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Anne Hutchinson is Banished (1637)

The powerful Massachusetts Bay Colony soon became a Bible Commonwealth, centered at Boston, and the clergymen who dominated it could not permit heretics to undermine their authority.  Hutchinson would review and even reinterpret the ministers’ sermons in the light of her own brand of Calvinism.  The case against her seemed to be breaking down when she revealed that she was in direct communication with God -- a heresy that the religious leaders could not tolerate.

Hutchinson: Therefore take heed what ye go about to do unto me.  You have power over my body, but the Lord Jesus hath power over my body and soul; neither can you do me any harm, for I am in the hands of the eternal Jehovah, my savior. . . .

Nowell: How do you know that it was God that did reveal theses things to you, and not Satan?

Hutchinson: How did Abraham know it was God that bid him offer [sacrifice] his son, being a breach of the sixth commandment?

Deputy-Governor Dudley: By an immediate voice.

Hutchinson: So to me by an immediate  revelation.

Deputy-Governor Dudley: How! an immediate revelation?

Hutchinson: By the voice of his own spirit to my soul.

Governor Winthrop: Daniel was delivered by miracle; do you think to be delivered so too?

Hutchinson: I do here speak it before the Court.  I look that the Lord should deliver me by his providence  . . . .

Governor 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 . . . . Mrs. Hutchinson, you hear the sentence of the Court.  It is that you are banished from out our jurisdiction as being a woman not fit for our society.  And you are to be imprisoned till the Court send you away.

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