Cotton, John
clergyman, author, was born Dec. 4, 1585, in England. He was the foremost clergyman of his century in New England. He came to the Massachusetts colony in 1633, having been for twenty years vicar of St. Botolph's church in Boston, Lincolnshire. He was at once made teacher of the church in the new settlement of Boston, and until his death exercised an influence in church and state unequaled by any one since in New England. His principal works comprise The Bloody Tenet Washed and Made White in the Blood of the Lamb, a reply to Roger Williams's famous Bloody Tenet of Persecution; A Brief Exposition upon Ecclesiastes; The Covenant of Grace; The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; The Way of the Congregational Churches Cleared; The Way of Life; Treatise Concerning Predestination; The New Covenant; and Meat for Strong Men, Spiritual Milk for Babes.
He died Dec. 23, 1652, in Boston, Mass.