1636

Theo

putes at

Boston.

THEOLOGICAL DISPUTES AT BOSTON.

173

Governor, seemingly without opposition or dispute. His year of office was one of trouble to the colony both at home and abroad. Of its two chief incidents, logical dis- the war with the Pequod Indians, and the insurrection, as we may almost call it, and banishment of the Antinomian heretics, we are at present only concerned with the latter. The storm seems to have begun with the arrival at Boston of one Wheelwright, a clergyman who had been silenced by the ecclesiastical authorities in England. With him came his sister, Mrs. Hutchinson, a clever, impetuous, indiscreet woman. They brought over what are described by Winthrop as two dangerous errors,' 2 which to a mind not trained in Calvinistic theology sound like two abstract and not very intelligible propositions. We may, indeed, doubt whether Winthrop's own condemnation of them does not rather reflect popular feeling and his irritation. at what proved to be a source of unprofitable strife than his own judgment as a theologian. The newly imported heresies were deemed so important as to require a conference of ministers at Boston to inquire into them. That their pernicious nature was not visible on the surface may be assumed from the fact that Cotton accepted and even advocated them, with certain limitations. The suspected heretics were not content with this partial success. Each of the Independent churches of New England had in addition to its pastor a teacher or teachers. That office was already held in the church of Boston by Cotton. Wheelwright's followers were now anxious that he should be raised to the same position. In the controversy which ensued Winthrop took a leading part. His view was that of a thoughtful layman who stood wholly outside the theological aspect of the case. He argued that, as they were well furnished with able ministers whom they did know, it 1 Winthrop, vol. i. p. 201. 2 Ib. p. 200.

was inexpedient to bring in one, however godly and able, whom they did not know, and who seemed apt to raise doubtful disputations.' At the same time, while professing his own unfitness for such disputes, he appealed to Wheelwright to 'forbear, for the peace of the church, words and phrases which were of human invention, and tended to doubtful disputation rather than to edification, and had no footing in scripture, nor had been in use in the purest churches for three hundred years after Christ.' Winthrop's arguments prevailed, and Wheelwright's followers consoled themselves with the hope of forming a new Church on the site of Wollaston's ill-fated settlement.

Vane threatens

to leave the

colony.

In the following August an incident occurred which strikingly illustrated the character of the Governor who had been preferred to Winthrop. Vane called together the Assistants and Deputies, and told them that he must visit England on his own affairs. When one of the Assistants expressed sorrow at the prospect of losing the Governor at so critical a juncture, Vane burst into tears and declared that he would have foregone his own private business, but that he foresaw danger to the colony from the religious dissensions. which prevailed and from the attacks which he had incurred by his sympathy with the accused. When the Court demurred to his departure on these grounds, he veered round and declared that he was really compelled to leave by private business, and that the other plea slipped him out of passion and not out of judgment.' The Court thereupon acquiesced, and arrangements were made for electing Vane's successor. But before the time of electing came Vane had yielded to the request of some of the Boston congregation, and declaring himself to be an obedient child to the church, had pro

2 This scene is fully described by Winthrop (vol. i. pp. 207–209).

1636-7

TWO RELIGIOUS PARTIES.

175

mised to stay. It is hard to resist the conclusion that the whole proceeding was intended by Vane to test the strength of his position, if not to force a vote of confidence.

The colony divided into two religious parties.

It now seemed as if the supporters of Wheelwright and his sister, strengthened by the adhesion of the Governor and of Cotton, would succeed in establishing themselves as the party of orthodoxy and in crushing Wilson. The whole community was divided into two theological camps. A sober-minded layman like Winthrop might well wonder at hearing men distinguished by being under a covenant of grace or a covenant of works, as in other countries between Protestants and Papists,' and believe that no man could tell, except some few who knew the bottom of the matter, where any difference was.' As soon as the question came formally before the court, it was clear that whatever the church of Boston might hold, the majority of the community looked with no favour on the newly imported doctrines. One of its proceedings was formally to approve of a speech which Wilson had made against his opponents.2 One Greensmith had vented the calumny that all the ministers in the colony, save Cotton, Wheelwright, and perhaps Hooker, taught a covenant of works; for this he was fined forty pounds. Wheelwright, for bringing like charges in a sermon, was found guilty of sedition, and by an even more astounding interpretation, of contempt of the Court, since it had appointed a fast for the reconciliation of differences, and his sermon tended to kindle them. Fortunately Wheelwright's sermon has been preserved, and we can therefore judge how far it justifies the accusation brought against it by his persecutors, and repeated in the present day by their apologists. It is true that he enjoins his hearers to be ready to fight. But in the same passage must be fought with

he warns them that the battle

1 Winthrop, vol. i. p. 213.

2 Ib.

P.

214.

spiritual and not with carnal weapons. He anticipates the charge of sapping the foundations of morality by a direct exhortation to his followers not to neglect the common duties of social and domestic life, lest they shall give occasion to their enemies to call them libertines or Antinomians. The church of Boston stood firmly by its persecuted minister. Forty of the members, among whom was Vane, addressed to the court a temperate. remonstrance on Wheelwright's behalf. They challenged his accusers to specify any seditious act of which he had been guilty, and they reminded the Court that no preacher of unpopular doctrines had escaped the charge of sedition, not Elijah, nor Paul, nor One who spoke with more divine authority. The remonstrance went unheeded, and only served at a later day to involve those who had made it in the punishment which fell upon their leader. Finally the Court voted that its next meeting should be at Newtown, instead of Boston, intending not so much, it would seem, to punish the heretical community, as to hold its deliberations in a more peaceful atmosphere.2

The elec

tion of

In May 1637 the Court of Election met at Newtown. Proceedings opened with a dispute. The Governor wished that a petition from Boston should be 1637.3 read before proceeding to election. Winthrop, apparently with perfectly good reason, objected on the ground that the election was the business for which the Court was specially convened, and that it must take precedence of everything. It was urged, fairly enough, that many might have stayed away from a Court of Election who would have attended if they had known that other, and, as they might have considered it, more important business had to be done. Moreover, the

1 The remonstrance is in Welde, p. 21. We may safely assume that his version of it is in no way too favourable to the petitioners.

2 Records, vol. i. p. 191; Winthrop, vol. i. p. 216.

3 This is fully told in Winthrop, vol. i. p. 219.

1637

THE ELECTION OF 1637.

177

whole body of freemen, having delegated their powers to the Deputies, could not suddenly resume them for a special purpose.1 This view was affirmed by a majority of the Court. Vane at first refused to accept this decision. His resistance was overruled and the election proceeded. Winthrop was chosen Governor, and Dudley, with whom no suspected heretic could look for any mercy, was Deputy-Governor, while Vane was left out of the body of Assistants. His fate was shared by two of Wheelwright's chief followers, Coddington and Dummer, both of whom had held office the year before. For this Boston retaliated by electing the three as its Deputies. A paltry and unfair attempt was made by the Court to annul this election on technical grounds, but Boston stood firm and its representatives were admitted.

For a while it seemed as if the return of Winthrop to office might bring peace. Wheelwright apparently showed some inclination to compromise, and Cotton preached a sermon which aimed at bridging over the differences. In this he was supported by Shepherd, a newly-arrived divine, who has left his mark on the ecclesiastical history of New England, alike by his zeal for the conversion of the Indians and by the exceptionally sombre nature of his Calvinistic teaching.

exclude

Unfortunately these efforts at reconciliation were counteracted by an order of the Court, avowedly designed Order to to exclude from the colony any fresh adherents to what we may now call the heretical party. It was enacted, under a penalty of forty pounds, that no person should entertain any new-comers in his house for more than three weeks, nor supply them with a

heretics.

This view is set forth in a pamphlet entitled Liberty and the Public Weal Reconciled, published in the Hutchinson Collection (p. 63). I can find no clue to the authorship.

2 Winthrop, vol. i. p. 221. Cotton, he says, 'stated the differences in a very narrow scantling.'