Excerpt from the Trial of Anne Hutchinson
Reprinted in Major Problems in American Colonial History
Published in 1993
"It is said, I will pour by Spirit upon your Daughters, and they shall prophesie. . . If god give me a gift of Prophecy, I may use it."
In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was founded as an ideal Puritan community, religious disputes often became legal problems. Although religion and government were supposedly separate, only men who were members of the Puritan church could vote or hold office. The Puritans expected some political debates, but they would not tolerate views that threatened the religious harmony of the colony. A few years after the initial settlement of Massachusetts Bay, several dissidents (those who question or oppose the laws of the church) engaged in activities that undermined Puritan society. One of the most prominent was Puritan minister Roger Williams (c.1603–1683), who advocated the complete separation of church and state. He argued that religion was corrupted by any government interference in spiritual affairs. In his view, magistrates (officials who administer laws) should have no power to use laws to enforce church doctrine (system of belief).
Williams went even further by challenging the legal basis of the colony itself.
