American Heroes

by Edmund S. Morgan

  It is a little surprising that people so sure of themselves could have agreed with one another long enough to establish churches and governments that lasted for generations. They had been dissenters in England, but they did not regard dissent itself as valuable in the way that we have come to do. We tend to sympathize with the people they expelled for disagreeing with them. One who stands out is Anne Hutchinson, whose disagreement gathered followers to threaten the Massachusetts enterprise. In 1637 they expelled her, after a trial in which, as will be seen, she actually outwitted her judges. In later centuries she was hailed as a heroine for her courage in standing up for her beliefs. But if we wish to understand what was at stake in her trial and its outcome, we must consider the other side of the story.

  The founders of Massachusetts had been there only four years when 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 that 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 communion that she described, however, was one that resulted in immediate revelation apart from the Word. To accept her doctrine would have meant the abandonment of the fundamental belief for which the Puritans had crossed the water—the belief that truth for man was to be found in the Bible. It would have meant 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 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, one of her judges, 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 disliked of God, nor his condition never the worse.” This would remove all the rational basis for moral endeavor that the Puritan theologians had been painfully constructing since the time of Calvin. The magistrates of Massachusetts found an example of what acceptance of this heresy meant in the refusal of Hutchinson’s followers to join the expedition against the Pequot Indians, who were threatening the colony.

  As for the church, the Puritans must have realized that 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 members of the court that 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 effectually. Error 53. No Minister can teach one that is anoynted by the Spirit of Christ, more then hee knowes already unlesse it be in some circumstances.

  In other words, the minister and the church were no longer needed, “unlesse it be in some circumstances,” since God, according to 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 community was a spiritual association devoted primarily to spiritual 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.” Therefore, the laws that 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 secular association; and that was a concept which the founders could not entertain and for which they had exiled Roger Williams the year before.

  These results of Hutchinson’s doctrines became apparent before the members of the orthodox group knew for certain what those doctrines were, for 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 had to consist in the idea of personal revelation, 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 maintain them. This we of today can readily understand. What is more difficult for us to comprehend is that the Puritans did not regard Hutchinson’s attack on their ideals as a difference of opinion. The elected governor of the colony, John Winthrop, could not regard the case as that of one opinion against another; it was personal opinion against truth. And the terrifying fact was that this personal opinion was gaining ground; the Word of God was being undermined by a woman. Winthrop saw the commonwealth that 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 necessary to recall the Puritans’ conception of the magistrate’s office. This requires an examination of that classic of Protestant political theory, the Vindiciæ Contra Tyrannos. Here we find the origin of the state described in these terms:

  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.

  The Vindiciæ explains that in these covenants “kings swear as vassals to observe the law of God,” 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 Vindiciæ 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.” 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.

  It was pursuant to this social compact that the oath administered 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.”

  That the compact was not merely between the people themselves and the magistrates whom they set up, but also between the people, the magistrates, and God, is indicated by the language 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 Vindiciæ. 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 revealed 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.” In like manner 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 disobedience” as those who had no
covenant with the Almighty:

  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.

  So, while the Puritans were submissive and obedient to God—that is, as long as they submitted to His will as expressed 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 Vindiciæ 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 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.

  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, however, 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, the minister of Northampton, put the case as late as 1703:

  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 connive at them, they make themselves guilty by participation: But when they are duely witnessed against, they bring no publick guilt.

  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 Judgments 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 under your Cognizance, but Drunkeness in the sight of men, and the occasions of it, do; which you may and ought to remove.

  This was doubtless the reason that Massachusetts gave to Plymouth Colony after imprisoning John Alden for alleged complicity in a murder on the Kennebec in Maine. For Governor Bradford, after expressing dissatisfaction with the action of Massachusetts, apparently refers to such a justification:

  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.

  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 one of them 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.”

  No one was more thoroughly imbued with this socioreligious 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 oversway all private respects.” Later he 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 appeare to tend to theire damage.” Granted this, it was the 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.”

  It was with these beliefs in mind that the magistrates of Massachusetts began the trial of Hutchinson. There were undoubtedly numerous personal animosities that led to the inauguration of the prosecution—the pique of the ministers and the jealousy of the magistrates. Theoretically, however, the trial was based on the charge that Hutchinson had broken the Law of God. Now it must be remembered that before her trial this wise woman had never publicly advanced 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 someone 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 someone was Hutchinson. 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, Hutchinson had been wise enough not to sign a petition in favor of John Wheelwright, a minister convicted of sedition for espousing doctrines attributed to her. The General Court had been disfranchising, fining, and even banishing the signatories. 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 sowers of sedition. To this was added the even weaker charge that she held in her house meetings that had been condemned 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.

  The ground of the first specification was that in entertaining 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?

  After attempting to find his way around this logical impasse, 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 forward this faction and so you do dishonour us.

  The court next called upon her to justify the weekly meetings that she held at her house. In answer she quoted two passages of Scripture: Titus II, 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 husband, tooke Apollo home to instruct him privately, therefore Mistris Hutchison without her husband may teach sixty or eighty.

  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?

  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 authority hath already set up and so what hurt comes of this you will be guilty of and we for suffering you.

  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 Hutchinson. Even though 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 Reformation, and no epithet could have been better designed to arouse their ire than the one that they now declared 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 December 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 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.” And though pressed by the other ministers, he firmly stood his ground.