page_title: Mary Dyer
section_title: Antinomian Controversy
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Dyer / Massachusetts / Antinomian Controversy
caption_attribution_description: Anne Hutchinson on Trial
context_page_description: Mary Dyer was an English and colonial American Puritan turned Quaker who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony. She is one of the four executed Quakers known as the Boston martyrs.
  While the place of her birth is not yet identified, she was married in London in 1633 to the milliner William Dyer. Mary and William were Puritans who were interested in reforming the Anglican Church from within, without separating from it. As the English king increased pressure on the Puritans, they left England by the thousands to go to New England in the early 1630s. Mary and William arrived in Boston by 1635, joining the Boston Church in December of that year. Like most members of Boston's church, they soon became involved in the Antinomian Controversy, a theological crisis lasting from 1636 to 1638. Mary and William were strong advocates of Anne Hutchinson and John Wheelwright in the controversy, and as a result, Mary's husband was disenfranchised and disarmed for supporting these "heretics" and also for harboring his own heretical views.
context_section_description: During the earliest days of the Boston Church, before the arrival of Mary and William Dyer, there was a single minister, the Reverend John Wilson.  In 1633, one of England's most noted Puritan clergymen, John Cotton, arrived in Boston and quickly became the second minister (called "teacher") in Boston's church.   In time, the Boston parishioners could sense a theological difference between Wilson and Cotton.  Anne Hutchinson, a theologically astute midwife who had the ear of many of the colony's women, became outspoken in support of Cotton, and condemned the theology of Wilson and most of the other ministers in the colony during gatherings, or conventicles, held at her house.
  Differing religious opinions within the colony eventually became public debates and erupted into what has traditionally been called the Antinomian Controversy.  Many members of Boston's church found Wilson's emphasis on morality, and his doctrine of "evidencing justification by sanctification" (a covenant of works) to be disagreeable. Hutchinson told her followers that Wilson lacked "the seal of the Spirit."  Wilson's theological views conformed with those of all of the other ministers in the colony except for Cotton, who instead stressed "the inevitability of God's will" (a covenant of grace).  The Boston parishioners had become accustomed to Cotton's doctrines, and some of them began disrupting Wilson's sermons, even finding excuses to leave when Wilson got up to preach or pray.
  Both William and Mary Dyer sided strongly with Hutchinson and the free-grace advocates, and it is highly likely that Mary attended the periodic theological gatherings at the Hutchinson's home.  In May 1636, the Bostonians received a new ally when the Reverend John Wheelwright arrived from England, and immediately aligned himself with Cotton, Hutchinson and the other free-grace supporters.  Yet another boost for those advocating the free-grace theology came during the same month, when the young aristocrat Henry Vane was elected as the governor of the colony.  Vane was a strong supporter of Hutchinson, but also had his own unorthodox ideas about theology that were considered radical.
  By late 1636, the theological schism had become great enough that the General Court called for a day of fasting to help ease the colony's difficulties.  The appointed fasting day, in January, included church services, and Cotton preached during the morning, but with Wilson away in England,  John Wheelwright was invited to preach during the afternoon. Though his sermon may have seemed benign to the average listener in the congregation, most of the colony's ministers found Wheelwright's words to be objectionable.  Instead of bringing peace, the sermon fanned the flames of controversy, and in Winthrop's words, Wheelwright "inveighed against all that walked in a covenant of works, ... and called them antichrists, and stirred up the people against them with much bitterness and vehemency."  In contrast, the followers of Hutchinson were encouraged by the sermon, and intensified their crusade against the "legalists" among the clergy.  During church services and lectures, they publicly questioned the ministers about their doctrines which disagreed with their own beliefs.
  When the General Court next met on 9 March, Wheelwright was called upon to answer for his sermon.  He was judged guilty of "contempt & sedition" for having "purposely set himself to kindle and increase" bitterness within the colony.  The vote did not pass without a fight, however, and Wheelwright's friends protested formally.  Most members of the Boston church, favoring Wheelwright in the conflict, drafted a petition justifying Wheelwright's sermon, and 60 people signed this remonstrance protesting the conviction.  William Dyer was among those who signed the petition which accused the General Court of condemning the truth of Christ.  Dyer's signature in support of Wheelwright soon proved to be fateful to the Dyer family.
  Anne Hutchinson faced trial in early November 1637 for "traducing" (slandering) the ministers, and was sentenced to ba
caption: Anne Hutchinson, who was tried for slandering the ministers, was a friend and mentor of the much younger Mary Dyer. (Illustration by Edwin Austin Abbey).
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