Reformation. And in the mid-seventeenth century, on the eve of the Englishcivil war, both sides—the Parliament and the court—hired astrologers to glean sympathetic readings of the planets and stars.
In early Boston Anne had a reputation as a prophetess. John Winthrop reported in his journal that “her godliness and spiritual gifts” led people to “look at her as a prophetess, raised up of God for some great work now at hand, so she had more resort to her for counsel about matters of conscience and clearing up men’s spiritual estates than any minister (I might say all the elders) in the country.” Even more troubling to him, she took “upon her infallibly to know the election of others, so as she would say that if she had but one half hour’s talk with a man, she would tell whether he were elect or not.” Winthrop could have assurance that he knew God’s will, but she could not. Similarly, her judges believed that the gift of prophecy fell only on ministers, thus only on men.
Hutchinson’s reputation for prophecy arose, apparently, from two predictions she made aboard the Griffin, the ship that brought her to America. God had revealed to her the date the ship would arrive in America, and—according to her daughter Faith—Anne had prophesied that “a young man on the ship should be saved, but he must walk in the ways” of God. At the time, many people saw God’s hand in such events as the passing of a comet or even the Sunday drowning of boys playing on the frozen river in winter—God punishes Sabbath breakers. An earthquake that shook England just before Christmas in 1601 was soon the occasion of a London pamphlet, The Wonders of the World, the Trembling of the Earth, and the Warnings of the World before the Judgment Day. For colonists, as for Europeans then, supernatural and natural forces operated in the world, and God was the most powerful force of all. His “providence,” David Hall noted, “accounted for everything that happened in everyday life” and was open to interpretation as a sign of God’s judgment or his mercy. There was little, if any, distinction between the moral (sin) and the physical (sickness).
While most ministers preferred the idea that revelation ended with the apostles of Christ, several ministers of Massachusetts claimed visions and prophesied. John Wilson often used prayer to heal the sick and to affect future events. During the Pequot War, for instance, when he was chaplain of the expedition to subdue the natives, he said he haddeflected an arrow from a man’s chest through prayer. He reported that his dreams while sleeping worked as prophecy. John Cotton encouraged his congregations in England and America to open themselves to God and to experience “revelations.” In John Wheelwright’s Fast Day speech, he claimed actually to see the approach of the “terrible day” when all the enemies of Christ “shall be consumed” by fire.
Hutchinson’s collective doctrines are now termed Antinomianism, a label Winthrop first attached to her that her nineteenth-century critics adopted and that historians today use without a sense of condemnation. Literally “against or opposed to law,” Antinomianism means in theology that “the moral law is not binding upon Christians, who are under the law of grace,” in the words of David Hall. Had Anne heard this term applied to her, she would have rejected it because of its association with licentious behavior and religious heterodoxy, both of which she opposed.
At the time of her trial, her brother-in-law Wheelwright was banished for promulgating this doctrine, and most of its other prominent adherents were disfranchised and censured, and still Anne Hutchinson was not the only influential settler proclaiming its truth. John Cotton, a minister at the colony’s largest and most influential church, often reminded his congregation that good behavior alone is but a work that any hypocrite can perform. He warned against undue
In early Boston Anne had a reputation as a prophetess. John Winthrop reported in his journal that “her godliness and spiritual gifts” led people to “look at her as a prophetess, raised up of God for some great work now at hand, so she had more resort to her for counsel about matters of conscience and clearing up men’s spiritual estates than any minister (I might say all the elders) in the country.” Even more troubling to him, she took “upon her infallibly to know the election of others, so as she would say that if she had but one half hour’s talk with a man, she would tell whether he were elect or not.” Winthrop could have assurance that he knew God’s will, but she could not. Similarly, her judges believed that the gift of prophecy fell only on ministers, thus only on men.
Hutchinson’s reputation for prophecy arose, apparently, from two predictions she made aboard the Griffin, the ship that brought her to America. God had revealed to her the date the ship would arrive in America, and—according to her daughter Faith—Anne had prophesied that “a young man on the ship should be saved, but he must walk in the ways” of God. At the time, many people saw God’s hand in such events as the passing of a comet or even the Sunday drowning of boys playing on the frozen river in winter—God punishes Sabbath breakers. An earthquake that shook England just before Christmas in 1601 was soon the occasion of a London pamphlet, The Wonders of the World, the Trembling of the Earth, and the Warnings of the World before the Judgment Day. For colonists, as for Europeans then, supernatural and natural forces operated in the world, and God was the most powerful force of all. His “providence,” David Hall noted, “accounted for everything that happened in everyday life” and was open to interpretation as a sign of God’s judgment or his mercy. There was little, if any, distinction between the moral (sin) and the physical (sickness).
While most ministers preferred the idea that revelation ended with the apostles of Christ, several ministers of Massachusetts claimed visions and prophesied. John Wilson often used prayer to heal the sick and to affect future events. During the Pequot War, for instance, when he was chaplain of the expedition to subdue the natives, he said he haddeflected an arrow from a man’s chest through prayer. He reported that his dreams while sleeping worked as prophecy. John Cotton encouraged his congregations in England and America to open themselves to God and to experience “revelations.” In John Wheelwright’s Fast Day speech, he claimed actually to see the approach of the “terrible day” when all the enemies of Christ “shall be consumed” by fire.
Hutchinson’s collective doctrines are now termed Antinomianism, a label Winthrop first attached to her that her nineteenth-century critics adopted and that historians today use without a sense of condemnation. Literally “against or opposed to law,” Antinomianism means in theology that “the moral law is not binding upon Christians, who are under the law of grace,” in the words of David Hall. Had Anne heard this term applied to her, she would have rejected it because of its association with licentious behavior and religious heterodoxy, both of which she opposed.
At the time of her trial, her brother-in-law Wheelwright was banished for promulgating this doctrine, and most of its other prominent adherents were disfranchised and censured, and still Anne Hutchinson was not the only influential settler proclaiming its truth. John Cotton, a minister at the colony’s largest and most influential church, often reminded his congregation that good behavior alone is but a work that any hypocrite can perform. He warned against undue
Similar Books
