American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans

by Eve LaPlante

They rejected his novel concept of freedom of conscience—“Forced worship,” he believed, “stinks in God’s nostrils.”

Puritans wished to simplify the service and the church. Kneeling for the sacrament of communion, using a ring in marriage, and even having a cross in the church were “romish” or “popish” habits, they felt, “awful vestiges” of Catholicism, which smacked of Antichrist,