'antinomian, a quaker, or other heterodox religionists, was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle of vagrant indians, whom the white man's fire-water had made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. It might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows.
Antinomian; a form of religious enthusiasm that frees the individual from control of the moral or civil law (man-made law) because he has surrendered to God's law. Anne Hutchinson is an example.
Mistress Hibbins: She was accused of being a witch but though the jury found her guilty, the magistrates refused to accept the verdict. Her case went to the Grand Court and was condemned and hanged.
Witch: a woman thought to have evil magic powers.
Indian: the indigenous people of America.
What do these four things have in common? Indians and Mistress Hibbins (witch) are outsiders to their community. They're antinomian to their governments religion, and instead believe what they think is right.
Mistress Hibbins being an allusion to a witch, is compared to Hester Prynne who was accused of adultery.
The Indians are what connects punishments to the 'outsiders' to the 'wrong doers' which proves that once you sinned you were an outcast to society.
Witches and Indians both relate back to nature whereas witches were in tune with the forces of nature and performed rituals or casted spells there. Indians home land was in nature where they respected the land they lived on.
The Puritans had their own ideas of life and didn't agree with anything different. The people who were Antinomians who have 'surrendered to god's law' didn't necessarily know god's law, but had an idea of the 'nature' of it depending what they saw in the world.
Okay - good connections. Continue to connect through the book.
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