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)
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“‘Tis too plain that with the material power the moral progress has not kept pace. It appears that we have not made a judicious investment. Works and days were offered us, and we took works.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.”
—Bible: New Testament, Galatians 2:15-16.