Cotton, John

Cotton, John (1584–1652), as dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, became interested in Puritanism. He emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1633) and became a religious leader. Once close to the views of Anne Hutchinson, he joined those who adjudged her a heretic. He wrote many works on the church, and a catechism for children, Milk for Babes, Drawn out of the Breasts of Both Testaments (1646). The Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven (1644) was the standard Congregational guide in New England until the publication of the Cambridge Platform (1648). The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England (1645) and The Way of the Congregational Churches Cleared (1648) tended to identify the New England church with the aristocratic aspects of Calvinism. Cotton also wrote a second volume of A Survey of the Summe of Church‐Discipline (1648), continuing the work of Thomas Hooker. His authocratic views on civil and religious government provoked Roger Williams to write The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644), which was answered by Cotton's The Bloudy Tenent Washed and Made White in the Bloud of the Lamb (1647). He wrote the preface to The Bay Psalm Book. He was the father‐in‐law of Increase Mather.