For the history of the Antinomian controversy which broke out about this time and convulsed the whole of New England, see the examination of Mrs. Hutchinson in Hutchinson’s Massachusetts Bay, ii. 482; Welde’s Short Story, etc., London, 1644; Chandler’s Criminal Trials, Boston, 1841, vol. i.[582]
A small quarto volume published in London in 1641, entitled An Abstract of the Lawes of New England as they are now Established, was one of the results of an attempt to form a body of standing laws for the colony. I may premise, that, at the first meeting of the Court of Assistants at Charlestown, certain rules of proceeding in civil actions were established, and powers for punishing offenders instituted. In the former case equity according to circumstances was the rule; and in punishing offences they professed to be governed by the judicial laws of Moses where such laws were of a moral nature.[583] But such proceedings were arbitrary and uncertain, and the body of the people were clamorous for a code of standing laws. John Cotton had been requested to assist in framing such a code, and in October, 1636, he handed in to the General Court a copy of a body of laws that he had compiled “in an exact method,” called “Moses his Judicials,” which the Court took into consideration till the next meeting. The subject occupied attention from year to year, till in December, 1641, the General Court established a body of one hundred laws, called the Body of Liberties, which had been composed by the Rev. Nathaniel Ward,[584] of Ipswich. No copy of these laws was known to have been preserved on the records of the colony; and of the earliest printed digest of the laws, in 1648, which no doubt substantially conformed to the Body of Liberties, no copy is extant.
The Abstract above recited, published in 1641, was therefore for many years regarded as the Body of Liberties, or an abstract of them, passed in that year. About forty years ago Francis C. Gray, Esq., noticed in the library of the Boston Athenæum a manuscript code of laws entitled “A Copy of the Liberties of the Massachusetts Colonie in New England,” which he caused to be printed in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., viii. 216-237, with a learned introduction, in which he showed conclusively that this body of laws was the code of 1641, and that the Abstract printed that year in London was John Cotton’s code, Moses his Judicials, which the General Court never adopted. A copy having found its way to England, it was sent to the press under a misapprehension, and an erroneous titlepage prefixed to it. Indeed, that John Cotton was the author of the code published in London in 1641 had been evident from an early period, by means of a second and enlarged edition published in London by William Aspinwall in 1655, from a manuscript copy left by the author. Aspinwall, then in England, in a long address to the reader, says that Cotton collected out of the Scriptures, and digested this Abstract, and commended it to the Court of Massachusetts, “which had they then had the heart to have received, it might have been better both with them there and us here than now it is.” The Abstract of 1641, with Aspinwall’s preface to the edition of 1655, was reprinted in 1 Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 173-192. Hutchinson, Papers, 1769, pp. 161-179, had already printed the former.[585]
The religious character of the colony was exemplified by the publication, in 1640, of the first book issued from the Cambridge press, set up by Stephen Daye the year before; namely, The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, by Richard Mather, Thomas Welde, and John Eliot. Prince, in the preface to his revised edition of this book, 1758, says that it “had the honor of being the First Book printed in North America, and, as far as I can find, in this whole New World.” Prince was not aware that a printing press had existed in the City of Mexico one hundred years before.[586] He was right, however, in the first part of his sentence. Eight copies of the book are known to be extant, of which two are in Cambridge, where it was printed. Within a year or two a copy has been sold for fifteen hundred dollars.[587] The first thing printed by Daye was the freeman’s oath, the next was an almanac made for New England by Mr. William Peirce, mariner,—so says Winthrop. What enterprising explorer of garrets and cellars will add copies of these to our collections of Americana? Probably one of the last books printed by Daye was the first digest of the laws of the colony, which was passing through the press in 1648. Johnson says it was printed that year. Probably 1649 was the date on the titlepage. Not a single copy is known to be in existence. Daye was succeeded in 1649 by Samuel Green, who issued books from the Cambridge press for nearly fifty years.[588]
One of the most interesting and authentic of the early narratives relating to the colony is Thomas Lechford’s Plain Dealing, London, 1642. Lechford came over here in 1638, arriving June 27, and he embarked for home Aug. 3, 1641. He was a lawyer by profession, and he came here with friendly feelings toward the Puritan settlement. But lawyers were not wanted in the colony. He was looked upon with suspicion, and could barely earn a living for his family. He did some writing for the magistrates, and transcribed some papers for Nathaniel Ward, the supposed author of the Body of Liberties, to whom he may have rendered professional aid in that work. He prepared his book for the press soon after his return home. It is full of valuable information relating to the manners and customs of the colony, written by an able and impartial hand.[589]
To the leading men in the colony, religion, or their own notion concerning religion, was the one absorbing theme; and they sought to embody it in a union of Church and State. In this regard John Cotton[590] seems to have been the mouthpiece of the community. He came near losing his influence at the time of the Antinomian controversy but by judicious management he recovered himself. He was not averse to discussion, had a passion for writing, and his pen was ever active. The present writer has nearly thirty of Cotton’s books,—the Carter-Brown Catalogue shows over forty,—written in New England, and sent to London to be printed. Some of these were in answer to inquiries from London concerning their church estate, etc., here, and were intended to satisfy the curiosity of friends, as well as to influence public opinion there. Cotton had a long controversy with Roger Williams relating to the subject of Williams’s banishment from this colony. Another discussion with him, which took a little different form, was the “Bloudy Tenet” controversy, which had another origin, and in which the question of persecution for conscience’ sake was discussed. Williams, of course, here had the argument on the general principle. Cotton was like a strong man struggling in the mire.[591] Cotton’s book on the Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven shows his idea of the true church polity. His answer to Baylie’s Dissuasive in The Way of the Congregational Churches Cleared is really a valuable historical book, in which, incidentally, he introduces information concerning persons and events which relate to Plymouth as well as to Massachusetts. This book furnished to the present writer the clew to the fact that John Winthrop was the author of the principal part of the contents of Welde’s Short Story, published in London in 1644, relating to the Antinomian troubles and Mrs. Hutchinson. The Rev. Thomas Hooker, of Hartford, entered with Cotton into the church controversy. His Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline, etc., written in answer to Rutherford, Hudson, and Baylie, Presbyterian controversialists, was published within the same cover with Cotton’s book last cited, and one general titlepage covered both, with the imprint of London, 1648.
Well known among Cotton’s other productions is his Milk for Babes, drawn out of the Breasts of both Testaments, chiefly for the Spiritual Nourishment of Boston Babes in either England, but may be of like Use for any Children, London, 1646.[592]