THE LIFE OF JOHN COΤΤΟΝ. Alexander Wilso Written for the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, and revised by the Committee of Publication. BOSTON: MASSACHUSETTS SABBATH SCHOOL SOCIETY, Depository, No. 13 Cornhill. 1846. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, BY CHRISTOPHER C. DEAN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. PREFACE. THE difficulty of preparing a work of this nature can only be conceived of by one who has tried it. The mere collecting of the scattered materials, dispersed in the obscurest corners, as they usually are, is a great labor. It is a greater toil to arrange them in due order, when once they are collected. The settling of doubtful and contradictory statements is often a tedious and perplexing business. And then comes the writing, which the author must accomplish as he The only merit which this little book can claim, is laborious accuracy bestowed upon a worthy subject. For its faults in other respects, there can hardly be any remedy. For, to apply here a rhyme of President Oakes, can. "They that can Cotton's goodness well display, Must be as good as he :--but who are they?" In prosecuting the design of the Publishing Committee of the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, it is evident that the distinctive principles of the Puritans must come under review. In order that these might be more completely presented, they are discussed somewhat fully in a few chapters devoted to that object. Accordingly, in this volume, will be found a chapter occupied with an account of the nature and origin of Puritanism, in which our fathers are vindicated from the charge of schism and sinful division of the Church. Another chapter delineates the main features of the Congregational Church government. Another still, exhibits the merits of Congregationalism. May God grant wisdom to all who may take part in this attempt to revive the memory of the patriarchs of our land; and give to the readers grace to profit by their holy example. "A life may find him who a sermon flies." LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. CHAPTER I. His parentage. Residence at the University. Conversion. THE man whose life and principles will now be represented, from the vast influence he exercised in his own time, and, consequently, upon all following times, has been fitly called the Patriarch of New England. Boston, especially, is indebted to him for much more than its name. He found it but little better than a woody wilderness; and he left it a flourishing town, a sort of Jerusalem of the West. John Cotton was a native of Derby, on the river Derwent, in England. He was born on the fourth of December, in the year 1585. He was descended of 'gentle blood.' His parents were persons in easy circumstances, and able to provide him with the necessaries for a good education. The father, Roland Cotton, a lawyer by profession, was distinguished, as well as the mother, by a solid and fervid piety. The child, VOL. I. 2 |