John Norton (May 6, 1606 – April 5, 1663) was a
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...
divine in England and
.
Career
Norton was born at
Bishop's Stortford
Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town in Hertfordshire, England, just west of the M11 motorway on the county boundary with Essex, north-east of central London, and by rail from Liverpool Street station. Stortford had an estimated po ...
,
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. He was educated at
Peterhouse, Cambridge
Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...
(BA 1627), and ordained in his native town.
He became a Puritan and sailed in 1634 to
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
, landing at
Plymouth, Massachusetts
Plymouth (; historically known as Plimouth and Plimoth) is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. Located in Greater Boston, the town holds a place of great prominence in American history, folklore, and culture, and is known as ...
in 1635. He was 'called' to the new settlement of
Ipswich, Massachusetts
Ipswich is a coastal town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,785 at the 2020 census. Home to Willowdale State Forest and Sandy Point State Reservation, Ipswich includes the southern part of Plum Island. A reside ...
and ordained 'teacher' there in 1638.
He was an active member of the convention that formed
The Cambridge Platform in 1648, and was a contributor to its drafting. In 1652 he became a colleague of
John Wilson at the
first church in Boston
First Church in Boston is a Unitarian Universalist Church (originally Congregationalist) founded in 1630 by John Winthrop's original Puritan settlement in Boston, Massachusetts. The current building, located on 66 Marlborough Street in the Back ...
, where he succeeded
John Cotton as minister. In the following years, Norton became a leading opponent of the
Antinomians and a chief instigator of the persecution of the
Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
in New England. However, he, along with Wilson, privately opposed the conviction and execution of
Ann Hibbins
Ann Hibbins (also spelled Hibbons or Hibbens) was a woman executed for witchcraft in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 19, 1656. Her death by hanging was the third for witchcraft in Boston and predated the Salem witch trials of 1692.Poole, William F. ...
for
witchcraft
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...
. Mrs. Hibbins was hanged on June 19, 1656. She was the third person to be executed for witchcraft in Boston.
[Jewett, Clarence F. The memorial history of Boston: including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880. Ticknor and Company, 1881. Pgs. 138-141]
In 1662 he accompanied Governor
Simon Bradstreet
Simon Bradstreet (baptized March 18, 1603/4In the Julian calendar, then in use in England, the year began on March 25. To avoid confusion with dates in the Gregorian calendar, then in use in other parts of Europe, dates between January and Ma ...
as agent of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...
to present an address to King
Charles II after his Restoration, and to petition on 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 undermined Norton's popularity as a preacher, and it is supposed that it hastened his death. He died, aged 56, in
Boston, Massachusetts.
He was renowned for his scholarship, a prolific author and polemicist. He wrote the first Latin book composed in the Colonies in 1645, which was published three years later in 1648, and his life of John Cotton was the first separately-issued biography to be published there in 1658.
Writings
* ''Responsio ad totam quaestionum syllogen à clarissimo viro domino Guilielmo Apollonio, : ecclesiae middleburgensis pastore, propositam. : Ad componendas controversias quasdam circa politiam ecclesiasticam in Anglia nunc temporis agitatas spectantem.'' / Per Iohannem Nortonum ... Londini : typis R.B. impensis Andreae Crook ..., 1648. (The first book written in Latin in New England.)
* ''Responsio ad Guliel'', 1648. (A Latin treatise on New England church governance.)
*''A Discussion of that Great Point in Divinity, the Sufferings of Christ'', 1653. (An attack on the heresy of
William Pynchon
William Pynchon (October 11, 1590 – October 29, 1662) was an English colonist and fur trader in North America best known as the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. He was also a colonial treasurer, original patentee of the Massachu ...
, 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. (Theological controversies opposing the Quakers and advocating 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".)
References
External links
M'Clure, Alexander Wilson, ''The lives of John Wilson, John Norton, and John Davenport'' (1846)*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norton, John
1606 births
1663 deaths
17th-century Christian clergy
Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge
Kingdom of England emigrants to Massachusetts Bay Colony
People of colonial Massachusetts
Massachusetts colonial-era clergy
17th-century Calvinist and Reformed ministers
People from Bishop's Stortford
People from colonial Boston