to regard as tending to sedition, as suggesting 
 sedition, by putting disaffected persons in mind 
 that it was possible for them to draw the sword, 
 if they should please to do so. 
 
 It is difficult to refrain from passing a most 
 severe censure upon the whole proceedings of 
 the Court in reference to this remonstrance. If 
 there were any circumstances, open or covert, 
 which at the time could offer the least palliation 
 for the measures adopted, they have escaped the 
 search of the writer; nor can it be behoved that 
 any such existed. Failing these, the Court can- 
 
266 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 not be relieved of a very severe judgment vv^hen 
 its course is reviewed. There vv^ere indeed many 
 passionate expressions of dissatisfaction, and even 
 of defiance, on the part of individuals ; there 
 may have been also intimations of a breach of 
 the civil peace. It would have been strange, 
 if the heady and the ill-advised had retained a 
 perfect self-control amid such intense excite- 
 ment as at this season prevailed. But no single 
 examples of contempt, or of threatened resistance 
 to authority, can be admitted as a justification 
 of the tyrannical measures now pursued. In fact, 
 it was only by a most unwarranted and wholly 
 unprecedented departure from the usual forms 
 observed in a legislative assembly, that the 
 Court now in session could make any use of 
 the remonstrance. It had been presented, not 
 to this Court, but to a former Court, which had 
 met on the 9th of April, preceding by seven 
 months the present session, and which had been 
 presided over by a different Governor, and com- 
 posed of different members. If the petition or 
 remonstrance was insulting, the Court which it 
 insulted was the proper body to have proceeded 
 upon it. The new Court, meeting in Novem- 
 ber, had nothing more to do with it, unless it 
 was presented anew, (which it was not,) than 
 had any other court which has met in Massa- 
 chusetts from that day to this. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 267 
 
 A significant hint dropped by Mr. Welde may 
 do much towards explaining the unwonted pro- 
 ceedings of the Court. He says, that when all 
 the various means had been applied for repress- 
 ing the opinions of Mrs. Hutchinson, " this was 
 another means of their subduing, some of the 
 leaders being down, and others gone." This is 
 another evidence, that the return of Vane to Eng- 
 land, and "the Special Providence" by which 
 some of the disaffected were absent seeking a 
 new home, enabled the Court to do what it either 
 could not, or would not have done, under dif- 
 ferent circumstances. It seems to have been 
 well understood, at this time, that a separation 
 of the conflicting elements must, in some way, 
 be brought about. The Court tasked its inge- 
 nuity to discover that way. Indeed, we have 
 good authority for believing that Governor Win- 
 throp had sought by private persuasion to bring 
 about the end, which was gained by arbitrary 
 public proceedings. Winthrop had asked Vane 
 and his friends, after the late election, to move 
 away from the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, and 
 Roger Williams had been applied to for the 
 enlistment of his services in providing a refuge 
 for '' the Antinomians." * 
 
 * My authority for this assertion is Bailey^ who says in 
 his "Dissuasive from the Errors of the Times," pp. 63 
 and 72, that Roger Williams, on a visit to England, made 
 this statement to him. 
 
268 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Governor Winthrop likewise overcharges and 
 misrepresents the remonstrance, vv^hen he speaks 
 of it as containing "divers scandalous and se- 
 ditious speeches." * The document is respect- 
 ful, and even deferential ; nothing could be more 
 pertinent to the occasion, or contain less of irrel- 
 evant matter. More than sixty names of male 
 members of the Boston church were subscribed 
 to it, and it was besides approved by some who 
 did not subscribe it, as will soon appear. Some 
 of the signers soon withdrew their names, either 
 from change of mind, or through dread of con- 
 sequences. Of these a few alleged, that the 
 paper had been presented to them suddenly in 
 a rough state, some passages being apparently 
 erased, and that they understood that it was not 
 to be delivered to the Court without the ap- 
 proval of Mr. Cotton, which it did not have. 
 
 Mr. William Aspinwall, just returned to the 
 Court as one of the representatives of Boston, 
 had written the remonstrance, though the Court 
 was ignorant of this fact when it questioned 
 him for having signed it. He fully justified the 
 document, and was at once dismissed. Mr. John 
 Coggeshall, another Boston representative, and a 
 deacon of the church, had not signed the pe- 
 tition ; but upon the ejectment of Aspinwall he 
 stoutly told the Court it had better treat him 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 245. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 269 
 
 in the same way, as he approved the remon- 
 strance, and had already put his name to a 
 protest. So he was dismissed, with a summons 
 to Boston to choose two new representatives. 
 Mr. WiUiam Coddington, treasurer of the colony, 
 the third member from Boston, then presented 
 a protest from his constituents against the meas- 
 ures pursued in reference to Mr. Wheelwright, 
 and the alien law, forbidding residence, already 
 referred to. This led to a review of the pro- 
 ceedings and a justification of them all ; and 
 the papers growing out of the alien law, which 
 had been kept in during the Synod, were made 
 public* 
 
 The Boston people assembled in indignation, 
 and were about returning to the Court the two 
 deputies who had just been rejected, the voters 
 being then the church members only. But Mr. 
 Cotton interfered, knowing what tumult must 
 have followed, and he prevented their intention. 
 Of the two members who were returned, how- 
 ever, one was an earnest disciple of Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson, and had also signed the petition ; and as 
 he justified it when questioned, the Court dis- 
 missed him likewise, with a warrant for another 
 choice, to which the Boston church members gave 
 no heed. 
 
 * These papers are the same as are noticed above, on 
 page 245. 
 
270 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Mr. Wheelwright, the great champion of Mrs. 
 Hutchinson, and, as such, the prominent repre- 
 sentative of her party, was then called before the 
 Court for a final and decisive action on his case. 
 There was a fixed purpose on the part of the 
 government, either to bring him to an apology 
 and recantation, or to clear the jurisdiction of 
 his presence. This being the determined end 
 at which all the measures aimed, it must have 
 given a character to all the proceedings, though 
 it would appear that Wheelwright was treated 
 with all the scanty forbearance and moderation, 
 which would consist with the purpose of the 
 Court. He was reminded that some time had 
 passed since a judgment had been found against 
 him, as guilty of sedition and contempt ; and that 
 sentence had been deferred from Court to Court, 
 in the hope that he would either change his mind, 
 or submit to its decision. He replied, that he 
 was innocent of sedition or contempt ; that he 
 had preached nothing but the truth of Christ, 
 and that the dangerous application of his doc- 
 trine was made by others, not by himself. 
 
 The Court, in its expostulation with him, went 
 very fully and particularly into a detail of the 
 grievances, which had followed upon Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson's teachings, and his own support of her 
 views. He had in his sermon, as was alleged, 
 pointed very significantly to the magistrates and 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON, 
 
 271 
 
 the ministers of the colony, as being under a 
 covenant of works ; he had put an evil mark 
 upon them; had lowered the esteem of the peo- 
 ple for them ; though, by conference with them, 
 he had previously been informed of the false 
 and insulting character of his aspersions. 
 
 What added, in the view of the Court, to the 
 objectionable character of the sermon, was, that 
 it wholly omitted all note of the occasions for 
 which the day had been set apart. Mr. Cotton 
 had performed the regular afternoon exercises, 
 when Mr. Wheelwright, as he had probably been 
 previously informed that he should be, was called 
 upon "to exercise as a private brother," and he 
 by this sermon directly opposed the impression 
 of Mr. Cotton's sermon, which was an attempt 
 to pacify and soothe the excited feelings of the 
 people. He and his sister had entirely subverted 
 the "peaceable and comely order" of the col- 
 ony ; they had excluded from admission to church 
 communion all, who could not claim the witness 
 of an immediate revelation for their justification, 
 and had brought those in the church who dif- 
 fered from them into disesteem ; they had di- 
 vided families, and alienated friends, and had 
 impeded the success of the war against the Pe- 
 quots; they had extolled the former Governor, and 
 some of the magistrates, as friends of free grace, 
 
272 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and had defamed the present Governor and ma- 
 gistrates as persecutors and antichrists ; the con- 
 sequence of which was, that Governor Winthrop 
 was openly insulted, and that not even a town 
 meeting could be held without railing speeches. 
 Reference was then made to the means, which 
 the Court had used to win Wheelwright from 
 his opinions and course, the numerous confer- 
 ences, the Synod, and a declaration put forth 
 by the Court, which he had not even conde- 
 scended to read. The conclusion of this ex- 
 postulation was, that all " troublers of famihes " 
 should be driven out, as were " Cain, Hagar, and 
 Ishmael;" and that the claims of justice and 
 peace made this course all the more necessary 
 in the present case, because, as Mrs. Hutchin- 
 son's party had asserted, the difference between 
 them and their opponents was as wide as that 
 between heaven and hell. Night came on while 
 the Court in vain endeavored to bring Wheel- 
 wright to admit his alleged errors. The busi- 
 ness was entered upon the next day, when he 
 found some few supporters, and again denied 
 the charge of direct or indirect sedition. He 
 was finally sentenced to be disfranchised and 
 banished from the jurisdiction, as "guilty for 
 troubling the civil peace, both for his seditious 
 sermon, and for his corrupt and dangerous opin- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 273 
 
 ions, and for his contemptuous [i. e. unyield- 
 ing] behavior in divers courts formerly, and now 
 obstinately maintaining and justifying his said 
 errors and oifences." * 
 
 Mr. Wheelwright was ordered to be kept in 
 safe custody, and to give security for his de- 
 parture. The Court refused to accept his appeal 
 to the King, and he in turn refused to enter into 
 recognizances for his quiet departure. The next 
 morning, however, he withdrew his appeal, and 
 offered to accept of simple banishment, though 
 he would not promise to refrain from preaching, 
 as the Court required, during the interval extend- 
 ing to the close of March ensuing, which was the 
 date fixed for his removal, after the severity of 
 the winter should be passed. He was at last 
 allowed to return to his own home, upon his 
 promise that if he did not leave the jurisdiction 
 within fourteen days, he would surrender himself 
 as a prisoner to a magistrate. 
 
 It is some relief to the disagreeable detail of 
 the proceedings of this Court, in its condemnation 
 of Mr. Wheelwright, to be able to record the 
 fact that the decision against him was not unani- 
 mous. Some of the magistrates and deputies did 
 not concur, and requested that their dissent from 
 the majority might be entered in the Court book. 
 
 * Welde's Short Stoiy, p. 26. 
 VOL. VI. 18 
 
274 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Their request was refused, on the ground that 
 such a course was unusual and unallowable. 
 The disaffected minority then offered a protest, 
 which was likewise refused, because it justified 
 Mr. Wheelwright as a faithful minister, and con- 
 demned the Court. They were finally allowed 
 merely to copy the record of the sentence, and 
 to subjoin to it their names, as dissenting, without 
 passing any reflection upon the act of the ma- 
 jority. Indeed, there was a large number of 
 dissentients in and out of the Court, and it was 
 found necessary to issue an apology for its 
 proceedings. 
 
 Before passing from the brother to the sister, 
 Mrs. Hutchinson, the Court proceeded to deal 
 with those who had put their hands to, or approv- 
 ed of, the offensive remonstrance. Deacon Cogges- 
 hall was called to account for several troublesome 
 and reproachful deeds and words, and stood 
 strenuously for liberty and justice. A large num- 
 ber of the Court wished to banish him, but he 
 escaped with an admonition. 
 
 William Aspinwall was next put under exam- 
 ination. The Court had discovered, since last 
 dealing with him, that he had drawn up the re- 
 monstrance, which, as it originally came from 
 his hand, contained many more offensive passages, 
 that were stricken out. He still justified it with 
 manliness and plainness, alleging the right of 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 275 
 
 petition in general, and the examples of Mephib- 
 osheth and Esther in particular. He would have 
 escaped with the same punishment as Deacon 
 Coggeshall, but for the aggravation of his " per- 
 emptory speeches," which drew upon him disfran- 
 chisement and banishment at the close of the 
 ensuing March. Two of the sergeants of Boston, 
 William Baulston, and Edward Hutchinson, son 
 of the prophetess, who had neglected to do Win- 
 throp the honor they had done to Vane, and were 
 prominent in the strife of words, were fined and 
 disfranchised. Thomas Marshall, the Cambridge 
 ferryman, who about this time must have had a 
 brisk business, justified the petition, though with 
 more mildness, and he escaped with losing his 
 place and being disfranchised. William Dinely 
 and William Dyer, for the same offence, were dis- 
 franchised, as was also Richard Gridley, " an 
 honest, poor man, but very apt to meddle in 
 public affairs beyond his calling or skill." * Thus 
 the way was prepared for civil proceedings against 
 her, who " had been the breeder and nourisher 
 of all these distempers." 
 
 * Welde's ShoH Story, p. 31. 
 
276 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Trial of Mrs. Hutchinson before the Court of 
 Massachusetts. — The Magistrates and Minis- 
 ters. — Proceedings. — The Charges against her. 
 
 — Her Replies. — Her Assemblies. — Her Con- 
 tempt of the Ministers. — Their Evidence. — Her 
 ^^ Revelations j^'' her Condemnation and Sentence. 
 
 — Captain Underhill disfranchised. — Order for 
 disarming the Majority of the Boston Church. — 
 Wint hr op impugned ; his Vindication. — Proceed- 
 ings in the Roxbury Church. — New Heresies, 
 
 The trial of Mrs. Hutchinson before the Court 
 of Massachusetts, meeting at Cambridge in No- 
 vember, 1637, will be allowed by most readers to 
 have been one of the most shameful proceedings 
 recorded in the annals of Protestantism. In 
 what respect it differed, save in the lightness of 
 its penalty, from the trials instituted by the Inqui- 
 sition, it would be very difficult to say. If the 
 judgment of posterity, concerning her character 
 and course, were to depend solely upon the report 
 of her case when before her judges, she would 
 stand clear of all imputations as well for the 
 matter as for the manner of her heresy. One 
 may well hesitate whether he should describe the 
 process against her as a civil, a judicial, or an 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 277 
 
 ecclesiastical process. It is evident, that all the 
 personalities with which she may have been 
 chargeable, in the expression of her views, were 
 more than returned upon her in the revenge of 
 the wounded pride of her principal opponents. 
 
 With all the allowances which charity can 
 devise, from the prevailing spirit of the times, 
 from the generally allowed principle of mutual 
 responsibility for opinions, from the private jeal- 
 ousies which had been aroused, from the appre- 
 hension of the licentious and revolutionary out- 
 rages that had attended in Germany the expres- 
 sion of opinions kindred, as was believed, to those 
 of Mrs. Hutchinson ; with full allowances for all 
 these reasonable suggestions, the treatment of 
 Mrs. Hutchinson on her trial deserves the 
 severest epithets of censuie. The united civil 
 wisdom and Christian piety of the fathers of 
 Massachusetts make but a sorry figure, as rep- 
 resented in a picture of the same offered by 
 history to the imagination. Whatever may be 
 said in palliation of the rigid measures of the 
 Court against the men, who sided with Mrs. 
 Hutchinson, against Greensmith, against the 
 signers and the approvers of the remonstrance, 
 against the Boston representatives, and against 
 the idol, Wheelwright, the Court had done 
 enough for security and enough for vengeance. 
 
 But here was now a woman in the case, and 
 
27S AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the opposition to her rested entirely on a dis- 
 like of her opinions. The Court doubtless, under 
 other circumstances, would have left all further 
 proceedings to the church of which she was 
 a member, and would have stopped short of its 
 extreme inflictions upon those, who had received 
 sentence before her, committing them also to 
 the dealing of the church. But the church it- 
 self had gone astray ; its judgment was already 
 pronounced loudly and heartily in support of all 
 the obnoxious parties. The church was like- 
 wise to be censured through the penalties in- 
 flicted upon its members. The matter in hand 
 now was in fact no other, than to employ the 
 combined authority of the towns around Boston, 
 with their ministers, against the heretical and 
 seditious church of the metropolis. The last 
 scene in the long protracted strife was to be 
 enacted, and the whole country was on tiptoe 
 to watch its development, and to approve or 
 condemn the result. The oracle of the new 
 party was at the bar. 
 
 All the magistrates, or assistants, the upper 
 house, representing the judicial and executive 
 authority of the government, took part in the 
 trial. Governor Winthrop was called by his of- 
 fice to perform the principal work in the pros- 
 ecution, to which his feelings and convictions 
 likewise would lead him. He thoroughly un- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 279 
 
 derstood the whole ground of the controver- 
 sy. His was no blind or passionate opposition. 
 From the very beginning of the strife he had 
 foreseen its tendency, and had then employed 
 the means which a high-minded and a Christian 
 man might use to check its progress. He was a 
 perfect master of the Scriptures, and well read in 
 the polemical divinity of his time. Nor does he 
 appear to have been actuated in the least degree 
 by the personal grievances and slights, of which 
 he could not but have been sensible that he had 
 suffered a large share. An expression of re- 
 gard, which was afterwards made to him by the 
 church, when calmness and union were re- 
 stored, is a significant testimony that when the 
 alienation was at its height, he led the powerless 
 opposition of four members with a dignified and 
 honest front. He was considerate of the rights 
 of his teacher, Mr. Cotton, but gave even him 
 to understand that he was no keeper of the 
 consciences of his hearers. We are bound, 
 therefore, to regard the course pursued by Win- 
 throp as strictly conscientious. He had at stake 
 his whole estate, his dearest convictions, his 
 high-wrought hopes for the wilderness colony. 
 He thought that the truth of God and Christ, 
 the interests of a sound theology and a pure 
 morality, of peace among brethren, and of safe- 
 ty to the Commonwealth, depended upon the 
 
280 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 great issue now to be decided. The sense o! 
 his official responsibihty, as a "nursing-father " of 
 the colony, was deep and pure. 
 
 Deputy-Governor Dudley was a man of a 
 more rigid temper, and of a less considerate 
 piety, than Winthrop. He had not that inter- 
 est in technical theology which the Governor 
 possessed, and saw not so well the bearings of 
 the controversy. There was no hearty concord 
 between the two officials in any other matter 
 of public concern ; but in their views of Mrs. 
 Hutchinson's course they agreed. Dudley, as 
 already stated, had endeavored to delay her ad- 
 mission to the church, on account of the sus- 
 picions of her views, which had been imparted 
 to him, and, with his wonted sternness, he did 
 what he probably supposed he ought to do on 
 her trial. 
 
 Endicott, Bradstreet, Harlakenden, Stoughton, 
 and Nowell, used their influence against Mrs. 
 Hutchinson. They put questions to her, pro- 
 nounced censures upon her, and expatiated upon 
 the dissension and mischief, which had attend- 
 ed her during her residence in Boston. 
 
 William Coddington alone, of the magistrates, 
 sustained the defendant. He was a man of great 
 influence, which he deserved by true worth. His 
 occasional expressions looked all along to a wise 
 indulgence and charity; at the end he plainly 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 281 
 
 and cogently avowed his dissent from the con- 
 demnation of Mrs. Hutchinson, and questioned 
 the poHcy and justice of the proceedings. He 
 did not attempt to sheUer her from all blame 
 of indiscretion or error. He was her friend, but 
 not one of her worshippers ; and though, greatly 
 to his own present detriment, he espoused her 
 cause, and followed her into banishment, he 
 doubtless understood her weaknesses. 
 
 While the magistrates, with but one excep- 
 tion, gave no favor to the defendant, the depu- 
 ties or representatives afforded but two or three 
 to offer her any countenance, and they were 
 at once silenced. 
 
 The ministers then in Massachusetts were 
 probably all present at the Court, with the ex- 
 ception of perhaps two or three in the more 
 distant settlements. The ministers were indeed 
 the informers and the witnesses against Mrs. 
 Hutchinson ; it was by their evidence that ground 
 of conviction was to be obtained. Cotton and 
 Wilson of Boston, Symmes of Charlestown, Eliot 
 and Welde of Roxbury, Shepherd of Cambridge, 
 Peters of Salem, and Phillips of Watertown, with 
 some of the ruling elders of the churches, are 
 mentioned. Deacon Coggeshall and Elder Lev- 
 erett, of Boston, endeavored to befriend the de- 
 fendant. Mr. Cotton once or twice interposed 
 in her favor, and, when questioned, made cer- 
 
282 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tain distinctions in her behalf, which reheved the 
 charges against her. Mr. Shepherd spoke some 
 pacificatory words. 
 
 The other ministers, smarting under the di- j 
 rect or indirect reproaches which Mrs. Hutch- ' 
 inson was generally understood to have spoken 
 against them, were determined to insure her 
 humiliation. They felt that their honor, their 
 influence, and their claims to piety were at 
 hazard. The controversy she had raised had 
 indeed offered its most goading annoyances 
 to them. They felt that they had given all 
 possible assurance of devotion to Christ, and 
 to the religious welfare of their several flocks. 
 They were set as teachers over those who, like 
 themselves, had left pleasant homes under the 
 impulse of a self-denying faith, and now their 
 ministry had fallen into disesteem, and they 
 themselves were sensibly depreciated in the re- 
 gard and reverence of those, who once professed 
 to owe them the sincerest gratitude. The prime 
 mover of the waters of bitterness was now before 
 them, to be publicly proceeded against ; and her 
 judges were men. 
 
 Mr. Peters, Mr. Welde, and Mr. Symmes, 
 urged the charges against the accused with the 
 most directness, and these three had felt espe- 
 cially aggrieved at her general censure of those 
 who preached a covenant of works. Set upon 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 283 
 
 as she was continually, whenever a private or 
 pubHc opportunity had been offered her, she un- 
 doubtedly had used words which she had for- 
 gotten, and for which she ought not to have 
 been called into account. It would have been 
 strange if she had not given offence to one or 
 another of the brethren, who were frequently in 
 disputation with her. Some of these private in- 
 terviews were remembered and put to use. 
 
 The Court sat with open doors, and the whole 
 case was watched with the most intense anx- 
 iety through the two days which were spent 
 upon it. Such was the tribunal before which 
 a female of undoubted piety, and of high ex- 
 cellence of character, was held to account for 
 maintaining certain theological opinions distaste- 
 ful to those, to whom she was in no wise ac- 
 countable for her belief. She was even kept 
 for a time in a standing posture, until her evi- 
 dent bodily infirmity obtained for her the privi- 
 lege of sitting. The examination must have 
 been extremely wearisome, and even Mr. Dud- 
 ley complained that they would all be sick from 
 fasting. 
 
 The proceedings began with a somewhat ex- 
 tended colloquy between Governor Winthrop 
 and Mrs. Hutchinson, in which she sustained 
 herself with great dignity, and met, with strong 
 good sense in reply, the charges which were 
 
284 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 laid at her door. Her husband does not ap- 
 pear in the proceedings, though he might have 
 been present, unless he was one of those al- 
 ready mentioned as being absent on an ex- 
 ploring search for a place of refuge in case of 
 necessity. 
 
 The Governor opened the disagreeable busi- 
 ness, by addressing Mrs. Hutchinson as a dis- 
 turber of the peace of the Commonwealth and 
 of the churches ; and then, without specifying 
 any single offence, of such a nature and so 
 substantiated as to subject her to a civil pen- 
 alty, he heaped upon her an accumulation of 
 censures. He said she was known to have had 
 a principal share in promoting and divulging the 
 opinions, which had caused so much trouble; 
 that she was nearly connected by affinity and 
 sympathy with those already censured ; that she 
 had defamed the churches and ministers of the 
 jurisdiction ; that she had maintained a meet- 
 ing and an assembly at her house, which was 
 neither tolerable nor comely in the sight of God, 
 nor fitting for her sex; and that, though the 
 Synod had denounced such meetings, she still 
 persisted in holding them. On the strength of 
 these charges, the Governor stated that the Court 
 had sent for her to inquire into her case, that 
 she might either be turned into the right way 
 and made a profitable member, or if she should 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 285 
 
 prove obstinate in her course, that she might 
 be restrained from causing any further trouble. 
 She was then asked whether she assented to 
 the factious and heretical practices and opinions 
 aheady proceeded against, and whether she did 
 not justify Mr. Wheelwright's sermon and the 
 remonstrance. 
 
 Mrs. Hutchinson replied, that, though she was 
 called to answer, no distinct charges were brought 
 against her. The Governor said he had brought 
 many. She desired that some one fault in 
 speech or in deed might be specified, and when 
 the Governor fixed upon her having countenanced 
 factious persons, she said that it was matter of 
 conscience for her to entertain saints. The Gov- 
 ernor alleged that her sympathy with the signers 
 of the petition was a breach of the fifth com- 
 mandment, which required that honor should be 
 given to parents, and magistrates were parents. 
 Mrs. Hutchinson defended herself by suggest- 
 ing, that parents and magistrates were to be 
 honored conditionally, that is, '' in the Lord," 
 and that, if she feared the Lord and her parents, 
 she might entertain others who feared the Lord, 
 though her parents should forbid her. Win- 
 throp said he did not wish to discourse with 
 one of her sex, and so he recurred to the gen- 
 eral grievance, that she had advanced the fac- 
 
286 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tion, and dishonored the government. This she 
 peremptorily denied. 
 
 The Governor then shifted the charge to the 
 meetings which she had kept at her house. She 
 replied, that this practice vi^as as lawful to her 
 as any of their practices were to them, and that 
 the reason for her adopting it was, that, on her 
 coming to the country, she was censured as 
 proud by a friend, who observed that she did 
 not attend the meetings of like character then 
 established. It was answered, that the previous 
 meetings were not offensive, and were not com- 
 posed exclusively of women; but that hers were 
 of another sort, and that she sometimes had had 
 men present. The last statement she positively 
 denied, and urged that she found a clear rule 
 for her meetings in the injunction of Paul to 
 Titus, '*that the elder women should instruct 
 the younger." The Governor rejoined, that the 
 rule might apply to more private teaching, and 
 the accused met his plea by asking, what au- 
 thority she had for rejecting any one who should 
 come to her for religious counsel. Mr. En- 
 dicott here put in a word, that the custom which 
 she found existing in Boston was not enough to 
 justify her. She still clung to the rule of Paul 
 to Titus. The Governor said that no one rule 
 must cross another, and that this, as she inter- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 287 
 
 preted it, did cross anotlier Scripture rule, from 
 the union ot which she would be justified only 
 in instructing the younger women about their 
 business, and to love their husbands, instead of 
 making them clash. She insisted that the rule 
 would cover public occasions. 
 
 It soon appeared, in answer to a question from 
 the Deputy-Governor, that there were two meet- 
 ings at Mrs. Hutchinson's house, one composed 
 exclusively of women, and the other of men and 
 women, though at the latter, "the teaching was 
 always done by the men." The meetings were 
 not uninterrupted in their succession, but, on 
 occasions were deferred. 
 
 The Governor summed up the grievances from 
 this charge, by saying, that her course in these 
 meetings was greatly prejudicial to the peace 
 of the state ; that her opinions were contrary 
 to the word of God, and had seduced many 
 simple persons who resorted to her ; that the 
 late disturbances in the Commonwealth and the 
 churches had been caused entirely by her fol- 
 lowers ; that it was not right that families should 
 be neglected for so many meetings, and that 
 no individual might set up an assembly in ad- 
 dition to those already established. She replied, 
 that they had authority to put down her meet- 
 ings, and that she would freely yield to au- 
 thority as far as she herself was concerned, but 
 
288 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 that she did not yet see Ught to deny the priv- 
 ilege to others. 
 
 This matter of the meetings being disposed 
 of, the trial of Mrs. Hutchinson turned upon 
 two points, the first being her alleged abuse of 
 the ministers, and the second, her " revelations." 
 It was by the latter that she was condemned; 
 , and she herself introduced the subject, though 
 the Court would have been led to it, if she 
 had not. 
 
 Deputy-Governor Dudley opened the main 
 topic of discord. He said that, about three years 
 before, there was peace, and that Mrs. Hutchin- 
 son had broken it; that, on her landing, he had 
 received such information concerning her, as 
 led him, through the pastor and teacher of the 
 church, to institute an inquiry into her opin- 
 ions, with the result of which he was at the 
 time satisfied ; that, within six months she had 
 '^vented her opinions," and made parties in the 
 country ; and that, claiming some of great in- 
 fluence on her side, she had said that all the 
 ministers, save Mr. Cotton, preached nothing 
 but a covenant of works. 
 
 The point thus raised was evidently the sorest 
 and most tender which the whole controversy 
 covered. It appeared, that at the conference 
 which the ministers, at an early stage of the 
 troubles, had sought with Mr. Cotton at his house, 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 289 
 
 Mrs. Hutchinson was called in. She thought 
 herself among friends, holding private and free 
 discourse under the protection of a general 
 desire for kind and candid utterance. By her 
 statement of what she clearly remembered, on 
 the trial, we gather, that she was questioned at 
 that conference as to the alleged difference which 
 she had discovered between the preaching of 
 Mr. Cotton and the preaching of the other min- 
 isters. She said that she was at first reserved 
 and silent ; but as Mr. Peters kindly urged open- 
 ness and hearty sincerity, she bethought herself 
 that she ought not to be influenced by the fear 
 of man, and she uttered herself freely. She 
 insisted, before the Court, that her expressions 
 in the friendly conference were to this effect, 
 that the ministers did not preach a covenant of 
 grace so clearly, so distinctly, so positively, as 
 did Mr. Cotton, and that they preached a cov- 
 enant of works, something like the method and 
 views of the apostles, before they had received, 
 at the feast of Pentecost, a more complete knowl- 
 edge of the spiritual mysteries of the^ Christian 
 religion. 
 
 All the wounded and irritated feelings of the 
 ministers were brought to bear upon their testi- 
 mony, that Mrs. Hutchinson had spoken more 
 and differently at the conference. She urged 
 the supposed privacy and friendliness of the inter- 
 
 VOL. VI. 19 
 
290 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 view ; she complained that the informers were 
 the witnesses ; she required that they should be 
 put under oath, and said that her statement 
 would be sustained by a reference to the notes of 
 the conversation, which had been taken by Mr. 
 Wilson. The evidence of six of the ministers 
 went to show, that she had said freely before them 
 all more than she now allowed, and Mr. Wil- 
 son stated that his notes were very incom- 
 plete. They affirmed, three of them being put 
 under oath, that she had said that the other 
 ministers were not able ministers of the New 
 Testament, because they were not sealed, and 
 that they were under, not merely that they 
 preached, a covenant of works. Mr. Symmes 
 alleged how he had been troubled by her on 
 the passage. Mr. Phillips, of Watertown, said 
 she had included him under her condemnation, 
 though she had never heard him. Mr. Shepherd, 
 of Cambridge, said she told him, after listening to 
 his lecture, that he '^ was not sealed," but he 
 was willing to regard her error as a slip of the 
 tongue. 
 
 There was much discussion in the Court about 
 putting the ministers under oath, but the defend- 
 ant insisted strenuously upon it, as she pertinent- 
 ly corrected them concerning a quotation from 
 Scripture which they said she had used, and con- 
 sidered that her memory was as good as all theirs 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 291 
 
 combined. The oath was allowed, on the ground 
 that it would better satisfy the country at large. 
 Doubtless both parties were fully persuaded of 
 the truth of their several representations, for it 
 was a matter concerning which there might easily 
 be a mistake. Mrs. Hutchinson acknowledged 
 that in " an hour's discourse at the window," 
 with Mr. Welde, she might have said that the 
 other ministers were not '^able ministers of the 
 New Testament," probably using the phrase 
 as a Scripture quotation, implying that " thor- 
 ough-furnishing " for the work of the ministry 
 which any one, in her opinion, might lack, who 
 was deficient in some spiritual assurance. Mr. 
 Cotton, on being called upon to testify as to what 
 he remembered of the interview, took a place by 
 the side of Mrs. Hutchinson, and reluctantly com- 
 plied. He said he was saddened and sorry to 
 hear her assent, at the interview, to the charge 
 brought against her by his brethren, as having rec- 
 ognized a difference in their preaching, and that, 
 when she was pressed to state what that diflference 
 was, she made it a gradual diflference, one of de- 
 grees, in that the other ministers did not preach 
 free grace so clearly as did he, and likened the 
 ministers to the apostles before their inspiration. 
 Mr. Cotton came into a collision with the min- 
 isters, and it is evident that there was much 
 smothered feeling. Mr. Coddington affirmed, 
 
292 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 that, even if she said all that was attributed to 
 her, no harm was done ; and he implied that the 
 ministers ought to have felt complimented in 
 being compared to the apostles. 
 
 From such a conflict and discord of statements 
 upon a point where there ought to have been 
 positive assurance, considering how much it was 
 relied upon, it was impossible that any just de- 
 cision could have been attained. Perhaps, there- 
 fore, it was well that new matter of objection 
 was now introduced. 
 
 Mrs. Hutchinson, voluntarily and of her own 
 prompting, entered upon the dangerous ground 
 of " revelations." This was hailed by some of 
 the more zealous spirits of the Court almost as a 
 special providence, signifying her guilt, and tend- 
 ing to her conviction. Though she burst into no 
 ecstasies of inspiration, and poured forth no glow- 
 ing maledictions prophetic of divine vengeance, 
 though she was even exceedingly moderate and 
 calm in expressing a few great sentiments, which 
 she felt prompted to represent as immediate dis- 
 closures of the Spirit, yet it was enough for the 
 Court that she declared herself as thus miraculous- 
 ly prompted. At that time, the only alarming 
 feature of enthusiasm was its pretence to spiritual 
 illumination beyond or independent of the Scrip- 
 tures, and the slightest encroachment upon that 
 bewildering realm was thought as far more likely 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 293 
 
 to be a step towards Satan than a step towards 
 God This dread of immediate revelations was 
 perfectly consistent with the prevailing method 
 of applying texts of Scripture with forced and 
 unwarrantable particularity to any case, which 
 would admit of a remote resemblance. Within 
 the limits of Scripture, the field of contention 
 was fair for all parties ; but an attempt to break 
 the bounds, and soar into the regions of especial 
 and exclusive illumination, was to forsake the 
 lists. 
 
 The Court had met with a perplexing diffi- 
 culty in attempting to verify the alleged con- 
 tempt expressed by Mrs. Hutchinson for the 
 ministers. Only when Mr. Stoughton said he 
 could not unite in censuring her, unless an oath 
 was imposed upon the witnesses, was that cer- 
 emony performed ; and even then the calm de- 
 nial by Mr. Cotton of the more obnoxious part 
 of the language attributed to her, would have 
 made her conviction, on that score alone, doubt- 
 ful. The Court would have at once charged 
 upon her a pretence to revelations, as common 
 report ascribed them to her, if direct proof had 
 been easy. Her own free reference to them 
 was very opportune for the purpose of her 
 judges. 
 
 She spoke of her alienation from the minis- 
 try of the Established Church in England, and 
 
294 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the suggestion to her mind of certain texts 
 of Scripture, which proved its ministers to be 
 antichrist. Being asked how she knew that it 
 was the Spirit which addressed her, she replied, 
 that she knew it by an immediate revelation. 
 Other passages, miraculously impressed upon her 
 mind, led her to follow her only acceptable 
 teachers. Cotton and Wheelwright, to New Eng- 
 land, and assured her that she would be deliv- 
 ered now from all danger and risk by the inter- 
 position of the Almighty, as was Daniel in the 
 lions' den. The glowing style of her language, 
 and the boldness of her address at this moment, 
 led one of the ministers to suggest, that she was 
 rather an antitype of the lions than of Daniel. 
 She concluded by warning the Court against 
 wronging her, or putting away the Lord Jesus 
 from them, as they would dread bringing a curse 
 upon themselves. 
 
 Mr. Bartholemew, a deputy from Salem, here 
 referred to some other revelations of Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson, as he had known her in England, and 
 crossed the ocean in her company. She had 
 said to him, as the vessel came within sight of 
 Boston, that her heart would have failed within 
 her, if she had not a sure word that England 
 would be destroyed. She had likewise told him, 
 that no great thing had happened to her which 
 had not been revealed to her beforehand. In 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 295 
 
 the same conversation, she made a reference 
 to Mr. Hooker, '' whose spirit she Hked not," 
 though she expressed her pleasure at a sentence 
 in a sermon which he had delivered in the 
 Low Countries, in which he said that it had been 
 revealed to him the day before that England 
 should be destroyed.* Mr. Symmes added an 
 instance of her revelations. Mr. Cotton was 
 appealed to on this matter of revelations, which 
 he in reply distinguished into two kinds, the 
 one being beside the scripture, or independent 
 of it, which were dangerous and fantastical, and 
 the other being of a scriptural sort, and never 
 dispensed save in or according to the word of 
 God. This latter sort, which would now be 
 called deep impressions, or mysterious prompt- 
 ings, caused by concentrated and earnest medi- 
 tation upon some passage of the Bible, Mr. 
 Cotton heartily approved; and doubtless it was 
 only to such as these that Mrs. Hutchinson made 
 pretension. Mr. Cotton, on this, as on the other 
 
 * Mr. Eliot took upon himself to question whether Mr. 
 Hooker had ever said this, as it " was against his mind 
 and judgment." But it is true that Mr. Hooker did say 
 what Mrs. Hutchinson attributed to him, and even more 
 literally and strongly too. It was in his farewell sermon 
 on leaving England ; and some years afterwards, when the 
 civil war looked towards a fulfilment of it, he endorsed 
 the same prediction, by referring to it in a sermon at Hart- 
 ford. Mather's Magnalia, Vol. II. p. 310. 
 
296 
 
 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 point, which was debated in the trial, gave but 
 meagre satisfaction to the other ministers. 
 
 As to the dehvery which Mrs. Hutchinson said 
 would save her from calamity, she would not 
 explain whether she believed it was to be by 
 the common providence of God, or by miracle. 
 Mr. Cotton left the matter of her expectations 
 in doubt, when his opinion was asked on this, 
 as on the other questions. The sad fate, which 
 in a few years closed the sufferings of the ac- 
 cused, was thought by her enemies to be but 
 a melancholy commentary upon her prediction, 
 interpreted in either way. 
 
 It was upon these, to say the least, incom- 
 plete, undefined, and unsubstantiated charges 
 only, that Mrs. Hutchinson could be convicted 
 at all. Mr. Coddington alone raised a word of 
 direct and bold opposition, alleging in her sup- 
 port the various explanations and palliations, 
 which would suggest themselves to any cool 
 observer, to relieve the real blame which might 
 attach to Mrs. Hutchinson. The intention of 
 the Court was probably fixed before her exami- 
 nation. Governor Winthrop therefore put the 
 question, whether it was the mind of the Court 
 that, for " the troublesomeness of her spirit, and 
 the danger of her course," she should be ban- 
 ished, and imprisoned until she could be sent 
 away. All but three held up the hand. Of 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 297 
 
 these three, Mr. Jennison, deputy from Ipswich, 
 said he could not vote either way, and would 
 give his reasons if desired. Mr. Coddington, 
 the magistrate, and Mr. Colburn, deputy of Bos- 
 ton, alone put up the hand in opposition. 
 
 The sentence, as pronounced in the Court, 
 stands upon the records of Massachusetts as 
 follows ; 
 
 " Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of Mr. William 
 Hutchinson, being convicted for traducing the 
 ministers and their ministry in the country, she 
 declared voluntarily her revelations, and that she 
 should be delivered, and the Court ruined with 
 their posterity, and thereupon was banished, and 
 in the mean while was committed to Mr. Joseph 
 Welde (of Roxbury) until the Court shall dis- 
 pose of her." * 
 
 The guardian to whose care she was thus 
 temporarily committed, that her banishment might 
 not be in the winter, was a deputy of Roxbury, 
 and a brother of the minister. She was to be 
 treated with kindness at his house, at the ex- 
 
 * Massachusetts Court Records, Vol. I. p. 203. There 
 are two accounts of tliis trial preserved ; one, copied from 
 an old manuscript, is in the Appendix to Hutchinson's 
 History of Massachusetts, Vol. II. ; the other is given in 
 Mr. Welde's tract. The former is more full, and is 
 apparently impartial, though some passages were obliter 
 ated by time, before the document was printed. 
 
298 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 pense of her husband ; but only her particular 
 friends and the elders were to be admitted to 
 her, lest the eloquence of persecution should 
 double the power and the mischief of her gifts. 
 
 The Court, being determined to make thorough 
 work in this vexatious matter, called before them 
 all who had put their names to the remonstrance, 
 or were ready to approve it. Of these, Captain 
 Underbill, relying upon his military merits, stood 
 stoutly to his signature ; and, being asked for a 
 Scripture warrant for such contempt of magis- 
 trates, he first took refuge under the rough 
 speech of Joab to King David, and then alleged 
 the freedom always allowed to military officers, 
 and of which he had taken the hcense with 
 Count Nassau in the Low Countries. But his 
 double plea would not save him from disfran- 
 chisement and the loss of office. As already 
 hinted, he was amenable to some more cogniza- 
 ble charges than those of heresy and free speech. 
 All who held public places, and who joined in 
 the remonstrance, were deposed. 
 
 All the work of exorcism that was yet left 
 undone, was completed by a summary measure, 
 which will be best described in the words of 
 the Court record. 
 
 " Whereas the opinions and revelations of 
 Mr. Wheelwright and Mrs. Hutchinson have 
 seduced and led into dangerous errors many 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 299 
 
 of the people here hi New England, insomuch 
 as there is just cause of suspicion that they, as 
 others in Germany in former times, may, upon 
 some revelation, make some sudden irruption 
 upon those that differ from them in judgment ; 
 for prevention whereof, it is ordered, that all 
 those whose names are underwritten shall (upon 
 warning given or left at their dwelling-houses) 
 before the thirtieth day of this month of No- 
 vember, deliver in at Mr. Cane's [Keayne's] 
 house, at Boston, all such guns, pistols, swords, 
 powder, shot, and match, as they shall be own- 
 ers of, or have in their custody, upon pain of 
 ten pounds for every default to be made there- 
 of;"* a like penalty being enjoined if any of 
 those thus disarmed should purchase any arms or 
 ammunition. Then follow the names of those 
 thus sentenced, including fifty-eight of Boston, 
 five of Salem, three of Newbury, five of Rox- 
 bury, two of Ipswich, and two of Charlestown. 
 Liberty was granted to any of the condemned 
 to escape this penalty, by acknowledging " their 
 sin, in subscribmg this seditious libel, to two 
 magistrates." 
 
 This order was obeyed only with the great- 
 est reluctance and discontent, which in some 
 amounted almost to a purpose of resistance. It 
 
 * Court Records, Vol. I. p. 207. 
 
300 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 added to their humiliation, that they were com- 
 pelled to go of themselves and deliver up their 
 arms. But resistance would have been vain, as 
 Boston, where the disaffected were principally 
 found, was under the ban of the jurisdiction. 
 We are forced to believe, that either imagina- 
 tion or threats offered to the Court some reason 
 to apprehend, that the tragedies of Munster might 
 be repeated here. It is too much to suppose, 
 that the suggestion was a mere pretence to cloak 
 an arbitrary and cowardly measure, especially 
 as the Court soon after ordered the powder and 
 arms belonging to the country to be removed 
 from Boston to Roxbury and Cambridge. Un- 
 doubtedly, some sudden outrage was feared, as 
 the violent action of high-wrought enthusiasm 
 inspired by prophecy and revelation. Mr. Welde, 
 in evident sincerity, says, that hints of this kind 
 were dropped, and beside, that some intimations 
 of what was to occur, and some delirious pre- 
 dictions, were so boldly and freely spoken, that 
 Mr. Cotton made them the subject of several 
 warning sermons.* 
 
 Ten of the censured party recanted immedi- 
 ately on the promulgation of the order of the 
 Court, and others did the same, who were not 
 on the list. They were at once pardoned. 
 
 * Welde's Short Story, &c. p. 42. 
 
ANNE HLT CHIN SON. 301 
 
 The majority of those thus dealt by, in pro- 
 cess of time, were concihated ; but some of them 
 were aUenated once for all from Massachusetts. 
 These left the jurisdiction, as we shall soon 
 see. The spirit of opposition, and the sense of 
 wrong, being once kindled in their breast, re- 
 mained in them for life. Their opinions de- 
 parted further and further from those established 
 in Massachusetts, and a few returned to Boston 
 in the character of Quakers, on visits of annoy- 
 ance. Mrs. Dyer, who was sadly signahzed in 
 the controversy with Mrs. Hutchinson, being, 
 after repeated banishment as a Quaker, con- 
 demned to death, was hanged as such on Bos- 
 ton Common. 
 
 The Court felt the importance of forestalling 
 public opinion in England in reference to their 
 proceedings, that they might not suffer by slan- 
 derous reports, and that their "godly friends" 
 might not be discouraged from coming over. 
 Accordingly, an account of the whole controversy 
 was sent into England, which was printed there, 
 and introduced with a preface by Mr. Welde, 
 of Roxbury, while he was in England, in 1644.* 
 Doubtless he was the writer of the whole con- 
 
 * " A Short Story of the Rise, Reign, and Ruin, of the 
 Antinomians, Familists, and Liberalists, that infected the 
 Churches of New England," &c. 
 
302 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tents. This tract created much sensation abroad, 
 and is referred to in many of the pam.phlets 
 of the time. 
 
 The weight of indignation of the members 
 of the Boston church fell upon Governor Win- 
 throp, as at least the civil leader in the se- 
 vere prosecution against them. A vigorous effort 
 was made to call him to account, but the elders 
 would not encourage the measure. The Gov- 
 ernor, being aware of the feeling and the inten- 
 tion, took occasion to speak at large upon the 
 matter before the whole congregation, when he 
 said that, if his course had been publicly ques- 
 tioned, he should have fully justified himself by 
 proving the absolute irresponsibility of the Court, 
 for its proceedings, to the church.* He also ad- 
 dressed a letter, dated January I.5th, 1637-8, 
 to his " Worthy Friends and Beloved Brethren, 
 Mr. Coddington, Mr. Coggeshall, and Mr. Col- 
 burn," censuring them for their " rash, unwar- 
 ranted, and seditious delinquency," in signing 
 the remonstrance against the proceedings of the 
 Court.f An order was likewise passed in the 
 Court against any one, especially a magistrate, 
 who should be guilty of contempt ; yet an attempt 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. pp. 249, 250. 
 
 I This document is in the Appendix to Savage's Win- 
 throp, Vol. I. p. 403. 
 
AJINE HUTCHINSON. 303 
 
 is made to distinguish the right of petition, as 
 it is acknowledged that " the best judges may 
 err through ignorance or misinformation." * 
 
 Among the lamentable results of the contro- 
 versy, at this stage of it, was the development 
 of various wild and free notions, which are prob- 
 ably to be in justice ascribed as much to the 
 manner in which heresy had been treated, as to 
 the heresy itself. The church at Roxbury be- 
 gan to deal with the offenders in its own com- 
 munion. Those who had signed the petition 
 were called to account, and were examined at 
 great length. Winthrop and Welde assert, that 
 this examination " discovered," we might say cre- 
 ated, or called into being, " divers other foul er- 
 rors " and " corrupt opinions." Admonition was 
 at first attempted in the Roxbury church ; but, 
 as this was found insufficient, five or six mem- 
 bers were excommunicated, and some of these, 
 says Winthrop, were taken " in plain lies and 
 other foul distempers." f The reference doubt- 
 less is to the " inferences " of a most objection- 
 able character, which were drawn from offen- 
 sive opinions, though not professed or allowed 
 by the accused. 
 
 * Court Records, Vol. I., under date. 
 
 t Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 250. Welde, p. 43. 
 
304 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Interviews of the Elders with Mrs. Hutchinson. 
 — Another List of Heresies. — The Elders 
 prompt the Boston Church to proceed against 
 her. — Her two Examinations after Thursday 
 Lecture. — Her Answers. — Appearance of Har- 
 mony. — Her Admonition. — Is charged with 
 Deception, and on that Charge is excommuni- 
 cated. — Alienation of some of her Friends. — 
 Absence of some of her chief Supporters. — 
 Preparations for a Removal to Rhode Island, 
 
 There was yet another ordeal, through which 
 Mrs. Hutchinson was to pass, more legitimate, 
 if not more merciful, in its dealings. The 
 church, to which she had voluntarily united her- 
 self, had, by its covenant, a relation of responsi- 
 bility to her, and she had the same to the church, 
 in matters of faith and discipline. She was now 
 for the first time to be called to account by this 
 body as a diseased member. But even this 
 measure did not originate in that church, nor 
 would it, probably, have been adopted there, if 
 the church had been left unadvised to its own 
 motions. The magistrates and ministers could 
 have been induced by no earthly motive to 
 allow the obnoxious doctrines of the new par- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 305 
 
 ty to pass without further mterference. Con- 
 ferences and consultations were held in uninter- 
 rupted succession, for the sake of devising some 
 "way to help the growing evils." 
 
 While Mrs. Hutchinson was restrained at Rox- 
 bury, her spirits fell in natural melancholy ; but 
 she was more of an oracle then than ever before. 
 The elders, particularly, beset her with their 
 examinations. They went to her with the story 
 of some strange or foolish notion, which had been 
 ascribed to one or another of her friends. They 
 pressed her, too, with their own inferences, say- 
 ing, that if she held this, she must therefore hold 
 that. In this way, the elders discovered that 
 she held "gross errors, to the number of thirty 
 or thereabouts." In a conference in Boston, the 
 other ministers acquainted the Boston church 
 with these errors, offering to prove the liabihty 
 and the guilt of Mrs. Hutchinson in them, if she 
 would appear in the open congregation. The 
 elders of Boston assented to the motion, though 
 they declined appearing as witnesses. Permis- 
 sion being granted by the magistrates, she came 
 for this purpose to her own house in Boston. 
 
 Thursday, March 15th, 1638, the lecture was 
 set an hour earlier than usual, that full time 
 might be allowed for the solemn work of en- 
 deavoring to exhaust what little spirit, bad or 
 good, might be left in this dreaded heretic. Less 
 
 VOL. VI. 20 
 
306 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 than half of the interesting materials then offered 
 would have sufficed to make a holiday for old 
 and young ; but the whole of them, combined 
 and united, must have spread an intense and 
 universal excitement. The Court being then in 
 session at Cambridge, the Governor and Treasurer 
 were allowed to go to Boston as members of the 
 church. Mrs. Hutchinson did not come in until 
 after the usual services were finished ; an act of 
 implied contempt, which did not fail to be noted, 
 though she excused herself by alleging bodily 
 infirmity. 
 
 The new specifications of heresy charged upon 
 Mrs. Hutchinson were, for the most part, harm- 
 less speculations, wholly metaphysical, or at least 
 without any dangerous practical tendency ; and, 
 more than all, they were expressions of opinions 
 which she never would have obtruded, nor prob- 
 ably have uttered, of her own accord. The eld- 
 ers had digested from her conversations with 
 them twenty-nine heretical opinions. A copy of 
 them, subscribed with the names of witnesses, 
 had been sent to her some days before the ex- 
 amination ; and when the list was read before 
 the congregation she acknowledged them, though 
 she complained, as in the Court, that private 
 conversations were put to such a use, and vehe- 
 mently rebuked her pastor, Mr. Wilson, for fol- 
 lowing her sentence of banishment with reproach- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 307 
 
 es. Mrs. Hutchinson also alleged that she held 
 none of the errors now ascribed to her before 
 her restraint at Roxbury. 
 
 Formidable as is the list of the '' errors/' it 
 contains no matter new in the whole controver- 
 sy, except that she was charged with the doc- 
 trine of the Materialists ; and this was the chief 
 matter of debate. She held to the opinion, 
 " that the souls of men are mortal by generation, 
 but are afterwards made immortal by Christ's 
 purchase." She was, however, induced to ac- 
 knowledge, after a wearisome discussion, that the 
 opinion was confuted. The examination then 
 passed to another of her " erroneous opinions," 
 '•' that there was no resurrection of these bodies, 
 but that those who were united to Christ would 
 have new bodies." This opinion, which has 
 been and is held by Christians as wise and as 
 holy as any of her judges, she positively refused 
 to renounce. She listened patiently to all that 
 was said against it, and met every objection with 
 a most masterly and pertinent reply. In this 
 she fairly triumphed ; and as argument failed to 
 convince, and authority could not subdue her, 
 the elders of Boston propounded to the church 
 that she should be solemnly admonished. All 
 the church consented except two members ; 
 these two were sons of Mrs. Hutchinson ; and 
 because they would not join in censuring a pa- 
 
308 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 rent whom they revered, they were first admon- 
 ished, being most pitifully and pathetically ad- 
 dressed as giving way to natural affection, and 
 as " tearing the very bowels of their souls, by 
 hardening their mother in sin." * 
 
 Mr. Cotton, who pronounced the admonition 
 on the sons, pronounced it also upon the moth- 
 er. He spoke to her of the high esteem in 
 which she was at first held, and of the good 
 service she had then rendered, but added that, 
 by her recent course and heresies, she had done 
 more of harm. '^ He laid her sin to her con- 
 science with much zeal and solemnity ; he ad- 
 monished her also of the height of her spirit ; 
 then he spake to the sisters of the church, and 
 advised them to take heed of her opinions, and 
 to withhold all countenance and respect from 
 her, lest they should harden her in her sin." 
 These outrageous proceedings were continued 
 till eight o'clock at night, when the victim was 
 told to prepare for another like trial on the next 
 '' lecture-day." 
 
 The Court had ordered that Mrs. Hutchinson 
 should return to Roxbury again ; '^ but, upon in- 
 timation that her spirit began to fall," and with 
 the hope that she might be subdued, she was 
 
 * Welde's Short Story, &c. p. 62. Cotton (Answer to 
 Baylie) says that only one son dissented, and received ad- 
 monition. Welde says two. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 309 
 
 allowed to remain, during the ensuing week, at 
 the house of Mr. Cotton, where Mr. Davenport, 
 of New Haven, was then visiting. The two 
 ministers used all their influence to soften and 
 to change her views. 
 
 At her second examination, which took place 
 after the lecture, March 22d, Mrs. Hutchinson, 
 in true humihty of spirit for whatever uninten- 
 tional errors she might have held or committed, 
 yet with a dignified profession of her liberty to 
 keep her own convictions, again stood before 
 the whole congregation. The efforts of the two 
 ministers had had an effect upon her, so far as 
 to bring her into a readiness to allow and con- 
 fess all that truly Christian-minded and consid- 
 erate judges could in reason have required. She 
 delivered answers in writing to the opinions 
 charged upon her, and acknowledged some error 
 in all of them except that relating to the resur- 
 rection. Being permitted to address the con- 
 gregation, she humbly acknowledged faults of 
 temper, of speech, and of conduct ; she thought 
 that God might have left her to herself for the 
 slights which she had put upon the ordinances, 
 upon the ministers, and the magistrates ; she 
 owned that her speeches and revelations in the 
 Court were rash and groundless ; and she de- 
 sired the prayers of the church in her behalf. 
 
310 AMERICAN BIjOGRAPHY. 
 
 Thus far it seemed as if this formidable here- 
 tic was subdued, and would yet become the in- 
 strument of reclaiming all who had followed her 
 in the way of dissension. But when her answers 
 in writing were examined, they were found to be 
 encumbered with explanations and circumlocu- 
 tions, and were not satisfactory. She denied 
 that she had ever held the opinion attributed 
 to her, " that there is no inherent righteousness 
 in the saints, and that the righteousness in them 
 is all the righteousness of Christ ; " and she as- 
 cribed the charge against her, on that account, 
 as well she might, to the obscurity, or misunder- 
 standing, or misrepresentation, of her expressions. 
 Upon this arose an imputation of falsehood. 
 She insisted that she had never held the offen- 
 sive opinion. Others affirmed that she had no- 
 toriously expressed it. The elders and others 
 directly accused her of lying, and she as perti- 
 naciously maintained her innocence. For this 
 Mrs. Hutchinson was condemned by the church. 
 The controversy, of three years' continuance, 
 which had drawn nearly the whole of the be- 
 lievers in Boston, magistrates, ministers, women, 
 soldiers, and the common multitude, under the 
 banners of a female leader, and had changed the 
 government of the colony, and spread its strange 
 reports over Protestant Europe, was thus brought 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 311 
 
 to an issue, by imputing deception about one of 
 the most unintelligible tenets of faith to her, who 
 could not be circumvented in any other way. 
 
 Some moved that the admonition against her 
 should be repeated; but the church, by silence, 
 gave general consent to her excommunication. 
 Mr. Cotton shifted the disgraceful work upon 
 the pastor, Mr. Wilson, on the plea that an un- 
 truth, being " matter of manners," came under 
 his discipline. Mrs. Hutchinson offered no ob- 
 jection, nor asked for delay. The venerable rec- 
 ords of the First Church in Boston are thus 
 disfigured by the following entry; ''The 22d 
 of the 1st Month, [March,] 1638. Anne, the 
 wife of our brother, William Hutchinson, having 
 on the 15th of this month been openly, in the 
 public congregation, admonished of sundry er- 
 rors held by her, was on the same 22d day 
 cast out of the church, for impenitently per- 
 sisting in a manifest lie, then expressed by her 
 in open congregation."* 
 
 Thus it appears that Mrs. Hutchinson, in her 
 
 * Records of the First Church of Boston, p. 9. The 
 account given in the text of the examinations of Mrs. 
 Hutchinson before the church, is drawn from the state- 
 ments of Welde and Winthrop. Candor, therefore, would 
 lead us to believe, that there were some softening and re- 
 deeming particulars, which, if tending at all to the honor of 
 the accused, would not have been recorded by these writers. 
 
312 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 examination before the cliurch, made all Chris- 
 tian amends for everything that had been amiss 
 in her conduct in society, and in her language 
 and behavior before the Court; and that she was 
 excommunicated on the charge of deception, of 
 falsehood. This charge rested wholly on the 
 ground just stated. She offered a satisfactory 
 explanation of some bold and literal statements 
 of doctrinal belief, and followed the explanation 
 with the direct assertion, that she had never 
 maintained or taught anything different from 
 her present professions. To have allowed the 
 matter to be thus disposed of, would have ap- 
 proached so near to self-humiliation on the part 
 of her most heated opponents, that any other 
 course would have been preferable to them. To 
 admit that all the excitement and passion, which 
 had distracted the colony, had arisen from the 
 indefiniteness of language, was a concession 
 too large for the well known characteristics of 
 human nature. It was far easier to charge a 
 woman of unchallenged integrity and virtue with 
 falsehood, provided that charge could be relieved 
 or heightened, as might be, by the mystifications 
 of a hair-splitting theology. 
 
 The result of this examination tends greatly 
 to confirm a conviction, which arises at the first 
 notice of the controversy, and which grows strong 
 through its progress, that it was not so much 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 313 
 
 Mrs. Hutchinson's views, as the inferences which 
 a jealous and timid party drew from them, that 
 caused her to be so harshly dealt with. At the 
 same time it should be allowed, that the more 
 unwise and rash among her followers helped 
 these inferences to become real and most of- 
 fensive opinions, actually received, and freely 
 expressed, often, too, in more offensive and un- 
 becoming ways. It is equally disagreeable and 
 unnecessary to believe, that Mrs. Hutchinson 
 practised any deception. 
 
 She held literally and earnestly to the con- 
 viction, that a person who was in the way of 
 salvation had an assurance within his breast, 
 written or whispered there by the Spirit of God ; 
 and that all outside piety, whatever its means, 
 recommendations, and value, was so infinitely be- 
 low that inward assurance as to belong to an- 
 other, even to a hostile, covenant. And this is 
 but one of the many phases of the controversy 
 concerning faith and works. Her fundamental 
 opinion, on the leading tenet just stated, was 
 what had been dear to Mrs. Hutchinson from 
 the commencement of her religious experience. 
 It was the light, which she believed had shined 
 into her mind upon it, that gave her peace in 
 England ; and it was to cherish that light, that 
 she resigned herself to share the exile of the only 
 two preachers in all England, who " spoke to 
 
314 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 her condition." This tenet, all the original no- 
 tices of her agree in declaring, she began to 
 explain and enforce in sick chambers, and by 
 their bearings upon it, she expounded at her 
 meetings the sermons which favored or con- 
 flicted with it. It was this tenet which won for 
 her the approval of Cotton, the admiration of 
 young Vane, and tlie sterling regard of Cod- 
 dington. This tenet she never yielded, nor did 
 she evade any legitimate and rigid inferences 
 from it. If she deceived her judges at all, it 
 was in not allowing them to fasten upon her 
 any caricatured likenesses or deductions from 
 her opinions. 
 
 The question naturally presents itself. What 
 had wrought so great a change in the Boston 
 church, so that, from having only some half- 
 dozen members to oppose her course in one year, 
 the whole covenanted company should unite in 
 visitmg upon her the heaviest ecclesiastical cen- 
 sure in the year following? This question ad- 
 mits of a very satisfactory answer ; for three prin- 
 cipal causes, to omit a reference to others which 
 might have operated, contributed to eflfect that 
 change in a way perfectly consistent with the 
 fair credit of Mrs. Hutchinson. 
 
 Whatever may have been the just grounds 
 of alarm, offered by the heat and folly of indi- 
 viduals, to authorize the Court to disarm the 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 315 
 
 majority of the Boston cliurch, on the plea that 
 they might venture to repeat the tragedy of 
 Munster, it is still apparent that the followers of 
 Mrs. Hutchinson were remarkably patient and 
 peaceable. They marked the steady course of 
 opposition, and with it the increased exertion of 
 the civil power to overwhelm the weaker party. 
 To such a struggle there could be but one 
 termination, and they preferred to anticipate, 
 rather than to defer it. The comfort of their 
 famihes, the relations of neighborhood, their civil 
 privileges, their landed property and improve- 
 ments, and, what was the crowning comfort of 
 their lives, the delight of their temple services, 
 were all at ctake, and they were willing to sac- 
 rifice something to retain them. There were 
 many in the Boston church, who weighed this 
 balance of peace, and union, and prosperity, 
 against a cherished friend and opinion ; and 
 though all, who thus allowed prudence to add 
 the turning weight, would have resisted if any- 
 thing could have been hoped from resistance, 
 they were willing to acquiesce in silence in the 
 ultimate action of the church ; for it is not 
 probable, that they joined in the vote of ex- 
 communication, even if they were present in 
 the assembly. 
 
 Others may have been turned from their at- 
 tachment to Mrs. Hutchinson by the very means 
 
316 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 used to insure her condemnation. The infer- 
 ences, which had been drawn from her opinions, 
 might well shock some timid persons. The for- 
 midable list of heretical articles, authenticated by 
 the signatures of elders, and thus forcing upon 
 her, in a public defence, certain rash and hasty 
 expressions used in private conversation, may 
 have led some to discover in her views danger 
 and folly. If the catalogue of unclaimed and 
 unattributed errors, read over in the Synod, 
 had so irritated her followers as to drive them 
 from its attractive discussions, many of these 
 same persons might have been appalled at dis- 
 covering that she acknowledged any part of 
 them. If these offensive inferences from her 
 opinions could suggest themselves to some per- 
 sons, others might be frightened by them. It 
 is probable that in this way many of Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson's friends were alienated from her. They 
 were inclined to admit that they had been en- 
 trapped into real heresy, were likely to be led 
 on much beyond the limits of speculation, which 
 they recognized as authoritative ; and from mere 
 dread of being committed to a reckless and faith- 
 less fellowship of errors, they did not inquire 
 very carefully into the course, which had been 
 pursued with Mrs. Hutchinson by the ministers 
 after her condemnation by the Court. Doubt- 
 less many of the church were led by the heret- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 317 
 
 ical articles nominally vouched by Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson, to allow, if not to encourage, her excom- 
 munication. 
 
 From the two causes just named, the worldly- 
 prudent and timid of the Boston church might 
 be led to condemn her whom they but lately 
 approved ; and these are all for whose supposed 
 change of opinion we have to account. The 
 more devoted and distinguished among the friends 
 of Mrs. Hutchinson did not join in her sentence, 
 nor sit to hear it pronounced, for they were not 
 present when she was examined. Their absence, 
 which thus enabled the church to act with their 
 apparent sanction, even Winthrop does not hesi- 
 tate to refer to, as a contingency designed by the 
 providence of God.* ^ 
 
 Mr. John Clarke, one of the more eminent 
 of the fifty-eight church members, who had been 
 disarmed by the order ot the Court, proposed to 
 some of his censured brethren a removal from 
 the jurisdiction, and had been seeking a place of 
 refuge in the summer, before their last penalty 
 was laid upon them. They intended to go 
 to the southward ; but, while their vessel was 
 passing round Cape Cod, they crossed by land, 
 with a view to sail afterwards to Long Island 
 and Delaware Bay. At Providence, they met 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. 1. p. 258. 
 
318 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 with Roger Williams, by whose recommendation, 
 and the advice of some friends at Plymouth, 
 they concluded to settle at Aquetneck, now 
 Rhode Island. Having come to this determina- 
 tion, they went back to Boston, to make arrange- 
 ments for their removal ; and early in the spring, 
 they made a permanent settlement at Pocasset, 
 now Newport. The number of refugees in- 
 creasing, another settlement was soon made at 
 Portsmouth, the opposite extremity of the island. 
 The civil compact, entered into by these twice 
 exiled sufferers for conscience, was signed by eigh- 
 teen persons, on the 7th of March, 1638, a fort- 
 night before the excommunication of Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson.* William Coddington and Edward Hutch- 
 inson, junior or senior, are the only two names 
 subscribed to this compact, which are not on the 
 list of the disarmed ; and of the whole eighteen, 
 at least twelve were members of the Boston 
 church. Whether or not advantage was taken 
 of their departure to visit upon Mrs. Hutchinson 
 the ecclesiastical penalty, is doubtful ; but it is 
 certain that their absence insured her condemna- 
 tion, though some of them occasionally visited 
 Boston while completing their arrangements. We 
 
 * Callender's Century Sermon, Rhode Island Hist. Coll. 
 Vol. IV. p. 84. The cession of the island to these asso- 
 ciates was made by the Indians on the 24th of tins same 
 month. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 319 
 
 find, indeed, upon the records of the Court, that, 
 on the 12th of March, several of these offensive 
 persons, with the names of Mr. Coddington and 
 Deacon Coggeshall opening the list, were called 
 to appear, if in the jurisdiction, to answer about 
 their departing or remaining.* Mr. Coddington 
 did not remove his family to the island until 
 April 26th.t 
 
 After sentence was pronounced in the church 
 against Mrs. Hutchinson, her spirits, which had 
 been sensibly depressed, and with good reason, 
 considering her place and treatment, rallied again, 
 and all her dignity, and probably all her assur- 
 ance, came to her aid. She did not pour insult 
 or defiance upon her judges ; but she gloried in 
 her experience, and said that, next to Christ, she 
 was enjoying the highest happiness of her life. 
 Mr. Welde put his own construction upon this 
 triumphing of the " American Jezabel," by clos- 
 ing his '' Story " in these words ; " God giving 
 her up, since the sentence of excommunication, 
 to that hardness of heart, as she is not affected 
 with any remorse, but glories in it, and fears 
 not the vengeance of God which she lies under, 
 
 * Massachusetts Court Records, Vol. I., under date. The 
 cause assigned in the Records is, that the Court had re- 
 ceived an intimation that Coddington and others intended 
 to go off only for a time, and then to return to Boston. 
 
 t Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 261. 
 
320 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 as if God did work contrary to his own word, 
 and loosed from heaven, while his church had 
 bound upon earth." * 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Warrant of the Sentence of Banishment 
 against Mrs. Hutchinson enforced. — She leaves 
 Massachusetts for Rhode Island. — New Anxi- 
 eties aroused by that Colony. — Condition q/ 
 the Boston Church. — Mrs. Hutchinson writes a 
 Letter of Admonition. — Charged with denying 
 Magistracy. — A disorderly Church gathered 
 by the Exiles. — Mrs. Hutchinson continues her 
 Prophesyings. — A Deputation sent to her from 
 the Church at Boston. — Their Report of their 
 Mission, and Action upon it. — Francis Hutch- 
 inson^ s Letter. — Mr. Cotton's Reply. — Let- 
 ter of the Church to Mrs. Hutchinson^ s Friends. 
 — Debate upon it. — Reverend Mr. Collins 
 and Francis Hutchinson imprisoned in Boston. 
 
 Two or three days after the ecclesiastical cen- 
 sure against Mrs. Hutchinson, Governor Winthrop 
 
 * Welde's ShoH Story, p. 66. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 321 
 
 required her to comply with the sentence, which 
 had been previously pronounced against her in 
 the Court, enjoining her to leave the jurisdiction 
 by the end of March. Yielding to the authority 
 of his warrant, she left Boston by water, on the 
 28th of the month, for Mount Wollaston, (Brain- 
 t^-ee,) where her husband, like many other Bos- 
 lAi people, had a farm. Her intention was 
 to accompany Mr. Wheelwright and his family 
 to the new settlement, designed by him and 
 some of his followers, at the Falls of the Piscata- 
 qua, to which he gave the name of Exeter. But 
 her husband having already united with others 
 in the purchase of Rhode Island, she changed 
 her intention, and went by land to Providence, 
 where she joined her friends for their new des- 
 tination. 
 
 Tfllie terrors of the law were held over the 
 heretics of Boston ; and it being once decided 
 that they must depart, it was concluded that the 
 sooner the jurisdiction was rid of them, the more 
 probable would be the hope of restoring peace 
 among a distracted people. In the course of 
 the following summer, large numbers of Boston 
 and the neighborhood moved to the Island ; and 
 freedom of conscience allowed, perhaps it did 
 something to create, a very great variety of opin- 
 ion about religious institutions, ordinances, and 
 doctrines. 
 
 VOL. VI. 21 
 
322 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 It seemed, for a season, to be doubtful wheth- 
 er the summary measures taken against the 
 Antinomians would effect anything more than 
 merely to change the form, in which the annoy- 
 ance of their influence would manifest itself. 
 There was by no means a restoration of harmony 
 in the church at Boston for many months. The 
 relations of private life had been imbittered ; and 
 the manner in which opinions had been dealt 
 by, as well as the opinions themselves, had intro- 
 duced feuds which did not for a long time sub- 
 side. There is no period of the colonial his- 
 tory, which, as far as regards the character, 
 motives, and conduct, of individuals, requires 
 more caution in the perusal of its records than 
 this. 
 
 All sorts of wild and ruinous speculations and 
 practices were attributed by Massachusettsu wri- 
 ters to the early settlers of Rhode Island. Some 
 of these charges may now be satisfactorily proved 
 false, and others were doubtless exaggerated. 
 Still it is but fair to allow, that the near prox- 
 imity of a company of disaffected and heretical 
 persons was a serious grievance to the people 
 of the Bay colony. Rhode Island harbored and 
 sheltered a class of enthusiasts and opinionists, 
 whom they considered as dangerous as malefac- 
 tors. It was also a place of safe refuge for all 
 obnoxious heretics, from which they might travel 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 323 
 
 easily to Boston, and instil the supposed poison 
 of their views, and then be off before the law, 
 though it was remarkably vigilant in this respect, 
 was able to seize them. Massachusetts felt that 
 the vagaries of even one man or woman might 
 endanger all her liberties, might render worthless 
 the property which the adventurers had embarked 
 in their enterprise, might bring upon them the 
 threatening arm of the commission in England, 
 and utterly annul the obligations and fellowship 
 of their church covenant. 
 
 It was, therefore, with mingled indignation 
 and alarm, that the authorities in Massachusetts 
 watched the successful commencement of a new 
 and heretical colony so near ; a colony which 
 expressly enfranchised all opinions in religion, 
 and restricted the power of the magistracy to the 
 very narrowest compass, even in civil matters. 
 Massachusetts used considerable ingenuity in de- 
 vising means for extending some sort of control 
 over those of the Island, who had been banished 
 from her jurisdiction, or had gone there in sym- 
 pathy with them. Some of these had been ex- 
 communicated, some admonished, by the church 
 at Boston, and others were still in communion 
 with it, as they had not been censured, nor had 
 voluntarily dissolved their own connection with 
 it. Over all these alike the church, according 
 to its covenant, was bound to keep watch and 
 
324 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 care. Even the excommunicated members were 
 still, in theory, subject to its discipline, were to 
 be reclaimed, and were expected to put them- 
 selves in the way of being restored. It was by 
 force of this plea, that Mrs. Hutchinson was re- 
 garded as, though a smoking and blazing brand, 
 still a brand which ought, if possible, to be 
 snatched from the burning. 
 
 Upon a Fast, which was observed in Massa- 
 chusetts, December 13th, 1638, on account of 
 prevailing sicknesses and heresies, " and the gen- 
 eral declining of professors to the world," Mr. 
 Cotton bewailed the state of things, and reviewed 
 the whole controversy caused by Mrs. Hutchin- 
 son. He gave, doubtless, a perfectly true and 
 candid statement of his part in it, and com- 
 plained that his own name had been abused, and 
 his opinions perverted, and himself made a cloak, 
 by seducers and heretics. Doctrines bearing only 
 a resemblance to those, which he had preached, 
 had been taught, and then ascribed to him, for 
 the sake of entrapping others, but denied by 
 their authors to himself, when he had expostu- 
 lated with them. He acknowledged the justice 
 of the sentence of banishment against the lead- 
 ers in the mischief, without naming them ; but 
 he recommended that those whom they had mis- 
 led should be dealt with by the church, or im- 
 prisoned, or fined, instead of being banished, as 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 325 
 
 this extreme punishment would sever them from 
 all religious privileges, and lead them into worse 
 heresies. The teacher doubtless suggested, at 
 the same time, some church proceedings in ref- 
 erence to those at the Island.* 
 
 Soon after this, Mrs. Hutchinson, probably 
 considering that if she still had any relation to 
 the Boston church, the relation was a recipro- 
 cal one, addressed to it a letter of admonition. 
 The elders would not give it a public reading, 
 because the writer w^as under excommunication .f 
 She continued to exercise her gifts in teach- 
 ing and exhortation, and certainly her own hard 
 experience, and the course which had been 
 pursued at Boston, afforded her many new, and 
 rich, and forcible illustrations of the difference 
 between the "covenant of grace" and the "cov- 
 enant of works." 
 
 The report soon came to Massachusetts, that 
 many at the Island, especially those under the 
 influence of Mrs. Hutchinson's new teachings, 
 were averse to any magistracy, and denied its 
 necessity and legitimacy. This charge has been 
 recently thought to be slanderous. Winthrop 
 says that, in a popular tumult, Mr. Coddington, 
 Judge or Governor of the Island colony, and 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 280. 
 t Ibid. p. 293. 
 
326 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the other three magistrates, were put out, and 
 only Mr. William Hutchinson, the husband of 
 the heretic, was raised to civil office. He was 
 indeed a magistrate in 1640, and probably would 
 have been again, had not his life closed in 1642 ; 
 but he was not alone in office, as there was 
 at the same time, as well as before and after- 
 wards, a Governor, and deputy, and three other 
 magistrates.* 
 
 The next information concerning the heretics 
 at the Island was, that they had " gathered a 
 church in a disordered way," consisting of 
 excommunicated and admonished members of 
 the Boston and Roxbury churches, of members 
 still attached to these churches, who had neither 
 been censured nor formally dismissed, and of 
 some new professors. This was a terrible scan- 
 
 * Letter of Chief Justice Eddy in a note to Savage's 
 Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 296. It would seem, however, as 
 if tliere was some ground for the charge of dislike to 
 magistracy imputed to Mrs. Hutchinson. The following 
 evidence appears direct. It is given by Baylie, in his 
 " Dissuasive from the Errors of the Time," p. 150, on the 
 authority of Roger Williams, when visiting England. " Mr. 
 Williams related to me that Mistress Hutchinson, (with 
 whom he was familiarly acquainted, and of whom he spake 
 much good,) after she had come to Rhode Island, and her 
 husband had been made Governor [magistrate] there, she 
 persuaded him to lay down his office upon the opinion, 
 which newly she had taken up of the unlawfulness of 
 magistracy." 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 327 
 
 dal to all, wliose religious faith loved to mani- 
 fest itself within the decent restraints of order. 
 Those whom the Boston church might still hope 
 to influence were at once called in question for 
 partaking in such a sin. A few, who came under 
 the censure, were wont frequently to visit Bos- 
 ton on their own or on others' business, and 
 they were dealt with as often as opportunity 
 oftered. Thus the discord still continued, the 
 controversy was still kept open ; and merely by 
 force of performing such acts of discipline so of- 
 ten, the great majority became gradually weaned 
 from attachment to Mrs. Hutchinson. Mr. Cod- 
 dington, the leader of the new colony, being 
 on a visit to Boston, was, like the rest, brought 
 under the discipline of the church, and because 
 he only acknowledged a measure of fault, and 
 would not admit the whole sin charged upon 
 him, he was solemnly admonished. 
 
 Popular regard, at least as far as the more 
 superstitious and timid among the people were 
 interested, was in a great measure turned from 
 Mrs. Hutchinson by a misfortune which befell 
 her as a mother, and which was exaggerated into 
 a horrible and loathsome tale. Even Winthrop 
 gives at length all the particulars in which a 
 deformity of nature, with all its sickening mi- 
 nutiae, is construed into a fearful warning from a 
 special providence. It became one. of his mag- 
 
328 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 nanimity and excellent wisdom, to have reflect- 
 ed whether the vexations and journeys to which 
 Mrs. Hutchinson had been subjected, her " fears 
 and tossings to and fro," were not the more 
 natural cause of her subjection to a not unusual 
 visitation. Mrs. Dyer, one of her devoted fol- 
 lowers, afterwards hanged in Boston as a Quaker, 
 was a subject of the same distressing fruit of trav- 
 ail. Both these cases were not only thoroughly 
 examined by physicians and magistrates, but 
 were even discoursed upon from pulpits, and 
 made public over Christendom. 
 
 The church in Boston concluded upon send- 
 ing a deputation of its members to the Island, to 
 make one more attempt to reclaim Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson and her followers. Mr. Welde says, that 
 " four men of a lovely and winning spirit " were 
 sent on this errand ; but by the record it appears 
 there were but three, namely, Captain Edward 
 Gibbons, Mr. William Hibbins, and Mr. John Ol- 
 iver. An account of their mission is extant in 
 manuscript. As this has never been made pub- 
 lic, and as our histories contain no similar de- 
 tails of acts of church discipline, it is here given 
 entire. The return was made in the meeting- 
 house, after Mr. Cotton had finished his usual 
 public exposition, March 16th, 1640.* 
 
 * For the extracts which follow, relating to the proceed- 
 ings in the church at Boston, I am indebted to a thick 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 329 
 
 '"Pastor. Those three brethren that were 
 sent by the church to those wandering sheep at 
 the Island being now returned, accordinge to 
 the custom of the churches and servants of God 
 in the Scripture, when they did returne, they 
 gave an account to the church of God's deal- 
 inge with them, the passages of his providences, 
 and how God carried them alonge ; it is ex- 
 pected of the church that some one of you, or 
 all of you one after another, should declare the 
 same, that the church may have matter to 
 praise God with you. 
 
 "Brother Hibbins. We think it our duty 
 to give an account to the church of God's 
 dealinge with us in our journey out and in, 
 and of the success of our business when we 
 came to our journey's end, at the Island. The 
 
 quarto MS., belonging to the Massachusetts Historical So- 
 ciety, and which, to an antiquarian, is of great value. 
 It contains the laborious penmanship of Captain Robert 
 Keayne, a famous merchant of Boston, from 1635 to 1655, 
 and the founder and first captain of the Ancient and Hon- 
 orable Artillery Company. He may well be" concluded to 
 have been on the Orthodox side in the Antinomian con- 
 troversy ; for it was to him, at his house, that all the disaf- 
 fected were ordered to deliver up their arms. His volume 
 contains notes of Mr. Cotton's Expositions of the Gospels, 
 and of several matters of discipline and debate before the 
 church. He himself came under its censure, for making 
 exorbitant profits on his goods, though he does not record it. 
 
330 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 second day of the vveeke we reached the first 
 night to Mount Wollistone, where we were re- 
 freshed at our brother Savage's house, whereby 
 we were comfortably fitted for our journey the 
 next day, in which, by the good mercy of God 
 and the help of your prayers, God did accom 
 pany us with seasonable weather. And in ou 
 journey, the first observable providence of God 
 that presented itself to our view, and especially 
 to my own observation, which was in provid- 
 ing for me a comfortable lodging that second 
 night, which was the thing I most feared, be- 
 cause I never was used to lie without a bed. 
 There was one that met us in the way that 
 came from Cohannet, who had a house to him- 
 self, and he, of his own accord, did give us leave 
 to lodge and abide in his house that night, where 
 myself especially, and all of us, had comforta- 
 ble lodging for that night, which was a great 
 refreshing to us, and a dehverance from my 
 fear. 
 
 "The next providence of God that fell out 
 in our journey, was some manifestations of God's 
 hand against us ; for being the fourth day to pass 
 over a river in a canoe in which was eight of 
 US; our canoe did hang upon a tree, to our very 
 great danger, the water running swiftly away. 
 Now my ignorance was such that I feared no 
 danger, though those who had more skill saw 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 331 
 
 we were in imminent danger. Here our God 
 delivered us. 
 
 ''But now, we coming safe over the water, 
 it pleased God to exercise us much in the loss 
 of our brother Oliver, whose company we missed 
 and did not perceive it, he falling into Mr. Lut- 
 tall's company, that was agoing the way to the 
 Island ; then they lost their way. And as our 
 hearts were full of fear and care for our broth- 
 er, so was his for us. The fear was increased 
 on both sides, because there fell a great snow, 
 and very hard weather upon it, and it was to 
 our great rejoicing when we met one another 
 again in health and safety, according to the good 
 hand of our God, that was upon us in our jour- 
 ney ; and they had been exposed to much dan- 
 ger in that cold season, for want of a fire, and 
 all means to make it, had not the Lord beyond 
 expectation provided for them, to bring forth a 
 Httle powder through the shot of the piece. 
 Now the fifth day we were to go over another 
 river, where we were in great danger, our canoe 
 falling upon a rock, which, had not some of 
 our brethren, more skilful, stepped out off the 
 rock, and put off the canoe, our danger had been 
 very great. But God brought us safe at last 
 on the sixth day, viz., the 28th day of the 12th 
 month, to our great rejoicing. 
 
 "Brother Oliver. Now for the success of 
 
332 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 our journey to our brethren at the Island. We 
 acquainted them with our purpose in coming, 
 and desired that they would procure us a meet- 
 ing that day ; but for reasons in their own breast, 
 and because of the snow, they did not think 
 meet then to give us a meeting ; but the next 
 day they promised and did give us a meeting, 
 Mr. Aspinwall, our brother Baulston, brother 
 Sanfoard, and others ; and we delivered our mes- 
 sage and the church's letter, which they read 
 and gave us satisfactory answers. The next 
 day we went to Portsmouth, where being en- 
 tertained at our brother Cogshall's house, we 
 desired them to procure us a meeting, to de- 
 liver our message and the church's letter. But 
 when we expected a meeting, Mr. Cogshall sent 
 us word, that by reason of a civil meeting, that 
 was before appointed. But for a meeting, they 
 did not know what power one church hath over 
 another church, and they denied our commission, 
 and refused to let our letter be read. And 
 they conceive one church hath not power over 
 the members of another church, and do not think 
 they are tied to us by our covenant. And so 
 were we fain to take all their answers by go- 
 ing to their several houses. Mr. Hutchinson 
 told us he was more nearly tied to his wife 
 than to the church ; he thought her to be a 
 dear saint and servant of God. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 333 
 
 •^ We came then to Mrs. Hutchinson, and 
 told her that we had a message to do to her 
 from the Lord, and from our church. She an- 
 swered, 'There are lords many and gods many, 
 but I acknowledge but one Lord. Which Lord 
 do you mean ? ' We answered, ' We came in 
 the name of but one Lord, and that is God.' 
 ' Then,' saith she, ' so far we agree ; and where 
 we do agree, let it be set down.' Then we told 
 her, ' We had a message to her from the church 
 of Christ in Boston.' She replied, ' She knew no 
 church but one.' We told her, 'In Scripture, 
 the Holy Ghost calls them churches.' She said, 
 ' Christ had but one spouse.' We told her, ' He 
 had in some sort as many spouses as saints.' 
 But for our church, she would not acknowledge 
 it any church of Christ. 
 
 " Mr. Cotton. Time being far spent, it will 
 not be seasonable to speak much. We bless 
 God with our brethren for their protection in 
 their journey, asunder and together. We find 
 they have faithfully and wisely discharged the 
 trust and care put upon them. 
 
 " For the answers of our brethren at the Isl- 
 and, they are divers. As for those at Ports- 
 mouth, that they would not receive their mes- 
 sage and commission, except they would present 
 it to their church, which had been to have ac- 
 knowledged them a lawful church, which they 
 
334 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 had no commission to do ; now these do wholly 
 refuse to hear the church, or to hold any sub- 
 mission or subjection to the church ; I would 
 not expect any answer now, but that the church 
 consider of it till the next day. Now consider, 
 First, whether this be not a transgression of the 
 rule in Matt, xviii. ' If they will not hear you, 
 tell the church,' and so fall under the censure 
 of the church. Secondly, they were in cove- 
 nant with us as a wife to the husband, (I Cor. 
 vii. 15,) but like a harlot she walks home for 
 all her covenant. Now if they will go, whether 
 we be not discharged of our covenant with them, 
 and so cut them off as no members ; we shall 
 consider with elders of other churches what is 
 best to be done in such cases. 
 
 *' Others do not refuse to hear the church, 
 but answer as far as they can go; only some 
 scruple the covenant, and others, other things, 
 but do not reject the church, but do honor and 
 esteem of us as churches of Christ. Now con- 
 sider, whether it is not meet that we should 
 first write to them, and labor to satisfy them, 
 and to take off their grounds, and see if they 
 may be reduced before we go to further pro- 
 ceedings with them. I would know how far 
 the wives do consent or dissent from their hus- 
 bands, or whether they be as resolute and ob- 
 stinately peremptory as they. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 335 
 
 '' There is another sort, and that was of such 
 as are excommunicate. Now we have gone as 
 far with them as I think we can go, except they 
 did show some pertinacy and obstinacy against 
 Christ Jesus, and then the greater censure of 
 anathema maranatha, that is for Mrs. Hutchin- 
 son. But such as start aside from church cen- 
 sure and rules out of ignorance, another course 
 is to be taken with them, to reduce them again, 
 if we can, as Mrs. Harding and Mrs. Dyer, who 
 acknowledge the churches, and desire commu- 
 nion with us still. And for Mr. Aspinwall, he 
 now being satisfied of the righteous and just 
 proceedings of the church in casting out some 
 of our members, and so refuseth to have any 
 communion with them in the things of God. 
 
 "I pray consider of these things against the 
 next Lord's day, according to the distributions 
 of the qualitie and nature of their offences ; as 
 those that are necessarily tied there for a home ; 
 as children to their parents, and wives to hus- 
 bands, and others that stand out of obstinacy. 
 
 '' I see the devil goes about to ^harden the 
 hearts of brethren against church censures, and 
 so to despise all church proceedings, and there- 
 upon question church covenant, to shake all 
 churches, and to question it altogether, or some 
 parts of it, and how far it binds, and whether 
 it be a part of tlie covenant of grace or no, 
 
336 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 which I hope will be more and more cleared 
 up." 
 
 We learn from the same record, which with 
 painful faithfulness has chronicled the above, 
 that the matter came again before the church 
 in the month following. 
 
 "Pastor. Brethren, you know the business 
 of the Island hath been a long time propound- 
 ed and taken by the church into consideration, 
 and now we should draw to some issue and 
 determination. You know the cases of them 
 there do much differ ; some are under admo- 
 nition, and some under excommunication, and 
 some have given satisfaction in part to the 
 church, and do hold themselves still as members 
 of the church, and do yet hearken to us and 
 seek to give satisfaction. And others there be 
 that do renounce the power of the church, and 
 do refuse to hear the church, as Mr. Codding- 
 ton, Mr. Dyer, and Mr. Cogshall. The two 
 first have been questioned in the church, and 
 dealt with, and are under admonition, and have 
 been so long, yet this act of the church hath 
 been so far from doing them any good, that they 
 are rather grown worse under the same. For 
 Mr. Coddington being dealt withall about hear- 
 ing excommunicated persons prophesy, he was 
 sensible of an evil in it, and said he had not 
 before so well considered of it. Yet, since, he 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 337 
 
 hath not only heard such by accident, as be- 
 fore, but both himself, and our brother Dyer, 
 and Mr. Cogshall, have gathered themselves into 
 church fellowship, not regarding the covenant 
 that they have made with this church, neither 
 have taken our advice and consent herein, nei- 
 ther have they regarded it, but they have joined 
 themselves in fellowship with some that are ex- 
 communicated, whereby they come to have a 
 constant fellowship with them, and that in a 
 church way, and when we sent the messengers 
 of the church to them, to admonish them, and 
 treat with them about such offences, they were 
 so far from expressing any sorrow or giving any 
 satisfaction, that they did altogether refuse to 
 hear the church. And in this case the rule of 
 Christ is plain. We know not how otherwise 
 to proceed with such than by cutting them off 
 from us ; ' They that will not hear the church, 
 let them be to you as a heathen and a publi- 
 can.' Yet because we know not how far God 
 may work relenting in any of their hearts, since 
 the church messengers came from them, it is 
 thought meet to forbear our proceeding a little 
 longer against them, and patiently to wait awhile 
 to see if yet they will endeavor to give satis- 
 faction ; if not, we shall take a seasonable time 
 to proceed with them." 
 
 This conclusion, announced by the pastor to 
 VOL. VI. 22 
 
338 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the whole church, is to be received as the re- 
 sult of private conference among the elders, who 
 usually considered such matters before making 
 them public. These fresh and free reports, made 
 at the time when feeling was warm and in- 
 terest unabated, will convey to us better than 
 any account of a later age, a fair representation 
 of the manner in which the strife gradually 
 subsided into harmless ecclesiastical gossip. 
 
 The same record transmits the following par- 
 ticulars concerning Francis Hutchinson, who, as 
 will be remembered, had been admonished by 
 the Boston church, because he would not vote 
 for the admonition of his mother. The date 
 is July 20th, 1640. 
 
 " Francis Hutchinson, living at the Island, or 
 Portsmouth, with his father and mother, so that 
 he cannot frequent the church, nor the church 
 discharge her duty in watching over him, de- 
 sired, by a letter to the church, that we would 
 dismiss him to God and to the word of his 
 grace, seeing he knew of no church there to 
 be dismissed to. 
 
 "It was answered by our teacher, and con- 
 sented to by the church, that there was no 
 rule in Scripture for such a dismission. We 
 may recommend him to God, and may dismiss 
 him to the word of his grace, when there is 
 any such word there to dismiss him to, but 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 339 
 
 not till then, seeing the covenant of the church 
 is an everlasting covenant, and no church hath 
 power, when God hath added any member to 
 the church and tied him, to release him, but 
 to another church. And though we cannot 
 perform all our duties to him so far off, yet 
 some we may. Again, the church of Jerusa- 
 lem had proselytes that lived at Rome, at Ethi- 
 opia, and in divers remote places, which could 
 not come to Jerusalem, it may be not once a 
 year ; yet they do not discharge them . of their 
 covenant, though their journey was long, tedi- 
 ous, dangerous, and costly, to come so far to 
 worship, or to offer a sacrifice to God in Jeru- 
 salem. But they came when they could, and 
 that is accepted, and so may his be. Those 
 that dwelt not in Jerusalem, God required that 
 they should come to Jerusalem but three times 
 a year, and if not so often, then once a year, 
 and that at the Feast of Pentecost, which was 
 the best time in the year to travel in. God 
 requires no more at the hands of his people 
 than he gives them ability to perform.- If some 
 of our members, in their journey to sea, should 
 be taken by pirates, or carried to Algier, or 
 should dwell in Constantinople, that doth not 
 discharge him of his covenant, nor hath the 
 church power to dismiss him, except to another 
 church ; but there he is to pray for the church, 
 
340 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and long after fellowship with it, and the church 
 must even there take what care they can of 
 them, by praying for them, by writing to them, 
 and giving them counsel and instruction there, 
 to stick to the grace of God, and to help them 
 even with our purse, if need were." 
 
 This public expression of opinion by Mr. 
 Cotton was made in consideration of a letter 
 written by Francis Hutchinson, desiring dismis- 
 sion from the church because of his necessary 
 distance of abode, and his obligation to attend 
 upon his parents. Mr. Cotton's formal reply, 
 in the name of the Boston church, to this ap- 
 plication, has been preserved, and its contents 
 agree with the preceding report.* The letter 
 of Mr. Cotton is dated at Boston, August 12th, 
 1640, and is addressed " To our beloved broth- 
 er, Francis Hutchinson, at Aquethnick." The 
 allowance made in it by the elders, that they 
 heard " a good report of his constancy in the 
 truth and faith of the gospel," would imply that 
 the son did not entirely accord with his mother. 
 Reference is made in the epistle to a larger 
 and fuller letter, which had been written to his 
 parents by the church and to the whole com- 
 pany of wanderers from the fold, who were 
 then at the Island. 
 
 * Hutchinson's papers, Mass, Hist. Coll. 2d Series, Vol. 
 X. p. 184. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 341 
 
 One more public rehearsal of the matter, as 
 had before the church, out of many of the same 
 character of which there is no record, is found 
 in the same manuscript which has already served 
 us. As this last review of the case probably 
 made the substance of Mr. Cotton's letter, and 
 as it gives us a few particulars of interest in 
 the controversy, it is here put into print for the 
 first time. 
 
 After the usual exercise by Mr. Cotton, on the 
 26th of September, 1640, the pastor, Mr. Wil- 
 son, as reported by a listener, said ; 
 
 " You have heard this day what the estate of 
 every man by nature is ; to wander and go 
 astray from the fold of Christ, and to be carried 
 away with every puff of vain doctrine. But such 
 is the mercy of God to set up officers, to send 
 out disciples, to set them up again. And Christ 
 himself went a-fishing for souls, which puts us 
 not out of hope. For you know, brethren, we 
 have some stray souls that are gone from us, 
 some out of ignorance, others out of pride and 
 arrogance, and have forsaken the fold of Christ, 
 and have stopped their ears against the counsel 
 of Christ, to the grief of their brethren. For 
 the church hath sent messengers to them, and 
 such messages as might have won and persuad- 
 ed them ; but they have stopped their ears, and 
 
342 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 hardened their necks, and some made one ex- 
 cuse, and some another, to hinder their return to 
 us. You know there hath been much patience 
 and lenity used towards them, some under one 
 censure, and some under another ; but because 
 we know not what God may do, or who may be 
 called from them, God hath put it again into 
 the heart of our teacher to give an answer to 
 such scruples and objections as they have made 
 the causes of their hinderances from returning to 
 uSj that the whole church may be witnesses of 
 our cares and endeavors to gain them and call 
 them back, or, if they shall obstinately harden 
 their necks, then to proceed to such further cen- 
 sures as the church shall be guided to. The 
 writing is directed to them all that are not un- 
 der the censure of the church." 
 
 Then follow the objections raised by the mem- 
 bers who were under discipline, with the several 
 answers to them. The first three of these ob- 
 jections are, that the church had first broken 
 its covenant with the exiles ; that the covenant 
 binds no longer than a member remains with the 
 church ; that parents and wives being cast out 
 of the church, necessity is laid upon others to 
 go with them, to supply their wants. 
 
 The fourth objection, with what follows, is in- 
 teresting. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 343 
 
 " Objection 4. But the Court hath censured 
 us, and drove us out of the country, and Mr. 
 Winthrop advised us to depart. 
 
 "Answer. Mr. Wmthrop affirms his advice 
 was not as Governor, nor as the mouth of the 
 Court, but only in Christian love, to depart for a 
 time, till they could give the Court satisfaction. 
 He ansvi^ers, he did not advise all to depart, for 
 he persuaded Mr. Coddington earnestly to stay, 
 and did undertake to make his peace with the 
 Court. Neither did the Court banish or drive 
 any away but two, Mr. Aspinw^all and Mrs. 
 Hutchinson. Some were under no ofience at 
 all with the Court, as our brother Hazard. 
 
 " Objection 5. Persecution dissipateth the 
 church, and so it hath done us. 
 
 "Answer. Persecution doth not always dissi- 
 pate and dissolve churches, but scatters them, 
 though the covenant cannot be dissolved. But 
 the church in Boston is not dissipated, and there- 
 fore you are not loosed from the covenant of 
 the church. 
 
 " Objection 6. All the saints in ,the world 
 make but one church, and therefore there is but 
 one covenant. 
 
 "Answer. All the saints do make up more 
 than one visible, particular church. If all saints 
 made but one church, then the officers of one 
 church had power over another, and then how 
 
344 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 can the church meet all together in one place, 
 as the apostle speaks? 
 
 '' Objection 7. Saith one, I am freed from 
 the covenant of the church, because of the 
 church's breach of covenant first, in that some 
 of the church had a hand in our brother Wheel- 
 wright's censure and banishment, and the church 
 hath not dealt with those members for it. 
 
 '■^Answer 1. If the church should break cov- 
 enant with you, yet that doth not loose the cov- 
 enant between the church and you. 
 
 *' Answer 2. Though some of the members of 
 the church had a hand in his censure and ban- 
 ishment, yet it follows not that the church should 
 deal with them, when he suffered justly for his 
 errors, and his misapplying of his doctrine to 
 raise up much trouble and commotion, to the 
 great distraction both of church and common- 
 wealth. Therefore, we cannot yet see that the 
 church hath violated their covenant with you, or 
 dissolved your covenant with us. Therefore, 
 brethren, do not walk like lambs in a large place, 
 but return, that we may watch over you ; for we 
 seek not yours, but you, and your good and 
 peace. 
 
 " If these letters be such as your hearts go 
 along with, and if the church consent, we should 
 send the name of the church for the recalling 
 of some of them. If you be silent, we shall take 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 345 
 
 your silence for consent ; if you consent not, you 
 have liberty to express yourselves. 
 
 " Brother Button. I would express my 
 thoughts. I being at the Island this week, they 
 expressed themselves to me, that if we do send 
 to them in a church way, they would not hear 
 us. Therefore, I think the best way were to 
 send private messengers to deal with them first. 
 
 *' Pastor. That hath been done already ; 
 and therefore, if they will not hear the church, 
 it is plain that the church should take some 
 other course with them. Let them be to the 
 church as heathens. 
 
 " Brother Hutchinson. I desire to express 
 myself, though I am loath to differ from my 
 brethren. Yet I would not have my silence 
 wrap up my consent with the consent of the 
 brethren, seeing the letters seem to be a justifi- 
 cation of all proceedings. As I would not con- 
 demn the church or commonwealth, so I would 
 not justify all that is done. 
 
 " Pastor. You lay yourself open to the sus- 
 picion of your brethren. Therefore, either you 
 should have been silent, or express the reasons 
 of your dissent. If you do not justify the pro- 
 ceedings of church and commonwealth, you cast 
 reproach upon them, and censure them, which 
 you ought not to do, for both church and com- 
 monwealth dealt justly in casting out your 
 mother. 
 
346 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ''Mr. Hutchinson. I desire to speak to no 
 particulars, only I cannot approve or consent to 
 all that hath been done." 
 
 While Mrs. Hutchinson was at Rhode Island, 
 one of her daughters was married to a young 
 minister named Collins. He had been perse- 
 cuted for non-conformity at St. Christopher's or 
 Barbadoes, where he had exercised his ministry, 
 and came to New Haven in the summei of 
 1640. He taught a school, for a time, at Hart- 
 ford, and was much esteemed for piety there, 
 as he had been at Gloucester, in England.* 
 When he heard of Mrs. Hutchinson's opinions, 
 he was troubled by them, and went to Newport 
 to learn more of them. Here he became so 
 warmly attached to her and her family, as to 
 become her son-in-law. Espousing her cause 
 with warmth, he wrote a letter to some one in 
 Boston, in which, according to Governor Win- 
 throp, " he charged all our churches and minis- 
 ters to be anti-Christian, and many other reproach- 
 ful speeches, terming our king. King of Babylon, 
 and sought to possess the people's hearts with 
 evil thoughts of our government and of our 
 churches." 
 
 Collins and Francis Hutchinson made a visit 
 to Boston in the summer of 1641, and were im- 
 
 * Hubbard, p. 341. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 347 
 
 mediately and forcibly brought before the Gov- 
 ernor, and council, and elders, the former to 
 answer for his letter, and the latter for calling 
 the church in Boston " a strumpet." They were 
 imprisoned until Collins should pay a fine of 
 one hundred pounds, and his companion a fine 
 of fifty pounds. This, however, was rather an 
 unprofitable measure. Winthrop says, " We as- 
 sessed the fines the higher, partly that by occa- 
 sion thereof they might be the longer kept in 
 from doing harm, (for they were kept close pris- 
 oners,) and also because that family had put tne 
 country to so much charge in the Synod, and 
 other occasions, to the value of five hundred 
 pounds, at least. But after, because the winter 
 drew on, and the prison was inconvenient, we 
 abated them to forty pounds and twenty pounds. 
 But they seemed not wilhng to pay any thing. 
 They refused to come to the church assemblies 
 except they were led, and so they came duly. 
 At last, we took their own bonds for their fine, 
 and so dismissed them." They were forbidden, 
 on their release, to return to the jurisdiction, 
 under pain of death. Nevertheless, they found 
 some sympathy in the church ; and even the 
 constable who had the charge of them was fined 
 for his favor to them.* 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. II. pp. 38-40, and Court Records. 
 
348 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Mrs. Hutchiyison at the Island. — Death of her 
 Hushand. — She removes with her Family to 
 the Dutch. — Their Massacre by the Indians. 
 
 — Effect of the News in Boston. — Restora- 
 tion of Harmony. — Governor Winthrop. — 
 Mr. Coddington remains at the Island. — Mr. 
 As])inwall recants, and returns to Boston. — 
 Mr. iJ^eelwright apologizes, and is released 
 from his Banishment. — His subsequent Course. 
 
 — Report of the Controversy in England. — 
 Mr. Cotton reproached. — His Disclaimer. — 
 Review of Mrs. Hutchinson^ Course and Opin- 
 ions. — Her Descendants. 
 
 The last years of Mrs. Hutchinson's life were 
 clouded with many trials, and it closed at last 
 in a dreadful tragedy. The treatment of her 
 son and her son-in-law, in Boston, proved to 
 her that the ill feeling against her increased 
 rather than diminished, and she continued to 
 be annoyed with messages, ostensibly designed 
 to bring her into submission to the church, 
 which had cast her out from its fold. As far 
 as was possible, she and her friends maintained 
 amongst them religious institutions, and she con- 
 tinued to exercise her gifts. The freedom of 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 349 
 
 speech and opinion, allowed in the new colony, 
 could not fail to be abused by fanatics and 
 disorganizers, and there was enough in her own 
 views to let in many wild and dangerous fan- 
 cies. The natural circumstances attending the 
 settlement of the Island, under a questionable 
 Indian deed, and by a voluntary compact, de- 
 signed to give as small a compass as possible 
 to the civil law, and no restraint whatever to 
 the profession and practice of religion ; these 
 circumstances, and others which will suggest 
 themselves, were not, it must be confessed, re- 
 markably favorable to the happiness of the ex- 
 iles from Massachusetts. As far as concerned 
 the obtaining of the means necessary for the 
 support of life, these were procured as the re- 
 ward of labor, at the Island, at least as securely 
 and abundantly as in the Bay colony. 
 
 Mr. Hutchinson died in 1642. The fact, that 
 he shared the fortune of his wife through all 
 her trials, is certainly no feeble evidence of her 
 private virtues, and of her faithfulness in all 
 her domestic relations. From all the records 
 which have come down to us, and in all the 
 proceedings against her, there is no intimation 
 of any alienation, or opposition, on his part, to 
 her views. He certainly does not appear to 
 have taken a public stand in her defence, nor 
 even to have offered any protest to the civil 
 
350 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and ecclesiastical dealing with her. This, how- 
 ever, he may nevertheless have done. But he 
 never deserted her ; he never, so far as we 
 know, felt any thing but entire approval of her 
 whole course. We have before seen, that to 
 the messengers from the church at Boston he 
 professed an undiminished attachment to her, 
 and esteemed her as a " dear saint and servant 
 of God." We know not the precise date or 
 circumstances of his death, nor can we find 
 any particulars of especial interest in his life. 
 Doubtless, as in his last days at the Island he 
 reviewed his pilgrimage, it must have seemed 
 strange to him to find himself and his family 
 cut ofi* from fellowship with the companions 
 of his youth, who, though still living with him 
 on a foreign shore, which they had sought 
 together for freedom of faith, had been divid- 
 ed by a wider barrier than the ocean. We 
 do not know that he ever complained of his 
 lot. Perhaps it was not to him so great a 
 hardship as to us it appears. 
 
 Soon after her husband's death, Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson, with all her surviving family, except a 
 daughter, the wife of Thomas Savage, and a 
 son, Edward Hutchinson, who remained at Bos- 
 ton, removed from Rhode Island to the neigh- 
 borhood of the Dutch. The cause of her 
 removal does not appear. Mr. Welde indeed 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 351 
 
 shows his own ignorance of the true cause, by 
 the alternative in which he imphes some odious 
 cause, when he says, " Mrs. Hutchinson, being 
 weary of the Island, or rather, the Island being 
 weary of her, departed from thence with all 
 her family." The probable reason which influ- 
 enced her, was one which we know induced 
 others about that time to go to Long Island 
 and the Dutch settlements. Massachusetts was 
 meditating an encroachment upon the people at 
 Rhode Island, through the alleged submission of 
 some Indian chiefs to its authority, and the ex- 
 pressed desire of some of the refugees from the 
 Bay again to put themselves under the protec- 
 tion of its laws. There was really ground for 
 apprehending that the Island would, by a most 
 unlawful extension of rights restricted by the 
 patent, be brought under the rigid control of 
 Massachusetts. Wishing to be secure from that 
 probability, many persons left the Island. Mrs. 
 Hutchinson may have been influenced by the 
 same motive to remove. She likewise might 
 wish a more quiet and peaceable abode, where 
 she might enjoy her peculiar religious views 
 without any molestation or debate. 
 
 It is also doubtful to what precise spot she 
 removed. Some statements afllirm that it was 
 on the mainland between New Haven and New 
 York, that she found a settlement; other ac- 
 
352 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 counts represent her as going to Long Island, 
 very near to Hell Gate. The Indians of the 
 main and of the Island were then in open hos- 
 tility with the Dutch ; and in the summer of 
 1643, after a battle between the Mohegans and 
 Narragansetts, fifteen Dutchmen had been slain. 
 It is altogether probable that Mrs. Hutchinson 
 and her family, with some more of the English, 
 were then settled upon the mainland, and scat- 
 tered over a space of a mile in the territory 
 claimed by the Dutch. They might have been 
 supposed to be Dutch by a party of Indians, 
 who, thirsting for blood and booty, fell upon 
 their settlement in August, 1643. Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson, Mr. Collins and his wife, with all the rest 
 of the family, save one child, who was carried 
 into captivity, perished, as well as such members 
 of two other families as were in their houses at 
 the time of the attack. The whole number of 
 persons thus slaughtered, without provocation or 
 cause, was sixteen. Report indeed affirms, that 
 the victims were confined to their dwellings and 
 burned, as were their cattle.* Such, amid an 
 accumulation of horrors, was the close of the 
 career of Mrs. Hutchinson. With the piercing 
 yell of the Indians in her ear, with her children 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. 11. p. 136; and Hutchinson's Hist, of 
 Mass, Vol. I. p. 72. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 353 
 
 and grandchildren writhing in agonies before her 
 eyes, her troubled, and yet not unhappy life, 
 was ended. Many persons, men, women, and 
 children, suffered by a like tragic fate in the 
 perils attending the early settlement of all our 
 colonies. Of the greater part of these, as 
 well as of Mrs. Hutchinson, we must say, that 
 they died without any of their kindred or race 
 to soothe their pangs, without any fellow-believer 
 to bear witness to their Christian constancy, and 
 with none but barbarian hands to give them 
 burial, even if this last service, which very sel- 
 dom was the case, was granted. 
 
 Such a fate shocks us, when it is encountered 
 by the robust pioneer of the forest ; it is dismal 
 and distressing, when a family upon a border 
 settlement is sacrificed to it at a time of open 
 and mutual hostilities between the red and the 
 white men. But every feature of horror, which 
 such a fate ever wears, seems to invest this de- 
 struction in cold blood of a whole household, 
 no one of which had probably ever wronged 
 an Indian, and who were seeking in a wilder- 
 ness peace in their religious faith, and the hard 
 comfort of sympathy among themselves when it 
 was denied them everywhere else. 
 
 It was in but too faithful accordance with 
 the whole treatment which Mrs. Hutchinson had 
 received in Massachusetts, that when the shock- 
 voL. VI. 23 
 
354 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 iiig tidings of her destruction reached Boston, 
 through Connecticut, the grim and ungenial faith 
 of the Puritans should discern in it an especial 
 token of an angry providence. She, who had 
 entertained a proud notion, had first been given 
 over to strange delusions, and had dared to boast 
 of revelations. When she added contumacy 
 against magistrates and elders to heresy, she 
 had been cursed in the fruit of her womb. Still 
 she was made the subject of especial prayer, 
 and of covenanted council, as the last means 
 which could reclaim her, and, despising these, 
 God's fury fell upon her. So reasoned and 
 preached some divines of that day, doubtless with 
 a sincerity equal to her own, but certainly with 
 no less of obstinacy or voluntary blindness than 
 she herself had manifested. 
 
 Probably, however, the death of Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson contributed much towards the complete 
 restoration of peace to the community, which 
 had been so sorely shaken with contention. So 
 long as her influence was exerted, however in- 
 direcdy, the feud would have remained open, 
 and the profession of her opinions would have 
 been freely made in the church at Boston. A 
 great change had indeed taken place there by 
 force of the circumstances which have been 
 already detailed. Governor Winthrop records, 
 in the fall of 1639, the evidences of this change. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 355 
 
 He says, that the pastor and himself had sorely 
 experienced the alienation from them of the af- 
 fections of the large majority of the church, and 
 had suffered many slights ; but having borne all 
 patiently, "and not withdrawing themselves as 
 they were strongly solicited to have done, but 
 carrying themselves lovingly and helpfully upon 
 all occasions," the hearts of the people had been 
 won back to them, and the church had been 
 saved from threatening ruin beyond all expec- 
 tation. The church, indeed, gave a strong and 
 a valuable proof of their undiminished confi- 
 dence in Winthrop, by sending to him a pres- 
 ent of two hundred pounds, as an expression of 
 their regard, and as a supply for some straits to 
 which he had been reduced by the unfaithful- 
 ness of his steward.* The character of this 
 honored and upright Governor was sorely tried 
 in the controversy, upon which his firm and well 
 considered views compelled him to take a de- 
 cided stand. An honest purpose appears in all 
 his words and advice ; and though he was prob- 
 ably the most determined, he was doubtless also 
 the mildest upon his side. 
 
 William Coddington was the most eminent 
 and influential of Mrs. Hutchinson's support- 
 ers. While in England, in 1629, he had been 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 323. 
 
356 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 chosen a magistrate or assistant of the in- 
 tended colony of Massachusetts Bay, and was 
 several times re-chosen here to that high office, 
 besides being treasurer of the colony. In leav- 
 ing Massachusetts, he had more to lose than 
 any one else, as he was a principal merchant 
 in Boston, and owned a large property with im- 
 provements at Braintree, and would have been, 
 doubtless. Governor of the colony. But, enter- 
 ing his protest to the proceedings against Mrs. 
 Hutchinson, " that his dissent might appear to 
 succeeding times," he undertook a new exile. 
 He was for years the judge, or chief ruler, of 
 the Island, and died as Governor of the colony 
 under the charter, having never recanted his sen- 
 timents, nor made atonement to Massachusetts. 
 William Aspinwall, who, as a deacon of the 
 church, and a representative of Boston, had per- 
 sonally carried a weight of influence to Mrs. 
 Hutchinson's party, became the first secretary 
 of the colony at the Island, but showed some 
 symptoms of regret at his course soon after set- 
 tling there. In consequence of an application 
 which he made to the General Court to have 
 his sentence of banishment removed, that he 
 might make proper atonement, he was permitted 
 to come to Boston. On the 27th of March, 1642, 
 he tendered his submission, and was reconciled 
 to the church. " He made," says Winthrop, 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 357 
 
 "a very free and full acknowledgment of his 
 error and seducement, and that with much det- 
 estation of his sin." He did the same before 
 the magistrates, and by the next General Court 
 was reinstated.* But he seems afterwards to 
 have given himself up to the belief of a wilder 
 notion than any which he renounced, as his name 
 appears to a small tract advocating the delusion 
 of the Fifth Monarchy, or " King Jesus " party .f 
 It is pleasant to record that the most re- 
 spectful and amicable relations were restored 
 between Mr. Wheelwright and his brethren in 
 the Bay. He had been earnestly solicited to 
 accompany his fellow-sufferers to Rhode Island, 
 because the soil and the people were far richer 
 than those of his settlement, but he refused, as 
 Mr. Cotton says, because he thought their judg- 
 ment corrupt; "professing often, whilst they 
 pleaded for the Covenant of Grace, they took 
 away the Grace of the Covenant." J As has 
 been already stated, he went, on his banishment, 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. II. p. 62. 
 
 f " A brief Description of the Fifth Monarchy, or King- 
 dom that shortly is to come into the World, the Monarch, 
 Subjects, Officers and Laws thereof, and tlie Surpassing 
 Glory, Amplitude, Unity and Peace of that Kingdom, &c., 
 by William Aspinwall, N. E." London, 1653. 
 
 X Cotton's Answer to Baylie, in " The Way of Congre- 
 gational Churches cleared," &c. London, 1648, p. 61. 
 
358 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 to Exeter, and there formed a church, of which 
 he was the first pastor. Trouble arising between 
 that settlement and Massachusetts, as to the 
 power of jurisdiction, he removed, in 1642, to 
 the town of Wells, near Cape Porpoise, and 
 became the pastor of a church there. Feeling 
 unwilling to prolong the hostile relation in which 
 he now stood, as under censure, with his breth- 
 ren, he made the first motion towards reinstat- 
 ing himself in their good affections. He wrote 
 a letter to Governor Winthrop, in 1643, asking, 
 through him, permission of the Court to visit 
 Boston on especial business, and was readily 
 allowed a visit of fourteen days. He availed 
 himself of the opportunity to confer with several 
 of the elders, and he gave them such satisfac- 
 tion, that they intended to seek a release of his 
 sentence. 
 
 In September, 1644, Mr. Wheelwright wrote 
 to the Governor, for the Court, what must be 
 allowed to have been a most submissive and 
 penitent letter. He says, that after long and 
 mature consideration, he has discovered, that the 
 main point of difference in the controversy about 
 justification, and the evidence of it, '^ is not of 
 that nature and consequence as was then pre- 
 sented to me in the false glass of Satan's temp- 
 tations and mine own distempered passions, 
 which makes me unfeignedly sorry that I had 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 359 
 
 such a hand in those sharp and vehement con- 
 tentions raised thereabouts, to the great disturb- 
 ance of the churches of Christ." He adds an 
 expression of regret for his censoriousness in the 
 apphcation of his sermon, and for the counte- 
 nance which he gave to persons of corrupt judg- 
 ment ; " and that, in the Synod, I used such 
 unsafe and obscure expressions, falling from me 
 as a man dazzled with the buffetings of Satan, 
 and that I did appeal, from misapprehension of 
 things." He professed his readiness to give sat- 
 isfaction, if he could be convinced, by Scripture 
 light, that he had in anything walked contrary 
 to rule. 
 
 This writing was dated at Wells, September 
 10th, 1643, most probably after the death of 
 Mrs. Hutchinson was known to her brother. 
 The Court was pleased with his submission, and 
 granted liim safe conduct to come to Boston 
 and clear himself. The Governor, informing him 
 of this result, received another letter for the 
 Court from Mr. Wheelwright. In this second 
 communication, some qualifications and explana- 
 tions are presented, which we should expect to 
 find, and the absence of which astonishes us as 
 we read the first letter. He now says, that he 
 should expect an opportunity in Court to "ex- 
 plain my true intent and meaning more fully to 
 this effect; that, notwithstanding my faihngs, for 
 
360 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 which I humbly crave pardon, yet I cannot, with 
 a good conscience, condemn myself for such 
 capital crimes, dangerous revelations, and gross 
 errors, as have been charged upon me, the con- 
 currence of which, as I take it, make up the 
 very substance of the cause of all my suflferings. 
 I do not see but, in so mixed a cause, I am 
 bound to use, may it be permitted, my just de- 
 fence so far as I apprehend myself to be inno- 
 cent, as to make my confession where I am con- 
 vinced of any delinquency," His banishment 
 was finally released by the Court, without his 
 personal appearance, or any further self-humilia- 
 tion ; and, if there were any informality in the 
 legal process which cleared him, the present le- 
 niency of the Court was but a suitable apology 
 for its former severity.* 
 
 Mr. Wheelwright removed to Hampton in 
 1647, and afterwards went to England, where he 
 was intimate with Oliver Cromwell. Here he 
 remained until after the Restoration, when he 
 returned, and settled in Salisbury, where he died 
 in 1679, being advanced in years, and the oldest 
 minister in the colony. He had felt deeply 
 grieved at the imputations cast upon him by 
 Mr. Welde and Mr. Rutherford, and he pub- 
 
 * Mr. Wheelwright's Letters are given by Winthrop, 
 Vol, II. pp. 162-164. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 361 
 
 lished a vindication of himself against their 
 charges. He therein quotes these words of Mr. 
 Cotton ; '• I do conceive and profess, that our 
 brother Wheelwright's doctrine is according to 
 God in the points controverted ; " and he also 
 alleges a declaration of the General Court, signed 
 by the secretary on the 24th of August, 1654, at 
 the request of his church at Hampton, affirming 
 that he had, for several years, approved himself 
 a sound, orthodox, and profitable minister.* A 
 short tract, published in London in 1645, bears 
 the name of John Wheelwright, Junior, and is 
 professedly an answer to Mr. Welde's tract. I 
 cannot think that Mr. Wheelwright wrote this, 
 though it flatly denies many of the statements 
 of the Roxbury minister. In this tract, the fol- 
 lowing reference to Mrs. Hutchinson probably 
 comes nearer to being a fair account of her, than 
 is to be found in any contemporary document. 
 " In spirituals, indeed, she gave her understand- 
 ing over into the power of suggestion and im- 
 mediate dictates, by reason of which she had 
 many strange fancies, and erroneous tenents pos- 
 sessed her. For a pretended revelation of the 
 destruction of the Court, she was expelled the 
 Bay of Massachusetts." f 
 
 * Mather's Magnolia, Book VII. Chap. iii. § 3. 
 t " Mercurius Americanus ; Mr. Welde his Antitype ; or, 
 Massachusetts Great Apologist examined. Being Observa- 
 
362 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Report of all the proceedings connected with 
 the heresies of Mrs. Hutchinson, and of the dis- 
 tractions which had torn the colony, was carried 
 to Europe, and widely circulated there. While 
 friends were grieved and alarmed, foes aggra- 
 vated and published the story of what had oc- 
 curred in New England. The name of Mr. Cot- 
 ton was freely used in all these accounts, and, 
 as before hinted, not at all to his credit. In- 
 deed, he barely escaped public censure from the 
 Court. During the trial of Mrs. Hutchinson, 
 Deputy-Governor Dudley made some hard allu- 
 sions to his influence, and Hugh Peters seemed 
 ready to put him under the same indictment 
 with her. The powerful protection of Winthrop 
 was his security. His sermon on a Fast day, 
 kept by his church on account of its recent 
 troubles, has already been referred to, as con- 
 taining a sort of confession of a degree of de- 
 lusion on his part. The temporary cloud which 
 gathered over his fair fame was afterwards dis- 
 pelled ; he fulfilled his long ministry with re- 
 nown, and died in the odor of sanctity. 
 
 But Mr. Cotton, for many years after the heat 
 of the strife had subsided, complained of certain 
 
 tions upon a Paper styled 'A Short Story,' &c. Wherein 
 some Parties therein concerned are vindicated, and the 
 Truth generally cleared. By John Wheelwright, Junior. 
 London, 1645." 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 363 
 
 private letters and ungrounded reports, which 
 had cast severe reflections upon him, and brought 
 him under unmerited reproach in England. The 
 representations of his course, which were thus 
 current, were eagerly seized by the then famous 
 Robert Baylie, who, in his zeal for Presbyterian- 
 ism, wished to cast all possible discredit upon 
 Independency, by showing its evil fruits every 
 v.'here. Mr. Cotton, as the most renowned of 
 the pastors and teachers of New England, the 
 churches of which stood on the Independent 
 platform, would naturally be a prominent mark 
 for Mr. Bayhe, who devoted several pages of 
 a treatise on the errors of the times to New 
 England Independency. With a qualified ad- 
 mission of Mr. Cotton's gifts, and a reflection 
 upon him for having been so long an Epis- 
 copal preacher in England, this writer charges 
 him with a dangerous and horrible fall into 
 Antinomianism and Familism, and with having 
 been the principal patron of Mrs. Hutchinson 
 and her followers.* 
 
 To each sentence and specification of these 
 charges Mr. Cotton replied with candor and 
 calmness. He gives high praise to Mrs. Hutch- 
 
 * « A Dissuasive from the Errors of the Time," &c 
 By Robert Baylie, pp. 53-74. 
 
364 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 inson for the qualities and services by which 
 she was first known in Boston, and says that, 
 for a long time, even after unfavorable accounts 
 were circulated concerning her, and the minis- 
 ters had taken her in hand, he could discover 
 no heresy in her, and therefore had no reason 
 to withdiaw his esteem from her. He had sent 
 some sisters of the church, in whom he had 
 confidence, to her meetings, but, when such lis- 
 tened for the purpose, no exceptionable remarks 
 could be heard from her. He says, that even 
 when he esteemed her most highly, he had cen- 
 sured her with faithfulness for three spiritual 
 failings, namely ; that her faith was not begotten, 
 nor much strengthened, by public ministrations, 
 but by private meditations, or revelations; that 
 she had a clear discernment of her justification, 
 but little or none of her sanctification ; and 
 '- that she was more sharply censorious of other 
 men's spiritual estates and hearts, than the ser- 
 vants of God are wont to be, who are more 
 taken up with judging of themselves before the 
 Lord, than of others." Mr. Cotton then al- 
 ludes to the manner in which he had been 
 deceived, and the misuse which, as afterwards 
 appeared, had been made of his name, by the 
 followers of Mrs. Hutchinson, who professed one 
 thing to him, and another to others, and pre- 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. JOO 
 
 tended to agree fully with his doctrine in his 
 public discourses, and not to go beyond it. 
 He allows that, in one point discussed before 
 the Synod, he was proved to be in error by the 
 ministers. But to Mr. Bayhe's assertion, that 
 he intended to leave the New England churches 
 with Mrs. Hutchinson, on account of his Anti- 
 iiomian opinion of them, as legal synagogues, he 
 indignantly replies that he had no such inten- 
 tion. The ground of this charge was a purpose 
 which he had cherished, in answer to a request 
 from sixty persons, to remove with them to 
 New Haven for the sake of peace. He had 
 likewise disapproved of the alien law passed by 
 the Court, because, he says, " I saw by this 
 means we should receive no more members 
 into our church, but such as must profess them- 
 selves of a contrary judgment to what I believed 
 to be the truth." He plainly and unqualifiedly 
 affirms, that Mrs. Hutchinson was guilty of false- 
 hood in denying her opinions, and was for that 
 cast out of the church, in w^hich punishment he 
 fully accorded.* 
 
 The same view of the whole controversy, and 
 of his own position and course in it, is given by 
 Mr. Cotton in his ''Answer to Master Roger 
 
 * Cotton's JVay of the Congregational Churches Clearedf 
 pp. 38-66. 
 
366 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Williams. " * The simple truth is, that Mr. Cot- 
 ton was himself a sincere and earnest believer 
 in the principal tenet which was first identified 
 with the teachings of Mrs. Hutchinson. He 
 himself preached, that there was an inward and 
 all-essential witness within the breast of every 
 one who was in an accepted state before God, 
 and that this witness should be listened to and 
 regarded more than professions, gifts, and graces. 
 This tenet appears in many of his writings. He 
 could do no less than be faithful to it, and to 
 those who honored it. 
 
 The preceding pages are believed to contain 
 all that is necessary to enable a reader, who has 
 an interest in the matter, to form an opinion 
 of the character, views, and course, of Mrs. 
 Hutchinson, and of the controversy to which 
 she gave birth in New England. The writer 
 would feel, that he had most unfairly presented 
 this portion of ecclesiastical and civil history, 
 and had conveyed an impression contrary to his 
 own convictions, if it should be inferred from this 
 narrative that Mrs. Hutchinson was an amiable 
 and inoffensive woman, a sage in wisdom, a 
 saint in piety, the teacher and witness of a 
 
 * " The Bloody Tenent Washed, &c. Whereunto is 
 added a Reply to Mr. Williams's Answer to Mr. Cotton's 
 Letter." By John Cotton. London, 1647, p. 50. 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 367 
 
 perfectly sound theological tenet, and a martyr 
 to a patient and faithful testimony to the truth. 
 The writer has not intended to represent her 
 as entitled to either epithet, for he does not be- 
 lieve that she fulfilled all the conditions for de- 
 serving either epithet. His aim has been to 
 write, with strict fidehty to truth, an interesting 
 page in the early annals of New England, and, 
 as far as Mrs. Hutchinson is involved in the 
 distracting and melancholy tale which it tells, 
 to state her opinions fairly, to record how they 
 were developed, received, and abused, and to 
 imply the wrong which she did to others, and 
 the wrong which others did to her. 
 
 The faithful expostulation which Mr. Cotton 
 says he had with her, even in her days of gen- 
 eral esteem, was evidently addressed to her three 
 great failings and v/eaknesses, her spiritual pride, 
 her contempt of public ordinances, and her cen- 
 sorious tongue. She was puffed up by her intui- 
 tions and self-assurance; she thought no ministra- 
 tions of religious counsel could be equal in value 
 to her own ; and she was guilty of offensive per- 
 sonalities. All these failings too were aggravated 
 by her sex, which, in proportion as it is hon- 
 ored above that of men for its patient and quiet 
 virtues, is visited with uncourteous and unscru- 
 pulous opposition when, even in a good cause, 
 it trenches upon the province of masculine influ- 
 
368 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ence. The ministers were her most jealous, 
 most determined, and perhaps, for the time, her 
 most proper opponents. Devout and helpful 
 females have always, in Protestant communions 
 at least, been objects of mingled gratitude and 
 anxiety to the ministers of the churches in which 
 they have been noted personages. In general, 
 those different feelings are decided in each case 
 by the manner in which the zeal of the female 
 heart is manifested ; whether by offices of ten- 
 derness and mercy to the afflicted, or chiefly by 
 the tongue. Mrs. Hutchinson labored in both 
 ways, and received, as we have seen, due re- 
 gard, till the prominence in her teachings of 
 one tenet, which is really liable to dangerous 
 abuse, raised against her the cry of heresy, formed 
 a new party, and imbittered the parties already 
 existing, roused all bad passions, and led to the 
 result which will always close a religious con- 
 troversy when the civil power is at the service 
 of either side in it. 
 
 But allowing all just exceptions against Mrs. 
 Hutchinson their full measure and weight, she 
 was still a high-minded and excellent woman. 
 Her religious experience had been troubled and 
 deep, and from it she had won a faith, which, 
 for its power and value, was more to her than 
 any thing the earth could offer. She sought to 
 do good by winning others to share it. She 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 369 
 
 performed the duties which it required of her 
 devotedly, and bore the sufferings which it 
 brought upon her submissively. In the fervency 
 of her devotion she was equal with Madame 
 Bourignon and Madame Guion ; she taught a 
 safer system than Ann Lee, and ventured not 
 upon the dangerous reforms of Mary Wolstone- 
 craft. Any other person, however exalted in 
 character, who had taught the same tenets, would 
 have received at that time equally harsh treat- 
 ment with herself She appears to have been 
 a faithful wife and mother, and for aught that 
 can now be discovered, she was a Christian in 
 heart and life. The only stain cast upon her 
 character, even by her enemies, is in the im- 
 putation of falsehood before the church. We 
 can well understand how she may have been 
 entirely innocent of this charge, while at the 
 same time, even Mr. Cotton might have thought 
 her guilty of it. Her experience and fate com- 
 bine with many other lessons, which have been 
 enforced upon Christendom by dismal and sor- 
 rowful testimonies, to teach the wiser way of 
 treating religious dissensions, and to suggest that 
 perhaps the wisest method of all is that pro- 
 posed by Solomon, " Leave off contention be- 
 fore it be meddled with." 
 
 Thomas Savage, son-in-law of Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson, and one of the disarmed, did his part 
 VOL. VI. 24 
 
370 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 towards reconciliation, when, on the death of his 
 wife, in 1652, he married a daughter of the 
 Reverend Zachariah Symmes, one of the most 
 zealous opposers of Antinomianism. He was 
 Commander-in-chief of the Massachusetts forces 
 at the opening of King Philip's war, and was a 
 member of the council from 1680, till he died, 
 on the 14th of February, 1682. 
 
 Edward Hutchinson, who remained in Bos- 
 ton when his mother was banished, was a cap- 
 tain, and died in consequence of a wound re- 
 ceived in Q,uaboag fight, in King Phihp's war. 
 His descendants filled places of trust and hon- 
 or, and his great-grandson, Thomas Hutchinson, 
 was Governor and historian of Massachusetts. 
 This distinguished, but unfortunate magistrate, 
 in his brief reference to the controversy with 
 his ancestress, seems so anxious to avoid par- 
 tiality, that he has perhaps allowed himself to 
 attach to her more of censure than appears 
 necessary or deserved. 
 
371 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Remonstrance or Petition addressed to the Gen- 
 eral Court of Massachusetts, in March, 1637, 
 and acted upon, by another Court, in November 
 following. 
 
 As so much importance, in the controversy with 
 Mrs. Hutchinson, was attached to this document, it is 
 here printed, with the names subscribed to it, that the 
 reader may judge for himself as to its character. 
 
 " We, whose names are underwritten, have dili- 
 gently observed this honoured Court's proceedings 
 against our deare and reverend brother in Christ, Mr. 
 Wheelwright, now under censure of the Court, for 
 the truth of Christ; wee do humbly beseech this 
 honourable Court to accept this Remonstrance and 
 Petition of ours, in all due submission tendered to 
 your Worships. 
 
 " For, first, whereas our beloved brother, Mr. 
 Wheelwright, is censured for contempt, by the greater 
 part of this honoured Court, we desire your Worships 
 to consider the sincere intention of our Brother to 
 promote your end in the day of Fast, for whereas 
 we do perceive your principal intention the day of 
 Fast looked chiefly at the public peace of the 
 Churches, our Reverend brother did to his best 
 
372 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Strength, and as the Lord assisted him, labor to 
 promote your end, and therefore indeavoured to 
 draw us neerer unto Christ, the head of our union, 
 that so wee might bee established in peace, which 
 wee conceive to bee the true way, sanctifyed of God, 
 to obtaine your end, and therefore deserves no such 
 censure as wee conceive. 
 
 " Secondly, Whereas our deare Brother is cen- 
 sured of sedition ; wee beseech your Worships to 
 consider, that either the person condemned must bee 
 culpable of some seditious fact, or his doctrine must 
 bee seditious, or must breed sedition in the hearts of 
 his hearers, or else wee know not upon what grounds 
 hee should bee censured. Now to the first, wee 
 have not heard any that have witnessed against our 
 brother for any seditious fact. Secondly, neither was 
 the doctrine itselfe, being no other but the very ex- 
 pressions of the Holy Ghost himselfe, and therefore 
 cannot justly bee branded with sedition. Thirdly, if 
 you look at the effects of his Doctrine upon the 
 hearers, it hath not stirred up sedition in us, not so 
 much as by accident ; wee have not drawn the sword, 
 as sometimes Peter did, rashly, neither have wee 
 rescued our innocent Brother, as sometimes the Isra- 
 elites did Jonathan, and yet they did not seditiously. 
 The Covenant of free Grace held forth by our 
 Brother, hath taught us rather to become humble 
 suppliants to your Worships, and if wee should not 
 prevaile, wee would rather with patience give our 
 cheekes to the smiters. Since therefore the Teacher, 
 the Doctrine, and the hearers be most free from 
 sedition, (as we conceive) wee humbly beseech you 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 
 
 373 
 
 in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, your Judge 
 and ours, and for the honour of this Court and the 
 proceedings thereof, that you will bee pleased either 
 to make it appeare to us, and to all the world, to 
 whome the knowledge of all these things will come, 
 wherein the sedition lies, or else acquit our Brother 
 of such a censure. 
 
 " Further, wee beseech you remember the old 
 method of Satan, the ancient enemy of Free Grace, 
 in all ages of the Churches, who hath raised up 
 such calumnies against the faithful Prophets of God. 
 Eliab was called the troubler of Israel, 1 Kings xviii. 
 17, 18. Amos was charged for conspiracy, Amos 
 vii. 10. Paul was counted a pestilent fellow, or 
 moover of sedition, and a ring-leader of a sect, Acts 
 xxiv. 5, and Christ, himselfe, as well as Paul, was 
 charged to bee a Teacher of New Doctrine, Mark 
 i. 27, Acts xvii. 19. Now wee beseech you consider, 
 whether that old serpent work not after his old 
 method, even in our daies. 
 
 " Further, wee beseech you consider the danger 
 of meddling against the Prophets of God, Psalm cv. 
 14, 15, for what yee do unto them, the Lord Jesus 
 takes as done unto himselfe. If you hurt any of his 
 members, the head is very sensible of it; for so saith 
 the Lord of Hosts, Hee that toucheth you, toucheth 
 the apple of mine eye, Zach. ii. 8. And better a 
 mill-stone were hanged about our necks and that 
 wee were cast into the sea, than that wee should 
 offend any one of these little ones, which believe on 
 Him, Matthew xviii. 6. 
 
 " And lastly, we beseech you consider, how you 
 
374 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 should stand in relation to us, as nursing Fathers, 
 which gives us encouragement to promote our humble 
 requests to you, or else wee would say with the 
 Prophet, Isaiah xxii. 4, Look from mee that I may 
 weep bitterly, Labor not to comfort mee, &lc. ; or as 
 Jere. ix. 2, O that I had in the wilderness a lodging- 
 place of a wayfaring man. And thus hr*ve wee made 
 known our griefes and desires to your Worships, and 
 leave them upon record with the Lord, and with you, 
 knowing that if wee should receive repulse from you, 
 with the Lord wee shall find grace." 
 
 The names of the signers or approvers of this 
 remonstrance, being of course those who for this 
 act were disarmed by order of the Court, are thus 
 given upon the record. (Colony Records, Vol. L 
 p. 208.) 
 
 The following were of Boston. Captain John 
 Underbill, Mr. Thomas Oliver, William Hutchinson, 
 William Aspinwall, Samuel Cole, William Dyer, 
 Edward Rainsfoard, John Button, John Sanfoard, 
 Richard Cooke, Richard Fairbanks, Thomas Mar- 
 shall, Oliver Mellows, Samuel Wilbore, John Oliver, 
 Hugh Gunnison, John Biggs, Richard Gridley, Ed- 
 ward Bates, William Dinely, William Litherland, 
 Matthew lyans, Henry Elkins, Zaccheus Bosworth, 
 Robert Rice, William Townsend, Robert Hull, Wil- 
 liam Pell, Richard Hutchinson, James Johnson, 
 Thomas Savage, John Davy, George Burden, John 
 Odlin, Gamaliel Wayte, Edward Hutchinson, William 
 Wilson, Isaack Grosse, Richard Carder, Robert Har- 
 dings, Richard Wayte, John Porter, Jacob Eliot, 
 James Penniman, Thomas Wardell, William Wardell, 
 
ANNE HUTCHINSON. 375 
 
 Thomas Matson, William Baulston, John Compton, 
 Mr. Parker, William Freeborn, Henry Bull, John 
 Walker, William Salter, Edward Bendall, Thomas 
 Wheeler, Mr. Clarke, Mr. John Coggeshall. 
 
 Of Salem, were Mr. Scrugs, Mr. Alfoot, Mr. Com- 
 mins, goodman Robert Moulton, goodman King. 
 
 Of Newbury, were Mr. Dummer, Mr. Easton, Mr. 
 Spencer. 
 
 Of Roxbury, were Mr. Edward Denison, Richard 
 Morris, Richard Bulgar, William Denison, and Philip 
 Sherman. 
 
 Of Ipswich, were Mr. Foster, and Samuel Sherman. 
 
 Of Charlestown, were Mr. George Bunker, and 
 James Browne. 
 
 Besides the above names, the remonstrance must 
 have been subscribed by the following persons, whose 
 names are mentioned on the records as at once erased 
 from the offensive document on acknowledgment of 
 their sin in subscribing it. They of course escaped 
 from being disarmed. William Larnet, Ralph Mousall, 
 Ezekiel Richardson, Richard Sprague, Edward Car- 
 ing, Thomas Ewar, Benj. Hubbard, William Baker, 
 Edward Mellows, and William Frothingham. 
 
 But even with these additional names, we have not 
 all the adherents of Mrs. Hutchinson^ and her brother. 
 Mr. Philemon Pormont, the first schoolmaster of 
 Boston, accompanied Mr. Wheelwright to Exeter, in 
 1638. The Rev. Daniel Maude, who was also a 
 schoolmaster, and who, with Mr. Pormont, is to be 
 considered as leading a list of distinguished and able 
 men as masters of the public Latin School in Boston, 
 may be supposed to have been infected with the 
 
(JJjjZaT 
 
 376 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 heresy. He was settled as minister of the church 
 in Dover, N. H., in 1642. 
 
 Consulting our ancient records, with all these 
 names before us, we can form a fair estimate of the 
 strength of Mrs. Hutchinson's party in Boston, and 
 of the character of her adherents. The writer had 
 intended to subjoin, in this place, a brief mention of 
 each of her adherents, that a single line of comment 
 upon each name might express how strong and gen- 
 eral had been her influence. Such comments, how- 
 ever, would only show at length what may be sum- 
 marily stated in a sentence; namely, that men of all 
 ranks and stations, becrinninor with those whose names 
 bear the prefix of gentlemen, and ending with the 
 humblest artisans and day-laborers, embraced her 
 opinions and suffered for them. Many persons now 
 living will find their ancestors upon the list. 
 
 It has been mentioned in the preceding narrative, 
 on the authority of Mr. Welde, that Mrs. Hutchinson 
 was the daughter of a minister, Mr. Marbury. I can 
 find no notice of this gentleman in any of the bio- 
 graphical or historical works of his time. On a fly 
 leaf to a printed Tract, by Mr. Cotton, is a list 6f 
 " Bookes printed for George Calvert," in London, and 
 on this list is " An Exposition on the Prophesie of 
 Obadia, by Edward Marbury, Minister of the Gospel 
 in London." This Exposition is mentioned by Ro- 
 senmijller, in his Prolegomena to that Book of Scrip- 
 ture, and the date affixed is 1639. The expositor 
 was doubtless the father of Mrs. Hutchinson. 
 

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