DISSENSION IN THE PROMISED LAND: Culture and Historical Context in 17th Century New England

Berghahn Books

DISSENSION IN THE PROMISED LAND: Culture and Historical Context in 17th Century NewEnglandAuthor(s): Ben PhillipsSource: Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, No. 39 (April1996), pp. 56-82Published by: Berghahn BooksStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23171751 .

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SOCIAL ANALYSIS No. 39, April 1996

DISSENSION IN THE PROMISED LAND: Culture and Historical Context in 17th Century New England.

Ben Phillips

Introduction

Sahlins suggestion that social change is derived from the risk inherent in the

relationship between cultural meaning and nature emphasizes a causal connection

between cultural categories and historical contingencies essentially external to culture

(Sahlins 1985:ix). While I do not deny the importance of this relationship between

culture and nature, I propose that an analysis of the relations between culture, history and myth in the Antinomian Controversy, an important episode in the history of 17th

Century New England, reveals a potential for difference arising from within the

shared social reality of the New England community. Fernandez (1986) notes the importance of the context in which myth is articulated

in the analysis of imagery and meaning. Within an analytical framework suggested

by Bakhtin's notion of the chronotope, which denotes a specific conception of time

and space, the context I emphasize in the following analysis avoids a restrictive definition within the Kantian a prions of space, time and causation. The people cf

New England perceived themselves to be the Chosen People of God sent into the

wilderness, descendants of the Tribe of Israel through an ontological historiography

"spanning times and juxtaposing spaces" (Taussig 1992:44). This expansion of the

notion of context recognizes the social constitution of time and space, and it is with

this imaginative contextualization that my analysis is concerned.

The Antinomian Controversy was a public theological debate which was

perceived to threaten the ruin of the newly-founded colony. It was a debate premised on the authority of Holy Scripture, an authority which was not questioned by the

disputants. The Controversy was not, however, confined to the religious issues of

heresy and heterodoxy which were its explicit and constant focus. Indeed, as the

argument became increasingly fervent, provoking the colony into a state of great excitement and agitation, it came to encompass an intense political struggle. It also

contributed to an ongoing discourse as to the nature of New England, its colonization, and the identity of the colonists.

New England was'first settled permanently in 1630 with the founding of the city of Boston. The events of the Controversy occurred within the first decade of that

settlement.1 The setders were Puritans, devout reformed Protestants persecuted for

56



their religious practices in England. They intended in their colonization of New

England to found a "city on a hill" in a land given them by God, a land in which they could practice their religious beliefs without fear of persecution (see Winthrop 1630).

It was also the intention of the founders of the colony to enforce a doctrinal

homogeneity among the citizens of New England. Exile was not the result of a belief

in the principle of religious toleration, but the result of the colonists' unshakeable

conviction that their own practice was the practice of the 'true' Christianity. Newly arrived and unknown immigrants to New England were therefore subjected to an

interrogation explicitly designed to ascertain the orthodoxy of their Christian belief (Battis 1962:4). Religion was the ra is on d'etre of the colony and its 'correct' practice a proper concern of its government.

From the very beginning of the process of colonization, from before the colonists

finally set sail, the language used to describe the new colony was constituted in terms

of biblical imagery. Indeed, Daniel Boorstin, an eminent historian of early New

England, writes that "the basic reality in their [the colonists] lives was the analogy with the Children of Israel" (Boorstin 1958:19). Throughout the colonization and the

early years of settlement, the people of New England consistently described

themselves as the 'people of God', 'inheritors of righteousness' in a tradition

chronicled in Scripture. It was a tradition meticulously traced as a genealogy of those

chosen by God, from Abraham and Moses through the Apostles, the Church Fathers,

and the great leaders of the Reformation (see Hambrick-Stowe 1982, ch.l). This

tradition of righteousness was an ontological historiography of the people of New

England, grounded in the images of Scripture. The names used to describe New England itself were similarly referenced. New

England was referred to by many names: Canaan, the Wilderness, God's Plantation

and Vineyard, a City on a Hill, were all common ways of describing the colony.

Many of the colonists perceived themselves to be a newly chosen people of God

making their own Exodus towards the Promised Land of New England (Boorstin

1958:19). The terms in which this 'secular' event was represented were thus

explicitly religious and ultimately biblical. John Winthrop, the first Governor of New England and a central figure in the

Antinomian Controversy, was aboard the first ship which sailed to colonize New

England. Tichi writes that Aboard the Arbella in transit to America, Winthrop had drawn a parallel between himself and Moses leading his Tribe into the Wilderness, saying that he would "shutt upp this discourse with the exhortacion of Moses the

faithfull servant of the Lord in his last farewell to Israeli." Winthrop's

reference is not singular in New England literature, for ministers and

historians delighted to place the biblical Canaan in apposition to the New

England one (Bercovitch 1974:58). The consistent appeal to Scriptural precedent and imagery in New England literature,

especially the Exodus narrative, would seem to present a mode of expression open to a productive analysis using Sahlins' notion of the re-enactment of myth. A

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structuralist account of the relationship of myth to ritual understands ritual to be

expressive of an underlying logic which is contained in myth. This infrastructure of

unconscious thought is reflected in a particular configuration of cultural categories,

rendered as myth in symbolic terms. Sahlins' distinctive contribution to the

theoretical perspective of structuralism is derived from his recognition of social

change and the role he understands historical contingency to have in these changes. While he accepts the basic premise that social action is expressive of structure, he

argues that culturally constructed meanings are inherently at risk in their relationship to the objective world of things. Thus, "culture is.... a gamble played with nature"

(ibid.:ix). In this tenuous relationship of meanings to things, historical contingency may

come to effect a transformation of meaning. Unlike the constructions of culture,

historical contingency is essentially unpredictable and can thus induce people through the active articulation of myth to "creatively reconsider their conventional schemes"

(ibid.:vii). Hence, he argues that the "alteration of some meanings changes the

positional relations among the cultural categories", thus effecting a "structural

transformation"(ibid.:vii). A close reading of Tichi's work, cited above, reveals a degree of ambiguity in the

articulation of biblical imagery in Winthrop's sermon. In relation to the specific

Scriptural reference, Tichi mistakenly represents Winthrop's role as "leading his

Tribe into the Wilderness". When this reference is properly located, it becomes clear

that this "exhortacion" was given by Moses as the people of Israel were being led out

of the Wilderness and into Canaan (see Deuteronomy 32). While this reference to

Canaan is in accordance with the rest of the quotation, the reason for the mistake

becomes clear when it is considered that Winthrop's sermon was predominantly concerned with the colonization of New England which he describes in this sermon

and elsewhere as "the planting of the Wilderness". Thus, it would appear that

Winthrop was leading his people simultaneously into the Wilderness and into

Canaan, locations which are clearly differentiated in Scripture. Moreover, in the

particular passage which he cites, being a part of the narrative of the Exodus, no

reference is made to the planting of the Wilderness. The phrase might well have been

a reference to Isaiah 41:19-20 - "I will plant in the wilderness the cedar.... I will set

in the desert the fir tree".

The practice of religion in New England was built upon the foundation of a ready access to Scripture, and upon an intimate knowledge of its contents achieved through

constant re-reading and meditation. Certainly it can be said that the colonists of New

England would have recognized the sources of the various references in Winthrop's sermon. Hence, they would have recognized that the 'positional relations' within

these discrete narratives were very different.

The nature of the change implied by a 'structural transformation' celebrates this

relational meaning between elements of myth, a meaning derived from an internal

relationship within the narrative structure of myth. In Winthrop's articulation of the

biblical image of the Wilderness, many discrete narratives are invoked though not

58



explicitly cited.2 Thus, the relational meaning of the Wilderness can not be derived

through an analysis of the Scriptural narrative from which it is drawn, for it properly

belongs to many narratives which were not articulated in their entirety. The suggestion of an ambiguity of meaning in Winthrop's reference to the

"Wilderness" is here applied to just one of the myriad images constantly recalled

during the colonization and the ensuing years of consolidation and dissension. Thus, I

would argue that Tichi unwittingly demonstrates a difficulty that complex and

ambiguous reference to Scripture presents to a structural analysis, insofar as that

analysis is dependent upon the 'positional relations' of the image within the structure

of the narrative from which it is drawn.

In New England, Scripture was the reified essence of religion, and literacy was

thus an essential prerequisite in the practice of religion. Scripture was understood to

be the "Living Word of God" (Hall 1989:24). As a text, it was to be read constantly,

yet it was to be understood not so much by rational analysis as by it "acting directly

on the hearts of its readers" (ibid.:24). However, in the practice of religion, the private

reading of Scripture was not considered to be sufficient. Of equal importance were

the public sermons delivered in the Meetinghouse. In Boston, sermons were heard

twice on the Sabbath and once at a specially arranged Thursday Lecture (Battis

1962:87). These sermons were always well attended: the Boston Meetinghouse which

could accommodate the thousand or more inhabitants of the town was generally full

(ibid.:87). In Old England, the difficulty in hearing the sermons of Puritan ministers had been a source of despair which had decided many on their emigration. In New

England, especially in these early years, even three sermons a week seemed

inadequate. A solid grounding in Scripture was nowhere more necessary than in the

comprehension of sermons. In the sermon, the minister would proclaim the living

Word of God. The connection between the sermon and Scripture was established

immediately in the announcement of the Scriptural text which the sermon would

discuss, and frequent Scriptural references throughout the body of the sermon

reinforced this connection. Nevertheless, Scripture contained the whole truth of God.

Nothing could be added by the minister, for the truth of Scripture was an absolute

truth which the preachers of the Word sought only to echo. Thus, the sermon had the

potential to be as the Word of God, but it was authorized only by constant appeal to

the ultimate source of truth in Scripture. A 'true' sermon, moreover, exercised the

power of Scripture: in many accounts of religious conversion in New England, a

particular sermon is cited as being directly responsible for the "transformation cf

heart" necessary for the successful conversion (see Hambrick-Stowe 1982:ch.2; Hall

1989:39-43). The sermons of New England were never merely erudite intellectual exercises.

The Scripture was the Word, but it was also the 'living Word' and was to be applied

to life in order for it to live, and to enable believers to live according to the Word. As

Boorstin writes, "Puritan New England was a noble experiment in applied theology" (Boorstin 1958:4). Thus, in the sermon, the ministers endeavoured to transform the

59



text into lived reality by describing the correct method of applying Scripture to

everyday life.

The analysis of the prolific and fluent articulation of biblical imagery in New

England requires an understanding of myth which is independent of its narrative

structure. James Fernandez writes that myth should be treated as "a repository of

imagery", an understanding of myth premised on the notion of "emergent meaning"

(Fernandez 1986:174).3 The specific meaning of myth, on Fernandez' account, is not

inherent in the narrative structure of the myth, but rather emerges in its performance,

in accordance with the context in which the image is articulated. The articulation cf

myth thus becomes inteipretative of the context of its performance, rather than

expressive of a particular configuration of the images which constitute the myth.

The analysis of meaning as an emergent property seems to offer a theoretical

perspective which allows for the multiplicity of potential meanings of biblical

images. Beyond this understanding of emergent meaning, Fernandez writes that myth

should be treated as part of the body of "socio-historical experiences actively lived

through or vividly described" (ibid.: 174). The people of New England understood themselves to be "inheritors of righteousness", part of the tradition chronicled in

Scripture: further, they constantly referred to themselves as "the people of Israel". The

Scripture in New England was more than a 'vivid description'; it was a vital force in

the colonist's lives. Thus, the events of Scripture became a lived reality firstly in that

it was the colonists' 'forebears' in the tradition of inheritance who had 'actively lived

through' these events. Secondly, the experiential analogy linking the people of New

England with the people of Israel was so strong it was expressed as identity. In this

sense, Scripture in New England was a chronicle of socio-historical experience.

In the Antinomian Controversy, explicit reference was made to the images which were contained in contentious sermons. Sermons were also a ground for social

activity. They were thus a source of images which, as Fernandez writes of myth, are

"brought forward.... and become the basis of a performance" (ibid.: 174). Sermons

were at once a performance of Scriptural images, and themselves a source of images

ultimately authorized in Scripture. They were thus at once mythic performances and

mythopoeic texts.

The Antinomian Controversy

The Antinomian Controversy began as a bitter internal dispute amongst the

congregation of the First Church in Boston.4 The terms which constituted the

substance of the argument were theological, and the disputants constantly appealed to

the authority of Scripture in their arguments. These dissensions spread rapidly beyond

the confines of the congregation, to become a debate which involved the whole of the

colony. In particular, it came to the attention of the Court which was, as the colony

itself, divided by the issues of the Controversy. Throughout the Controversy, the biblical foundation of the rhetoric did not change, despite the debate being embraced

by a civil court.

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A central figure in the Controversy was Anne Hutchinson, an emigrant from

Lincolnshire in England, who arrived in New England early in 1634. Hutchinson and

the adult members of her large family were admitted to membership in the First

Church of Boston in the same year. Hutchinson soon became well known in Boston

for her ministry to the sick and for her ready assistance to women in childbirth.

Anne Hutchinson was an extremely pious woman, and shortly after her arrival in

the colony she initiated a weekly meeting in her house to discuss matters of religion,

particularly the sermons and lectures delivered in and around Boston. These meetings

became very popular and were soon held twice weekly with sixty to eighty people in

attendance.5 Each week they heard her commentary on the sermons of the ministers

of New England, and she found fault with many of them. In particular, her attack was

centred on the "legall" preachers, a criticism based on the theological distinction

between preaching a Covenant of Works and a Covenant of Grace.

The people of New England were a Covenanted people: that is, they lived under

the aegis of a contractual agreement with God which concerned a promise of Salvation. The details of this agreement went to the heart of the debate. The central

question of the Controversy was "How was the Saint to know he was saved" (Hall

1968:19). A crucial question in the lived reality of a Covenanted people, its answer defined an appropriate role for the believer in the maintenance of the Covenant.

The Covenant of Works, a covenant made between God and Adam, required of

Adam a strict obedience to the divine Law laid down by God. In return, Adam was

permitted to remain in Paradise. Following the Fall from grace, human faculties were

understood to be much reduced and, consequently, human beings were unable to live

by the Law through their own efforts. The Covenant of Grace was a new covenant

made with Abraham, which required of him only a faith in the coming Redemption of Christ. God's grace was offered as the means for human salvation yet humans could

do nothing to earn this grace - the doctrine of predestination, a doctrine conceded by

both sides in the dispute, taught that people were chosen for salvation by God from

the beginning of time. Both sides claimed to preach the true Covenant of Grace. The orthodox account of

Covenant Theology in New England maintained that the believer could be assured of

predestined 'election* by being evidently imbued with grace, or 'sanctified'.

Sanctification involved the daily course of living a godly life, this being a manifestation of the blessings of God's grace. This orthodoxy maintained that the

'reprobate' could not consistently feign the effects of God's blessing. Only those who

were indeed of the elect had the requisite love of the divine Law to constantly live by

it. Thus, sanctification could, with appropriate caution, be taken as evidence of

salvation, or 'justification'. Hutchinson's supporters maintained, however, that the 'true Covenant of Grace

took all responsibility from the believer, save only that they should 'look to Christ'.

Assurance through the evidence of sanctification, they argued, still contained the

blasphemous implication that believers could rely upon their own efforts to ensure their salvation. There was, on this account, a radical separation of human goodness

61



and the unconditional gift of God's grace, a separation which found no

correspondence between the things of humanity and the things of God. Believers were

helpless in regard to salvation - yet they could be assured in that Christ lived in their

hearts, the only admissible assurance of election. For Hutchinson and her supporters, the outward striving after the evidence of God's blessing could thus indicate only its

absence.

Importantly, these two positions entailed different understandings in the practice of Christian life. In the orthodox view, the believer was enjoined to strive to be

obedient to the Law of God, for the genuine desire to do so could be taken as an

assurance of election.6 The supporters of Hutchinson sought rather to disown their

own efforts and to trust only in the Lord. This central question in the Controversy was

thus concerned with the role of law in the life of the Christian. Although this debate

was conducted in theological terms, its outcome would vitally concern the practice and politics of everyday life in the colony.

The Covenant in New England was a powerfully compelling reality. The

maintenance of the Covenant was a moral imperative, and a guarantee of the

successful colonization of New England. An expression of the nature of humanity and

of humanity's relationship with God, Covenant Theology involved an identification of

the colonists with their progenitors in righteousness through the invocation of Adam

and Abraham.

"Antinomiamsm", Hall writes, "is the theological opinion that the moral law is

not binding upon Christians, who are under a law of grace" (Hall 1968:3). From the

perspective of the orthodoxy of New England, Hutchinson's supporters were claiming

precisely this. The implications of moral laxity were not accepted by those accused of it. They did not deny divine Law, but rejected the notion that it should be enforced by man, for the choice to live by this law was not theirs to make. For those called

Antinomians, the difference between the preaching of Grace and Works was a matter

of the relative importance of obedience to divine Law in the life of the Christian.

The Antinomian 'subversion' of the rule of Law rested upon a particular

understanding of the relationship between God and humanity. The challenge to the

orthodox understanding of the Covenant in fact entailed an implicit critique Of

theocratic rule for, as I shall argue, the contestation of meaning was informed by a

wider ontological and historical orientation within the world.

John Cotton, a minister whom Hutchinson followed to New England, was one cf

the ministers of the Boston Church. His sermons, along with those of John Wilson,

his colleague in Boston, and those of many other ministers of the surrounding

settlements were discussed in Hutchinson's meetings. While his fellow clergymen

were roundly condemned in these meetings, Cotton's teaching was greatly admired

and recommended as being true to Scripture.7 Another minister to avoid censure was

John Wheelwright. The supporters of Anne Hutchinson in 1636 included the majority of the members of the Boston church. In October of that year, they called for the

appointment of Wheelwright to a ministerial post in the church, on the grounds that

he taught the Covenant of Grace 'more perfectly' than the incumbent, John Wilson.

62



While this motion was rejected through the intervention of John Winthrop, its defeat

led to much resentment and bitterness within the church.

The clergymen whose sermons were subject to Hutchinson s critical commentary

became aware of the 'unorthodox opinions' which were now circulating freely in and

around Boston. The dissension within the Boston church reached new levels of

animosity, and a meeting of the General Court was requested to determine the nature

of the contentious issues. Wheelwright and Cotton were called to defend their

teaching before this Court, yet the Court could not reach a firm conclusion and no

action was taken. The Governor at this time, Henry Vane, had sympathies with

Hutchinson's teaching: the former Governor, John Winthrop, was already implacably opposed to Hutchinson and her supporters.

Before the next session of the Court, a group of eight orthodox clergymen met

with Hutchinson, Wheelwright and two other prominent sympathizers to try to

determine the source of their differences. Once more they were unsuccessful, and the

subsequent meeting of the Court was marked by furious and passionate outbursts. At

this meeting, however, the Court passed a motion ordering the observance of a

"general fast and day of humiliation for the colony" (Battis 1968:212). The fast was a communal ritual which was intended to reconcile the differences and to heal the

wounds caused by the dispute. The Controversy was clearly perceived to be a concern

of the whole colony. However, a clear statement of the nature of the differences was

not formulated, despite their origin in an explicit and discursive theology. On the

contrary, the debate was greatly agitated and confused.

The peace intended for the colony through the performance of the fast was not

forthcoming. On the fast day, Wheelwright delivered a sermon in the Boston church

which served only to prolong and intensify the debate. The failure of the fast to avert a

seemingly inevitable disaster seems to have galvanized the Court into decisive action.

At the next Court session, Wheelwright was summoned and required to answer for

his sermon. He was charged, significantly, with sedition and contempt of the

authority of the Court. On the expert recommendation of the clergy, who made the

necessary connection between Wheelwright's theological teaching and the civil

charge of sedition, the Court determined him guilty. It was further decided that

impending elections would be located away from the troubled city of Boston. A

petition was circulated in defence of Wheelwright, but its reading in the Court was

refused. At the elections, the petition was again presented, but once more was

refused. The elections proceeded along the lines which had developed in the course c£

the Controversy, with Winthrop and Vane competing for the Governorship. The result

proved one-sided with Winthrop being appointed Governor, presiding over a Court stacked heavily in his favour.

Following the elections, a list of "errors" was compiled by the Church Synod, but

only after the trial of John Wheelwright. In fact, many of these errors were probably

not beliefs held by those accused. Wheelwright and Hutchinson were summoned to the Court for Wheelwright to be sentenced, and for Hutchinson to hear the charges to

63



be laid against her. Following the trial, the known supporters of the Antinomian

heresy were disarmed and then tried themselves.8

The sermon occupied a pivotal position in the Controversy. It was the forum for

discourse upon the nature of the covenant, and was thus the vehicle for much of the

debate. Accordingly, it was the relative merits of Wilson, Wheelwright and Cotton's

preaching which proved to be the touchstone for dissension. The sermon was also the

subject of discussion in Hutchinson's meetings, and again, it was Wheelwright's Fast

Day Sermon which provided the Court with its case for prosecution. The sermon was

a telling of history and being. It identified the settlers of New England with their ancestors in the covenant, a "sort of connectedness incongruously spanning times and

juxtaposing spaces" (Taussig 1992:44). This historical and ontological contextualization, in its sensitivity to the lived realities of the Covenant, was located

within the social imagination: yet it was no less real or politically potent for being so.

The Testimony of Anne Hutchinson

On Thursday, November 2, 1637, the Great and General Court of Massachusetts

gathered in the meetinghouse of Newtown to instigate proceedings against the

"seditions" and "libels" of the Hutchinsonians. John Wheelwright, following his conviction some eight months earlier, was finally sentenced, despite his protests that

he "had delivered nothing but the truth of Christ"(Hall 1968:312). The sedition of

Wheelwright's Fast Day Sermon emerged as the basis of the Court's case, not only

against Wheelwright, but against all those persuaded by the Antinomian heresy. As

Winthrop argued, "a peaceable and comely order in all affaires in the Churches and

civill state" had existed before the preaching of this Sermon (Battis 1962:183). This

strategic writing of history, while it denied the reason for which the fast was

originally called, indicates the importance of the fast day and Wheelwright's sermon

to the theocracy. Wheelwright was banished from the colony, as was one other. Two

delegates from Boston were found guilty of sedition, but were disenfranchized and

discharged rather than banished.

The Court began its trial of Anne Hutchinson in the manner in which it had

successfully dealt with Wheelwright and the Boston delegates.9

Winthrop: You knew that Mr. Wheelwright did preach this sermon and those

that countenance him in this do break a law.

Hutchinson: What law have I broken?

Winthrop: Why the fifth commandment.

Hutchinson: I deny that for he saith in the Lord (Hall 1968:312). The Court's interrogation focused on the accusation that she did "harbour and

countenance" those already convicted of sedition (ibid.:312). This charge was made in terms of the fifth commandment, "Honour thy Father and thy Mother (Exodus

20:12). Thus the civil crime of sedition was perceived to be a violation of the Law of

God and of the state in the failure to honour the "fathers of the Commonwealth"

(ibid.:313).

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For the Court, the connection between sedition and the fifth commandment was

self-evident. But while Hutchinson acknowledged the validity of the Scriptural law,

she did not admit that sedition necessarily followed from a statement of the fifth

commandment. The Court's argument turned on an assumed connection between

Church and State, the identity of the "Law of God and the law of the state"

(ibid.:312). The Deputy Governor, Dudley, argued that Hutchinson had "disparaged

all our ministers in the land" and that "if.... a potent party in the country.... hath

endangered us from that foundation [Hutchinson].... why this is not to be suffered....

we must take away that foundation" (ibid.:318). This statement, which bluntly

demonstrates the perception that New England was "endangered" by the

"disparagement" of its clergy, was again sustained by the assumption of the identity

of Church and State. The connection between this sense of danger and the focus of

the accusations was, however, left unstated.

The purpose of this trial was to "reduce" the defendant, that she might "become a

profitable member among us" (ibid.:312). Thus, while the Hutchinsonians were

regarded with great animosity, they were not considered to be a separate community.

However, while Hutchinson's testimony was based on the same textual source, the

Scriptures, her refusal to admit the validity of the Court's argument and to repent cf

her errors, demonstrates that she did not share the Courts' specific understanding cf

the relationship between Scriptural Law and and the civil institutions of this world.

Hutchinson's vigorous denial of her guilt was sustained by a constant reference to

Scripture, and the Court was unable to produce a 'clear rule' which was indefensible.

At this stage of the trial, it seemed that the case against her would collapse.

Hutchinson then offered to clarify the situation herself.

Being much troubled to see the falseness of the constitution of the

Churches of England, I had like to turned separatist; whereupon I kept a

solemn humiliation and pondering of that thing; this scripture was brought

to me - he that denies Jesus Christ to be come in the flesh is antichrist....

the Lord knows that I could not open scripture; he must by his propheticall

office open it unto me.... the Lord was pleased to bring this scripture out of

Hebrews - he that denies the testament denies the testator.... those who

did not teach the new covenant had the spirit of the antichrist, and upon

this he did discover the ministry unto me and ever since. I bless the Lord,

he hath let me distinguish between the voice of my beloved and the voice

of Moses, the voice of John Baptist, and the voice of antichrist. Mr.Nowell: How did you know that that was the spirit?

Mrs.H.: How did Abraham know that it was God that bid him offer his

son, being a breach of the sixth commandment?

Dudley: By an immediate voice.

Mrs.H.: So to me by an immediate revelation.

Dudley: How! an immediate revelation.... (ibid.:336). This claim to immediate revelation seemed to present a concrete doctrinal

contradiction, and grounds therefore on which to banish Hutchinson.10 Until

65



Hutchinson put forth her ideas on personal revelation, the case against her was in

danger of collapsing. Historians have suggested a number of reasons why she would

incriminate herself in such a way after successfully defending herself against all other

accusations. In finding Hutchinson's 'outburst' problematic, however, they assume

that in the bulk of her testimony, she was simply lying. Caldwell writes that "her

behaviour.... has been accounted for by everything from 'arrogance' to an oversupply of 'imagination'" (Caldwell 1976:34s)11 Caldwell's interpretation focuses on the

way Hutchinson ".... bends the Word [Scripture] to support her own presuppositions" (Caldwell 1976:360). She argues that the Court accepted only that interpretation of

Scripture laid down in Scripture itself, thereby finding Hutchinson's use of Scriptural

precedent improper and irrational. In presupposing that the meaning of the Word is in

some way fixed and that a rational reading could secure this 'true' meaning, however,

Caldwell seems to forget that the Court could not secure a conviction on the grounds

of a clear rule, and neither could they conclusively deny the validity of Hutchinson's

argument. I shall argue that the theocracy of New England similarly 'bent the Word' to

support the 'presupposition' of a particular relationship between church and state.

When treated as a source of imagery, Scripture affords a multiplicity of possible interpretations, for the articulation of biblical imagery is necessarily selective.

The use of the Scriptures within the trial, while explicitly intended to provide 'clear rules', went beyond the uses of a legal sourcebook. Rather, its articulation was

grounded upon an implicit contextualization of Scriptural references. Further, the invocation of Scripture was informed by an ontological historiography, locating New

England and its inhabitants within a social imagining of time and space.

The Wearysome Pilgrimage

After we had escaped the cruell hands of the persecuting Prelates, and the

dangers at Sea, and had prettily well outgrowne our wildernes troubles in

our first plantings in New England; and when our Common-wealth began

to be founded, and our churches sweetley settled in Peace, (God abounding to us more happy enjoyments than we could have expected!) Lest we should, now, grow secure, our wise God, (who seldom suffers his

owne, in this their wearysome Pilgrimage to be long without trouble) sent a new storme after us, which proved to be the sorest tryall that ever befell

us since we left our Native soyle.... Multitudes of men and women,....

having tasted of the [Antinomians] commodities, [unsound and loose

opinions], were eager after them, and were streight infected.... and some

being tainted conveyed the infection to others: and thus the Plague first

began amongst us, that had not the wisedome and faithfulnesse of him,

that watcheth over his vineyard night and day, by the beames of his Light and Grace cleared and purged the ayre, certainely, we had not beene able

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to have breathed there comfortably much longer (T. Weld, Preface

1968:201-202). The Short Story was a collection of documents drawn largely from the diaries cf

John Winthrop.12 It was edited by Thomas Weld, author of the Preface cited above,

who sought to "lay downe the sense and order of this story" (ibid.:202). The Preface

locates the Antinomian Controversy within the history of New England and is thus

constituted as an exercise in historiography. The writing of history is an interpretative

process which seeks to present an accurate account of an 'objective reality'. As

E.M.Bruner argues, "every telling is an arbitrary imposition of meaning on the flow

of memory, in that we highlight some causes and discount others" (Turner and

Bruner 1986:7). The people of New England, as described in the Preface, were God's people,

enjoying a special relationship with God. The colony was God's vineyard and under his constant observation, yet the "faithfulnesse" and abundant blessings of God

recorded in the Preface were offset by the "tryalls" which he also sent. In his wisdom,

God continually tested his people, not allowing them to grow in complacency or

assurance. God was the ultimate source of both abundance and scarcity, of blessings and troubles: both were integral aspects of his relationship with humanity.

The nature of the colonization is thus described as a wearysome Pilgrimage", a

designation which has reference not only to the specific event of colonization, but

more generally to the nature of Christian life. Weld goes on to write that "it is the

nature of [Antinomian] Opinions.... [to] open such a faire and easie way to heaven, that men may passe without difficultie" (Hall 1968:203). The Christian life

necessarily entails difficulty, a journey on which God "seldome suffers his owne.... to be long without trouble".

The Antinomian "plague" was perceived to infect not merely individuals, but

members of the social body, for it was a plague which "began amongst us". The

Antinomian Controversy was thus a debate which was perceived to arise from within

a homogenous community, and while it proved to be the "sorest tryall", the

dissipation of this storm did not take from this community their special relationship

with God nor their role in his plan.

Theocracy, Wilderness and the People of God

In the sermon marking the departure of the first emigrants aboard the Arbella, John Cotton argues that New England, the land of Promise, is the anti-type of Canaan, espied and reserved by God for his saints in fulfilment of his predestined

plan" (John Cotton, God's Promise to His Plantations [London 1630]). Bercovitch notes the suggestion in this sermon that "....all history is converging on the cosmic climax of Boston's founding", and further, that ".... the Puritans [hoped] that their

plantation would become the scene of Christ's triumphant descent to His New

Jerusalem" (Bercovitch 1972:4). This sermon, along with John Winthrop's A Model

of Christian Charity [London 1630], delivered during this first crossing of the

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Atlantic, was regarded as being of great significance as a charter for the colonization

of New England.

The use of biblical imagery in Cotton's sermon was informed by the notion of a National Covenant, the election of a people. The emigration of the 'saints', God's

chosen people, was a collective venture: these saints, in the social act of setting forth

to found a new plantation, were playing the part that God had asked of them. It was

not merely an individual calling, though the individual saints did obey this divine directive. Rather, Cotton implies that this event marked the recognition of the calling of a people, the people of God, for the express purpose of fulfilling God's plan.

The calling of a people to uproot themselves and settle a new land must have

immediately evoked a multitude of scriptural precedents in the minds of this migrant

people so well-versed in the language of biblical imagery. The Exodus, the story wherein the Tribe of Israel escaped from the slavery of Egypt to claim the land

promised them by God, was but one such precedent among many -

yet Cotton, in this

sermon, specifically evokes the image of Canaan.13 The place of New England in

God's plan, the blueprint of history, was thus understood to be prefigured in the

image of Canaan. The event of New England's colonization, the event celebrated in

this sermon, is perceived by Cotton to take place within a rigidly defined conception

of time and a particular understanding of history. God's plan was predetermined from

the beginning of history: the Apocalypse was now imminent, and emigration of the Puritans to New England clearly derives meaning from this close proximity to the end

of time. Whilst the presence of a specific conception of time informing this perception of

New England is evident, the spatial context in which this sermon was delivered should not be overlooked, for its consideration points to a distinctive conception of

both time and space. From the Plymouth docks in England, and in reference to the

accomplishment or fulfilment of the "errand", New England was perceived as the

"anti-type of Canaan". Thus while in Old England, the colonists perceived

themselves to be in the Wilderness - that is at that stage of the journey which

immediately preceded the crossing of the Jordan into the Promised Land. This

perception of New England was, however, soon to be redefined.

Within the first decade of settlement, the Clergy were already issuing thunderous

denunciations of a backsliding people. The first documented election sermon warns

the settlers against their apparent desire to "choose a captain back to Egypt" (Bercovitch 1978:6).

Thus, in less than a decade, the chosen people of God were again in the

Wilderness: and Old England had become for them a biblical type of Egypt.14 While the colonists' movement through the objective world of things had involved a

comprehensive relocation in space, the imaginative location of this chosen people described in terms of biblical imagery had remained constant.

The evocation of imagery drawn from the Exodus myth, in this instance, serves to define the significance of New England. It establishes a distinct context grounded in a

specific conception of time and space. The context in which the sermon was

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delivered, and through which this meaning of the Exodus myth emerges, is both

temporal and spatial - indeed the two are inseparable.

The Chronotope

The recognition of an inherent unity between time and space gave rise to Bakhtin's

notion of the chronotope. Importantly, the concept of the chronotope involves the

suggestion that we live in a universe of 'heterochrony'" (ibid.:368). Many conceptions of 'time/space' are possible, each implying a different orientation of

peoples' relationship to their worlds. Bakhtin's notion of the chronotope is thus

concerned with the relation of people and events to time and space. In literature, the field in which Bakhtin initially developed the notion of the

chronotope, the actions of the characters, and the way they experience the world are

informed by the chronotope which describes their relationship to the world in which

they act. The literary chronotope, Bakhtin argues, is "the ground essential.... for the

representability of events" (Bakhtin 1981:250). As Morson notes, however, Bakhtin

means us to understand that the concept has much broader applicability and does

not define a strictly literary phenomenon" (Morson and Emerson 1990:368). The

concept of the chronotope, then, suggests that an inquiry into the way in which the

world is experienced should not be confined to the explicit representations of the

world, but rather, should probe into the conception of time/space which renders that

representation meaningful.

Chronotopes are more than the parameters within which social events occur: they are actively implicated in the fashioning and comprehension of the social events themselves. The analysis of time manifested in the three dimensions of space thus enables an inquiry into the context in which social action occurs as well as

recognising the social constitution of that context. In considering the context within

which Cotton identifies New England as the anti-type of Canaan, an image drawn

from the Exodus myth, I have found that the derivation of this meaning is more

precisely defined when informed by the inseparability of time and space. The notion of the chronotope can thus be productively employed in the analysis of the implicit differences in meaning existing between Hutchinsonians and the theocracy: firstly to

point out the arbitrariness of this scriptural representation of events, and also to

emphasize the specific understanding of time and space which underpins that

representation.

Historiography and the Jeremiad in New England

The writing of history involves a particular conception of the way time and space

operate in the world. In the sermon discussed above, Cotton would seem to imply a

sense of history which was at once providential - in that God had "espied and reserved New England for his saints"; and divine - in that the emigration was "in fulfilment of his predestined plan". In seventeenth century Protestant theology, a

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tension existed which arose from a difference in the eschatology of its fathers, Luther

and Calvin. Where Luther looked to the portentous events of the Reformation for an

indication of the approaching millennium, Calvin emphasized the heavenly design,

denying the possibility of a radical improvement of the earthly state (see Bercovitch

1972:8-9). In Cotton's concern with the significance of the terrestrial New England in

the terms of a divine historiography, these two conceptions of history are synthesized. Bercovitch argues that the significance of Cotton's vision lies in the synthesis of

the horological, or earthly time, and the chronometrical, the heavenly time

"unaffected by all terrestrial jarrings" (ibid.:4, citing Melville's Plinlimmori). While he shows that this synthesis is evident in the pious rhetoric of, among many others,

Cotton and Winthrop, he bases his argument primarily on its manifestation in the

peculiarities of the New England jeremiad.

The jeremiad was a particular kind of sermon, a political sermon in common use

in New England. It was a literary genre which chronicled "the discourses on public

problems and prospects tendered at every ritual communal occasion" (ibid.:6). The

jeremiad "demonstrated rhetorically that, within their church-state, theology was

wedded to politics and politics to the progress of the Kingdom of God" (ibid.:7). The

name of the jeremiad was derived from the biblical figure of Jeremiah. Bercovitch notes the resonance of this appellation with his theme of synthesis, for Jeremiah was

at once a "Sonne of Thunder" and a "Sonne of Consolation". Both the wrath of the

God who punished, and the mercy of the God who saved were embodied in this

image of Jeremiah (ibid.:8). Since Perry Miller's seminal contribution to the study of "the Puritan Mind", a

rhetoric of declension, the "thunderous denunciations of a backsliding people", has

been acknowledged by the historians of New England to be a theme of great significance (see Miller 1954, 1956). Bercovitch, however, while acknowledging this

theme, insists that the "countertenor of exultation and affirmation" lies at the heart cf

the New England jeremiad, distinguishing it from the "immemorial formulaic refrain of declension which sounded from the pulpits of every nation" (Bercovitch 1972:6). A

constant message of assurance was embedded in the jeremiad: "whatever their

horological blemishes.... [God's] saints would in the end rejoice in Zion" (ibid.:8). While Bercovitch focuses exclusively on the temporal aspects of the jeremiad, he

draws attention, in this last comment, to the spatial dimensions. While he argues that

the jeremiad was a kind of sermon peculiar to New England, I would add that such a

form could have this distinctive meaning only within the context of a particular

conception of New England. The synthesis of the chronometrical, the time operating in heaven, and the horological, the time operating on earth, entails a space in which

the synthesis of heaven and earth is possible. John Cotton, in articulating both a

providential and a divine historiography, defined precisely such a space. The New

England he perceived had reference to earthly time in that it existed as a terrestrial

reality, and to heavenly time through its preordained place in God's plan.

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The Daily Life of the True Christian

John Eliot, Weld's colleague in Roxbury, described the daily life of the people of New England in a sermon designed to instruct his parishioners in the practice of

piety. He writes:

Behold.... the ancient and excellent character of a true christian.... a

seventh part of our time is all spent in heaven, when we are zealous for....

and on the Sabbath of God.... we have many days for both fasting and

thanksgiving in our pilgrimage, and here are so may sabbaths more.... we

have our lectures every week.... we have our private meetings.... and being

now come this far, we are in heaven almost everyday.... we perform family

duties and.... read the Scriptures.... in our civil callings we keep up our

heavenly frames.... in fine, our employment lies in heaven.... If thou art a

believer, thou art no stranger to heaven while thou livest; and when thou

diest, heaven will be no strange place to thee; thou hast been there a

thousand times before (Eliot Sermon, in Austin 1970). For Eliot, the true Christian, while continually striving in everyday practice to

dwell in heaven, was nevertheless earthbound: heaven and earth co-exist to constitute

the space through which the journey of the Christian life proceeded. This

"pilgrimage" culminated in death, when believers at last dwelt exclusively in the

domain to which, in life, they were only visitors. In life, heaven was merely glimpsed, however often it was visited. This representation of Christian life is clearly informed

by the synthesis of the chronometrical and the horological, not merely in its temporal

aspect, but in the perception of space as well. Heaven and earth, and the forms cf

time which operate in them, are divided, yet in the social imagination and through the

social practice of these colonists, they are made to conform.

The Puritan settler in New England lived under a covenant that promised eternity,

yet the contemplation of the world was not subsumed by thoughts of the eternal.

Bercovitch, in describing Puritanism, cogently summarizes the Puritan situation. He writes that the Puritan ".... felt profoundly involved in this world, even as [they].... dedicated [themselves] to the other, and [they] knew, moreover, that doubt and

struggle were part of the road to salvation" (Bercovitch 1974:3). A further point to emerge from Eliot's sermon concerns the role of human beings

within the field of meaning informed by this chronotope. In arguing for the

applicability of the chronotope to fields of study other than literary critique, Morson

argues that "In culture.... the concept of the chronotope immediately raises a number

of problems to which every specific well-developed chronotope offers answers"

(ibid.:369). Of these questions, given the concern with the everyday life of the true Christian shown both in this sermon and the Preface, the question of the role human

action has in a specific chronotope is significant. The chronotope maps out a particular relation of people to the world: consequently, it informs the social

construction of the potentialities and possibilities of human action. It would appear that in the chronotope of synthesis described above, human action

is a significant factor. Given this synthesis, the human agent could pursue a variety of

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meaningful actions, generated by the expanse of time/space which stretches between

the poles of heaven and earth. Hie exhortations of the jeremiad, in combining the

possibility of human failure with the certainty of the divine promise, attests to the

possibility of action. At either end of this axis, behaviour is fixed in that it does not

involve movement rendered meaningful by the pilgrimage motif. Taken separately, the pure rhetoric of declension is bereft of hope and thus significance - and the

unconditional promise of eternal salvation deprives the believer of any role in

determining his or her own destiny. Together, they admit the possibilities of action. Doubt and struggle, or enjoying the pleasures of heaven through religious practice, were meaningful actions on the journey of the wearysome pilgrimage. For the true

Christian, then, the movement through the time and space of the pilgrimage cf

synthesis was controlled by the agent.

A Chronotope of Theocracy

The Wilderness combined the themes of hardship and action. As Thomas Hooker,

one of the prosecuting clergy in the trial of Anne Hutchinson, wrote:

You must not think to go to Heaven in a feather bed; if you will be

Christ's disciples, you must take up his cross, and it will make you sweat

(Miller 1937:288). This statement emphasizes the arduous nature of the Christian life, recalling the

motif of the 'wearysome Pilgrimage'. While the synthesis of the wilderness defined the possibilities of human action, it also provided the appropriate context for

theocratic rule. Between the worldly Canaan and the heavenly Canaan, lay the

Wilderness where Aaron, the patriarch of the Levitical priests, and Moses, who

delivered the Law, met and embraced upon the Mountain of Zion. In this reading of

the Exodus myth, the Law and the Church were as one, enabling the meaningful action of theocratic rule.

In the theocratic reading of the Exodus, the people of Israel moved through a

process which was ordered in a specific pattern: from the separation of God and his

people in Egypt, through punishment and repentance in the Wilderness, the Israelites

ultimately rejoiced in Canaan. This representation of the Wilderness was defined in

terms of the stages which came before and after it, the state of sin in Egypt and the

state of forgiveness in Canaan. The pilgrimage was initiated in the recognition of

guilt and by embarking upon a journey of repentance. The 'wearysome Pilgrimage' was thus an arduous journey through time and space in which heaven and earth —

and the time proper to each domain — was constantly recalled.

John Wheelwright - A Fast Day Sermon

On 19th January 1637, the Colony of Massachusetts observed the "day cf

humiliation", ordained by the Court session of November 1636. In every church

throughout the colony, the people of New England gathered to hear fast day lectures

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given by their ministers. In the First Church of Boston, John Cotton delivered a

sermon in keeping with the spirit of the day, calling for reconciliation and the end to

bitter disputation (Battis 1962:141). When he had finished, Mr John Wheelwright was called to the pulpit to testify as a lay brother. It was here that he delivered the

sermon which was to provide the cornerstone of the Court's case against him, his

supporters and Anne Hutchinson.15

Following the common Puritan practice, Wheelwright began his sermon with the

announcement of his text, Matthew 9:5.

And Jesus said unto them, can the Children of the bridechamber moume,

as long as the Bridegroome is with them? but the dayes will come, when

the Bridgroome will be taken from them and then they will fast.

Wheelwright first offered an explanation as to why the people of God fast, showing through the example of the text of the sermon and in all other instances of

fasting in the Bible, that they fast only because Christ is absent. He concludes that

"so farr as Christ is present he taketh away all cause of mourning and weeping.... all

misery followeth the absence of Christ" (Hall 1968:155). Wheelwright went on to

suggest the reasons why Christ might be absent: ".... it may be that the saynts of God

may come to be left and forsaken of the Lord, either because the mother of their

children is angry with them, and makes them keepe the vineyard, those under a

covenant of works.... and then Christ cometh to depart from them, and then they fast;

or els whilest they grow carnall and fall into a spirituall sleepe Christ leaves them.

Cant. 5.6" (ibid.: 156).16 Wheelwright, having established his point in scriptural precedent, began then to derive explicit 'uses' for these 'reasons' already expounded.

From the 'reason' of fasting in Christ's absence, Wheelwright sought to teach

appropriate behaviour on this day of humiliation. To this end, he cited "78 Psalm [verse] 34. For there the hipocritical people of the Jews in their misery sought the

Lord, and the Lord being full of compassion, he forgiveth their iniquities, and

destroyeth them not. (ibid.: 156). He went on to ask, ".... must we then do as they

did?", a question which was immediately answered: ".... by no means.... we must

[instead] looke first, at the Lord Jesus Christ" (ibid.: 156-157). Psalm 78 is an account of the Exodus.17 It recalls the "marvellous things" which

God did for the people of Israel: the parting of the sea, the constant supply of manna

and quail, the opening of the rock to cause a stream to flow. Yet it recalls also the

infidelity of his people: "How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One

of Israel" (Psalm 78 vs. 40-41). It is an account which tells not of the reconciliation of the people of Israel with their God but of their iniquities, and their "hipocritical" seeking after their God only when he turned against them. Wheelwright condemned

such hypocrisy. Instead, he urged the people of God to "looke first, at the Lord Jesus

Christ". The first 'use' of the sermon text, then, is an exhortation to look to Christ. The

second 'use' follows the first: it serveth to exhort us all in the feare of God to have a speciall care, that we part not with the Lord Jesus Christ, if we part with

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Christ, we part with our lives" (ibid.: 157-158). Wheelwright draws a distinction between those he calls the people of God, and those who are the children of God. For

Wheelwright, the children of God are distinguished by the fact that they already have Christ. Their role in the fast is not to mourn for his absence, but rather to "shew

themselves valient, they should have their swords redy, they must fight.... [to] keep the Lord Jesus Christ" (ibid.: 158). This role is not that of the "pharisees [who] fasted twice a week.... because [of their] want for Christ" (ibid.: 157). The implications of this applied biblical exegesis are clear. The only reason to fast is the absence of

Christ; Wheelwright thus implicitly (but transparently) argued that the Court which

ordered the fast — the most eminent magistrates and clergymen in the Colony —

were still seeking Christ. The children of God to whom he addressed his sermon,

however, were not in this position. They were not to emulate the "hipocriticall Jewes"

in the wilderness, but to stand steadfast and defend their Lord.

Wheelwright saw the "children of God" as "a company" (ibid.: 157). On this

point, then, he echoed the theocracy's perspective. The "children of God" were a body of people distinct from all others by virtue of their special relationship with God. He also evidently shared their understanding that the experiential situation of the people of New England conformed to the people of Israel, in his evocation of the Exodus.

However, the meaning of the myth for Wheelwright is clearly at variance with the

theocracy's account.

The Exodus is a crucial narrative for Wheelwright's understanding of the fast day, and so too his teaching as to the proper behaviour for the children of God on this day. He goes on to expand his reading of the Exodus, finding in it an example of how the Lord did cary himselfe toward the people of the Jewes". He argues that:

.... the Lord gave them his presence in the wildernes, and gave them an

extraordinary signe of his presence.... and yet for all that the body of them

were hipocrites, and the Lord sware in his wrath that they should never

enter into his rest, what is the matter, they procure for themselves things from God and the blessing of God; but they did not get the Lord

himselfe.... they had the spiritt to instruct them, but they had not the spirit to dwell in them, they procure blessings to themselves from the Lord, but

they never got the Lord of blessings: therefore all those that tume unto

these blessings in the first place, and do not first of all tume to the Lord,

will never by pertakers of the Lord, (ibid.: 169) For Wheelwright, the people of Israel are not a people "saved" en masse. Rather,

they are a people condemned in their turning not to the Lord, but to the "benefits" of

God. However, he does not simply replace the theocratic meaning of "national

election" with "national damnation": he speaks rather of the "body" of the Jewes, in

the sense, I would argue, of the "majority", implying that even among this iniquitous

nation, some recognized the Lord's presence. It is these people - a few among a multitude - who are the children of God. There were those that looked firstly to the

blessings of God, as there were those, to whom this sermon was addressed, that

turned to God, and who therefore were "pertakers of the Lord".

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Given the evident differences in the contending interpretations of the Exodus, it is

useful to recall once more Fernandez' argument, that the meaning of myth emerges in

the context of its articulation. John Wheelwright evokes the same source of imagery, the narrative of the Exodus contained in Scripture, that Cotton and Winthrop

previously evoked in their sermons at the departure of the Arbella. I will now discuss

the ground essential to Wheelwright's particular representation of these biblical

events. In explicating the understanding of the relation of people to the world implicit in this representation, the context in which meaning emerges is made clear.

A Christological Chronotope.

As I have argued, the concept of the chronotope suggests a particular approach to the

questions raised by divergent readings of the same source. It suggests that the

representation of events varies to the extent that the conception of time/space within

the narrative varies. Some images are emphasized while others are downplayed. This

selective process which makes each representation distinctive, is thus informed by a

chronotope, a particular conception of the orientation of people within the world in

which they live. The theocratic reading of the Exodus myth emphasized the three-way division of

space -

Egypt, the Wilderness, and Canaan. This division was also a division in time

in that the stress is upon the theme of the journey, the linear progression of a pilgrim

people. In the account given by Wheelwright, this ordered division of space/time lacks the significance it has in the theocratic reading. Throughout the text cf

Wheelwright's Fast Day Sermon, it is clear that the figure of "the Lord Jesus Christ"

is accorded an overwhelming importance which it does not have in the theocratic

telling of the myth. It is in terms of Christ's absence or presence that the biblical

events which Wheelwright cites are represented. Further, it is the recognition or

rejection of his presence which marks the meaningful characteristics of the event. The

events which are recounted tell of the absolute power of the Lord, and the iniquities of

the people who constantly reject him. This telling of the Exodus, then, is less about a

journey as it is about the nature of God's relationship with humanity.

Wheelwright's use of biblical references demonstrates the point. Where the

theological concept of 'type' is employed by the theocracy to show the inexorable

progression of God's 'predestined plan', Wheelwright cites particular instances in which the nature of God's relationship to humanity is revealed. Typology is premised on the historiography of the 'predestined plan' in that it involves the prefigurement of

contemporary events in Scripture. Wheelwright, however, takes the example of the

"hipocriticall Jewes" and uses it precisely as a warning against following in their

footsteps. His is a disjointed historiography which fragments the biblical narrative into meaningful units, which tell of human frailities and the testing of the eternal

God. Wheelwright's account of participation in the tradition of righteousness is

markedly different to that of the theocracy. This suggests a difference in the way images of history were inherited.

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For the people of New England, as for the people of Israel, Christ was ever

present. Yet the people of Israel's rejection of God, their failure to recognize his

presence amongst them, did not constitute a definitive process, a prefigured reality to

which the people of New England were bound. It did not imply the rigid definition of

time and space that was essential to the theocratic understanding of New England as

a wilderness. The presence of Christ is a presence that transcends all terrestrial

distinctions, whether they be geographical, temporal or racial.

"Wheresoever we live, we shall find some that go under a covenant of workes"

(ibid.: 167). There is no sense here of an inviolable correspondence between a

particular location on earth and a particular relationship with God, a space marked

out by God for the special use of his saints. Rather, in the lived reality spoken of in

Wheelwright's sermon, there is only one meaningful factor to be considered and that

is the recognition or rejection of the present Christ. Christ, for Wheelwright, was in

the here and now, oblivious to the specific where of 'here' and the when of 'now'.18

With the over-riding significance of Christ's presence, the terrestrial context is

unimportant: the context is set only in terms of Christ. Given the significance of the

theocratic definition of New England to the identity of the church-state, this denial of

meaning threatened to undermine the possibility of theocratic legitimacy. All is taken from the creature, and all given to Christ, so that neither

before our conversion nor after, we are able to put forth one act of true

saving spirituall wisedome, but we must have it put forth from the Lord

Jesus Christ, with whom we are made one. (ibid.: 160). For Wheelwright, doubt and struggle was meaningless in the lived reality of the

Christian, for at no stage in the Christian life could a person do anything toward their salvation: this was in the hands of the Lord. As Christians, Wheelwright wrote, "we must be meek and lowly, and content to receave all from Christ; if duties be pressed

any other way, they will be burthens" (ibid.: 162)

Anticipating, perhaps, the reaction of the theocracy to his sermon and to those

persuaded by it, Wheelwright, in conclusion, sought to embolden his listeners:

Suppose the saynts of God should be banished.... let the saynts be

incouraged though they should loose all they have, yet they being made

one in Christ.... they may be persuaded nothing can separate them from

Christ (ibid.: 172). Thus, while a particular group of people are elected by God, Wheelwright argues

that they are not to be defined in terms of any earthly people, but in terms of Christ's

presence. As Christ had been present in the wilderness, so too he was present in New

England, as he would be present in all the places where the saints may be: then as

now, wheresoever the saints might be, Christ was all.

As I have noted, the Court understood the dissension in the Churches and the

Commonwealth to be the result of "loose and unsound opinions". The responsibility for the Controversy rested firmly on the shoulders of those who circulated these

opinions. For Wheelwright and his supporters, however, this understanding was not valid. In his sermon, Wheelwright pointed to the consequences of his doctrine: "it

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will cause a combustion in the Church.... but what then? did not Christ come to send

fire upon the earth, Luke 12.49? (ibid: 165). Wheelwright's defence in his trial referred again to the agency of Christ in the Controversy. Winthrop records that he

argued "it was not his sermon that was the cause [of troubles in the Civill State]....

but the Lord Jesus Christ" (ibid.:256). The consistent protest of Wheelwright's

supporters, including Hutchinson, was that he delivered nothing but "the truth cf

Christ". This protest was again stated in Petition, "the doctrine [expounded by

Wheelwright in his sermon] was no other than the very expression of the Holy Ghost

himselfe" (ibid.:249). In this representation of the events of the Antinomian

Controversy, then, the understanding of Christ, present in the here and now, is the

ground essential for this meaning to emerge.

Dangerous Errors

David Hall writes that Thomas Shepard, a prominent minister opposing the Antinomian heresy, had no patience with the Antinomian understanding of the

helplessness of man. Of Shepard's understanding of the Controversy he writes:

Antinomianism was simply a way for the "slothful" to escape the

demands of the law.... to the cry of the Antinomians "We can do nothing,

and why are we pressed to it?", he [Shepard] replied that God made room

for man's own striving within the larger framework of the divine

initiative. God and man worked together in the process of salvation and....

the answer to anxiety lay in constant activity (ibid.: 18-19). Man's striving and God's overarching plan: in these elements the Wilderness

chronotope discussed above is recalled. Shepard's analysis of the Antinomian

doctrine is indicative of the theocracy's way of conceptualising the Antinomian

heresy. In the catalogue of the Antinomian's "erroneous opinions" in the Short Story,

there are many doctrines listed which were probably never adhered to in New

England. Indeed, they were vociferously denied by the accused.19 However, at least

one of these errors is a straightforward paraphrasing of Wheelwright's sermon.

Winthrop describes the "dangerous error" thus:

Here is a great stirre about graces and looking to hearts, but give me

Christ, I seeke not for graces, but for Christ, I seeke not for promises, but

for Christ, I seeke not for sanctification, but for Christ, tell me not of

meditation and duties, but tell me of Christ (ibid.:246). This statement would certainly seem to be in accordance with the doctrine put

forward in Wheelwright's sermon. Christ is central, and all human assurances are

relegated to the primary object of Christ. Winthrop's answer to this error is revealing. He writes 'This speech seemeth to make a flat opposition betweene Christ and his

graces.... And betwixt Christ and all holy duties" (ibid.:246). Wheelwright, I think, would agree.

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Winthrop demonstrates that for the theocracy, the "duties" of the law and the

divine qualities visible in humans are inseparable from the person of Christ. This is

again a manifestation of the wilderness chronotope. The state of sin preceding the

journey of the Christian life, and the ultimate state of union with Christ in Canaan are

co-referents in the wilderness - their respective qualities being visible in the

wearysome pilgrimage through the wilderness. The Antinomians insisted on the

constant presence of Christ in their life to the exclusion of a concern with the

occasional glimpses of heaven of which Eliot speaks. This understanding of the

Christian life, as I have argued, posits a living relationship of Christians to the world. The separation of Christ and his duties implied a radical separation of heaven and

earth in which the co-existence of Church and State was deemed not only

inappropriate, but blasphemous in that the State were said to assume authority

belonging rightfully to the person of Christ. From the theocratic perspective, the

Antinomians' claim to an ongoing relationship with Christ therefore entailed an

implicit denunciation of the New England theocracy.

A Day of Humiliation - A Day of Dissension

In the trials, the eyes of the theocratic Court were focused upon the Fast Day. The

General Fast and Day of Humiliation in New England was a ritual enacted when the

punishment of God was perceived to follow the sins of his people. The seditious

disparagement of the clergy committed by the Antinomians was a crime against God

as much as it was against the state. However, the call for a General Fast indicated

that the Court recognized a collective guilt, a sin committed in the midst of the

community for which the community as a whole, as the people of God, would be held

responsible. In New England, the ritual of the Fast was instigated only in times of emergency.

The determination of this need required the identification of the appropriate

circumstances of human sin and divine judgement, which the Court evidently

recognized in the events of the Controversy. The form of the Fast followed that of the

theocratic reading of the Exodus - the recognition of sin was suceeded by repentance, which brought divine absolution. A stage in the 'wearysome Pilgrimage', the Fast

recalled the arduous struggle of the Wilderness and looked forward to the forgiveness

to come.

This representation of the events of the Controversy was possible given a specific

conception of time/space. For the theocracy, the Fast marked on earth the passing of

heavenly time, and a human initiative of repentance occurring within the overarching

framework of God's plan. This synthesis in the social imagination of the theocracy

informed the theocratic reading of the Exodus, even as it informed the enactment cf

the myth in the ritual Fast. As a performance of myth, the Fast invoked the power cf the transformative process of the Exodus type, a transformation in the relationship

between God and his people premised on the chronotopic contextualization of the

Fast as part of the "wearysome Pilgrimage" (cf Kapferer 1979).

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The process of transformation in this particular enactment, however, was

interrupted - the Fast Day Sermon delivered by Wheelwright suspended the 'natural'

progression of the Exodus type through its insistence on the presence of Christ, here

and now. This sermon proffered a radically different interpretation of the Exodus to

the orthodox account. And although the meaning of the myth which emerged in this

articulation was significantly different to the meaning which informed the Fast, it

nevertheless claimed the same Scriptural authority. In the Antinomian Controversy, then, different meanings of the Exodus myth

emerged in different imaginative contexts. Each reading was an interpretative exercise which invoked the authority of Scripture. These readings underscored a

divergent understanding of the everyday practice of Christian life. For both sides in the Controversy, it was a perception of the contestation of everyday practice which

generated the urgency of their argument.

The significance of biblical imagery to the definition of New England, its colonization, and the identity of its inhabitants was everywhere acknowledged. Yet

the meanings which the familiar images of myth rhetorically articulated for the

protagonists clearly differed. Following Fernandez, I have argued that the meaning of

myth emerges in the context of its articulation. Given the shared material historical

circumstances of the rival sides in the Controversy, I have emphasized the

imaginative contextualization of New England, its colonization and the identity of the colonists. I have employed Bakhtin's notion of the chronotope to demonstrate that for

both sides in the Controversy, particular conceptions of time/space were the ground essential for this difference in meaning and, thus, for their respective representations of the events of the Antinomian Controversy.

NOTES

1. The dates conventionally given for the duration of the Controversy are from October

1636 to March 1638.

2. In John 1, Jesus is baptised in the Wilderness; in the other Gospels, it is in the

Wilderness that he is tempted (see Matthew 4, Luke 4, Mark 1); in Ezekiel 6, as in

Jeremiah 4, fertile land is reduced to Wilderness.

3. The notion of emergent meaning is current in the "Anthropology of Experience" (see Turner and Bruner 1986). 4. The Boston Meetinghouse was indeed the first building to be erected in Boston, and

the first church built in New England. 5. One meeting was specifically for women, the other for men. Thus, in all, up to 160

people were in attendance each week.

6. By 'orthodox', I mean the doctrine espoused by the majority of the clergy of New

England. 7. Cotton, it should be noted, denied any connection with the Antinomian doctrine.

Indeed, he led the inquiry into Hutchinson's orthodoxy which resulted in her

excommunication, though he defended her in her Court trial. The ambiguity of Cotton's

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involvement in the Controversy reinforces the suggestion that such difference as was

manifest in the Controversy arose from within a common social reality. 8. The disarming of the Hutchinsonians is an eloquent demonstration of the Court's

perception of the reality of the threat posed by the expression of theological difference.

9. The transcripts of the trial are reproduced in Hall 1968:312-348.

10. It should be noted, however, that the precise reasons for the verdict of banishment

remained hidden. To Hutchinson's question of these reasons, Winthrop could only reply, "the Court knows and is satisfied" (ibid.:348). 11. As a proponent of a pyschological thesis, for example, Battis suggests the possibility that her vindictive nature had at last overcome her reason. He also argues that ".... the

delusional symptoms openly expressed" by Hutchinson were perhaps severe

menopausal symptoms [which included].... neurotic manifestation" (Battis

1962:202,347). 12. John Winthrop, A Short Story of the Rise, reigne, and ruine of the Antinomians,

Familists & Libertines that infected the Churches of New-England [London 1644] in

David Hall's The Antinomian Controversy 1968:201-310.

13. Boorstin writes that ".... the Puritans conceived that by going into the Wilderness,

they were reliving the Exodus" (Boorstin 1958:19). References to the Exodus were

common, as Tichi, cited above, confirms.

14. The term type refers to its theological usage where it denotes the prefigurement in

Scripture of a particular, and thus preordained event. In this manner, the colonization of

New England was perceived to be a type of the Exodus, as was, for example, Christ's

temptation in the Wilderness. It was in this sense that it was used by Cotton, cited

above. I have retained this usage, as it was a concept commonly employed in 17th

Century biblical exegesis.

15.Wheelwright's Fast Day Sermon is reproduced in Hall 1968:153-172.

16. This initial explication of the text is based rigorously on Scriptural citation. Some

fifteen distinct places in Scripture are noted in just two pages of the sermon manuscript. 17. The psalms were perhaps the part of the Scriptures best known to the people of New

England. They were sung constantly, replacing, as Hambrick-Stowe writes, the ballads

of Old England (Hambrick-Stowe 1982:18). 18. The phrase is clearly chronotopic: the here of space and the now of time.

19. This denial is persuasive on the grounds that doctrines which also entailed

banishment were readily admitted by these same persons.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Austin, W. 1970 Connections, Ann Arbor: Univensity of Michigan Press.

Bakhtin, M.M. 1981 The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, M Holquist (ed), Austin:

University of Texas Press.

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(eds), Austin: University of Texas Press.

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Baritz, I.

1964 City on a Hill: A History of Ideas and Myths in America, New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Battis, E.

1962 Saints and Sectaries, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Bercovitch, S.

1970 "Horologicals to Chronometricals: The Rhetoric of the Jeremiad", Literary

Monographs 3-124.

1975 The Puritan Origins of the American Self, New Haven: Yale University Press.

1978 The American Jeremiad, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Bercovitch, S. (ed.) 1974 The American Puritan Imagination: Essays in Revaluation, New York:

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Bremer, F.J. (ed.) 1980 Anne Hutchinson: Troubler of the Puritan Zion, New York: Robert E.

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Caldwell, P.

1980 "The Antinomian Language Controversy" in F.J. Bremer (ed.) Anne Hutchinson: Troubler of the Puritan Zion, New York: Robert E. Krieger.

Cotton, J.

1630 God's Promise to His Plantations, London. Erikson, K.

1966 Wayward Puritans: A Study of the Sociology of Deviance, New York:

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1982 Bwiti, Princeton University Press.

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Taussig, M. 1987 Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man, University of Chicago Press. 1992 The Nervous System, New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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DISSENSION IN THE PROMISED LAND: Culture and Historical Context in 17th Century New England

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