If it is lawful to translate Hebrew into English to read, then it is lawful to translate David’s verse into English verse to sing.
John Cotton (Click on His name at left to read a short biography of John.)
5 Things Everyone Should Know About John Cotton (Ligonier Ministries)
Wings of the Wind 
Chris, thank you for your research and for sharing these comprehensive articles on Puritan figures… and this one on John Cotton. Their wise quotes are inspiring.
You’re welcome, Elizabeth, and I appreciate your comment. As I’ve been researching these Puritans, I’ve found that they lived during a time where little things, even the secondary issues, were things they thought a lot about. They were not always in agreement about certain secondary and tertiary things. At the same time, I have not found another group of men in history (except the apostles, of course) who believed the essentials of the Gospel and who spent so much of their time and abilities studying the scriptures. They were Bereans for sure and most of them lived in politically difficult times. John Cotton is a good example. He and his family left for America because his beliefs in the Gospel had put him in danger of being jailed.
I’m glad you are seeing in their quotes the same things I am discovering about them.
God’s blessings…
Thank you for these interesting posts, Chris. It’s good to learn about the brethren who lived before us.
You’re welcome, Cathy, and thank you for your comment. I also think it is a good thing to know about these men and the sacrifices they made to spend so much time studying and preaching the scriptures. They lived in times of upheaval and we could certainly take a few lessons from them. They are an encouragement for sure.
I know little about John Cotton. I found it interesting in the interview with Stephen Yuille (in the Ligonier Ministries link) that he fled to the American colonies to escape persecution in England.
Also interesting was Yuille’s description of Cotton’s pietism as “John Cotton had this conviction that the purity of Christ must be the pattern of every believer.” I wonder what the alternative would be to this.
Welcome to my blog, Frank. I don’t know why you didn’t get through moderation except that you may not have made a comment here before.
As far as your question about the alternative to that conviction…I have no idea.
Thanks for stopping by and you are welcome anytime. I only hope I can be of more help than I was this time.
Thanks, Chris, for information about John Cotton. I enjoyed listening to all three YouTube videos. The discussions prompted me to go to our library’s online catalog and place a hold on a biography of Roger Williams, whom I’ve always been meaning to learn more about. I see the library also has a book about William’s debates with Cotton regarding religious freedom, which I will also eventually get to. In addition, I downloaded the Kindle version of “John Cotton: Patriarch of New England” edited by Nate Pickowicz that he discussed in the last video.
I’m only slightly familiar with Cotton. I read an excellent book about his controversial “student-disciple,” Anne Hutchinson, back in 2019 and posted a review, link below, that you may be interested in:
You’re welcome, Tom, and since you’ve watched the videos you probably know as much about John Cotton as I do. I’ve done a bit more poking around but it is difficult to find information about him. That book in your library about the debates between Williams and Cotton regarding religious freedom would, I think, be fascinating.
As you have downloaded the Kindle version of “John Cotton: Patriarch of New England” edited by Nate Pickowicz that he discussed in the last video you will soon know more about John Cotton than I do.
Thank you for sharing that link with me. There were a couple of things in that post you wrote that, if true, could be of concern regarding Cotton. There is this:
“Cotton believed certain of the elect had the gift of determining who had been redeemed and who hadn’t. His church in England and the one in Massachusetts consequently had separate services for the redeemed elect and the unredeemed.”
That seems very odd to me.
and this…
“The Rev. Cotton, in an unadmirable act of self-preservation, increasingly distanced himself from his disciple during both proceedings and eventually became one of the main witnesses against her.”
I know less about Anne Hutchinson than I do about John Cotton so maybe Cotton had a good reason to distance himself from her.
I hope you will do a book review on the work edited by Nate Pickowicz. I have only run across Pickowicz’s name because of the bit of research I did on John Cotton. I’ve only heard that one interview with him but I appreciated what he shared there.
The best of men are but men at best. Men like John Cotton, who have been little studied as far as I can tell, may have had some strange ideas.
One of his sermons titled “God’s Promise to His Plantation” (1630) is something I plan on reading soon. Maybe it will shed some more light on our new acquaintance. You can find the sermon here:
https://amlit1.hcommons.org/cottonpromise/#ch1
and here
Click to access johncotton_75-80.pdf
I appreciate your comments, Tom, and I’m enjoying learning about these men with you.
Of course, there is the new book series The Works of John Cotton, Volumes 1-5 that are mentioned in the first video. If I decide to get serious about a study on him, there is always that.
Thanks for the gracious response, Chris. I believe a lot of “well-intentioned” Puritans got into trouble by combining faith and citizenship, which was the issue roiling Roger Williams. The Puritans should have learned their lesson with the oppressive state church arrangement in England.
A good number of Puritan clergymen in the Bay Colony taught “Preparationism,” the belief that good works were needed to prepare a person for God’s salvation. To his credit, Cotton opposed that view and taught salvation was solely by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. I got the impression from the book on Anne Hutchinson that she styled herself as somewhat of a prophetess and whereas Cotton was more circumspect in his disagreements with fellow clergymen, his disciple was more confrontational, which of course was not well-received.
There were some other strange things (from our perspective) going on in the Puritan communities like the so-called “Halfway Covenant.” Link below
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Way_Covenant
I look forward to listening to Cotton’s sermon tomorrow (via my iPhone reader). I appreciate the sermon and the previous book ideas.
You’re welcome, Tom, and I appreciate the information and this link.
Since I’ve started quoting the Puritans, I read somewhere that a number of them were considered “radical.” There are “radicals” in every group so I’ve always kept my eyes open for information that might make any of the Puritans I’ve quoted guilty of teaching radical error. Most of them lived during times of political upheaval and how much any Puritan was involved in the politics of the day seems to come down to each individual. They were certainly an individualistic lot, but their writings show that they depended heavily on the Bible as their ultimate authority. I suppose that’s why I’ve enjoyed what I’ve been reading about them.
I would almost put some of their writings on par with some of Spurgeon’s. To be fair to each, I’ve read much more Spurgeon than I have from the Puritans. That is changing. Because of Spurgeon’s good words about William Gurnall, I am reading “The Christian in Complete Armour.” I knew when I bought the book that Gurnall had conformed to the Church of England in 1662, unlike many of the other Puritans.
In 1662, he signed the Act of Uniformity, meaning he stayed within the Church of England rather than becoming a non-conformist, which made him a controversial figure among other Puritans. It is estimated that over 2,000 Puritan leaders refused to sign the Act of Uniformity in 1662. This led to their expulsion from the Church of England. This kind of decision about things they considered spiritually important is a reason I’ve been drawn to them and I’m not sure if I would have made the same decision.
Despite this, Gurnall is one of the men Spurgeon quotes most in The Treasury of David, his exposition of the Psalms. I do admit to being only 50 pages into Gurnall’s 650 page work because I have not caught on to what Spurgeon delighted in, but I have still got 600 pages to find it! (I’ll probably give it another 50 to 100 pages before moving on to something else.)
Internet sources say that Gurnall’s “exact, specific reasons for his personal decision in 1662 remain largely unknown and have been a matter of debate among historians.”
They also say that “While other ministers were focused on resisting changes, Gurnall was more concerned with the souls of his people and continuing his preaching ministry, focusing on spiritual warfare rather than ecclesiastical politics.” Then there is this: “Gurnall was Puritan in doctrine and practice but maintained his position as a clergyman within the established Anglican church, placing him in a “neutral” position that made him unpopular with both sides.” I’m sure Gurnell knew this would happen but made his decision despite that.
In either case, most of these guys had to make very difficult decisions.
In fact, it was Spurgeon’s Treasury of David, that led me to these men. It is my understanding that Spurgeon had a library filled with works of the Puritans. Almost all of the ones I have quoted have had their words used in the commentary on Psalms that Spurgeon wrote. I’ve been aware that some were very connected to the various political power struggles of the day, but they’ve all been so good on the Gospel, as far as I can tell, that I’ve felt comfortable quoting them.
I’ve quoted nearly 40 Puritans and this is the first I’ve heard the term “Halfway Covenant.” This is probably because all of the previous Puritans that I’ve quoted (as far as I’m aware) died in Europe. If the Halfway Covenant was developing in England before Puritans moved to America then it certainly wasn’t as much of a focus as it was in the early colonies as I’ve discovered thanks to the link you have shared with me.
I did take a look into each of the three volumes of the Treasury of David and John Cotton wasn’t quoted once. Until I find a reason for that, I will give Mr. Cotton the benefit of the doubt because of his stance on the Gospel. The Halfway Covenant was certainly a bad idea, and it appears that, by trying to solve one problem in an unbiblical way, it only created other problems. I can see why some historians identify the Half-Way Covenant with Puritan decline.
Because of the wiki article you shared with me I will now be familiar with the terms “Halfway Covenant” and “large Congregationalism.”
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to ask John Cotton why large Congregationalism was a must? I guess some day we will be able to ask him.
Thanks again, Tom.