ministers.
“Yes, sir,” she said, evading his trap. “But when they preach a covenant of works for salvation, that is not truth.” Works have value, she suggested, but they alone cannot bring salvation. Only God can do that.
Frustrated, Dudley continued, “I do but ask you this: when the ministers do preach a covenant of works, do they preach a way of salvation?”
Unable to agree, she refused to answer: “I did not come hither to answer questions of that sort.”
“Because you will deny the thing,” he persisted.
“But that is to be proved first,” she said, fending off Dudley as well as she had Winthrop.
“I will make it plain that you did say that the ministers did preach a covenant of works—”
“I deny that.”
“—and that you said they were not able ministers of the New Testament, but Mr. Cotton only.”
“If ever I spake that, I proved it by God’s word,” she retorted, implying that the court proved nothing.
Taking her remark as an admission of guilt, a chorus of judges murmured, “Very well, very well.”
She raised her head and declared, “If one shall come unto me in private, and desire me seriously to tell them what I thought of such a one, I must either speak false or true in my answer.”
Colonial society distinguished between private and public acts andconsidered only the latter actionable in court. Choosing her words carefully, Hutchinson hoped to avoid prosecution by showing that her statements were outside the public domain. Most, if not all, of her comments about ministers had been made in private conversation or in meetings with officials that she considered private. Had ministers been able to use private statements made by members of their flock against them in court, people could never speak in confidence with their ministers, something every Puritan expected to do.
Her gender could also work as a shield. If her activities were not public, none of them could be punished publicly. In addition to protecting her, her gender suggested certain courtroom tactics. If her sarcasm did not work, she affected modesty to try to convince the men. When the court charged her with prophesying, she said, “The women of Berea are commended for examining Paul’s doctrine; we [women at meetings] do not [do more than] read the notes of our teacher’s sermons, and then reason of them by searching the Scriptures.” If a woman has no public power, she suggested, then she cannot be condemned for private opinions and acts. It was a good argument. No one knew if it would succeed.
Ignoring her distinction between her private acts and public, actionable, acts, Dudley continued hotly in the same vein. “Likewise, I will prove this, that you said the gospel in the letter and words holds forth nothing but a covenant of works”—implying that she had done the unimaginable act of denying the Holy Bible itself—“and that all that do not hold as you do are in a covenant of works.”
“I deny this, for if I should so say, I should speak against my own judgment,” she replied, sounding like her father. Her actual statement, misconstrued in the retelling, had been that the spirit of the gospel, rather than the letter and words therein, holds forth the covenant of grace. For her, the spirit was more important than the letter of the Bible, just as the heart was more important than the external appearance.
Like her teacher Cotton, Anne Hutchinson believed herself to be an instrument of the Holy Spirit. For both of them, as for many Puritans, conversion was not intellectual but deeply emotional. Humans are utterly unable to effect their own salvation, Cotton preached. To argue otherwise, he felt, was to open the way for a Roman Catholic covenant of works, that is, to see human beings as actors who can affect God’sdisposition toward them. For Cotton, salvation is a completely inner experience, dependent not on anything you or even your minister does but solely on your relationship with the Holy
“Yes, sir,” she said, evading his trap. “But when they preach a covenant of works for salvation, that is not truth.” Works have value, she suggested, but they alone cannot bring salvation. Only God can do that.
Frustrated, Dudley continued, “I do but ask you this: when the ministers do preach a covenant of works, do they preach a way of salvation?”
Unable to agree, she refused to answer: “I did not come hither to answer questions of that sort.”
“Because you will deny the thing,” he persisted.
“But that is to be proved first,” she said, fending off Dudley as well as she had Winthrop.
“I will make it plain that you did say that the ministers did preach a covenant of works—”
“I deny that.”
“—and that you said they were not able ministers of the New Testament, but Mr. Cotton only.”
“If ever I spake that, I proved it by God’s word,” she retorted, implying that the court proved nothing.
Taking her remark as an admission of guilt, a chorus of judges murmured, “Very well, very well.”
She raised her head and declared, “If one shall come unto me in private, and desire me seriously to tell them what I thought of such a one, I must either speak false or true in my answer.”
Colonial society distinguished between private and public acts andconsidered only the latter actionable in court. Choosing her words carefully, Hutchinson hoped to avoid prosecution by showing that her statements were outside the public domain. Most, if not all, of her comments about ministers had been made in private conversation or in meetings with officials that she considered private. Had ministers been able to use private statements made by members of their flock against them in court, people could never speak in confidence with their ministers, something every Puritan expected to do.
Her gender could also work as a shield. If her activities were not public, none of them could be punished publicly. In addition to protecting her, her gender suggested certain courtroom tactics. If her sarcasm did not work, she affected modesty to try to convince the men. When the court charged her with prophesying, she said, “The women of Berea are commended for examining Paul’s doctrine; we [women at meetings] do not [do more than] read the notes of our teacher’s sermons, and then reason of them by searching the Scriptures.” If a woman has no public power, she suggested, then she cannot be condemned for private opinions and acts. It was a good argument. No one knew if it would succeed.
Ignoring her distinction between her private acts and public, actionable, acts, Dudley continued hotly in the same vein. “Likewise, I will prove this, that you said the gospel in the letter and words holds forth nothing but a covenant of works”—implying that she had done the unimaginable act of denying the Holy Bible itself—“and that all that do not hold as you do are in a covenant of works.”
“I deny this, for if I should so say, I should speak against my own judgment,” she replied, sounding like her father. Her actual statement, misconstrued in the retelling, had been that the spirit of the gospel, rather than the letter and words therein, holds forth the covenant of grace. For her, the spirit was more important than the letter of the Bible, just as the heart was more important than the external appearance.
Like her teacher Cotton, Anne Hutchinson believed herself to be an instrument of the Holy Spirit. For both of them, as for many Puritans, conversion was not intellectual but deeply emotional. Humans are utterly unable to effect their own salvation, Cotton preached. To argue otherwise, he felt, was to open the way for a Roman Catholic covenant of works, that is, to see human beings as actors who can affect God’sdisposition toward them. For Cotton, salvation is a completely inner experience, dependent not on anything you or even your minister does but solely on your relationship with the Holy
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