After a career of more than twenty years in England, John Cotton joined the Massachusetts Bay Colony and became a minister of the Boston church, where he was a powerful voice, though his involvement in several crucial controversies for a time limited his authority. Though recognized as a spokesman for the congregational system of church government and a defender of the New England Way, he regarded himself as chiefly a preacher, and of his thirty-seven publications, many merely pamphlets, nineteen are sermons or sermon collections.

The son of a lawyer, John Cotton attended grammar school in his natal place, Derby, in the English midlands. In 1597 he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge University, and, after completing undergraduate studies, he became a fellow of Emmanuel College, a Puritan institution that was to supply the Massachusetts Bay Colony with several of its leaders. He remained at Cambridge for some fifteen years...