The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven

This is an updated version of the Keys of the Kingdom of heaven and the power thereof. by John Cotton. John Cotton (an English and American Puritan divine), was born on December 4th 1584 in Derby, England. He was ordained Priest and Deacon on July 13th 1610 at Lincoln. Then on June 24th 1612 he became vicar of the parish church of St Botolphs in Boston, Lincolnshire (when he was still only twenty seven years of age), there he remained for twenty-one years and became extremely popular with his congregation. In 1613 he received his B. D. Becoming more and more a Puritan in spirit, he ceased, about 1615, to observe certain Anglican ceremonies prescribed by the legally authorized ritual. He attracted those of Puritan sympathies during his time in Boston; a John Preston who was converted under the ministry of Cotton, sent his divinity students to complete their preparation for the ministry with Cotton. In September of 1630 his wife Elizabeth (Horrocks) and Cotton himself were stricken down with ague (an acute/malarial fever). His wife died through this and Cotton was laid down for about a year. It was during his time of recuperation that he became acquainted with the colonization of New England. His interest had already been aroused when he preached a farewell sermon in Southampton on March of 1630. On the 6th of April of 1632 he married again a Sarah Hawkridge (widow of William Story). Not long after this he was summoned to the Court of High Commission of William Laud. On hearing this he fled to London to go Sketch on the life of John Cotton into hiding in the autumn of that year self same year. During his time in London, several Puritans seeking to persuade him from his nonconformity and anticipated journey to New England visited him. On this he reasoned with John Davenport, Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye on nonconformity and these men were eventually persuaded of Independency (Congregationalism). It was from his hiding that he decided to immigrate to the colony of Massachusetts Bay, New England with his wife; going with him were Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone. They set sail in July of 1633 on the Griffin bound for their new land, arriving at Boston early in September. He was greatly used in the religious and political life of Boston and the surrounding New England territories, his work also having effect abroad and in particular on the shores of England. He conformed for the time being to the practices of the church. But he had his own reservations and kept working away until he could work out that ideal model of church government (Congregationalism). Cotton tried much to influence the Assembly on the side of the Independents with his writing on Congregational polity. This brought about a few publications: The Way of the Churches in New England and The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Way of the Churches in New England was written before The Keys, but published afterward (1645). The Keys was published in (1644). In 1648 Cotton published The Way of Congregational Churches Cleared, in answer to his opponents in England. He had come to his ideal in church polity after those years spent in diligent study; he was now defending this ideal. It was Cotton's writing's on church government (The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven), that persuaded the Calvinist theologian John Owen to separate from the Presbyterian church, after which he became very influential in the development of Congregationalist theology and ideas of church government.