John Cotton was an English clergyman and colonist. He was a principal figure among the New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

 Puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

 ministers, who also included Thomas Hooker

Thomas Hooker

Thomas Hooker was a prominent Puritan colonial leader, who founded the Colony of Connecticut after dissenting with Puritan leaders in Massachusetts...

, Increase Mather

Increase Mather

Increase Mather was a major figure in the early history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay . He was a Puritan minister who was involved with the government of the colony, the administration of Harvard College, and most notoriously, the Salem witch trials...

 (who became his son-in-law), John Davenport

John Davenport (clergyman)

John Davenport was an English puritan clergyman and co-founder of the American colony of New Haven.-Early life:Born in Manchester, Warwickshire, England to a wealthy family, Davenport was educated at Oxford University...

, and Thomas Shepard and John Norton

John Norton (Puritan divine)

John Norton was a Puritan divine, and one of the first authors in the United States of America.-Career:...

, who wrote his first biography. Cotton was the grandfather of Cotton Mather

Cotton Mather

Cotton Mather, FRS was a socially and politically influential New England Puritan minister, prolific author and pamphleteer; he is often remembered for his role in the Salem witch trials...

, who was named after him.

Life

Born in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, he was educated at Derby School

Derby School

Derby School was a school in Derby in the English Midlands from 1160 to 1989. It had an almost continuous history of education of over eight centuries. For most of that time it was a grammar school for boys. The school became co-educational and comprehensive in 1974 and was closed in 1989...

, in buildings which are now the Derby Heritage Centre

Derby Heritage Centre

The Old Grammar School, St. Peter's Churchyard, Derby, England, is now a Ladies Hairdressing Salon.The building's new owner is the daughter of the architect responsible for the original restoration of this historical property...

, and attended Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

 and Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...

, where he became a Fellow in 1606. He became a long-serving minister in the English town of Boston, Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...

 before his Puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

ism and criticism of hierarchy drew the hostile attention of Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 authorities. In 1633, William Laud

William Laud

William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism...

 was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

, and like numerous other Puritan nonconformist figures, Cotton soon came under his close "eye of scrutiny". In the same year Cotton, his family, and a few local followers sailed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony

Massachusetts Bay Colony

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...

.

The Brownist

Brownist

The Brownists were English Dissenters and followers of Robert Browne who was born at Tolethorpe Hall in Rutland, England in about 1550.-Origins:...

 congregational movement within the Church of England had by this stage, in effect at least, become a separate church. Because of his early views on the primacy of congregational government

Congregational church

Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....

, his was an important role in Puritan aspirations to become an example to help reform the English church. He is best known among other things for his initial defense of Anne Hutchinson

Anne Hutchinson

Anne Hutchinson was one of the most prominent women in colonial America, noted for her strong religious convictions, and for her stand against the staunch religious orthodoxy of 17th century Massachusetts...

 early in her trials during the Antinomian crisis

Antinomianism

Antinomianism is defined as holding that, under the gospel dispensation of grace, moral law is of no use or obligation because faith alone is necessary to salvation....

, during which she mentioned him with respect, though he turned strongly against her with the further course of the trial. He is also remembered for his role in the banishment of Roger Williams

Roger Williams (theologian)

Roger Williams was an English Protestant theologian who was an early proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. In 1636, he began the colony of Providence Plantation, which provided a refuge for religious minorities. Williams started the first Baptist church in America,...

 regarding the role of democracy

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

 and the separation of church and state

Separation of church and state

The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....

 in the Puritan theonomic

Theonomy

Theonomy is a theory in Christian theology that God is the sole source of human ethics. The word theonomy derives from the Greek words “theos” God, and “nomos” law. Cornelius Van Til argued that there "is no alternative but that of theonomy or autonomy"...

 society, both of which Williams tended to advocate. Cotton grew still more conservative in his views with the years but always retained the estimation of his community.

He was invited to attend the Westminster Assembly

Westminster Assembly

The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. It also included representatives of religious leaders from Scotland...

 of Divines. He was keen to go, though Winthrop said that he couldn't see the point of "travelling 3,000 miles to agree with three men?" Cotton's desire to attend changed with the unfolding events of the First English Civil War

First English Civil War

The First English Civil War began the series of three wars known as the English Civil War . "The English Civil War" was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651, and includes the Second English Civil War and...

, and he came to believe that he could be more effective in influencing the Assembly through his writings. He died in Boston, Massachusetts on December 23, 1652; his cause of death is unknown. His body was then moved to the King's Chapel Burying Ground in Boston, Massachusetts.

Cotton is named on a stone in King's Chapel Burying Ground

King's Chapel Burying Ground

King's Chapel Burying Ground is a historic cemetery at King's Chapel on Tremont Street in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest cemetery in the city and is a site on the Freedom Trail....

 in Boston, Massachusetts, which also names early First Church ministers John Davenport

John Davenport

John Davenport may refer to:* John Davenport , Puritan minister and colonist in New Haven Colony* John Davenport , U.S. Representative from Connecticut, 1799–1816...

 (d. 1670), John Oxenbridge

John Oxenbridge

John Oxenbridge was an English Nonconformist divine, who emigrated to New England.-Life:He was born at Daventry, Northamptonshire, and was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Magdalen Hall, Oxford .As tutor of Magdalen Hall he drew up a new code of articles referring to the government of...

 (d. 1674) and Thomas Bridge (d. 1713). Exact burial sites and markers for many first-generation settlers in that ground were lost with the—probably deliberate—placement of Boston's first Anglican church, King's Chapel I (1686) over them; the present stone marker, placed by the church, is likely a cenotaph

Cenotaph

A cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek κενοτάφιον = kenotaphion...

.

Works

Cotton's written legacy includes a body of correspondence, numerous sermon

Sermon

A sermon is an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy. Sermons address a Biblical, theological, religious, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law or behavior within both past and present contexts...

s, a catechism

Catechism

A catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...

, and in 1646 a shorter catechism for children titled Milk for Babes, which is considered the first children's book by an American and was incorporated into The New England Primer

The New England Primer

The New England Primer was the first reading primer designed for the American Colonies. It became the most successful educational textbook published in 18th century America and it became the foundation of most schooling before the 1790s....

 around 1701 and remained a component of that work for over 150 years. His most famous sermon is probably "Gods Promise to His Plantation" (1630), preached at the departure of John Winthrop

John Winthrop

John Winthrop was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer, and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of migrants from England in 1630, and served as governor for 12 of...

's fleet for New England.

Additionally, he wrote a theonomic

Theonomy

Theonomy is a theory in Christian theology that God is the sole source of human ethics. The word theonomy derives from the Greek words “theos” God, and “nomos” law. Cornelius Van Til argued that there "is no alternative but that of theonomy or autonomy"...

 legal code

Legal code

A legal code is a body of law written by a governmental body, such as a U.S. state, a Canadian Province or German Bundesland or a municipality...

 titled An Abstract of the laws of New England as they are now established. This legal code provided a basis for John Davenport

John Davenport (clergyman)

John Davenport was an English puritan clergyman and co-founder of the American colony of New Haven.-Early life:Born in Manchester, Warwickshire, England to a wealthy family, Davenport was educated at Oxford University...

's legal system for the New Haven Colony

New Haven Colony

The New Haven Colony was an English colonial venture in present-day Connecticut in North America from 1637 to 1662.- Quinnipiac Colony :A Puritan minister named John Davenport led his flock from exile in the Netherlands back to England and finally to America in the spring of 1637...

, and was one of two competing drafts of that were compiled to make Massachusetts' The Body of Liberties. Cotton's theonomy has had a significant effect on the 20th-century Dominionist

Dominionism

Dominionism is a term used to describe politically active conservative Christians that are believed to conspire and seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action, especially in the United States, with the goal of either a nation governed by Christians, or a nation...

 movement.

His most influential writings on church government were The Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven and The Way of Congregational Churches Cleared. He also carried on a pamphlet war with Roger Williams on liberty of conscience. Williams' The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644) brought forth Cotton's "The Bloudy Tenent washed and made white in the bloud of the Lamb".

Some other works include:

• “A.W. M'Clure: The Life of John Cotton”
• “John Norton: Memoir of the Life of John Cotton”
• Christ the Fountain of Life (sermons on 1 John 5)
• Treatise of the Covenant of Grace
• "The Covenant of God's Free Grace" (sermon) with a profession of faith by John Davenport (1597-1670)
• 'The Controversy Concerning Liberty of Conscience in Matters of Religion
• Of the Holiness of Church Members
• 'The True Constitution of a Particular Visible Church'
• Commentaries on Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon
• A Practical Commentary ... upon The First Epistle General of John
• The Bloody Tenent of Persecution and A Reply to Mr. Roger Williams
• God's Promise to his Plantation
• The Way of Life
• The True Constitution of a Particular Visible Church
• The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England
• A Defence of Mr John Cotton from the imputation of Self-Contradiction with an introduction by John Owen

Critics

In 1663 A Mr. Jordan was fined for his comments "Mr. John Cotton deceased, "Was a liar and died with a Lie in his mouth." and that "He was gone to Hell with a pack of lies" and that the said Jordan said (he said)"By the power they had, they could command the Governor of Boston to assist them, and if Any did Rebel against their power, that they would take them and hang them or burn their houses."
And Further he said "his books were Lies and he had found them so". Another (Fine) was for saying "the governor of Boston was a Rogue , and all the rest therof were traitors and Rebles against the KING."
The History of Portland by William Willis page 156

Descendants

Among his many descendants, can be counted the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Attorney General Elliot Richardson

Elliot Richardson

Elliot Lee Richardson was an American lawyer and politician who was a member of the cabinet of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. As U.S...

, the actor John Lithgow

John Lithgow

John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...

 and the clergyman Phillips Brooks

Phillips Brooks

Phillips Brooks was an American clergyman and author, who briefly served as Bishop of Massachusetts in the Episcopal Church during the early 1890s. In the Episcopal liturgical calendar he is remembered on January 23...

.