Career Of John Cotton

Why is so little heard about John Cotton, who was acknowledged in his own lifetime as the greatest Puritan preacher in America? Why has he alone remained an enigma among the founding fathers of American protestantism? Professor Ziff examines Cotton's career as a teacher and preacher, both in England and New England; comparing Cotton’s preaching and theology with that of his contemporaries in both the established church and the various Puritan sects, he shows Cotton as a significant man of his own time. Yet his influence, although of great importance to the crucial early beginnings of the protestant churches in America, could not extend itself beyond his generation. In this study, Cotton emerges clearly as a vital stabilizing influence between the separatist extremists and those who sought to re-establish the old order in the new world. Originally published in 1962. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

John Cotton (1584-1652) was a key figure in the English Puritan movement in the first half of the seventeenth century, a respected leader among his generation of emigrants from England to New England. This volume collects all known surviving correspondence by and to Cotton. These 125 letters--more than 50 of which are here published for the first time--span the decades between 1621 and 1652, a period of great activity and change in the Puritan movement and in English history. Now carefully edited, annotated, and contextualized, the letters chart the trajectory of Cotton's career and revive a variety of voices from the troubled times surrounding Charles I's reign, including those of such prominent figures as Oliver Cromwell, Bishop John Williams, John Dod, and Thomas Hooker, as well as many little-known persons who wrote to Cotton for advice and guidance. Among the treasures of early Anglo-American history, these letters bring to life the leading Puritan intellectual of the generation of the Great Migration and illustrate the network of mutual support that nourished an intellectual and spiritual movement through difficult times.

In The American Puritans , Dustin Benge and Nate Pickowicz tell the story of the first hundred years of Reformed Protestantism in New England through the lives of nine key figures: William Bradford, John Winthrop, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shepard, Anne Bradstreet, John Eliot, Samuel Willard, and Cotton Mather. Here is sympathetic yet informed history, a book that corrects many myths and half-truths told about the American Puritans while inspiring a current generation of Christians to let their light shine before men. Table of Contents: Introduction: Who Are the American Puritans? 1. William Bradford 2. John Winthrop 3. John Cotton 4. Thomas Hooker 5. Thomas Shepard 6. Anne Bradstreet 7. John Eliot 8. Samuel Willard 9. Cotton Mather

In American Protestant Theology, Luigi Giussani traces the history of the most meaningful theological expressions and the cultural significance of American Protestantism, from its origins in seventeenth-century Puritanism to the 1950s. Giussani clarifies and assesses elements of Protestantism such as the democratic approach to Church-State relations, "The Great Awakening," Calvinism and Trinitarianism, and liberalism. His rich references and analytical descriptions reconstruct an overview of the development of a religion that has great importance in the context of spiritual life and American culture. He also displays full respect for the religious depth from which Protestantism was born and where it can reach, and expresses great admiration for its most prominent thinkers and spiritual leaders, including Jonathan Edwards, Horace Bushnell, Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich. Further testament to Giussani's clear-minded and comprehensive knowledge of Christianity, American Protestant Theology makes the work of a master theologian available in English for the first time.

Examines the variety of ways in which early Protestants responded to material shapes: icons, acoustic shapes of speech, material objects and the physical shapes of humans. Reveals how reactions to material shapes took violent forms as evidenced in the development of prejudice from Calvin and Luther to the Puritan immigrants of Massachusetts Bay.

In this absorbing book, George McKenna ranges across the entire panorama of American history to track the development of American patriotism. That patriotism--shaped by Reformation Protestantism and imbued with the American Puritan belief in a providential "errand"--has evolved over 350 years and influenced American political culture in both positive and negative ways, McKenna shows. The germ of the patriotism, an activist theology that stressed collective rather than individual salvation, began in the late 1630s in New England and traveled across the continent, eventually becoming a national phenomenon. Today, American patriotism still reflects its origins in the seventeenth century. By encouraging cohesion in a nation of diverse peoples and inspiring social reform, American patriotism has sometimes been a force for good. But the book also uncovers a darker side of the nation's patriotism--a prejudice against the South in the nineteenth century, for example, and a tendency toward nativism and anti-Catholicism. Ironically, a great reversal has occurred, and today the most fervent believers in the Puritan narrative are the former "outsiders"--Catholics and Southerners. McKenna offers an interesting new perspective on patriotism's role throughout American history, and he concludes with trenchant thoughts on its role in the post-9/11 era.

Notable scholars like Mark Noll and Sinclair Ferguson invite you to sit at the feet of classic Puritain writers to experience a living, three-dimensional portrait of the devoted life that emphasizes the Christian experience of communion with God, corporate revival, biblical preaching and the sanctifying working of God's Holy Spirit. Edited by Kelly M. Kapic and Randall C. Gleason.