Works
Cotton's written legacy includes a body of correspondence, numerous sermons, a catechism, 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 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's fleet for New England.
Additionally, he wrote a theonomic legal code titled An Abstract of the laws of New England as they are now established. This legal code provided a basis for John Davenport's legal system for the New Haven Colony, 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 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
Read more about this topic: John Cotton (Puritan)
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—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“I lay my eternal curse on whomsoever shall now or at any time hereafter make schoolbooks of my works and make me hated as Shakespeare is hated. My plays were not designed as instruments of torture. All the schools that lust after them get this answer, and will never get any other.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)