That no circumstances of horror might be lost, she and one of her most devoted followers, Mary Dyer, were nearing their confinements during this time of misery. Both cases ended in misfortunes over whose sickening details Thomas Welde and his reverend brethren gloated with a savage joy, declaring that “God himselfe was pleased to step in with his casting vote ... as clearly as if he had pointed with his finger.” [Footnote: Short Story, Preface, Section 5.] Let posterity draw a veil over the shocking scene.
Two or three days after her condemnation “the governor sent [her] a warrant ... to depart ... she went by water to her farm at the Mount ... and so to the island in the Narragansett Bay which her husband and the rest of that sect had purchased of the Indians.” [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 259.]
This pure and noble but most unhappy woman had sinned against the clergy, past forgiveness here or hereafter. They gibbeted her as Jezebel, and her name became a reproach in Massachusetts through two hundred years. But her crimes and the awful ending of her life are best read in the Christian words of the Rev. Thomas Welde, whose gentle spirit so adorned his holy office.
“For the servants of God who came over into New England ... seeing their ministery was a most precious sweete savour to all the saints before she came hither, it is easie to discerne from what sinke that ill vapour hath risen which hath made so many of her seduced party to loath now the smell of those flowers which they were wont to find sweetnesse in. [Footnote: Short Story, p. 40.] ... The Indians set upon them, and slew her and all the family. [Footnote: Mrs. Hutchinson and her family were killed in a general massacre of the Dutch and English by the Indians on Long Island. Winthrop, ii. 136.] ... Some write that the Indians did burne her to death with fire, her house and all the rest named that belonged to her; but I am not able to affirme by what kind of death they slew her, but slaine it seemes she is, according to all reports. I never heard that the Indians in those parts did ever before this, commit the like outrage ...; and therefore God’s hand is the more apparently seene herein, to pick out this wofull woman, to make her and those belonging to her, an unheard of heavie example of their cruelty above al others.” [Footnote: Short Story, Preface.]
CHAPTER III. — THE CAMBRIDGE PLATFORM.
With the ruin of the Antinomians, opposition to the clergy ceased within the church itself, but many causes combined to prevent the bulk of the people from participating in the communion. Of those who were excluded, perhaps even the majority might have found it impossible to have secured their pastor’s approbation, but numbers who would have been gladly received were restrained by conscientious scruples; and more shrank from undergoing the ordeal to which they would have been obliged to submit. It was no light matter for a pious but a sincerely honest man to profess his conversion, and how God had been pleased to work “in the inward parts of his soul,” when he was not absolutely certain that he had indeed been visited by the Spirit. And it is no exaggeration to say that to sensitive natures the initiation was appalling. The applicant had first to convince the minister of his worthiness, then his name was openly propounded, and those who knew of any objection to his character, either moral or religious, were asked to give notice to the presbytery of elders. If the candidate succeeded in passing this private examination as to his fitness the following scene took place in church:—
“The party appearing in the midst of the assembly ... the ruling elder speaketh in this manner: Brethren of this congregation, this man or woman ... hath beene heretofore propounded to you, desiring to enter into church fellowship with us, and we have not since that heard anything from any of you to the contrary of the parties admittance but that we may goe on to receive him: therefore now, if any of you know anything against him, why he may not be admitted, you may yet speak.... Whereupon, sometimes men do speak to the contrary ... and so stay the party for that time also till this new offence be heard before the elders, so that sometimes there is a space of divers moneths between a parties first propounding and receiving, and some are so bashfull as that they choose rather to goe without the communion than undergoe such publique confessions and tryals, but that is held their fault.” [Footnote: Lechford, Plain Dealing, pp. 6, 7.]
Those who were thus disfranchised, Lechford, who knew what he was talking about, goes on to say, soon began to complain that they were “ruled like slaves;” and there can be no doubt that they had to submit to very substantial grievances. The administration of justice especially seems to have been defective. “Now the most of the persons at New England are not admitted of their church, and therefore are not freemen, and when they come to be tryed there, be it for life or limb, name or estate, or whatsoever, they must bee tryed and judged too by those of the church, who are in a sort their adversaries: how equall that hath been, or may be, some by experience doe know, others may judge.” [Footnote: Plain Dealing, p. 23.]