Hutchinson, Anne, an American religious en- thusiast, and founder of a party of Antinomians (q. v.) in the New England colony, emigrated from Lincohi- shire, England, to Boston in'l636. She claimed to be a medium of divine revelation, and, being "a woman of admirable understanding, and profitable and sober car- riage, she won a powerful party in the country, and her enemies could never speak of her without acknowledg- ing her eloquence and ability." She held that the Holy ' Spirit dwells in every believer, and that the revelation of the Spirit is superior to the ministry of the word. As her doctrines affected not only the religious, but also the political professions of the people, great controversies en- sued ; a synod was finally called, in which her teachings were condemned, and she and her associate leaders were banished from the colony. Anne and her friends now obtained from the chief of the Narragansetts permission to reside in Rhode Island. Here " they set up a commu- nity on the highly commendable principle that no one was to be 'accounted a delinquent for doctrine.' " After the decease of her husband (who shared her opinions), she removed to a Dutch settlement in the colony of New York. In 1643, she and her whole family of fifteen per- sons were taken prisoners by the Indians, and aU but one daughter barbarously miurdered. See Bancroft, Hist, of the United States, i,"388 sq. ; Chambers, Cycloj}. v, 472 ; A merican Presb. Rev. 1860, p. 225. (J. H. W.)
Hutchinson, John, 1, a Puritan colonel in the Parliamentary army during tlie time of the English Civil War, was bom at Nottingham in 1617. He was a nonconformist (Baptist), and, being of a religious turn of mind, much of his time was given to the study of the- ology. At the outbreak of the Civil War he sided with the Parliament, and was appointed governor of Notting- ham Castle. At the trial of the king (Charles I) he concurred in the sentence pronounced on him, having first " addressed himself to God by prayer." Cronnyell's conduct after this unfortunate affair Hutchinson disap- proved; and while various sentiments are entertained on his political conduct, "none question his integrity or piety." At the Restoration he suffered the general fate of the Republicans, and died in prison, Sept. 11, 1664. See Neale, Hist, of the Puritans (Harper's edit.), ii, 378 sq. ; Appleton's A m. Cyclop, ix, 396.
Hutchinson, John, 2, inventor of a theorj^ of her- meueutics which gave rise to much discussion in the 17th century, and still lias a few adherents, was bom in 1674, at Spennithorne, in Yorkshire. After private edu- cation, he became, at the age of 19, steward to j\Ir. Bath- urst, and afterwards to the duke of Somerset, who be- stowed upon him many marks of confidence, and finally procured for Hutchinson a sinecure appointment of £200 per annum from the government. His time was now mainly devoted to religious studj'. He also made a large and valuable collection of fossils. In 1724 he published the first part of a curious work entitled Moses's Princip-
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ia, in which he attempted to refute the doctrine of gravitation as taught in the Principia of Newton. In the second part of this work, which appeared in 1727, he continued his attack upon the Newtonian philosophy, and maintained, on the authority of Scripture, tlie exist- ence of a. plenum. From this time to his death he pub- lished yearly one or two volumes in further elucidation of his views, which evince extensive knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. He died August 28, 1737.
"According to Hutchinson, the Old Testament con- tains a complete system of natural history, theology, and religion. The Hebrew language was the medium of God's communication with man ; it is therefore perfect, and consequently, as a perfect language, it must be co- extensive with all the objects of knowledge, and its sev- eral terms are truly significant of the objects which they indicate, and not so many arbitrary signs to represent them. Accordingly, Hutchinson, after Origen and oth- ers, laid great stress on the evidence of Hebrew etymolo- gy, and asserted that the Scriptures are not to be under- stood and interpreted in a literal, but in a typical sense, and according to the radical import of the Hebrew ex- pressions. By this plan of interpretation, he maintained that the Old Testament ivould be found not only to tes- tify fully to the nature and offices of Christ, but also to contain a perfect system of natural philosophy." His editors give the following compendium of the Hutchin- sonian theory : "The Hebrew Scriptures nowhere ascribe motion to the body of the sun, or fixedness to the earth ; they describe the created system to be & plenum without any racKum, and reject the assistance of gravitation, at- traction, or any such occult qualities, for performing the stated operations of nature, which are carried on by the mechanism of the heavens in their threefold condition of fire, light, and spirit, or air, the material agents set to work at the beginning : the heavens, thus framed by Almighty wisdom, are an instituted emblem and visible substitute of Jehovah Elohim, the eternal three, the co- equal and co-adorable Trinity in Unity : the unity of substance in the heavens points out the unity of essence, and the distinction of conditions the triune personality in Deity, without confounding the persons or dividing the substance. From their being made emblems, they are called in Hebrew Shemim, the names, representatives, or substitutes, expressing by their names that they are emblems, and by their conditions or offices what it is they arc emblems of." As an instance of his etymologic- al interpretation, the word Berith, which our translation renders Coi'enant, Hutchinson construes to signify "he or that which purifies," and so the purifier or purification "for," not "with," man. From similar etymologies, he drew the conclusion " that all the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish dispensation were so many delineations of Christ, in what he was to be, to do, and to suffer, and that the early Jews knew them to be tyi)es of his actions and sufferings, and that, by performing them as such, were in so far Christians both in faith and practice." All his writings are collected in The P/iilosophical and Theological Works of the late truly learned John Hutch- inson, Esq. (Lond. 1749, 3d edit. 12 vols. 8vo).