Opposing views of The Anne Hutchison: Heretical Teacher or Guardian of Religious Liberty

The Case against Anne Hutchinson Author(s): Edmund S. Morgan Source: The New England Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Dec., 1937), pp. 635-649 Published by: The New England Quarterly, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/359929 . Accessed: 27/03/2014 10:03

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THE CASE AGAINST ANNE HUTCHINSON EDMUND S. MORGAN

HE tercentenary year of the founding of the Massachu- setts Bay Colony saw the publication of three biog-

raphies of Anne Hutchinson, all of which eulogized the lady at the expense of the colony's orthodox governors. Winnifred Rugg proclaimed her the " mother of the twentieth-century woman," "a lonely exemplar in newborn America of that freedom of thought, word, and action that women now accept as unthinkingly as the air they breathe." 1 Edith Curtis averred that for a long period " almost the sole contribution that Massachusetts made to American civilization " was in the struggle for civil liberty against Governor Winthrop and his successors, begun by Mrs. Hutchinson.2 Helen Augur declared that although Winthrop was moved by sincere con- victions, " he could not recognize in Anne Hutchinson's teach- ings the outlines of another religious and political philos- ophy with its own right to exist." 3

Miss Augur implies, of course, that we should recognize this at once. Indeed, all these biographies are flattering to the modern reader; for they are based on an assumption, which we also accept as unthinkingly as the air we breathe, that we are not only modern but also enlightened. Each of them seems to say that we have made such " progress " since the age of the Puritans that we can understand both the Puritans and per- sons like Anne Hutchinson who were " in advance " of that age. We have gone forward so far that we can even accord a certain condescending sympathy to the orthodox Puritans themselves. That they were inferior, however, in breadth of perception to the prophet of liberalism, Anne Hutchinson, we should never doubt for a moment. This is the implication

1 Winnifred King Rugg, Unafraid: A Life of Anne Hutchinson (Boston and New York, 1930), 252-253.

2 Edith Curtis, Anne Hutchinson: A Biography (Cambridge, 1930), 93. 3 Helen Augur, An American Jezebel: The Life of Anne Hutchinson

(New York, 1930), 168.

635

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636 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY

of these three biographies published on the three-hundredth anniversary of the founding of Massachusetts.

The three-hundredth anniversary of the banishment of Mrs. Hutchinson is an opportune moment to say a few words in explanation of her treatment by Massachusetts. Without attempting to palliate the unfairness of her trial, it may be of some value to recall the mental climate in which it was con- ducted. For such a change has come over our ways of thinking since the seventeenth century that it is difficult for us to understand the issues involved in her condemnation.

These issues were confined to a sphere of thought that has become alien to most of us. The introduction and spread of scientific investigation have given us a theory of knowledge wholly different from that which prevailed three centuries ago. The focus of our attention is now on the relative sort of truth obtainable by observation of the world. It is only in this empirical realm that we feel able to gain knowledge. We make little effort to reach the realm of absolute truth, which com- prehends metaphysics and religion. Many of us believe it to be non-existent. At most we feel that knowledge of it is un- attainable, and that one man's opinion is as good, or as bad, as another's.

In seventeenth-century Massachusetts the situation was reversed. Although the Puritans showed some awareness of, and respect for, the sort of truth attainable by observation of the world, they were still chiefly medieval in their theory of knowledge. They believed that absolute truth, of which, they said, nature gives only a hint, was revealed to man once and for all in the Word of God, the Bible. At the Reformation, Calvin had rejected the interpretation of the Bible used by the Catholic Church and had made a complete interpretation of his own. Since that time, two generations of Puritans had been revising Calvin's interpretation, and this revision for them was absolute truth, divine and unquestionable. It was not merely the statement of things as they are in the world; it was truth eternal, unlimited by time or space. It was the

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ANNE HUTCHINSON 637

way of salvation. By it the Puritans had determined to mold their daily lives, their church, and their state. And to make this determination a reality they had crossed the Atlantic and had settled on the shores of Massachusetts Bay.

While they were still maintaining a precarious existence, Anne Hutchinson joined them. At first she was welcomed as the godly wife of a pious and successful merchant; but before she had been long in Massachusetts, she broached a doctrine which was absolutely inconsistent with the principles upon which the colony had been founded. She began to affirm a new basis for absolute truth: immediate personal communion with the Holy Ghost. If this communion had been merely for the purposes of illuminating the meaning of Holy Scripture, the Puritans might have had no quarrel with her. The com- munion which she described, however, was one which re- sulted in immediate revelation apart from the Word. To accept her doctrine would mean the abandonment of the fun- damental belief for which the Puritans had crossed the water - the belief that truth for man was to be found in the Bible. It would mean a complete change in their daily lives, in their church, and in their state.

As for their daily life, the Puritans saw that the new doctrine would probably encourage or condone indolence and loose- living. In the communion described by Mrs. Hutchinson the believer was completely passive. He did not scrutinize his life to see whether it was in accord with the precepts of the Bible; he merely waited for the Holy Ghost. As Thomas Welde put it, " he is to stand still and waite for Christ to doe all for him. ... And if he fals into sinne, he is never the more dis- liked of God, nor his condition never the worse." 4 This would remove all the rational basis for moral endeavor which the Puritan theologians had been painfully constructing since the time of Calvin.5 The magistrates of Massachusetts found

4 Antinomianism in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, C. F. Adams, Editor, (Boston, 1894), 74. 5 See Publications, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, xxxii, 247-300: Perry Miller, " The Marrow of Puritan Divinity."

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an example of what acceptance of this heresy meant in the refusal of Mrs. Hutchinson's followers to join the expedition against the Pequots.

As for the church, the Puritans must have realized that Mrs. Hutchinson's dogma destroyed most of the reasons for its existence. For in the list of eighty-two errors refuted by a synod of New England ministers, and declared by most mem- bers of the court which condemned her to have sprung from her doctrine of revelation, are found these two statements:

Errour 22. None are to be exhorted to beleeve, but such whom we know to be the elect of God, or to have his Spirit in them effectu- ally. Error 53. No Minister can teach one that is annoynted by the Spirit of Christ, more then hee knowes already unlesse it be in some circumstances.6

In other words, the minister and the church were no longer needed, " unlesse it be in some circumstances," since God, according to Mrs. Hutchinson, preferred to deal with His children directly.

In the same way she would have done away with the state as it then existed. Her view might have been compatible with a state concerned only with secular ends, but to the Puritans such a state would have seemed a sorry affair. Their com- munity was a spiritual association devoted primarily to spir- itual ends; and it found its laws in the general principles deducible from the Bible and from a rational observation of God's governance of the world. Her insistence on revelation apart from the Word as the source of truth had the corollary " that the will of God in the Word, or directions thereof, are not the rule whereunto Christians are bound to conforme themselves, to live thereafter." 7 Therefore the laws which the Puritan state was enforcing could have no divine validity for her. If the state were to exist, it would have to be simply as a

6 Adams, Antinomianism in . . .Massachusetts Bay, lo2 and 112. 7 Adams, Antinomianism in . . Massachusetts Bay, 96.

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ANNE HUTCHINSON 639 secular association; and that was a concept which the Puritan mind could not entertain.

These results of Mrs. Hutchinson's doctrines became ap- parent before the members of the orthodox group knew for certain what those doctrines were, for Mrs. Hutchinson had carefully refrained from committing herself in public. It was clear to the magistrates of the Bay Colony, however, that the nub of her teaching must consist in the idea of personal rev- elation, and that its consequences were at war with the ideals of Massachusetts. Because the Puritans had undergone great hardships in order to put those ideals into practice, it was only to be expected that they should do their utmost to main- tain them. This we of to-day can readily understand. What is more difficult for us to comprehend is that the Puritans did not regard Mrs. Hutchinson's attack on their ideals as a dif- ference of opinion. Miss Augur is correct in stating that Win- throp " could not recognize in Anne Hutchinson's teachings the outlines of another religious and political philosophy with its own right to exist." To concede that would have been to acknowledge that his own political and religious philos- ophy was wrong, and such a notion never entered his head. He could not regard the case as that of one opinion against another; it was personal opinion against truth. And the terri- fying fact was that this personal opinion was gaining ground; the Word of God was being undermined by a woman. Win- throp saw the commonwealth which he had done much to found - which had been consecrated to absolute truth - rocked to its foundations by the seductive teachings of a clever lady. He could not help regarding that woman as an enemy of God. As governor he was bound to do his utmost to protect the Word and the state from this instrument of Satan.

To appreciate Winthrop's sense of responsibility it is neces- sary to recall the Puritans' conception of the magistrate's office. This requires an examination of that classic of Pro- testant political theory, the Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos. Here we find the origin of the state described in these terms:

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640 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY

Now we read of two sorts of covenants at the inaugurating of kings, the first between God, the king, and the people, that the people might be the people of God. The second, between the king and the people, that the people shall obey faithfully, and the king command justly.8

The Vindicie explains that in these covenants " kings swear as vassals to observe the law of God," 9 and subjects promise to obey them within the limits thus set.

From numerous statements of the Puritans it is clear that the theories of government outlined in the Vindicie were those followed in Massachusetts. Although the foundation of the government was the charter from the king, all who came into the community were by tacit assumption regarded as " bound by soleme covenant to walke by the rule of Gods word in all their conversation." 10 Winthrop explained the

origin of the government in this fashion:

We A. B. C. etc. consented to cohabite in the Massachusetts, and under the government set up among us by his Majesty's patent or grant for our mutual safety and wellfare, we agreed to walke according to the rules of the gospell. And thus you have both a christian common weale and the same founded upon the patent." 11

It was pursuant to this social compact that the oath adminis- tered to officers of the government provided that they should act " according to the Laws of God, and for the advancement of his Gospell, the Laws of this land, and the good of the people of this Jurisdiction." 12

That the compact was not merely between the people them- selves and the magistrates whom they set up, but also between

8 A Defence of Liberty Against Tyrants, H. J. Laski, Editor, (New York, 1923), 71.

9 Laski, Defence of Liberty Against Tyrants, 73. 10 Massachusetts Records, I, 272. 11 A Collection of Original Papers Relative to the History of the Colony

of Massachusetts-Bay, Thomas Hutchinson, Editor, (Boston, 1769), 85- 12 The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts, Max Farrand, Editor, (Cam-

bridge, 1929), 56.

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ANNE HUTCHINSON 641 the people, the magistrates, and God, is indicated by the lan- guage in which the Puritans spoke of themselves. Always they were the " People of God," and frequently they referred to their commonwealth as Israel. Furthermore, they believed the consequences of their compact to be those specified by the author of the Vindiciwa. The latter pointed out that according to the compact, " the king himself, and all the people should be careful to honour and serve God according to His will re- vealed in His word, which, if they performed, God would assist and preserve their estates: as in doing the contrary, he would abandon, and exterminate them."'3 In like man- ner the Puritan ministers explained to the people of New England that they were a chosen people and could not " sin at so cheap a rate, or expect so few stripes for their disobedi- ence " as those who had no covenant with the Almighty: 1" Whilst a covenant people carry it so as not to break covenant, the Lord blesseth them visibly, but if they degenerate, then blessings are removed and woful Judgments come in their room.'5

So, while the Puritans were submissive and obedient to God - that is, so long as they submitted to His will as ex- pressed in the Word - He would prosper all their affairs. But if they strayed and fell to open sin, He would let loose His wrath upon them. As the Vindicixa points out, there are two respondents to God's covenant:

. . . the king and Israel, who by consequence are bound one for another and each for the whole. For as when Caius and Titus have promised jointly to pay to their creditor Seius a certain sum, each of them is bound for himself and his companion, and the creditor may demand the sum of which of them he pleases. In the like manner the king for himself, and Israel for itself are bound with all circumspection to see that the church be not

13 Laski, Defence of Liberty Against Tyrants, 72. 14 Urian Oakes, New England Pleaded with . .. [Election Sermon, 1673],

(Cambridge, 1673), 14. 15 Increase Mather, "A Discourse concerning the Danger of Apostacy"

[Election Sermon, 1677] in A Call from Heaven etc. (Boston, 1685), 61.

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642 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY

damnified: if either of them be negligent of their covenant, God may justly demand the whole of which of the two He pleases, and the more probably of the people than of the king, and for that many cannot so easily slip away as one, and have better means to discharge the debts than one alone.16

The implications of this theory are numerous. Probably the most important is the doctrine that subjects must rebel when the magistrates command something contrary to the Law of God. More to the point in the present instance, how- ever, is the notion that if the ruler does not punish outward breaches of that law, the whole people may suffer punishment at the hands of the Almighty Himself. Solomon Stoddard put the case as late as 17o3:

Under the best government many times there will be a breaking out of sin, though Rulers and People do what they can to prevent it, yet particular persons will be guilty of flagitious crimes. But if the people doe their duty to inform Rulers, and Rulers theirs in bearing a due testimony against them, these are not the sins of the Land; God don't charge these sins upon the Country: the country is not guilty of the Crimes of particular Persons, unless they make themselves guilty; if they countenance them, or con- nive at them, they make themselves guilty by participation: But when they are duely witnessed against, they bring no publick guilt.17

Increase Mather had the same doctrine in mind when in 1677 he exhorted the governors:

I know you cannot change mens hearts, yet you may doe much (if God help you) towards the effecting an outward Reformation, which will procure outward blessings and prevent outward Judg- ments and desolations. There is pride in the hearts of men, you cannot Reform that, but there is pride in Apparel, which the Lord has said he will punish for, you may cause that to be reformed. There is Drunkeness in the sight of God, which doth not fall

16 Laski, Defence of Liberty Against Tyrants, 91. 17 Solomon Stoddard, The Way for a People to Live Long [Election Sermon,

17o3], (Boston, 1703), 8.

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ANNE HUTCHINSON 643 under your Cognizance, but Drunkeness in the sight of men, and the occasions of it, do; which you may and ought to remove."8

This was doubtless the reason which Massachusetts gave to Plymouth when she imprisoned John Alden for alleged com- plicity in a murder on the Kennebec in Maine. For Governor Bradford, after expressing the Pilgrims' dissatisfaction with the action of Massachusetts, apparently refers to such a justi- fication:

But yet being assured of their Christian love, and perswaded what was done was out of godly zeale, that religion might not suffer, nor sinne any way covered or borne with, ... they did indeavore to appease and satisfie them the best they could."1

Bradford records also the testimony of several ministers who had been questioned concerning the duty of the magistrate in seeking out instances of disobedience of the Mosaic laws regarding adultery and sodomy. The answer of Mr. Reynor is typical. He declared that the magistrate must follow up every suggestion of indulgence in these crimes in order to punish them, " or els he may betray his countrie and people to the heavie displeasure of God." 20

No one was more thoroughly imbued with this socio- religious theory of criminology than Governor Winthrop. At the outset of the Bay Colony experiment, he had advised his fellow immigrants that " the care of the publique must over- sway all private respects." 21 Later, in his controversy with young Henry Vane, Winthrop reminded the colonists that the nature of their incorporation " tyes every member thereof to seeke out and entertaine all means that may conduce to the wellfare of the bodye, and to keepe off whatsoever doth ap- peare to tend to theire damage." 22 Granted this, it was the

18 Mather, "Danger of Apostacy," 111-112. 19 William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation: 162o-i647 (Boston,

1912), II, 186-187. 20 Bradford, Plymouth Plantation, II, 317- 21 Winthrop Papers, ii (Boston, 1931), 293. 22 Hutchinson, Original Papers, 68.

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644 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY

social obligation of every member of the commonwealth to refrain from breaking the Lord's commandments, for by such a breach he might bring down the divine wrath on the whole community. And it was, of course, the duty of the magistrate to protect the community by punishing the individual sinner, lest the community appear to condone sin. As Winthrop put it, " better it is some member should suffer the evill they bring upon themselves, than that, by indulgence towards them, the whole familye of God in this countrey should be scattered, if not destroyed." 23

It was with these beliefs in mind that the magistrates of Massachusetts began the trial of Mrs. Hutchinson. There were undoubtedly numerous personal animosities that led to the inauguration of the prosecution - the pique of the min- isters and the jealousy of the magistrates. Theoretically, how- ever, the trial was based on the charge that Mistress Hutchin- son had broken the Law of God. Now it must be remembered that before her trial this wise woman had never publicly ad- vanced her tenet of personal revelation. Neither had she openly professed any doctrines that could be sanely regarded as contrary to the Law of God. It was clear, nevertheless, that some one must have been urging such views privately, for the synod of ministers had found eighty-two of them to condemn. It was common rumor that that some one was Mrs. Hutchin- son. Accordingly in October, 1637, she was summoned before the General Court to answer the scanty list of charges that the magistrates had been able to draw up.

Although she may have instigated it, Mrs. Hutchinson had been wise enough not to sign the petition in favor of John Wheelwright, because of which the General Court had been disfranchising, fining, and even banishing, many of her fol- lowers. And so now, when the court attempted to deal " with the head of all this faction," they could accuse her merely with " countenancing and incouraging " those who had been sow- ers of sedition. To this was added the even weaker charge,

23 Hutchinson, Original Papers, ioo.

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ANNE HUTCHINSON 645 that she held in her house meetings which had been con- demned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for her sex. Following these was a last and more serious indictment, that she had traduced the faithful ministers of the colony.24

The ground of the first specification was that in entertain- ing those who had been subsequently convicted of sedition, she had broken the fifth commandment: she had dishonored the governors, who were the fathers of the commonwealth. Her nimble wit soon put her judges in a dilemma.

Mrs. H. But put the case Sir that I do fear the Lord and my parents, may not I entertain them that fear the Lord because my parents will not give me leave? 25

After attempting to find his way around this logical im- passe, Governor Winthrop, good Puritan casuist though he was, was forced to take refuge in dogmatic assertion.

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 for- ward this faction and so you do dishonour us.26

The court next called upon her to justify the weekly meet- ings which she held at her house. In answer she quoted two passages of Scripture: Titus 11, 3-5, which indicates that the elder women should instruct the younger, and Acts xviii, 26, wherein " Aquila and Priscilla tooke upon them to instruct Apollo, more perfectly, yet he was a man of good parts, but they being better instructed might teach him."

Court. See how your argument stands, Priscilla with her hus- band, tooke Apollo home to instruct him privately, therefore Mistris Hutchinson without her husband may teach sixty or eighty.

24 This paragraph and subsequent ones are based on the two accounts of the trial printed in Adams, Antinomianism in . . . Massachusetts Bay, 235- 284. See, also, 164.

25 Adams, Antinomianism in . . . Massachusetts Bay, 238. 26 Adams, Antinomianism in . . . Massachusetts Bay, 238.

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646 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY Hutch. I call them not, but if they come to me, I may instruct

them. Court. Yet you shew us not a rule. Hutch. I have given you two places of Scripture. Court. But neither of them will sute your practise. Hutch. Must I shew my name written therein? 27

Again, after some further argument, Winthrop resorted to bare assertion, enunciating once more the Puritan theory of criminology: . . we see no rule of God for this, we see not that any should have authority to set up any other exercises besides what au- thority hath already set up and so what hurt comes of this you will be guilty of and we for suffering you.28

Undaunted by the failure to prove the first two counts, the court now moved to the final and most serious accusation, that she had insulted the ministers. The basis of this charge lay in a conference held the preceding December between the ministers and Mrs. Hutchinson. In spite of the fact that the conference had been private, the ministers now testified that she had designated them all, except Mr. Cotton and Mr. Wheelwright, as laboring under a covenant of works. The Puritan ministers were still filled with the zeal of the Ref- ormation, and no epithet could have been better designed to arouse their ire than the one which they now declared that she had applied to them. When the court adjourned for the day, she was facing her most difficult problem.

That night she went over some notes taken at the Decem- ber conference by her opponent Mr. Wilson, pastor of the Boston church. Finding that the ministers' testimonies against her were inaccurate, she demanded, when the trial reopened the following morning, that the ministers be made to give their evidence under oath. This created a great stir and only served to strengthen the hard feeling of the court against her. Finally, however, John Cotton, teacher of the Boston church

27 Adams, Antinomianism in . .. Massachusetts Bay, 168-169. 28 Adams, Antinomianism in . . . Massachusetts Bay, 241.

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ANNE HUTCHINSON 647 and most respected theologian of the colony, was called upon to give his version of the conference. With careful diplomacy he soothed the injured pride of the other ministers and brought his speech to a dramatic close by declaring: " 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." 29 And though pressed by the other ministers, he firmly stood his ground.

With this testimony the case against Mrs. Hutchinson was about to collapse. The first two specifications against her had been too weakly sustained to warrant any grave condemna- tion, and now the revered Mr. Cotton had practically de- stroyed the basis of the only remaining charge. Her triumph was too much for her. Hitherto she had been on guard and had dexterously parried every rude thrust of her prosecutors. Had she been content to hold her tongue at this point, her judges might have felt obliged to dismiss the case for lack of evidence, or at best would have passed some vote of censure in order to save their faces. Instead of continuing to rely on her native wit, she proceeded to justify herself by an imme- diate divine revelation.

Her prosecutors could not have hoped for a better ground upon which to condemn her. The surviving descriptions of the trial make it clear that the men who were at the same time her prosecutors and her judges had determined her guilt in advance and were merely searching for sufficient evidence on which to convict her. She herself gave them that evidence. By claiming an immediate revelation, she denied the funda- mental tenet upon which the Puritan state was founded: that the Will of God was expressed directly only in the Word. Now all the previous charges could be dropped and her conviction based on this alone. And so Winthrop records that

. . . the Court and all the rest of the Assembly (except those of her owne party) did observe a speciall providence of God, that

29 Adams, Antinomianism in . . . Massachusetts Bay, 266.

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(while shee went about to cover such offences as were laid to her charge, by putting matters upon proofe, and then quarrelling with the evidence) her owne mouth should deliver her into the power of the Court, as guilty of that which all suspected her for, but were not furnished with proofe sufficient to proceed against her. ...

The Court saw now an inevitable necessity to rid her away, except wee would bee guilty, not only of our own ruine, but also of the Gospel, so in the end the sentence of banishment was pro- nounced against her, and shee was committed to the Marshall, till the Court should dispose of her.0?

Thus ended the trial of Anne Hutchinson, a proceeding that scarcely deserves to be dignified by that name. Our in- dignation at its unfairness is commendable; for members of a modern state founded on self-government should be acutely conscious of the value of the forms of justice. We should remember, however, that this proceeding took place in an infant community the leaders of which looked on democracy as the worst form of government. This in no way excuses the unfairness of the trial, but it does make it easier to recognize the appropriateness of the sentence. Granted that Mrs. Hutch- inson proclaimed a belief in immediate revelation, it was quite impossible that she should have been retained in the Puritan commonwealth. That our natural sympathies lie with her, rather than with the rulers of the colony, is simply an indication that the Puritan experiment failed. It was be- cause her opinions were repellant to them that the Puritans banished Anne Hutchinson, but they sincerely believed that in thus protecting themselves they were also protecting God's eternal truth. Winthrop summed up the case in characteristic fashion, with words that have the ring of genuine feeling:

Thus it pleased the Lord to heare the prayers of his afflicted people (whose soules had wept in secret, for the reproach which was cast upon the Churches of the Lord Jesus in this Countrey, by occasion of the divisions which were grown amongst us, through

0so Adams, Antinomianism in . . . Massachusetts Bay, 177 and 18o.

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ANNE HUTCHINSON 649

the vanity of some weake minds, which cannot seriously affect any thing long, except it bee offered them under some renewed shape) and by the care and indevour of the wise and faithfull Ministers of the Churches, assisted by the Civill authority, to discover this Master-piece of the old Serpent, and to break the brood by scat- tering the Leaders, under whose conduct hee had prepared such Ambushment, as in all reason would soon have driven Christ and Gospel out of New England, (though to the ruine of the instru- ments themselves, as well as others) and to the repossessing of Satan in his ancient Kingdom; It is the Lords work, and it is mar- vellous in our eyes.31

31 Adams, Antinomianism in . . . Massachusetts Bay, 185-186.

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