The Emancipation of Massachusetts Part 12

Winthrop was a lawyer, and it is but justice to his reputation to presume that he spoke as a partisan, knowing his argument to be fallacious. As a legal proposition he must have been aware that it was unsound.

Although during the reign of Charles I. monopolies were a standing grievance with the House of Commons, yet they had been granted and enforced for centuries; and had Ma.s.sachusetts claimed the right to exclude strangers as interlopers in trade, she would have stood upon good precedent. Such, however, was not her contention. The legislation against the friends of Wheelwright was pa.s.sed avowedly upon grounds of religious difference of opinion, and a monopoly in religion was unknown.

Her commercial privileges alone were exclusive, and, provided he respected them, a British subject had the same right to dwell in Ma.s.sachusetts as in any of the other dominions of the crown, or, indeed, in any borough which held its land by grant, like Plymouth. To subject Englishmen to restriction or punishment unknown to English law was as outrageous as the same act would have been had it been perpetrated by the city of London,--both corporations having a like power to preserve the peace by local ordinances, and both being controlled by the law of the land as administered by the courts. Such arguments as those advanced by Winthrop were only solemn quibbling to cloak an indefensible policy.

To banish freemen for demanding liberty of conscience was a still more flagrant wrong. A precisely parallel case would have been presented had the directors of the East India Company declared the membership of a proprietor to be forfeited, and ordered his stock to be sold, because he disapproved of enforcing conformity in worship among inhabitants of the factories in Hindostan.

Vane sailed early in August, and his departure cleared the last barrier from the way of vengeance. Proceedings were at once begun by a synod of all the ministers, which was held at Cambridge, for the purpose of restoring peace to the churches. "There were about eighty opinions, some blasphemous, others erroneous, and all unsafe, condemned by the whole a.s.sembly.... Some of the church of Boston ... were offended at the producing of so many errors, ... and called to have the persons named which held those errors." To which the elders answered that all those opinions could be proved to be held by some, but it was not thought fit to name the parties. "Yet this would not satisfy some but they oft called for witnesses; and because some of the magistrates declared to them ... that if they would not forbear it would prove a civil disturbance ... they objected.... So as he" (probably meaning Winthrop) "was forced to tell one of them that if he would not forbear ... he might see it executed. Upon this some of Boston departed from the a.s.sembly and came no more." [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 238.] Once freed from their repinings all went well, and their pastor, Mr. Wilson, soon had the satisfaction of sending their reputed heresies "to the devil of h.e.l.l from whence they came." [Footnote: _Magnalia_, bk. 3, ch. ii.

Section 13.] Cotton, seeing that all was lost, hastened to make his peace by a submission which the Rev. Mr. Hubbard of Ipswich describes with unconscious cynicism. "If he were not convinced, yet he was persuaded to an amicable compliance with the other ministers; ... for, although it was thought he did still retain his own sense and enjoy his own apprehension in all or most of the things then controverted (as is manifest by some expressions of his ... since that time published,"...) yet. "By that means did that reverend and worthy minister of the gospel recover his former splendour throughout ... New England." [Footnote: Hubbard, p. 302.]

He was not a sensitive man, and having once determined to do penance, he was far too astute a politician to do it by halves; he not only gave himself up to the task of detecting the heterodoxy of his old friends, [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 253.] but on a day of solemn fasting he publicly professed repentance with many tears, and told how, "G.o.d leaving him for a time, he fell into a spirituall slumber; and had it not been for the watchfulnesse of his brethren, the elders, &c., hee might have slept on, ... and was very thankfull to his brethren for their watchfulnesse over him." [Footnote: _Hypocrisie Unmasked_, p. 76.] Nor to the end of his life did he feel quite at ease; "yea, such was his ingenuity and piety as that his soul was not satisfied without often breaking forth into affectionate bewailing of his infirmity herein, in the publick a.s.sembly, sometimes in his prayer, sometimes in his sermon, and that with tears."

[Footnote: Norton's _Funeral Sermon_, p. 37.]

Wheelwright was made of sterner stuff, and was inflexible. In fact, however, the difference of dogma, if any existed, was trivial. The clergy used the cry of heresy to excite odium, just as they called their opponents Antinomians, or dangerous fanatics. To support these accusations the synod gravely accepted every unsavory inference which ingenuity could wring from the tenets of their adversaries; and these, together with the fables invented by idle gossip, made up the long list of errors they condemned. Though the scheme was unprincipled, it met with complete success, and the Antinomians have come down to posterity branded as deadly enemies of Christ and the commonwealth; yet nothing is more certain than that they were not only good citizens, but substantially orthodox. On such a point there is no one among the conservatives whose testimony has the weight of Winthrop's, who says: "Mr. Cotton ... stated the differences in a very narrow scantling; and Mr. Shepherd, preaching at the day of election, brought them yet nearer, so as, except men of good understanding, and such as knew the bottom of the tenents of those of the other party, few could see where the difference was." [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 221.] While Cotton himself complains bitterly of the falsehoods spread about him and his friends: "But when some of ... the elders of neighbour churches advertised me of the evill report ... I ... dealt with Mrs. Hutchinson and others of them, declaring to them the erroneousnesse of those tenents, and the injury done to myself in fathering them upon mee. Both shee and they utterly denyed that they held such tenents, or that they had fathered them upon mee. I returned their answer to the elders.... They answered me they had but one witnesse, ... and that one both to be known." ...

[Footnote: Cotton, _Way of New England Churches_, pp. 39, 40.] Moreover, it is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the advantage it would have given the reactionists to have been able to fix subversive opinions upon their prominent opponents, it was found impossible to prove heresy in a single case which was brought to trial. The legislature chosen in May was apparently unfit for the work now to be done, for the extraordinary step of a dissolution was decided on, and a new election held, under circ.u.mstances in which it was easy to secure the return of suitable candidates. The session opened on November 2, and Wheelwright was summoned to appear. He was ordered to submit, or prepare for sentence. He replied that he was guilty of neither sedition nor contempt; that he had preached only the truth of Christ, the application of which was for others, not for him. "To which it was answered by the court that they had not censured his doctrine, but left it as it was; but his application, by which hee laid the magistrates and ministers and most of the people of G.o.d in these churches under a covenant of works."

[Footnote: _Short Story_, p. 24.] The prisoner was then sentenced to be disfranchised and banished. He demanded an appeal to the king; it was refused; and he was given fourteen days to leave Ma.s.sachusetts. So he went forth alone in the bitter winter weather and journeyed to the Piscataqua,--yet "it was marvellous he got thither at that time, when they expelled him, by reason of the deep snow in which he might have perished." [Footnote: Wheelwright, Prince Soc. ed. _Mercurius America.n.u.s_, p. 24.] Nor was banishment by any means the trivial penalty it has been described. On the contrary, it was a punishment of the utmost rigor. The exiles were forced suddenly to dispose of their property, which, in those times, was mostly in houses and land, and go forth among the savages with helpless women and children. Such an ordeal might well appall even a brave man; but Wheelwright was sacrificing his intellectual life. He was leaving books, friends, and the mental activity, which made the world to him, to settle in the forests among backwoodsmen; and yet even in this desolate solitude the theocracy continued to pursue him with persevering hate.

But there were others beside Wheelwright who had sinned, and some pretext had to be devised by which to reach them. The names of most of his friends were upon the pet.i.tion that had been drawn up after his trial. It is true it was a proceeding with which the existing legislature was not concerned, since it had been presented to one of its predecessors; it is also true that probably never, before or since, have men who have protested they have not drawn the sword rashly, but have come as humble suppliants to offer their cheeks to the smiters, been held to be public enemies. Such scruples, however, never hampered the theocracy. Their justice was trammelled neither by judges, by juries, nor by laws; the pet.i.tion was declared to be a seditious libel, and the pet.i.tioners were given their choice of disavowing their act and making humble submission, or exile.

Aspinwall was at once disfranchised and banished. [Footnote: _Ma.s.s.

Rec._ i. 207.] Coddington, Coggeshall, and nine more were given leave to depart within three months, or abide the action of the court; others were disfranchised; and fifty-eight of the less prominent of the party were disarmed in Boston alone. [Footnote: _Idem_, i. 223.]

Thus were the early liberals crushed in Ma.s.sachusetts; the bold were exiled, the timid were terrified; as a political organization they moved no more till the theocracy was tottering to its fall; and for forty years the power of the clergy was absolute in the land.

The fate of Anne Hutchinson makes a fit ending to this sad tale of oppression and of wrong. In November, 1637, when her friends were crushed, and the triumphant priests felt that their victim's doom was sure, she was brought to trial before that ghastliest den of human iniquity, an ecclesiastical criminal court. The ministers were her accusers, who came burning with hate to testify to the words she had spoken to them at their own request, in the belief that the confidence she reposed was to be held sacred. She had no jury to whose manhood she could appeal, and John Winthrop, to his lasting shame, was to prosecute her from the judgment seat. She was soon to become a mother, and her health was feeble, but she was made to stand till she was exhausted; and yet, abandoned and forlorn, before those merciless judges, through two long, weary days of hunger and of cold, the intrepid woman defended her cause with a skill and courage which even now, after two hundred and fifty years, kindles the heart with admiration. The case for the government was opened by John Winthrop, the presiding justice, the attorney-general, the foreman of the jury, and the chief magistrate of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay. He upbraided the prisoner with her many evil courses, with having spoken things prejudicial to the honor of the ministers, with holding an a.s.sembly in her house, and with divulging the opinions held by those who had been censured by that court; closing in these words, which sound strangely in the mouth of a New England judge:--

We have thought good to send for you ... 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 ... that then the court may take such course that you may trouble us no further, therefore I would entreat you ... whether you do not justify Mr. Wheelwright's sermon and the pet.i.tion.

_Mrs. H._ I am called here to answer before you, but I hear no things laid to my charge.

_Gov._ I have told you some already, and more I can tell you.

_Mrs. H._ Name one, sir.

_Gov._ Have I not named some already?

_Mrs. H._ What have I said or done?...

_Gov._ You have joined with them in the faction.

_Mrs. H._ In what faction have I joined with them?

_Gov._ In presenting the pet.i.tion....

_Mrs. H._ But I had not my hand to the pet.i.tion.

_Gov._ You have counselled them.

_Mrs. H._ Wherein?

_Gov._ Why, in entertaining them.

_Mrs. H._ What breach of law is that, sir?

_Gov._ Why, dishonoring of parents....

_Mrs. H._ I may put honor upon them as the children of G.o.d and as they do honor the Lord.

_Gov._ We do not mean to discourse with those of your s.e.x but only this; you do adhere unto them, and do endeavor to set forward this faction, and so you do dishonor us.

_Mrs. H._ I do acknowledge no such thing, neither do I think that I ever put any dishonor upon you.

And, on the whole, the chief justice broke down so hopelessly in his examination, that the deputy governor, or his senior a.s.sociate upon the bench, thought it necessary to interfere.

_Dep. Gov._ I would go a little higher with Mrs. Hutchinson. Now ...

if she in particular hath disparaged all our ministers in the land that they have preached a covenant of works, and only Mr. Cotton a covenant of grace, why this is not to be suffered...

_Mrs. H._ I pray, sir, prove it, that I said they preached nothing but a covenant of works....

_Dep. Gov._ If they do not preach a covenant of grace, clearly, then, they preach a covenant of works.

_Mrs. H._ No, sir, one may preach a covenant of grace more clearly than another, so I said.

Dudley was faring worse than Winthrop, and the divines, who had been bursting with impatience, could hold no longer. The Rev. Hugh Peters broke in: "That which concerns us to speak unto, as yet we are sparing in, unless the court command us to speak, then we shall answer to Mrs.

Hutchinson, notwithstanding our brethren are very unwilling to answer."

And without further urging, that meek servant of Christ went on to tell how he and others had heard that the prisoner said they taught a covenant of works, how they had sent for her, and though she was "very tender" at first, yet upon being begged to speak plainly, she had explained that there "was a broad difference between our Brother Mr.

Cotton and ourselves. I desired to know the difference. She answered 'that he preaches the covenant of grace and you the covenant of works, and that you are not able ministers of the New Testament, and know no more than the apostles did before the resurrection.'"...

_Mrs. H._ If our pastor would show his writings you should see what I said, and that many things are not so as is reported.

_Mr. Wilson._ Sister Hutchinson, for the writings you speak of I have them not....

Five more divines followed, who, though they were "loth to speak in that a.s.sembly concerning that gentlewoman," yet to ease their consciences in "the relation wherein" they stood "to the Commonwealth and... unto G.o.d,"

felt constrained to state that the prisoner had said they were not able ministers of the New Testament, and that the whole of the evidence of Hugh Peters was true, and in so doing they came to an issue of veracity with Cotton.

An adjournment soon followed till next day, and the presiding justice seems to have considered his case against his prisoner as closed.

In the morning Mrs. Hutchinson opened her defence by calling three witnesses, Leverett, Coggeshall, and John Cotton.