The church at Boston was divided into two hostile
camps. The sensible Winthrop marvelled at hearing men distinguished "by
being under a covenant of grace or a covenant of works, as in other
countries between Protestants and Papists," and he ventured to doubt
whether any man could really tell what the difference was. The
theological strife went on until it threatened to breed civil
disaffection among the followers of Mrs. Hutchinson. A peculiar
bitterness was given to the affair, from the fact that she professed to
be endowed with the spirit of prophecy and taught her partisans that it
was their duty to follow the biddings of a supernatural light; and there
was nothing which the orthodox Puritan so steadfastly abhorred as the
anarchical pretence of living by the aid of a supernatural light. In a
strong and complex society the teachings of Mrs. Hutchinson would have
awakened but a languid speculative interest, or perhaps would have
passed by unheeded. In the simple society of Massachusetts in 1636,
physically weak and as yet struggling for very existence, the practical
effect of such teachings may well have been deemed politically
dangerous. When things came to such a pass that the forces of the colony
were mustered for an Indian campaign and the men of Boston were ready to
shirk the service because they suspected their chaplain to be "under a
covenant of works," it was naturally thought to be high time to put Mrs.
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