John Norton (divine)

John Norton (born Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, England, May 6, 1606; died Boston, Massachusetts, April 5, 1663) was a Puritan divine, and one of the first authors in the United States of America.

Career

Norton was born in Bishop Stortford, Hertfordshire, in England. He was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge (BA 1627) and ordained in his native town. He became a Puritan and sailed in 1634 to New England, landing at Plymouth in 1635. He was 'called' to Ipswich, Massachusetts; ordained 'teacher' in 1638.

He was an active member of the convention that formed the "Cambridge platform" in 1648. In 1652 he became colleague of Reverend John Wilson as minister of the First church at Boston, and in 1662 he accompanied Governor Bradstreet as agent of the colony to present an address to Charles II. after his restoration, and to petition in behalf of New England. The king assured them that he would confirm the charter of the colony, but he required that justice should be administered in his name, and attached other conditions that the colonists regarded as arbitrary. Upon the return of the agents to Massachusetts they were regarded with suspicion, and the report was circulated that they had sold the liberties of the country. This greatly affected Mr. Norton's popularity as a preacher, and it is supposed that it hastened his death.

He wrote the first Latin book composed in the Colonies in 1644 (also with introductory epistle by John Cotton (1585-1652), vicar of Boston, Lincolnshire, and then he was pastor of the first church in Boston, Massachusetts). He was installed teacher of the Boston church with John Wilson 1656 and chief instigator of the persecution of the Quakers in New England.

Writings of John Norton

• Responsio ad Guliel, 1648. (Norton, a leading opponent of the Antinomians, a drafter of the Cambridge Platform, and the pastor of the First Church of Boston, offers a Latin treatise on New England church governance.)

• A Discussion of that Great Point in Divinity, the Sufferings of Christ. 1653. (Norton, a prolific writer and Puritan clergyman who succeeded John Cotton as pastor of First Church in Boston, mounts an attack on the heresy of William Pynchon, who denied that Christ suffered the torment of hell.)

• The Orthodox Evangelist, 1654. Norton's most famous work is an important theological treatise endorsed by John Cotton, who had provided a prefatory epistle.

• Abel Being Dead Yet Speaketh; or, The Life and Death of ... John Cotton (1658). (The first separately-published biography in America.)

• The Heart of N-England Rent at the Blasphemies of the Present Generation, 1659. (Deals with theological controversies in which he expresses his opposition to Quakers and advocates the death penalty.

• Three Choice and Profitable Sermons Upon Severall Texts of Scripture (1664). (The final, posthumously published, collection of Norton's religious writing, containing "Sion the Out-cast," "The Believer's Consolation," and "The Evangelical Worshipper".)

• The Redeemed Captive, 1747. (A captivity narrative detailing the trials and tribulations of Norton's capture by a French and Indian war party during King George's War in 1746. Upholding the traditional Puritan belief that God delivers the true Christian from heathens and Papists, Norton's tale is one of the most famous examples of the genre.)