Mayflower Compact & Anne Hutchinson's Trial (1620, 1637) PDF

# Mayflower Compact: 1620 This remarkable document expressed the political convictions of Puritan Non-Conformists, or "separatists". Fleeing religious persecution, they obtained a land grant of 80,000 acres from the Virginia Company. Under the leadership of William Bradford and William Brewster the...

# Mayflower Compact: 1620 This remarkable document expressed the political convictions of Puritan Non-Conformists, or "separatists". Fleeing religious persecution, they obtained a land grant of 80,000 acres from the Virginia Company. Under the leadership of William Bradford and William Brewster they set sail, with forty one families, for the new world. En route, the leaders assembled to draw up a document setting out the aims of the new government they wished to implement. On the one hand, the very brief Compact reflects religious views anchored in the covenantal tradition of the Jewish Scriptures. But it also reflects a developing social contract theory that would later be elaborated in the writings of Hobbes and Locke, ideas that would take critical shape in the American founding a century and a half later. ## Start Of Text In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620. ## Anne Hutchinson's Trial At The Court At Newton, 1637 Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643), a Puritan, came to Massachusetts Bay Colony with her husband and family in 1634, and lived in Boston during the years of John Winthrop's governorship. Hutchinson was castigated for "antinomianism" and for criticizing the ministers and magistrates of the colony, and was thus brought to trial. Hutchinson espoused her belief in a covenant of grace based on direct apprehension of the divinity over a covenant of works (or good deeds). The charges against her included her invitation to women to study the Bible in her home. Charged with sedition and contempt, Hutchinson was excommunicated and banished. She and her family moved to an island off Rhode Island, where, in 1643, she and most of her household were killed in an Indian raid. ### Text From The Trial **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 the cause of this trouble, and to be nearly joined not only in affinity and affection with some of those the court had taken notice of and passed censure upon, but 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 assent and hold 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. **Mrs. Anne Hutchinson:** Name one, Sir. **Gov. John Winthrop:** Have I not named some already? **Mrs. Anne Hutchinson:** What have I said or done? **Gov. John Winthrop:** Why for your doings, this you did harbor and countenance those that are parties in this faction that you have heard of. **Mrs. Anne Hutchinson:** That's matter of conscience, Sir. **Gov. John Winthrop:** Your conscience you must keep, or it must be kept for you. **Gov. John Winthrop:** We do not mean to discourse with those of your sex but only this: you so adhere unto them and do endeavor to set forward this faction and so you do dishonour us. **Mrs. Anne Hutchinson:** I do acknowledge no such thing. Neither do I think that I ever put any dishonour upon you. **Gov. John Winthrop:** 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 to do so, 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:** ...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 and then I must have a time wherein I must do it. **Gov. John Winthrop:** All this I grant you, I grant you a time for it, but what is this to the purpose that you Mrs. Hutchinson must call a company together from their callings to come to be taught of you? **Mrs. Anne Hutchinson:** If you look upon the rule in Titus it is a rule to me. If you convince me that it is no rule I shall yield. **Gov. John Winthrop:** You know that there is no rule that crosses another, but this rule crosses that in the Corinthians. But you must take it in this sense that elder women must instruct the younger about their business and to love their husbands and not to make them to clash Mrs. Hutchinson... **Mrs. Anne Hutchinson:** Will it please you to answer me this and to give me a rule, for then I will willingly submit to any truth. If any come to my house to be instructed in the ways of God what rule have I to put them away?.... Do you think it not lawful for me to teach women and why do you call me to teach the court? **Gov. John Winthrop:** We do not call you to teach the court but to lay open yourself.... **Deputy Gov. Thomas Dudley:** I would go a little higher with Mrs. Hutchinson. About three years ago we were all in peace. Mrs. Hutchinson, from that time she came hath made a disturbance, and some that came over with her in the ship did inform me what she was as soon as she was landed. I being then in place dealt with the pastor and teacher of Boston and desired them to enquire of her, and then I was satisfied that she held nothing different from us. But within half a year after, she had vented divers of her strange opinions and had made parties in the country, and at length it comes that Mr. Cotton and Mr. Vane were of her judgment, but Mr. Cotton had cleared himself that he was not of that mind. **Mrs. Anne Hutchinson:** 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? Was the Turk antichrist only? The Lord knows that I could not open scripture; he must by his prophetical office open it unto me. So after that being unsatisfied in the thing, the Lord was pleased to bring this scripture out of the Hebrews. he that denies the testament denies the testator, and in this did open unto me and give me to see that those which did not teach the new covenant had the spirit of antichrist, and upon this he did discover the ministry unto me; and ever since, 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 left me to distinguish between the voice of my beloved and the voice of Moses, the voice of John the 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. Nowel (assistant to the Court):** How do you know 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 I did presently, like Abraham, run to Hagar. And after that he did let me see the atheism of my own heart, for which I begged of the Lord that it might not remain in my heart, and being thus, he did show me this (a twelvemonth after) which I told you of before.... **Therefore, I desire you to look to it, for you see this scripture fulfilled this day and therefore I desire you 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 bring a curse upon you and your posterity, and the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.** **Dep. Gov. Thomas Dudley:** What is the scripture she brings? **Mr. Stoughton (assistant to the Court):** Behold, I turn away from you. **Mrs. Anne Hutchinson:** But now having seen him which is invisible I fear not what man can do unto me. **Gov. John Winthrop:** Daniel was delivered by miracle; do you think to be deliver'd so too? **Mrs. Anne Hutchinson:** I do here speak it before the court. I look that the Lord should deliver me by his providence, though I should meet with affliction... (because God had said to her) "I am the same God that delivered Daniel out of the lion's den, I will also deliver thee." **Mr. Harlakenden (assistant to the Court):** I may read scripture and the most glorious hypocrite may read them and yet go down to hell. **Mrs. Anne Hutchinson:** It may be so.... **Gov. John Winthrop:** I am persuaded that the revelation she brings forth is delusion *(The trial text here reads:) All the court but some two or three ministers cry out, we all believe it--we all believe it. (Mrs. Hutchinson was found guilty)* **Gov. John Winthrop:** 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. *(All but three did so)* **Gov. John Winthrop:** 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. # The Bloody Tenet Of Persecution Roger Williams, a Cambridge-educated minister, adopted Puritanism and migrated to America. A gifted polyglot and missionary to Native Americans, Williams adopted Separatist views and migrated (or fled) to the area that later became Rhode Island, where he established the first Baptist church in America. He entered an intense polemical struggle with John Cotton and others, arguing for liberty of conscience. His views were seen as revolutionary and, indeed, subversive. He advanced the idea that uniformity of belief is not necessary to stability in the body politic, that those whose conscience direct them to believe differently should be tolerated, and that the "civil sword" should not be used to compel particular belief. But in time, others adopted his views, to include John Locke, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. The First Amendment of the Constitution embodies the essence of Williams' thinking here. Although the style is sometimes turgid, a careful reading of this excerpt (the prolegomenon to the book) shows the power of his fundamental view. ## From Roger William's *The Bloody Tenet of Persecution:* **First**, that the blood of so many hundred thousand souls of Protestants and Papists, spilt in the wars of present and former ages, for their respective consciences, is not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace. **Secondly**, pregnant scriptures and arguments are throughout the work proposed against the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience. **Thirdly**, satisfactory answers are given to scriptures, and objections produced by Mr. Calvin, Beza, Mr. Cotton, and the ministers of the New English churches and others former and later, tending to prove the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience. **Fourthly**, the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience is proved guilty of all the blood of the souls crying for vengeance under the altar. **Fifthly**, all civil states with their officers of justice in their respective constitutions and administrations are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual or Christian state and worship. **Sixthly**, it is the will and command of God that (since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus) a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations and countries; and they are only to be fought against with that sword which is only (in soul matters) able to conquer, to wit, the sword of God's Spirit, the Word of God. **Seventhly**, the state of the Land of Israel, the kings and people thereof in peace and war, is proved figurative and ceremonial, and no pattern nor president for any kingdom or civil state in the world to follow. **Eighthly**, God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls. **Ninthly**, in holding an enforced uniformity of religion in a civil state, we must necessarily disclaim our desires and hopes of the Jew's conversion to Christ. **Tenthly**, an enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. **Eleventhly**, the permission of other consciences and worships than a state professeth only can (according to God) procure a firm and lasting peace (good assurance being taken according to the wisdom of the civil state for uniformity of civil obedience from all forts). **Twelfthly**, lastly, true civility and Christianity may both flourish in a state or kingdom, notwithstanding the permission of divers and contrary consciences, either of Jew or Gentile.