English literature

Anne Hutchinson:
Trial Excerpt (1637)

The Puritan community that dominated the Massachusetts Bay Colony was disrupted by two
notable dissenters. In 1636, Roger Williams was banished due to his outspoken belief in the
separation of church and state. His declaration that “forced religion stinks in God’s nostrils”
challenged the Puritan theocratic society which had no room for alternative spiritual thought.
Upon leaving Boston, Williams founded Providence. Within time, Rhode Island became
recognized as a haven for religious tolerance (as did Quaker-dominated Pennsylvania later).

Another Puritan, Anne Hutchinson, also threatened Puritan orthodoxy. She held religious
discussions in her home, publicly condemned some of Boston’s most famous clergymen as
deficient, and claimed that she received direct revelation from God. When the charges against
her were on the verge of being dismissed, she suddenly blurted that God had informed her that
her enemies would be destroyed. Within the Puritan framework, this was blasphemy because it
contradicted the belief that God spoke only through the Bible. Hutchinson was also charged with
heresy and, when she tried to recant, further accused of lying. She joined Williams in Rhode
Island and later moved to the Dutch colony of New Netherland (New York).

In 1643, Hutchinson and several of her children were killed in an attack by local Indians who
presented themselves in a friendly manner, then suddenly turned on their unsuspecting victims
(the attack was part of a series of incidents known as Kieft’s War). The Puritans interpreted the
incident as punishment from God levied upon Hutchinson. The following excerpt is from her trial
at Newton in 1637.

    

Gov. John Winthrop: Mrs. Hutchinson, you are called here as one of those that
have troubled the peace of the commonwealth and the churches here; you are known
to be a woman that hath had a great share in the promoting and divulging of those
opinions that are causes of this trouble, and…you have spoken divers things, as we
have been informed, very prejudicial to the honour of the churches and ministers
thereof, and you have maintained a meeting and an assembly in your house that hath
been condemned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the
sight of God nor fitting for your sex, and notwithstanding that was cried down you
have continued the same, therefore we have thought good to send for you to
understand how things are, 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 in your course that then the court may take such course that you may
trouble us no further, therefore I would intreat you to express whether you do not
hold and assent in practice to those opinions and factions that have been handled in
court already, that is to say, whether you do not justify Mr. Wheelwright’s sermon and
the petition.

Mrs. Anne Hutchinson: I am called here to answer before you but I hear no things
laid to my charge.

Gov. John Winthrop: I have told you some already and more I can tell you….Why
do you keep such a meeting at your house as you do every week upon a set day?

Mrs. Anne Hutchinson: It is lawful for me so to do, as it is all your practices and can
you find a warrant for yourself and condemn me for the same thing? The ground of
my taking it up was, when I first came to this land because I did not go to such
meetings as those were, it was presently reported that I did not allow of such
meetings but held them unlawful and therefore in that regard they said I was proud
and did despise all ordinances, upon that a friend came unto me and told me of it and
I to prevent such aspersions took it up, but it was in practice before I came.
Therefore I was not the first.

Gov. John Winthrop: …I will say that there was no meeting of women alone, but
your meeting is of another sort for there are sometimes men among you.

Mrs. Anne Hutchinson: There was never any man with us.

Gov. John Winthrop: Well, admit there was no man at your meeting and that you
was sorry for it, there is no warrant for your doings, and by what warrant do you
continue such a course?

Mrs. Anne Hutchinson: I conceive there lies a clear rule in Titus that the elder
women should instruct the younger [Titus 2:3-5] and then I must have a time wherein
I must do it….

If you please to give me leave I shall give you the ground of what I know to be true.
Being much troubled to see the falseness of the constitution of the Church of
England, I had like to have turned separatist. Whereupon I kept a day of solemn
humiliation and pondering of the thing; this scripture was brought unto me―he that
denies Jesus Christ to be come in the flesh is antichrist. This I considered of and in
considering found that the papists did not deny him to be come in the flesh nor we
did not deny him―who then was antichrist?…The Lord knows that I could not open
scripture; he must by his prophetical office open it unto me….I bless the Lord, he
hath let me see which was the clear ministry and which the wrong.

Since that time I confess I have been more choice and he hath let me to distinguish
between the voice of my beloved and the voice of Moses, the voice of John Baptist
and the voice of antichrist, for all those voices are spoken of in scripture. 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 (assistant to the Court): How do you know that that was the spirit?

Mrs. Anne Hutchinson: How did Abraham know that it was God that bid him offer
his son, being a breach of the sixth commandment?

Dep. Gov. Thomas Dudley: By an immediate voice.

Mrs. Anne Hutchinson: So to me by an immediate revelation.

Dep. Gov. Thomas Dudley: How! an immediate revelation.

Mrs. Anne Hutchinson: By the voice of his own spirit to my soul. I will give you
another scripture, Jeremiah 46: 27-28―out of which the Lord showed me what he
would do for me and the rest of his servants. But after he was pleased to reveal
himself to me….

Therefore I desire you to look to it, for you see this scripture fulfilled this day and
therefore I desire you that as you tender the Lord and the church and commonwealth
to consider and look what you do.

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 I bring a curse
upon you and your posterity, and the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it….

Gov. John Winthrop: I am persuaded that the revelation she brings forth is
delusion….

The court hath already declared themselves satisfied concerning the things you hear,
and 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 for these things that appear before us is unfit for our society, and if
it be the mind of the court that she shall be banished out of our liberties and
imprisoned till she be sent away, let them hold up their hands….

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. Anne Hutchinson: I desire to know wherefore I am banished?

Gov. John Winthrop: Say no more, the court knows wherefore and is satisfied.

 What place did the Puritans hold within the Anglican Church? How were they

different from Separatist groups such as the Pilgrims?

 What factor made Anne Hutchinson’s trial―as a religious dissenter―so ironic
within the Puritan community?

 What portions of this transcript reveal Anne Hutchinson’s religious zeal? Why
did Governor John Winthrop and other members of the Court consider her

passion so dangerous?

 At the close of her trial, Anne Hutchinson asks why she is being banished.

What does her question suggest about her attitude toward the Court?

 Anne Hutchinson was charged with blasphemy and heresy against the Puritan

order. Explain the difference between the two accusations.