HUTCHINSON, ANNE (1591–1643), was the central figure in the antinomian controversy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636–1637. A native of Alford, Lincolnshire, Anne Marbury married William Hutchinson, an affluent merchant of that town, and mothered a large family. Around 1630 she came under the religious influence of John Cotton, vicar of Saint Botolph's in nearby Boston, and four years later she and her family followed him to the newly settled town of Boston in New England.

The Puritans of the English Congregational churches had sought to leaven John Calvin's harsh predestination decree by incorporating a concrete assurance of election that would be contingent on the moral responsibility of the elect. They asserted that the hopeful believer could prepare his or her soul for the reception of God's saving grace through a life of purity that might offer evidence of salvation. John Cotton, however, warned that this innovation imperiled...