page_title: John Wheelwright
section_title: Antinomian Controversy
hierarchical_section_title: John Wheelwright / Massachusetts / Antinomian Controversy
caption_attribution_description: Anne Hutchinson on Trial
context_page_description: John Wheelwright, was a Puritan clergyman in England and America, noted for being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the Antinomian Controversy, and for subsequently establishing the town of Exeter, New Hampshire. Born in Lincolnshire, England, he graduated from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Ordained in 1619, he became the vicar of Bilsby, Lincolnshire, until removed for simony.
  Leaving for New England in 1636, he was welcomed in Boston, where his brother-in-law's wife, Anne Hutchinson, was beginning to attract negative attention for her religious outspokenness. Soon he and Hutchinson accused the majority of the colony's ministers and magistrates of espousing a "covenant of works". As this controversy reached a peak, Hutchinson and Wheelwright were banished from the colony. Wheelwright went north with a group of followers during the harsh winter of 1637–1638, and in April 1638 established the town of Exeter in what would become the Province of New Hampshire. Wheelwright's stay in Exeter lasted only a few years, because Massachusetts activated an earlier claim on the lands there, forcing the banished Wheelwright to leave.
context_section_description: As early as spring 1636 the minister of Newtown (later renamed Cambridge), Thomas Shepard, began a correspondence with Boston minister John Cotton, and in his letters Shepard notified Cotton of his concern about Cotton's theology, and of some strange opinions circulating among the members of the Boston church. Cotton, who advocated that God's free grace was the only path to salvation, differed from all of the colony's other ministers, who felt that sanctification (works) was a necessary ingredient to salvation. When Wheelwright arrived in the colony, he became a firm ally of Cotton in these theological differences. Opinions that were first shared in private correspondence soon began to find their way into Shepard's sermons to his Newtown congregation. This "pulpit aggression" did not go unnoticed by Wheelwright, and soon his own sermons began taking a critical view of the "covenant of works" being preached by Shepard.
  Theological tension was mounting in the colony, but it wasn't until October 1636 when it became noticeable enough for Winthrop to record an entry in his journal. On or shortly after 21 October 1636 he noted the rising disunity, but instead of pointing fingers at one of the godly ministers, he instead put the blame on Wheelwright's sister-in-law, writing, "One Mrs. Hutchinson, a member of the church at Boston, a woman of a ready wit and a bold spirit, brought over with her two dangerous errors: 1. That the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person. 2. That no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification".
  Late in October the colony's ministers confronted the question of religious opinions directly and had a "conference in private" with Cotton, Hutchinson, and Wheelwright. The outcome of this meeting was favorable, and the parties were in agreement. Cotton, whose theology rested on a covenant of grace, gave satisfaction to the other ministers that sanctification (a covenant of works) did help in finding grace in the eyes of God, and Wheelwright agreed as well. However, the effects of the conference were short-lived, because a majority of the members of the Boston church, Cotton's parishioners, held the free grace ideas strongly, and they wanted Wheelwright to become the church's second pastor behind Cotton. The church already had another pastor, Reverend John Wilson, who was unsympathetic to the free grace advocates. Wilson was a friend of Winthrop, who was a layman in the church, and it was Winthrop who took advantage of a rule requiring unanimity in a church vote to thwart Wheelwright's appointment. Though Winthrop "thought reverendly" of Wheelwright's talents and piety, he felt that he was "apt to raise doubtful disputations [and] he could not consent to choose him to that place". This was Winthrop's way of suggesting that Wheelwright maintained familist doctrines.
  In December 1636 the ministers met once again, but this meeting did not produce agreement, and Cotton warned about the question of sanctification becoming essentially a covenant of works. When questioned directly, Hutchinson accused the other ministers of preaching works and not grace, but did this only in private. These theological differences had begun to take their toll in the political aspects of the colony, and the Massachusetts governor, Henry Vane, who was a strong free grace advocate, announced his resignation to a special session of the deputies. While citing urgent matters back in England as being his reason for stepping down, when prodded, he broke down, blurting out his concern that God's judgment would "come upon us for these differences and dissensions". The members of the Boston church successfully induced Vane to withdraw his resignation, while the General Court began to debate who was responsible for the colony's troubles. The General Court, like the remainder of the colony, was deeply divided, and called for a general fast to take place on 19 January in hopes that such repentance would restore peace.
caption: Anne Hutchinson, related to Wheelwright by marriage, was one of the first to be blamed for the colony's difficulties during the Antinomian Controversy
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