Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/221

 ton afterwards wrote, ‘Abel being dead yet speaketh, or the Life and Death of Mr. John Cotton,’ London, 1658; reprinted, with short memoir of the author by Enoch Pond, New York, 1842.

In 1645 Norton wrote a Latin letter to John Durie (1596–1680) [q. v.], which was translated and printed, with the last three sermons preached by Norton in 1664. There he set forth the view that, although he and his friends refused subscription to the hierarchy, they claimed fellowship with such churches as profess the gospel. A copy, with autograph signatures of Norton and forty-three other ministers, belongs to the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Massachusetts.

In 1646 Norton took a leading part in the Cambridge synod, and in drawing up the ‘Platform of Church Discipline.’ On the death of Cotton in 1652 he was called to Boston. Rogers dying two years later, the Ipswich church clamoured for Norton's return. He was, however, installed teacher of the Boston church, in conjunction with John Wilson, on 23 July 1656; on the same day he married his second wife, Mary Mason of Boston (d. January 1678), and was given 200l. to buy a house.

Norton was chief instigator of the persecution of the quakers in New England [see under ]. He was requested by the Massachusetts council on 19 Oct. 1658 to write a ‘tractate’ against their heresies (Records, iv. 348); copies of his ‘Heart of New England Rent’ were ordered to be distributed on 28 May 1659 (ib. p. 381), and a grant of five hundred acres of land, with the council's thanks, was made him on 12 Nov. of the same year (ib. p. 397). A royal mandamus for the suspension of the penal laws against the quakers was issued at Whitehall on 9 Sept. 1661 (, Hist. of the Rise, &c., i. 363), and an order given for the release of all in prison. On 11 Feb. 1662 Norton and Simon Bradstreet sailed for England to obtain from the king a confirmation of their charter, which they feared was endangered by the unwarrantable severity which they had employed against the quakers. They had several interviews with George Fox, and Norton denied that he had taken part in the persecution at Boston. William Robinson's father, a Cumberland man, appears to have been anxious to prosecute the deputies for murder (, New England Judged, p. 47), but was dissuaded by Fox (Journal, Leeds ed. i. 549). Upon their return to Boston they were coldly received, and Norton died suddenly six months later, on 5 April 1663, after preaching at the Sunday morning service. His funeral sermon was preached by Richard Mather at the Thursday lecture following. Some verses by Thomas Shepherd on his death are in Nathaniel Morton's ‘New England's Memorial,’ 6th ed., Boston, 1855, p. 195.

Norton had no children. His widow gave or bequeathed almost all his property to the Old South church in Boston. Wine, lutestring, and gloves at her funeral cost as much as 73l. . Norton's brother William, living at Ipswich, Massachusetts, was father of (1651–1716), pastor of Hingham, Massachusetts, author of some sermons and verses.

Norton was a strong Calvinist, an effective preacher, and a ready, if unpolished, writer. Besides the books above mentioned, and some separate sermons, he wrote: 1. ‘A Brief and Excellent Treatise containing the Doctrine of Godlinesse,’ &c., London, 1647. 2. ‘The Sufferings of Christ,’ London, 1653. 3. ‘The Orthodox Evangelist,’ &c., London, 1654; another edition, London, 1657; reprinted Boston, 1851. 4. ‘The Heart of New England Rent,’ &c., London (12 Jan.), 1659; Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1659. This violent attack upon the quakers was answered by Francis Howgil and Edward Burrough [q. v.], by Humphrey Norton [q. v.], and by Isaac Pennington (1616–1679) [q. v.] 5. ‘The Divine Offence,’ &c. 6. ‘A Catechism.’ 7. ‘Of the State of the Blessed.’

He left in manuscript a ‘Body of Divinity,’ which is preserved among the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 

NORTON, JOHN (fl. 1674), a youthful prodigy, born in London in 1662, made, at the age of twelve, a paraphrase translation of the poems of Marcus Antonius Flaminius. This was published as ‘The Scholar's Vade Mecum, or the Serious Student's Solid and