John Cotton

Timeline

1. 1612–1633St Botolph's Church, Boston, Lincolnshire · LincolnshireCotton became vicar of one of England's grandest parish churches at the age of twenty-seven, preached with great success, and added a Thursday lecture. From about 1615 he held Puritan meetings within the church that avoided Anglican liturgy, protected by municipal officials such as Leverett through the tenures of four bishops of Lincoln. When Laud's pressure arrived in 1632, he refused to appear before the High Commission Court, went into hiding for several months, and sailed for America on the Griffin in July 1633.
2. 1633–1636Boston · MassachusettsHe arrived at Shawmut in early September 1633 and in October became teacher, colleague of John Wilson. Within half a year of his arrival, conversions exceeded those of the previous year, and his preaching authority made 'what was spoken from the pulpit soon became law in the court.' He opposed Roger Williams's separatist stance, holding that New England churches should still maintain communion with the Reformed church in England, while his free-grace theology emphasized the believer's passivity in conversion.
3. 1636–1638Boston / Newtown · MassachusettsAnne Hutchinson turned Cotton's doctrine of the covenant of grace into a weapon criticizing ministers of the 'covenant of works', and her brother-in-law Wheelwright openly defended the grace doctrine. Cotton longed to avoid breaking with his followers; after the General Court's crackdown in 1637, he realized some claims had gone beyond orthodoxy and joined Wilson, Winthrop, and others. The 1638 church trial excommunicated Hutchinson, and Cotton repaired relations with his fellow ministers.
4. 1638–1652Boston · MassachusettsAfter the controversy ended, Cotton devoted himself to arguing for congregational autonomy, calling this polity congregationalism, and defended the New England Way before the Westminster Assembly through letters and The Keys of the Kingdom (1644). His Mosaic-style legal outline influenced the criminal provisions of the Body of Liberties, and he advocated harsh punishment of heretics such as Gorton. He died in Boston on December 23, 1652, and contemporaries called him the 'Patriarch of New England'.