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The Free Grace Controversy
In 1636, Henry Vane was elected governor. Young, intellectual and charismatic, he was an exciting choice for the new colony, and his term started well. He smoothed relations with the mariners who frequented the colony, as conflict over the looming Civil War put colonist and crew alike on edge.
He also threw his support wholeheartedly behind Anne Hutchinson, who was leading the charge in support of Free Grace theology (advocated by John Cotton). Soon, only a couple people in Boston disagreed with the idea – John Winthrop and pastor John Wilson.
Winthrop sought external assistance in the battle, and found the rest of the colony extremely supportive of his position. Neither side wanted to back down, and seeing the looming conflict, Vane tried to resign as governor and return to England to diffuse the situation. The General Court, however, refused his request for permission to leave.
Transcript
When Winthrop lost the 1636 election, it wasn’t because of controversy or disapproval. By then, Connecticut was essentially independent from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and most of his greatest detractors had relocated. He lost only because of the overwhelming and intense popularity of one of his opponents – a man named Henry Vane.
Introduction
Henry Vane had arrived in Massachusetts just a few months earlier, carrying the patent for the Saybrook Colony. Just 23, he had been immediately embraced by the colony, even invited to sit with the magistrates at the Church in Boston where he settled. In a way, this was a practical move. He was a good friend of Lord Saye-and-Sele. His father was a member of King Charles’s Privy Council, and the king had personally granted young Vane permission to settle in Massachusetts for three years. He was their best chance of countering Laud and Gorges’s influence. But, the colony’s love of Vane was also personal. Vane had an understated charisma which drew people to him. He dressed plainly, and had a very solemn and sedate manner, as Puritans thought appropriate, but he was naturally attractive, and more than looks, he had a refined and intellectual air which was rare in Massachusetts. He was a prolific writer, although most of his works were so convoluted and dull that few could understand them, and even David Hume pronounced them unintelligible and devoid of common sense … but he was pious, charming and respected – so much that even dedicated Royalists would speak highly of him after the English Civil War. Milton addressed a sonnet to him, and Massachusetts was eager to get him involved.
Early in 1636, Vane and Hugh Peters had held a meeting to smooth factional differences between Winthrop and Dudley, and that just cemented his popularity.
So, in the 1636 election, Vane was elected governor and Winthrop was his deputy. There’s actually a somewhat interesting anecdote from the same General Court meeting, in which John Cotton got a letter from a group of Puritan nobles like Warwick, Saye-and-Sele and Brooke, who were considering relocating to Massachusetts, but demanded a system of hereditary power be implemented in New England before they’d move. Leaders discussed the proposed changes, and ultimately decided to implement a system of “hereditary honor,” but not power, and that a certain number of magistrates would be chosen for life. The peers decided the proposal wasn’t good enough, and that they’d stay home instead.
But, Vane got down to the business of governing, and with style. His natural culture and time spent at Court had given him a sense of stately formality, and when he went out for official business, or to Church, four sergeants would form a guard to walk before him, carrying halberds.
And he was a pretty decent diplomat, which was valuable in the highly-charged years leading up to the English Civil War. Just a couple weeks after his election, he held a meeting with the 15 ships’ commanders, saying he wanted to smooth relations between the groups. There had been two tense exchanges between the colonists and mariners since Vane had been elected, and though he’d smoothed each one out, he wanted a more permanent fix.
In the first, the Lieutenant stationed at Castle Island had insulted the master of a ship owned by the Earl of Strafford. This was the first time such a thing had happened, and it looked like it was directed at one of the King’s highest ranking and most controversial advisors. The master demanded a public apology, and Vane commanded the Lieutenant to give one.
Aboard another ship, though, a man named Miller started telling his shipmates that New England was filled with rebels and traitors, because they didn’t fly the King’s colors at Castle Island. Now, he didn’t even know the fortification had been built in order to facilitate rebellion against the King. Vane asked that the ship’s master deliver Miller to the colony for punishment, and the master did, but the rest of the crew was ready to revolt. The master explained the situation aboard his ship, and asked that Miller be given back to him to pacify his crew, and Vane agreed so long as Miller would publicly acknowledge the offense, which he did.
So when Vane met with the masters, he told them he wanted them to tell the settlers anytime they took offense, and the masters replied that they wanted to see the King’s colors at Castle Island. Vane said they didn’t have a flag to fly at their fort, and the masters offered to give him one of their own. Vane agreed, saying that even if they considered the Cross idolatrous, the fort was technically the King’s, so if they gave him the flag, they’d fly it, but the colonists had their own requests. They’d like any ships coming into New England to either anchor at Castle Island or send a boat ahead to signal they were friends, and if they were selling goods to deliver an invoice to the governor, who would then have 24 hours to refuse it, and that he’d like all mariners to go back to their boats after sunset, unless they were on necessary business. They agreed to his requests, too.
This is a good example of what Vane was capable of. Having good relations with the mariners was important, and he’d curbed a issue affecting relations before it got out of hand, at a time when it was only likely to get worse. In many ways, Vane seemed to have the makings of a great governor, but the day after he was elected, a man named John Wheelwright arrived in America. Wheelwright had been ministering privately in England for years, having been silenced for non-conformity before Laud became Archbishop. He’d finally followed his in-laws, the Hutchinsons, to America. Unbeknownst to anyone that spring, within a year, Vane, Anne Hutchinson and Wheelwright would find themselves at the center of one of the most famous conflicts in the history of Colonial New England.
The Hutchinsons had followed John Cotton from Boston, England, to Boston, Massachusetts. Anne in particular had been captivated by him, and Cotton liked her, too. She was a skilled nurse and childbirth adviser, and like Vane was known for her refined manner, intellectual acuity and charisma.
Hutchinson had been living in America for years, and she’d been holding meetings for the women of Boston to discuss Cotton’s sermons. At first, they were meant to help people who hadn’t been able to attend the sermons, and she quickly got 60-80 regular attendees. The problem was, that as the meetings got popular she started to preach her own opinions and beliefs, and then to critique the other ministers in the colony. Her beliefs had already been noted as unorthodox, and her admission to the Boston Church had even been delayed when one of the other passengers aboard her ship warned the magistrates about her opinions.
The groups gave her a platform to preach her opinions, and she started to take the role of a minister running a weekly religious review. She was also the first person to challenge most of the other ministers in the colony on their beliefs. For a long time, Cotton supported Hutchinson’s work. She was one of his most intelligent parishioners, and she was actually helping both men and women to understand one of the most complicated, and important, parts of his theology.
Her criticisms of the colony’s other ministers were growing more and more personal, though, and her target was squarely on Boston’s teacher, or pastor, John Wilson. Wilson didn’t even realize how much Hutchinson disliked him for a long time, and he happily joined in Cotton’s encouragement. He fit the New England mold better than Vane or Hutchinson, a bit coarser, matter-of-fact, and unsympathetic, not particularly quick-witted, nor a talented public speaker, and stern to the point of being unrelenting.
She’d already been feuding with Wilson for a while when Wheelwright arrived to the colony. She’d led a walk-out during one of Wilson’s sermons, with a group of women turning their backs on their minister, though they made excuses for leaving so their contempt couldn’t be proven. The group had also interrupted Wilson’s sermons to challenge his words. When Wheelwright arrived, Hutchinson suggested that he should replace Wilson, but the idea was rejected. Vane, however, soon declared his support of Hutchinson, and this just supercharged her efforts. Soon, virtually everyone in the Boston Church was on their side, with only Wilson and Winthrop opposing the movement. And, empowered by her strength, Hutchinson began to say that Wilson wasn’t an able minister of the New Testament at all. Her party also got a new name – the Opinionists.
At this point in time, no one outside of Boston really knew about the controversy. Vane’s declaration of support wasn’t controversial, because everyone in Boston agreed with him, including the universally respected John Cotton, and no one outside of Boston even knew what was happening. Hooker and Shepard disagreed with some of Cotton’s theology, but they’d moved to Connecticut and diffused the situation. A couple members of the Roxbury Church had attended Hutchinson’s meetings, but for the most part, there were just rumors of odd things happening in Boston. This was 17th Century America, and news traveled slowly.
But, before we go on to discussing how the crisis unfolded, it’s important to take a minute to look at the intellectual/theological issues at stake.
Calvinism, as you probably know, revolved around the idea that people couldn’t save themselves, in any way. God alone could save souls, and humans were passive in that. Most famously, that led some people to argue the concept of predestination, that only an elect few were destined for Heaven, but that was just one facet of a complicated issue.
One question is where the Law factored into the equation. Traditionally, Christians believed that the Law was meant to lead souls to Christ, to illustrate man’s need for salvation. Calvinists like Cotton preached that fear of the Law was the truest test of salvation, but Antinomians rejected the Law entirely. The very term Antinomianism was etymologically derived from antagonism, meaning opposition to the Law. The movement had been founded by taylor-turned- preacher, and Luther disciple-turned-opponent, John Agricola. And it quickly joined Anabaptism as a movement marked by extreme radicalism.
Like Browne, Agricola had later renounced the movement which sprung from his teachings, but his followers remained.
Antinomians argued that focusing on the Law gave Man some part to play in his own salvation. This was known as a Covenant of Works. The preaching of a CoW had been a major accusation leveled against Catholics and Arminians.
If you listen to Antinomianism’s opponents, in Europe it had been a movement marked by libertines who used the idea of predestination as license to sin, saying that if their actions didn’t matter anyway, they might as well have fun.
Intellectually, though, that wasn’t the core of the issue. Saying that man played some part in his salvation both raised and lowered the standards of grace, lowering the importance of divine sanctification, but also making it impossible for men to know whether or not they were saved.
Puritans had already separated themselves from what they considered the CoW of the Catholics and Arminians, but New England pastors told people to “prepare” themselves for salvation. People must prepare their hearts before they could be saved. But, at the same time, they told people that no matter what they did, God’s mercy could be denied in the end.
Hutchinson’s Antinomians argued that preparation was a doctrine of works, which cheapened grace. They said preparation and predestination were mutually exclusive. They said that human hearts couldn’t awaken at all until Christ made an opening. The changes in heart and personality which Puritans called a prerequisite to salvation, were actually signs of it. The standard Puritan doctrine was the worst of both worlds – both cheapening Grace and taking away people’s hope. If contrition and humiliation weren’t signs of grace, there was no assurance of faith, which was just depressing. They’d lead people both into pride, and then into despair, and at the end, they’d be even farther from Grace than they started.
This is a fairly minute theological detail, but it was one with big implications. Historians who sided with Winthrop and Wilson have tended to dismiss the controversy as being more minor than commonly perceived, and said the real reason the controversy happened at all was that all of the Puritans’ intellectual energy went into theological debate, because they largely refused to engage with secular books and plays. Winthrop didn’t, and that’s why he managed to stay a more moderate course.
I have to say, though, that I don’t necessarily think it’s as simple as that. Theologically, the implications of non-Opinionist Puritan theology were massive, and spoiler alert, Puritans in New England did end up with a uniquely hopeless variant of Calvinism. The difference also had practical implications. New England pastors like Hooker were admitting people to full church membership on the basis of their actions.
On the other hand, people who opposed Cotton’s ideas said that his emphasis on the freeness of Grace would inevitably lead to radical Antinomian opinions. These opinions would make the unity of the country – a unity which Winthrop felt was more important than anything – almost impossible to achieve. Cotton thought that was ridiculous. He preached the Law more than anyone, and emphasized it more than anyone.
Puritans didn’t believe in miracles or revelations, just Divine providence. This again had a very practical application. If miracles or revelations were considered legitimate, anyone in New England could disrupt the status quo by claiming to be one of God’s prophets. The Puritans wanted to form a theocracy, and they didn’t want a group of rabble rousers questioning the sanctity of God’s mouthpiece. Winthrop wanted unity, and unity was absolutely incompatible with individual thought. Lack of unity threatened the state more than it threatened religion, and the state was already on shaky ground.
The really funny thing is that in 1637, the Massachusetts Puritans had effectively created a microcosm of Old World theological conflict. There were no Catholics, Arminians or ordinary Anglicans, but the Puritans wanted a society in which religion and civil government were interlinked, and to achieve that they had to take some of the exact positions that they had opposed in England. Pushing a theology which emphasized works and evaluating people’s piousness based on outward actions helped maintain political stability. This created a rift in New World Puritans. Some took the place of the old high-church people, implementing a distinctly Calvinist version of evaluating and regulating external actions, while others continued to fight against that, just as much in the New World as they had in the Old.
The comparison wasn’t lost on Massachusetts colonists either. Winthrop knew he was dangerously close to being accused of Arminianism, and he had to tread extremely carefully. He even destroyed a number of letters from his correspondence with other Massachusetts leaders around this time. He was totally overpowered in Boston, and those letters were explaining the situation and asking for external help.
And he got it. The other ministers were firmly on his and Wilson’s side, and in October, the General Court arranged for all of the Massachusetts ministers to go to Boston for a conference with the colony’s religious and political leaders. First, they established their common ground. Sanctification did help evidence justification, and people who were sanctified did enter in a union with the Holy Ghost, but they disagreed on the extent of that union. That wasn’t an insurmountable difference.
However, at the meeting, the opinionists again raised the idea of Wheelwright joining the Boston clergy, and Winthrop opposed the idea. This was the first real taste most of them had gotten of Bostons conflict. Winthrop said they didn’t know Wheelwright well enough, and that he seemed to have dissenting opinions, and that the Church was already well-stocked with able ministers. Vane responded emphatically, saying he “marveled” at Winthrop’s statements, and then quoting Cotton to support Wheelwright’s teaching. Cotton said Wheelwright should explain his own theology, instead of just using his words, and Wheelwright spoke, but not well enough to disprove Winthrop’s points.
He wasn’t appointed, but he was given a preaching position at Mount Wollaston, a rural area just outside of Boston on the site of Thomas Morton’s old Merrymount. It had been one of the last places settled near Boston, and 10 miles away, it was far enough that getting to Boston on Sunday was difficult. It was too rural and too close to form a Church of its own, though, so its residents were in a place that was somewhat left out of ordinary religious activities. They were very eager to have a Puritan preacher come to them. So, this was great for them, and they jumped at the opportunity, but it did absolutely nothing to diffuse the situation in Boston.
Hutchinson was incensed that all the other ministers supported Wilson, and declared they were no better than he was. None were able ministers of the New Testament. They were all under the Covenant of Works, legalists to a man. And Vane was right beside her, together taking all of Cotton’s beliefs to new extremes, and with a level of detail that many in Boston didn’t even fully understand.
Vane and Winthrop, governor and deputy, also entered into a personal battle at this point. This made Winthrop an incredibly popular figure in the rest of Massachusetts, where people saw him as the champion of the true faith, clergy, and order, and the only man in Boston who remained faithful. Vane, on the other hand, was the sewer of the seeds of dissention in God’s vineyard. Vane’s popularity in Boston wasn’t enough. He was governor of the whole colony. He was also young, inexperienced, and now extremely unpopular. He had thrown himself enthusiastically into a popular movement he agreed with, but now found that movement was actually deeply unpopular in the majority of his jurisdiction. Plus, it was clear that war with the Pequots was coming.
He was in over his head, and he knew it. In December, just a little over a month after the conference ended, Vane told the magistrates he wished to resign his post and return to England. He said he’d gotten letters from England urging him to return home, and saying that his financial future would be jeopardized if he didn’t. He showed the letters to a handful of the magistrates, and they agreed he should be allowed to return immediately, but that the letters weren’t fit to show the entire court. They called a full meeting of the General Court to arrange for his departure. The next morning they met, and one of the magistrates made a speech expressing the deep regret the colony felt at losing such a governor at a time of such great peril. Vane burst into tears and started to gush. He said he wouldn’t have left if it were just a matter of material wellbeing. He would rather risk everything he owned than leave the colony in such a dangerous situation. But, God would judge them for their divisions and dissentions, and if his leaving would prevent that, it was best for him to leave for a while. It was for that reason that he was leaving.
The Court listened to his teary testimony, and let him calm down, and then they responded. “Oh, well, if that’s your reason for leaving, you’re not going anywhere.”