THE ANTINOMIAN CONTROVERSY. 387 IX. of the original settlers, the framers of the civil govern- CHAP. ment, and their adherents; they who were intent on the foundation and preservation of a commonwealth, 1636 and were satisfied with the established order of society. They had founded their government on the basis of the church, and church membership could be obtained only by the favor of the clergy and an exemplary life. They dreaded unlimited freedom of opinion as the parent of ruinous divisions. "The cracks and flaws in the new building of the reformation," thought they, "portend a fall;" they desired patriotism, union, and a common heart; they were earnest to confirm and build up the state, the child of their cares and their sorrows. They were reproached with being "priestridden magistrates," "under a covenant of works." The other party was composed of individuals who had arrived after the civil government and religious discipline of the colony had been established. They came fresh from the study of the tenets of Geneva; and their pride consisted in following the principles of the reformation with logical precision to all their consequences. Their eyes were not primarily directed to the institutions of Massachusetts, but to the doctrines of their religious system. They had come to the wilderness for freedom of religious opinion; and they resisted every form of despotism over the mind. To them the clergy of Massachusetts were "the ushers of persecution," "popish factors," who had not imbibed the true doctrines of Christian reform; and they applied to the influence of the Puritan ministers. the principle which Luther and Calvin had employed against the observances and pretensions of the Roman 1 Shepherd's Lamentation, 2. dington's. See Besse, ii. 267. 3 Coddington, in Besse, ii. 267. CHAP church. IX. Every political opinion, every philosophical tenet, assumed in those days a theological form: with the doctrine of justification by faith alone, they derided the formality of the established religion; and by asserting that the Holy Spirit dwells in every believer, that the revelation of the Spirit is superior "to the ministry of the word," they sustained with intense fanaticism the paramount authority of private judgment. The founder of this party was Anne Hutchinson, a woman of such admirable understanding "and profitable and sober carriage," that she won a powerful party in the country, and her enemies could never speak of her without acknowledging her eloquence and her ability. She was encouraged by John Wheelwright, her brother, and by Henry Vane, the governor of the colony; while a majority of the people of Boston sustained her in her rebellion against the clergy. Scholars and men of learning, members of the magistracy and the general court adopted her opinions.5 The public mind seemed hastening towards an insurrection against spiritual authority; and she was denounced as "weakening the hands and hearts of the people towards the ministers," as being "like Roger Williams 8 The subject possessed the highest political importance. Nearly all the clergy, except Cotton, in whose house Vane was an inmate, clustered together in defence of their influence, and in opposition to Vane; 1637. and Wheelwright, who, in a fast-day's sermon, had strenuously maintained the truth of his opinions, and Mar. 1 Winthrop, i. 213, 214. 2 Winthrop, i. 201, and in Hutch- 3 Welde's Rise, Reign, &c. 5 Welde's Rise, Reign, &c. THE ANTINOMIAN CONTROVERSY. 389 IX. had never been confuted,1 in spite of the remonstrance CHAP. of the governor, was censured by the general court for sedition. At the ensuing choice of magistrates, 1637 May the religious divisions controlled the elections. The 17. friends of Wheelwright had threatened an appeal to England; but in the colony "it was accounted perjury and treason to speak of appeals to the king." The contest appeared, therefore, to the people, not as the struggle for intellectual freedom against the authority of the clergy, but as a contest for the liberties of Massachusetts against the power of the English government. Could it be doubted who would obtain the confidence of the people? In the midst of such high excitement, that even the pious Wilson climbed into a tree to harangue the people on election day, Winthrop and his friends, the fathers and founders of the colony, recovered the entire management of the government. the dispute infused its spirit into every thing; it interfered with the levy of troops for the Pequod war;5 it influenced the respect shown to the magistrates; the distribution of town-lots; the assessment of rates; and at last the continued existence of the two opposing May. parties was considered inconsistent with the public peace. To prevent the increase of a faction esteemed to be so 'dangerous, a law, somewhat analogous to the alien law in England, and to the European policy of passports, was enacted by the party in power; none should be received within the jurisdiction, but such as should be allowed by some of the magistrates. The dangers which were simultaneously menaced from the Episcopal party in the mother But IX. 1637. ence. CHAP. Country, gave to the measure an air of magnanimous defiance; it was almost a proclamation of independAs an act of intolerance, it found in Vane an inflexible opponent, and, using the language of the times, he left a memorial of his dissent. "Scribes and Pharisees, and such as are confirmed in any way of error," these are the remarkable words of the man, who soon embarked for England, where he afterwards pleaded in parliament for the liberties of Catholics and Dissenters," all such are not to be denyed cohabitation, but are to be pitied and reformed. Ishmael shall dwell in the presence of his brethren." The friends of Wheelwright could not brook the censure of their leader; but they justified their indignant remonstrances by the language of fanaticism. "A new rule of practice by immediate revelations," was now to be the guide of their conduct; not that they expected a revelation "in the way of a miracle;" such an idea Anne Hutchinson rejected "as a delusion; " they only slighted the censures of the ministers and the court, and avowed their determination to follow the impulses of conscience. But individual conscience is often the dupe of interest, and often but a more honorable name for self-will. The government Aug. feared, or pretended to fear, a disturbance of the public peace, a wild insurrection of lawless fanatics. A synod of the ministers of New England was therefore assembled, to accomplish the difficult task of settling the true faith. Numerous opinions were harmoniously condemned; and vagueness of language, so often the parent of furious controversy, performed the office of a peace-maker. Now that Vane had returned 1 Welde, 45, ed. 1692, or 42, ed. 1644. 2 Testimony of John Cotton, in Hutchinson, ii. 443. EXILE OF MRS. HUTCHINSON AND OTHERS. 391 IX. to England, it was hardly possible to find any grounds CHAP of difference between the flexible Cotton and his equally orthodox opponents. The general peace of the colony being thus assured, the triumph of the clergy was complete; and the civil magistrates proceeded to pass sentence on the more resolute offenders. Wheelwright, Anne Hutchinson, and Aspinwall, were exiled from the territory of Massachusetts, as "unfit for the society" of its citizens; and their adherents, who, it was feared, "might, upon some revelation, make a sudden insurrection," and who were ready to seek protection by an appeal from the authority of the colonial government, were, like the tories during the war for independence, required to deliver up their arms. So ended the Antinomian strife in Massachusetts.1 The principles of Anne Hutchinson were a natural consequence of the progress of the reformation. She had imbibed them in Europe; and it is a singular fact, though easy of explanation, that, in the very year 1637 in which she was arraigned at Boston, Descartes, like herself a refugee from his country, like herself a prophetic harbinger of the spirit of the coming age, established philosophic liberty on the method of free reflection. Both asserted that the conscious judgment of the mind is the highest authority to itself. Descartes did but promulgate, under the philosophic form of free reflection, the same truth which Anne Hutchinson, with the fanaticism of impassioned conviction, avowed under the form of inward revelations. 1 On this strife I have read the Col. Records; the decisions of the synod; the copious Winthrop; the Documents in Hutchinson's Coll.; Welde's Rise, Reign, and Ruin; T. Shepherd's Lamentation; a frag ment of Wheelwright's Sermon ; and |
