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John Cotton (minister)

John Cotton (4 December 1585 – 23 December 1652) was a clergyman in England and the American colonies, and was considered the preeminent minister and theologian of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He studied for five years at Trinity College, Cambridge, and nine years at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He had already built a reputation as a scholar and outstanding preacher when he accepted the position of minister at St. Botolph's Church, Boston, in Lincolnshire, in 1612.

The Reverend
John Cotton

4 December 1585

Derby, Derbyshire, Kingdom of England

23 December 1652 (aged 67)

Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Trinity College, Cambridge (BA, 1603)
Emmanuel College, Cambridge (MA, 1606; BD, 1613)

Clergyman

(1) Elizabeth Horrocks
(2) Sarah (Hawkred) Story

(all with second wife) Seaborn, Sariah, Elizabeth, John, Maria, Rowland, William

Mary Hurlbert and Rowland Cotton

Cotton Mather (grandson)

As a Puritan, he wanted to do away with the ceremony and vestments associated with the established Church of England and to preach in a simpler manner. He felt that the English church needed significant reforms, but he was adamant about not separating from it; his preference was to change it from within. Many ministers were removed from their pulpits in England for their Puritan practices, but Cotton thrived at St. Botolph's for nearly 20 years because of supportive aldermen and lenient bishops, as well as his conciliatory and gentle demeanor. By 1632, however, the church authorities had greatly increased pressure on non-conforming clergy, and Cotton was forced into hiding. The following year, he and his wife boarded a ship for New England.


Cotton was highly sought as a minister in Massachusetts and was quickly installed as the second pastor of the Boston church, sharing the ministry with John Wilson. He generated more religious conversions in his first six months than had been made the whole previous year. Early in his Boston tenure, he became involved in the banishment of Roger Williams, who blamed much of his trouble on Cotton. Soon after, Cotton became embroiled in the colony's Antinomian Controversy when several adherents of his "free grace" theology (most notably Anne Hutchinson) began criticizing other ministers in the colony. He tended to support his adherents through much of that controversy; near its conclusion, however, he realized that many of them held theological positions that were well outside the mainstream of Puritan orthodoxy, which he did not condone.


Following the controversy, Cotton was able to mend fences with his fellow ministers, and he continued to preach in the Boston church until his death. A great part of his effort during his later career was devoted to the governance of the New England churches, and he was the one who gave the name Congregationalism to this form of church polity. A new form of polity was being decided for the Church of England in the early 1640s, as the Puritans in England gained power on the eve of the English Civil War, and Cotton wrote numerous letters and books in support of the "New England Way". Ultimately, Presbyterianism was chosen as the form of governance for the Church of England during the Westminster Assembly in 1643, though Cotton continued to engage in a polemic contest with several prominent Presbyterians on this issue.


Cotton became more conservative with age. He battled the separatist attitude of Roger Williams and advocated severe punishment for those whom he deemed heretics, such as Samuel Gorton. Cotton was a scholar, an avid letter writer, and the author of many books, and was considered the "prime mover" among New England's ministers.

Works[edit]

Cotton's written legacy includes a large body of correspondence, numerous sermons, a catechism, and a shorter catechism for children titled Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes. The last is considered the first children's book by an American; it was incorporated into The New England Primer around 1701 and remained a component of that work for over 150 years.[158] This catechism was published in 1646 and went through nine printings in the 17th century. It is composed of a list of questions with answers.[172] Cotton's grandson Cotton Mather wrote, "the children of New England are to this day most usually fed with [t]his excellent catechism".[173] Among Cotton's most famous sermons is God's Promise to His Plantation (1630), preached to the colonists preparing to depart from England with John Winthrop's fleet.[50]


In May 1636, Cotton was appointed to a committee to make a draft of laws that agreed with the Word of God and would serve as a constitution. Moses, his judicialls was written by the subject, but it was not adopted.[174] The resulting legal code was titled An Abstract of the laws of New England as they are now established.[175] This was only modestly used in Massachusetts, but the code became the basis for John Davenport's legal system in the New Haven Colony and also provided a model for the new settlement at Southampton, Long Island.[176]


Cotton's most influential writings on church government were The Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven and The Way of Congregational Churches Cleared, where he argues for Congregational polity instead of Presbyterian governance.[177] He also carried on a pamphlet war with Roger Williams concerning separatism and liberty of conscience. Williams's The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644) brought forth Cotton's reply The Bloudy Tenent washed and made white in the bloud of the Lamb,[178] to which Williams responded with Bloudy Tenent Yet More Bloudy by Mr. Cotton's Endeavour to Wash it White in the Blood of the Lamb.


Cotton's Treatise of the Covenant of Grace was prepared posthumously from his sermons by Thomas Allen, formerly Teacher of Charlestown, and published in 1659.[179] It was cited at length by Jonathan Mitchell in his 'Preface to the Christian Reader' in the Report of the Boston Synod of 1662.[180] A general list of Cotton's works is given in the Bibliotheca Britannica.[181]

History of Boston

History of Massachusetts

(1995). The Great Migration Begins, Immigrants to New England 1620–1633. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society. ISBN 0-88082-044-6.

Anderson, Robert Charles

(2003). The Great Migration, Immigrants to New England 1634–1635. Vol. III G-H. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society. ISBN 0-88082-158-2.

Anderson, Robert Charles

Austin, John Osborne (1887). . Albany, New York: J. Munsell's Sons. ISBN 978-0-8063-0006-1.

Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island

Battis, Emery (1962). . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-0863-4.

Saints and Sectaries: Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian Controversy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony

(1876). John Wheelwright. Boston: printed for the Prince Society.

Bell, Charles H.

Bremer, Francis J. (1981). Anne Hutchinson: Troubler of the Puritan Zion. Huntington, New York: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company. pp. 1–8.

Bremer, Francis J. "Cotton, John (1585–1652)". (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/6416. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Bush, Sargent, ed. (2001). . Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-2635-9.

The Correspondence of John Cotton

(1913). "The Tragedy of Anne Hutchinson". Journal of American History. 5 (3). Twin Falls, Idaho: 1–11.

Champlin, John Denison

, ed. (1911). "Cotton, John" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Chisholm, Hugh

Emerson, Everett H. (1990). John Cotton (2 ed.). New York: Twayne Publishers.  0-8057-7615-X.

ISBN

(1984). A Glimpse of Sion's Glory: Puritan Radicalism in New England, 1620–1660. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0-8195-5095-7.

Gura, Philip F.

(1990). The Antinomian Controversy, 1636–1638, A Documentary History. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-1091-4.

Hall, David D.

Holmes, James T. (1915). . Columbus, Ohio: private.

The American Family of Rev. Obadiah Holmes

(2004). American Jezebel, the Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman who Defied the Puritans. San Francisco: Harper Collins. ISBN 0-06-056233-1.

LaPlante, Eve

Lawrence, William (1911). . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

"Brooks, Phillips" 

Morris, Richard B (1981). "Jezebel Before the Judges". In Bremer, Francis J (ed.). Anne Hutchinson: Troubler of the Puritan Zion. Huntington, New York: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company. pp. 58–64.

Thornton, John Wingate (April 1847). "The Cotton Family". New England Historical and Genealogical Register. 1. New England Historic Genealogical Society: 164–166.  0-7884-0293-5.

ISBN

(2001). Groves, Richard (ed.). The Bloudy Tenent. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. ISBN 9780865547667.

Williams, Roger

Winship, Michael Paul (2002). . Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08943-4.

Making Heretics: Militant Protestantism and Free Grace in Massachusetts, 1636–1641

Winship, Michael Paul (2005). The Times and Trials of Anne Hutchinson: Puritans Divided. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas.  0-7006-1380-3.

ISBN

(1908). Hosmer, James Kendall (ed.). Winthrop's Journal "History of New England" 1630–1649. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 276. Winthrop's Journal a daughter of Mrs. Hutchinson.

Winthrop, John

Ziff, Larzer (1962). . Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

The Career of John Cotton: Puritanism and the American Experience

Ziff, Larzer, ed. (1968). John Cotton on the Churches of New England. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press.; contains Cotton's works "A Sermon at Salem," "The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven" and "The Way of Congregational Churches Cleared"

Cotton, John (1958). Emerson, Everett H. (ed.). Gods Mercie Mixed with His Justice; or, His Peoples Deliverance in Times of Danger. Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints.  978-0-8201-1242-8.; original London, 1641.

ISBN

at Internet Archive

Works by or about John Cotton

Cotton's sermon to the departing colonists traveling with the Winthrop Fleet

Gods Promise to His Plantation

. The American Cyclopædia. 1879.

"Cotton, John"