Religious Dissensions in New England: Vane and God

The prosperous state of New England was now so highly extolled, and the simple frame of its ecclesiastic policy was so much admired by all whose affections were estranged from the Church of England, that crowds of new settlers flocked thither (1635). Among these were two persons whose names have been rendered memorable by the appearance which they afterwards made on a more conspicuous theatre: one was Hugh Peters, the enthusiastic and intriguing chaplain of Oliver Cromwell; the other, Mr. Henry Vane, son of Sir Henry Vane, a privy councillor, high in office, and of great credit with the king: a young man of a noble family, animated with such zeal for pure religion and such love of liberty as induced him to relinquish all his hopes in England and to settle in a colony hitherto no further advanced in improvement than barely to afford subsistence to its members, was received with the fondest admiration. His mortified appearance, his demure look, and rigid manners, carried even beyond the standard of preciseness in that society which he joined, seemed to indicate a man of high spiritual attainments, while his abilities and address in business pointed him out as worthy of the highest station in the community. With universal consent, and high expectations of advantage from his administration, he was elected governor in the year subsequent to his arrival (1636). But as the affairs of an infant colony afforded not objects adequate to the talents of Vane, his busy pragmatical spirit occupied itself with theological subtleties and speculations unworthy of his attention. These were excited by a woman, whose reveries produced such effects, both within the colony and beyond its precincts, that, frivolous as they may now appear, they must be mentioned as an occurrence of importance in its history.

It was the custom at that time in New England among the chief men in every congregation to meet once a week, in order to repeat the sermons which they had heard, and to hold religious conferences with respect to the doctrine contained in them. Mrs. Hutchinson, whose husband was among the most respectable members of the colony, regretting that persons of her sex were excluded from the benefit of those meetings, assembled statedly in her house a number of women, who employed themselves in pious exercises similar to those of the men. At first she satisfied herself with repeating what she could recollect of the discourses delivered by their teachers. She began afterwards to add illustrations, and at length proceeded to censure some of the clergy as unsound, and to vent opinions and fancies of her own. These were all founded on the system which is denominated Antinomian by divines, and tinged with the deepest enthusiasm. She taught that sanctity of life is no evidence of justification, or of a state of favor with God; and that such as inculcated the necessity of manifesting the reality of our faith by obedience preached only a covenant of works: she contended that the spirit of God dwelt personally in good men, and by inward revelations and impressions they received the fullest discoveries of the divine will. The fluency and confidence with which she delivered these notions gained her many admirers and proselytes, not only among the vulgar, but among the principal inhabitants. The whole colony was interested and agitated. Vane, whose sagacity and acuteness seemed to forsake him whenever they were turned towards religion, espoused and defended her wildest tenets. Many conferences were held, days of fasting and humiliation were appointed, a general synod was called, and, after dissensions so violent as threatened the dissolution of the colony, Mrs. Hutchinson's opinions were condemned as erroneous, and she herself banished (1637). Several of her disciples withdrew from the province of their own accord. Vane quitted America in disgust, unlamented even by those who had lately admired him; some of whom now regarded him as a mere visionary, and others as one of those dark turbulent spirits doomed to embroil every society into which they enter.