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Old 06-20-2008, 11:21 PM
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timmopussycat timmopussycat is offline.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Backwoods Presbyterian View Post
I do not know if any of you have read this before but it is well worth your time.

An Abstract of the Laws of New England,
as They Are Now Established.
printed in London in 1641.
JOHN COTTON
Short Historical note:
I don't think Cotton can be blamed for the title but it does contain an error. Cotton's laws (for he did write them) were never law in New England. In 1536 Cotton was asked together with some other ministers and magistrates to "assist some of the magistrates in compiling a body of fundamental laws". Cotton worked independently and presented his draft, but it did not become law at that time. In 1638 another committee, not including Cotton returned to the task. One of this committee was Nathaniel Ward whose, Body of Liberties was circulated among the towns in 1641 and for the next 7 years work continued on the project.

Cotton's work differs from what was finally approved in a very significant way. Cotton believed that the Mosaic judicials remained as obligatory as the moral law, the code that was utimately adopted did not do so.

For further details see Sameul T. Logan Jr. New England Puritans and the State in Theonomy: A Reformed Critique from which this summary is drawn.
__________________
In Christ's love and service

Mr. Tim Cunningham, Dip. CS (Regent College)
Member, First Baptist Church
Vancouver, BC

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"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar of 1500-year-old, 200 proof grace—a bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel—after all these centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your own bootstraps—suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home-free before they started. Grace was to be drunk neat: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale." – Robert Farrar Capon

Last edited by timmopussycat; 10-05-2008 at 12:41 AM..
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