The Emancipation of Massachusetts

Wheelwright was made of sterner stuff, and was inflexible. In fact, however, the difference of dogma, if any existed, was trivial. The clergy used the cry of heresy to excite odium, just as they called their opponents Antinomians, or dangerous fanatics. To support these accusations the synod gravely accepted every unsavory inference which ingenuity could wring from the tenets of their adversaries; and these, together with the fables invented by idle gossip, made up the long list of errors they condemned. Though the scheme was unprincipled, it met with complete success, and the Antinomians have come down to posterity branded as deadly enemies of Christ and the commonwealth; yet nothing is more certain than that they were not only good citizens, but substantially orthodox. On such a point there is no one among the conservatives whose testimony has the weight of Winthrop’s, who says: “Mr. Cotton … stated the differences in a very narrow scantling; and Mr. Shepherd, preaching at the day of election, brought them yet nearer, so as, except men of good understanding, and such as knew the bottom of the tenents of those of the other party, few could see where the difference was.” [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 221.] While Cotton himself complains bitterly of the falsehoods spread about him and his friends: “But when some of … the elders of neighbour churches advertised me of the evill report … I … dealt with Mrs. Hutchinson and others of them, declaring to them the erroneousnesse of those tenents, and the injury done to myself in fathering them upon mee. Both shee and they utterly denyed that they held such tenents, or that they had fathered them upon mee. I returned their answer to the elders.... They answered me they had but one witnesse, … and that one both to be known.” … [Footnote: Cotton, Way of New England Churches, pp. 39, 40.] Moreover, it is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the advantage it would have given the reactionists to have been able to fix subversive opinions upon their prominent opponents, it was found impossible to prove heresy in a single case which was brought to trial. The legislature chosen in May was apparently unfit for the work now to be done, for the extraordinary step of a dissolution was decided on, and a new election held, under circumstances in which it was easy to secure the return of suitable candidates. The session opened on November 2, and Wheelwright was summoned to appear. He was ordered to submit, or prepare for sentence. He replied that he was guilty of neither sedition nor contempt; that he had preached only the truth of Christ, the application of which was for others, not for him. “To which it was answered by the court that they had not censured his doctrine, but left it as it was; but his application, by which hee laid the magistrates and ministers and most of the people of God in these churches under a covenant of works.” [Footnote: Short Story, p. 24.] The prisoner was then sentenced to be disfranchised and banished. He demanded an appeal to the king; it was refused; and he was given fourteen days to leave Massachusetts. So he went forth alone in the bitter winter weather and journeyed to the Piscataqua,—yet “it was marvellous he got thither at that time, when they expelled him, by reason of the deep snow in which he might have perished.” [Footnote: Wheelwright, Prince Soc. ed. Mercurius Americanus, p. 24.] Nor was banishment by any means the trivial penalty it has been described. On the contrary, it was a punishment of the utmost rigor. The exiles were forced suddenly to dispose of their property, which, in those times, was mostly in houses and land, and go forth among the savages with helpless women and children. Such an ordeal might well appall even a brave man; but Wheelwright was sacrificing his intellectual life. He was leaving books, friends, and the mental activity, which made the world to him, to settle in the forests among backwoodsmen; and yet even in this desolate solitude the theocracy continued to pursue him with persevering hate.

But there were others beside Wheelwright who had sinned, and some pretext had to be devised by which to reach them. The names of most of his friends were upon the petition that had been drawn up after his trial. It is true it was a proceeding with which the existing legislature was not concerned, since it had been presented to one of its predecessors; it is also true that probably never, before or since, have men who have protested they have not drawn the sword rashly, but have come as humble suppliants to offer their cheeks to the smiters, been held to be public enemies. Such scruples, however, never hampered the theocracy. Their justice was trammelled neither by judges, by juries, nor by laws; the petition was declared to be a seditious libel, and the petitioners were given their choice of disavowing their act and making humble submission, or exile.

Aspinwall was at once disfranchised and banished. [Footnote: Mass. Rec. i. 207.] Coddington, Coggeshall, and nine more were given leave to depart within three months, or abide the action of the court; others were disfranchised; and fifty-eight of the less prominent of the party were disarmed in Boston alone. [Footnote: Idem, i. 223.]

Thus were the early liberals crushed in Massachusetts; the bold were exiled, the timid were terrified; as a political organization they moved no more till the theocracy was tottering to its fall; and for forty years the power of the clergy was absolute in the land.

The fate of Anne Hutchinson makes a fit ending to this sad tale of oppression and of wrong. In November, 1637, when her friends were crushed, and the triumphant priests felt that their victim’s doom was sure, she was brought to trial before that ghastliest den of human iniquity, an ecclesiastical criminal court. The ministers were her accusers, who came burning with hate to testify to the words she had spoken to them at their own request, in the belief that the confidence she reposed was to be held sacred. She had no jury to whose manhood she could appeal, and John Winthrop, to his lasting shame, was to prosecute her from the judgment seat. She was soon to become a mother, and her health was feeble, but she was made to stand till she was exhausted; and yet, abandoned and forlorn, before those merciless judges, through two long, weary days of hunger and of cold, the intrepid woman defended her cause with a skill and courage which even now, after two hundred and fifty years, kindles the heart with admiration. The case for the government was opened by John Winthrop, the presiding justice, the attorney-general, the foreman of the jury, and the chief magistrate of Massachusetts Bay. He upbraided the prisoner with her many evil courses, with having spoken things prejudicial to the honor of the ministers, with holding an assembly in her house, and with divulging the opinions held by those who had been censured by that court; closing in these words, which sound strangely in the mouth of a New England judge:—

We have thought good to send for you … that if you be in an erroneous way we may reduce you that so you may become a profitable member here among us, otherwise if you be obstinate … that then the court may take such course that you may trouble us no further, therefore I would entreat you … whether you do not justify Mr. Wheelwright’s sermon and the petition.

Mrs. H. I am called here to answer before you, but I hear no things laid to my charge.

Gov. I have told you some already, and more I can tell you.

Mrs. H. Name one, sir.

Gov. Have I not named some already?

Mrs. H. What have I said or done?…

Gov. You have joined with them in the faction.

Mrs. H. In what faction have I joined with them?

Gov. In presenting the petition....

Mrs. H. But I had not my hand to the petition.

Gov. You have counselled them.

Mrs. H. Wherein?

Gov. Why, in entertaining them.

Mrs. H. What breach of law is that, sir?

Gov. Why, dishonoring of parents....

Mrs. H. I may put honor upon them as the children of God and as they do honor the Lord.

Gov. We do not mean to discourse with those of your sex but only this; you do adhere unto them, and do endeavor to set forward this faction, and so you do dishonor us.

Mrs. H. I do acknowledge no such thing, neither do I think that I ever put any dishonor upon you.

And, on the whole, the chief justice broke down so hopelessly in his examination, that the deputy governor, or his senior associate upon the bench, thought it necessary to interfere.

Dep. Gov. I would go a little higher with Mrs. Hutchinson. Now … if she in particular hath disparaged all our ministers in the land that they have preached a covenant of works, and only Mr. Cotton a covenant of grace, why this is not to be suffered…

Mrs. H. I pray, sir, prove it, that I said they preached nothing but a covenant of works....

Dep. Gov. If they do not preach a covenant of grace, clearly, then, they preach a covenant of works.

Mrs. H. No, sir, one may preach a covenant of grace more clearly than another, so I said.

Dudley was faring worse than Winthrop, and the divines, who had been bursting with impatience, could hold no longer. The Rev. Hugh Peters broke in: “That which concerns us to speak unto, as yet we are sparing in, unless the court command us to speak, then we shall answer to Mrs. Hutchinson, notwithstanding our brethren are very unwilling to answer.” And without further urging, that meek servant of Christ went on to tell how he and others had heard that the prisoner said they taught a covenant of works, how they had sent for her, and though she was “very tender” at first, yet upon being begged to speak plainly, she had explained that there “was a broad difference between our Brother Mr. Cotton and ourselves. I desired to know the difference. She answered ‘that he preaches the covenant of grace and you the covenant of works, and that you are not able ministers of the New Testament, and know no more than the apostles did before the resurrection.’”…

Mrs. H. If our pastor would show his writings you should see what I said, and that many things are not so as is reported.

Mr. Wilson. Sister Hutchinson, for the writings you speak of I have them not....

Five more divines followed, who, though they were “loth to speak in that assembly concerning that gentlewoman,” yet to ease their consciences in “the relation wherein” they stood “to the Commonwealth and… unto God,” felt constrained to state that the prisoner had said they were not able ministers of the New Testament, and that the whole of the evidence of Hugh Peters was true, and in so doing they came to an issue of veracity with Cotton.

An adjournment soon followed till next day, and the presiding justice seems to have considered his case against his prisoner as closed.

In the morning Mrs. Hutchinson opened her defence by calling three witnesses, Leverett, Coggeshall, and John Cotton.

Gov. Mr. Coggeshall was not present.

Mr. C. Yes, but I was, only I desired to be silent till I should be called.

Gov. Will you … say that she did not say so?

Mr. C. Yes, I dare say that she did not say all that which they lay against her.

Mr. Peters. How dare you look into the court to say such a word?

Mr. C. Mr. Peters takes upon him to forbid me. I shall be silent....

Gov. Well, Mr. Leverett, what were the words? I pray speak.

Mr. L. To my best remembrance … Mr. Peters did with much vehemency and entreaty urge her to tell what difference there was between Mr. Cotton and them, and upon his urging of her she said: “The fear of man is a snare, but they that trust upon the Lord shall be safe.” And … that they did not preach a covenant of grace so clearly as Mr. Cotton did, and she gave this reason of it, because that as the apostles were for a time without the Spirit so until they had received the witness of the Spirit they could not preach a covenant of grace so clearly.

The Rev. John Cotton was then called. He was much embarrassed in giving his evidence, but, if he is to be believed, his brethren, in their anxiety to make out a case, had colored material facts. He closed his account of the interview in these words: “I must say that I did not find her saying they were under a covenant of works, nor that she said they did preach a covenant of works.”

Gov. You say you do not remember, but can you say she did not speak so?

Mr. C. I do remember that she looked at them as the apostles before the ascension....

Dep. Gov. They affirm that Mrs. Hutchinson did say they were not able ministers of the New Testament.

Mr. C. I do not remember it.

Mrs. Hutchinson had shattered the case of the government in a style worthy of a leader of the bar, but she now ventured on a step for which she has been generally condemned. She herself approached the subject of her revelations. To criticise the introduction of evidence is always simpler than to conduct a cause, but an analysis of her position tends to show not only that her course was the result of mature reflection, but that her judgment was in this instance correct. She probably assumed that when the more easily proved charges had broken down she would be attacked here; and in this assumption she was undoubtedly right. The alternative presented to her, therefore, was to go on herself, or wait for Winthrop to move. If she waited she knew she should give the government the advantage of choosing the ground, and she would thus be subjected to the danger of having fatal charges proved against her by hearsay or distorted evidence. If she took the bolder course, she could explain her revelations as monitions coming to her through texts in Scripture, and here she was certain of Cotton’s support. Before that tribunal she could hardly have hoped for an acquittal; but if anything could have saved her it would have been the sanction given to her doctrines by the approval of John Cotton. At all events, she saw the danger, for she closed her little speech in these touching words: “Now if you do condemn me for speaking what in my conscience I know to be truth, I must commit myself unto the Lord.”

Mr. Nowell. How do you know that that was the Spirit?

Mrs. H. How did Abraham know that it was God?…

Dep. Gov. By an immediate voice.

Mrs. H. So to me by an immediate revelation.

Then she proceeded to state how, through various texts which she cited, the Lord showed her what He would do; and she particularly dwelt on one from Daniel. So far all was well; she had planted herself on ground upon which orthodox opinion was at least divided; but she now committed the one grave error of her long and able defence. As she went on her excitement gained upon her, and she ended by something like a defiance and denunciation: “You have power over my body, but the Lord Jesus hath power over my body and soul; and assure yourselves thus much, you do as much as in you lies to put the Lord Jesus Christ from you, and if you go on in this course you begin, you will bring a curse upon you and your posterity, and the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”

Gov. Daniel was delivered by miracle. Do you think to be delivered so too?

Mrs. H. I do here speak it before the court. I look that the Lord should deliver me by his providence....

Dep. Gov. I desire Mr. Cotton to tell us whether you do approve of Mrs. Hutchinson’s revelations as she hath laid them down.

Mr. C. I know not whether I do understand her, but this I say, if she doth expect a deliverance in a way of providence, then I cannot deny it.

Gov. … I see a marvellous providence of God to bring things to this pass.... God by a providence hath answered our desires, and made her to lay open herself and the ground of all these disturbances to be by revelations. . . .

Court. We all consent with you.

Gov. Ey, it is the most desperate enthusiasm in the world....

Mr. Endicott. I speak in reference to Mr. Cotton.... Whether do you witness for her or against her.

Mr. C. This is that I said, sir, and my answer is plain, that if she doth look for deliverance from the hand of God by his providence, and the revelation be … according to a word [of Scripture] that I cannot deny.

Mr. Endicott. You give me satisfaction.

Dep. Gov. No, no, he gives me none at all....

Mr. C. I pray, sir, give me leave to express myself. In that sense that she speaks I dare not bear witness against it.

Mr. Nowell. I think it is a devilish delusion.

Gov. Of all the revelations that ever I read of I never read the like ground laid as is for this. The enthusiasts and Anabaptists had never the like....

Mr. Peters. I can say the same … and I think that is very disputable which our brother Cotton hath spoken....

Gov. I am persuaded that the revelation she brings forth is delusion.

All the court but some two or three ministers cry out, We all believe it, we all believe it....

And then Coddington stood up before that angry meeting like the brave man he was, and said, “I beseech you do not speak so to force things along, for I do not for my own part see any equity in the court in all your proceedings. Here is no law of God that she hath broken, nor any law of the country that she hath broke, and therefore deserves no censure; and if she say that the elders preach as the apostles did, why they preached a covenant of grace and what wrong is that to them, … therefore I pray consider, what you do, for here is no law of God or man broken.”

Mr. Peters. I profess I thought Mr. Cotton would never have took her part.

Gov. The court hath already declared themselves satisfied … concerning the troublesomeness of her spirit and the danger of her course amongst us which is not to be suffered. Therefore if it be the mind of the court that Mrs. Hutchinson … shall be banished out of our liberties and imprisoned till she be sent away let them hold up their hands.

All but three consented.

Those contrary minded hold up yours. Mr. Coddington and Colburn only.

Gov. Mrs. Hutchinson, the sentence of the court you hear is that you are banished from out of our jurisdiction as being a woman not fit for our society, and are to be imprisoned till the court shall send you away.

Mrs. H. I desire to know wherefore I am banished.

Gov. Say no more, the court knows wherefore and is satisfied. [Footnote: Hutch. Hist. vol. ii. App. 2.]

With refined malice she was committed to the custody of Joseph Welde of Roxbury, the brother of the Rev. Thomas Welde who thought her a Jezebel. Here “divers of the elders resorted to her,” and under this daily torment rapid progress was made. Probably during that terrible interval her reason was tottering, for her talk came to resemble ravings. [Footnote: Brief Apologie, p. 59.] When this point was reached the divines saw their object attained, and that “with sad hearts” they could give her up to Satan. [Footnote: Brief Apologie, p. 59.] Accordingly they “wrote to the church at Boston, offering to make proof of the same,” whereupon she was summoned and the lecture appointed to begin at ten o’clock. [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 254.]

“When she was come one of the ruling elders called her forth before the assembly,” and read to her the twenty-nine errors of which she was accused, all of which she admitted she had maintained. “Then she asked by what rule such an elder would come to her pretending to desire light and indeede to entrappe her.” He answered that he came not to “entrap her but in compassion to her soule....”

“Then presently she grew into passion … professing withall that she held none of these things … before her imprisonment.” [Footnote: Brief Apol. pp. 59-61.]

The court sat till eight at night, when “Mr. Cotton pronounced the sentence of admonition … with much zeal and detestation of her errors and pride of spirit.” [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 256.] An adjournment was then agreed on for a week and she was ordered to return to Roxbury; but this was more than she could bear, and her distress was such that the congregation seem to have felt some touch of compassion, for she was committed to the charge of Cotton till the next lecture day, when the trial was to be resumed. [Footnote: Brief Apol. p. 62.] At his house her mind recovered its tone and when she again appeared she not only retracted the wild opinions she had broached while at Joseph Welde’s, but admitted “that what she had spoken against the magistrates at the court (by way of revelation) was rash and ungrounded.” [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 258.]

But nothing could avail her. She was in the hands of men determined to make her expiation of her crimes a by-word of terror; her fate was sealed. The doctrines she now professed were less objectionable, so she was examined as to former errors, among others “that she had denied inherent righteousness;” she “affirmed that it was never her judgment; and though it was proved by many testimonies … yet she impudently persisted in her affirmation to the astonishment of all the assembly. So that … the church with one consent cast her out.... After she was excommunicated her spirit, which seemed before to be somewhat dejected, revived again and she gloried in her sufferings.” [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 258.] And all this time she had been alone; her friends were far away.

That no circumstances of horror might be lost, she and one of her most devoted followers, Mary Dyer, were nearing their confinements during this time of misery. Both cases ended in misfortunes over whose sickening details Thomas Welde and his reverend brethren gloated with a savage joy, declaring that “God himselfe was pleased to step in with his casting vote … as clearly as if he had pointed with his finger.” [Footnote: Short Story, Preface, Section 5.] Let posterity draw a veil over the shocking scene.

Two or three days after her condemnation “the governor sent [her] a warrant … to depart … she went by water to her farm at the Mount … and so to the island in the Narragansett Bay which her husband and the rest of that sect had purchased of the Indians.” [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 259.]

This pure and noble but most unhappy woman had sinned against the clergy, past forgiveness here or hereafter. They gibbeted her as Jezebel, and her name became a reproach in Massachusetts through two hundred years. But her crimes and the awful ending of her life are best read in the Christian words of the Rev. Thomas Welde, whose gentle spirit so adorned his holy office.

“For the servants of God who came over into New England … seeing their ministery was a most precious sweete savour to all the saints before she came hither, it is easie to discerne from what sinke that ill vapour hath risen which hath made so many of her seduced party to loath now the smell of those flowers which they were wont to find sweetnesse in. [Footnote: Short Story, p. 40.] … The Indians set upon them, and slew her and all the family. [Footnote: Mrs. Hutchinson and her family were killed in a general massacre of the Dutch and English by the Indians on Long Island. Winthrop, ii. 136.] … Some write that the Indians did burne her to death with fire, her house and all the rest named that belonged to her; but I am not able to affirme by what kind of death they slew her, but slaine it seemes she is, according to all reports. I never heard that the Indians in those parts did ever before this, commit the like outrage …; and therefore God’s hand is the more apparently seene herein, to pick out this wofull woman, to make her and those belonging to her, an unheard of heavie example of their cruelty above al others.” [Footnote: Short Story, Preface.]