Intolerance4: Massachusetts Puritans; Anne Hutchinson – remarkable woman

      This continues from Part 3 (Table of Contents in Part 1) in a series presenting J. C. W. Lindemann's essay "Religious Intolerance in America." — The famous Puritan Roger Williams is introduced, then later a Puritan woman Anne Hutchinson, who Lindemann calls an ________ (read his text and footnote highlighted in green below). The bolding and underlining are Lindemann's emphasis.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Religious Intolerance in America.

[by J. C. W. Lindemann] 

In no other colony did greater religious intolerance prevail than in Massachusetts, where the union of church and state brought forth such “glorious (i.e., unfortunate) fruits”. This was early experienced by Roger Williams, who came to America in 1631. He had studied theology in England, and now maintained: "that the only duty of the human legislator is to regulate the conduct of the citizen against his fellow-citizens, — that God alone is the legislator over the religious thoughts and feelings of the heart, and over the worship of God, and that in these things every man's own conscience can be the only human tribunal." He therefore consequently rejected all those State laws by which the inhabitants of the colony were compelled to attend the public worship of the ruling church, to participate in prescribed ceremonies, and to pay taxes for the maintenance of the churches and preachers. 

Williams, a young and fiery man, had soon won the hearts of the citizens of Salem; while the mass of the people, especially the rulers, were opposed to him. Those at Salem appointed him their pastor; but the government forbade him to officiate there. He went to Plymouth, ministered there for two years, and now went again to Salem, where he was again received with joy. For this the state authorities fined the town, and when Williams wrote to the Christian congregations in the colony and openly stated how wrong he and his congregation were being treated, the town was deprived of all its political liberties until it repented.

Now many of Williams' former friends turned away from him; even his wife disagreed with him. But he declared before his judges that he was willing, for the sake of his principles, not only to endure imprisonment, but also to suffer death. These, agitated by C. Mather, banished him from the colony, and it was only because winter was already near that they allowed him, at his request, to remain till spring. His supporters rallied around him again. This made the government anxious, and they <page 31> sent a ship to take him at once to England. But he had already escaped, and was now wandering through the woods and snow-fields in the middle of winter, until at last he found reception and shelter among the Wampanoags Indians, and with their assistance founded Providence, the first settlement in Rhode Island. 

Soon after, however, Massachusetts had another opportunity to prove its intolerance. Under the administration of the learned Governor Henry Vane (1636), a woman, Anne Hutchinson, arose, who, according to the unfortunate opinion of the time, "beguiled" and "troubled" the hearts of the citizens with "new doctrine." For she asserted "that righteousness comes from faith and not from works, — that the divine life is found inwardly in the soul, and does not consist in outward gifts." At first she asserted this only in meetings of women; later she testified to it also before men. Some applauded her, and even Vane was one of her followers; others rejected her teaching, calling it haughty and ungodly. 

John Cotton, one of the most important preachers of the Puritans († 1652), tried to reconcile both parties with each other and claimed: "Common to them would be the one great goal: to praise and exalt divine grace; only (!) in this they would differ, that one part would seek this grace in itself, in the work of sanctification; while the other part would see it outside of itself, in justification.) (* Grahame's Hist. p. 231) The latter was the quite correct opinion of Hutchinson, who, however, after the manner of passionate women, probably did not always speak with calmness and wisdom, and besides may have asserted many a falsehood.

The preachers were almost all against her, for they believed that Hutchinson was out to rebuke their own proceedings. At that time, the pastors had preached diligently and zealously about sanctification, and had been especially concerned to "sanctify their own customs. They now felt struck, and bade the woman be silent. Hutchinson, however, was not silent; a bitter dispute arose, in the course of which she asserted, "Good works are not necessary; not even as evidences of faith." To all appearances she said this only with a view to justification, and then she was quite right. †) But the pietistic and Methodist-minded, works-driving preachers put it down as an antinomian (rejecting the law and works) doctrine, an abominable heresy. Nevertheless, she retained many followers; the whole colony was divided in their opinion, and it seemed as if the "beautiful peace" they had enjoyed until then was gone forever.

_____________

†) So far as the scanty news indicates, she was an orthodox Lutheran, though not free from a challenging temper and a little much womanly vanity.

Governor Vane was convinced that Hutchinson had not been dealt with properly, and he therefore defended her. But he only succeeded in turning the apparently "pious zeal" of all true Puritans against him. He who had so lately been the darling of the people, — who, when he had just come into the country, had been elected chief magistrate, — he was now condemned as a "hypocrite" and a "heretic."

In order to settle the doctrinal dispute, a synod was held in 1637. The teachings of the "arch-heretic" were terribly unanimously condemned; she herself and her staunchest supporters were "banished" from the colony. Anna Hutchinson, the once celebrated woman, now excluded from the church and hounded out of the country, fled first to Rhode Island, later to a Dutch family in the colony of New York, where she met her death in a night raid by the Indians. Vane thought it best to return to England. — Such was the state of religious freedom in the New England colonies at that time. —

Especially the Papists and the Quakers were hated there. Both were not to be tolerated under any circumstances.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Continued in Part 5  - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I was surprised that Lindemann would call the Puritan woman Hutchinson an "orthodox Lutheran", but he had good reason to, for she apparently taught a doctrine of Justification that matches the Lutheran Doctrine of Justification.  And that is why she faced such persecution from her own Puritans who held too much to "works-driving" for Justification, instead of "Grace Alone". Lindemann shows here that he was a true Lutheran and a faithful student of Walther. Of course modern history attempts to use Hutchinson to promote "women in ministry", but that was not Hutchinson's teaching that got her in such controversy. The Quaker women "ministers" did not teach like Anne Hutchinson on this Christian doctrine. — In the next Part 5 we read about those Quakers.