This year also it pleased God to put a speedy period to the life of Mr. John Norton, who was a burning and a shining light; and although the church of Boston, in a more special manner, felt the smart of this sudden blow, yet it reflected upon the whole land. He was singularly endowed with the tongue of the learned, enabled to speak a word in due season, not only to the wearied soul, but also a word of counsel to a people in necessity thereof, being not only a wise steward of the things of Jesus Christ, but also a wise statesman; so that the whole land sustained a great loss of him. At his first coming over into New England, he arrived at Plimouth, where he abode the best part of one winter, and preached the gospel of the kingdom unto them; and ever after, to his dying day, retained a good affection unto them. From thence he went to Boston, and from thence to Ipswich, in New England, where he was chosen the teacher of their church; and after the death of worthy Mr. Cotton, he was solicited, and at length obtained, to return to Boston, and there served in that office until his death. He was chosen by the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts, together with the much honoured Mr. Simon Bradstreet, to go over into England, as agents in the behalf of that jurisdiction, unto his Majesty and the Privy Council, upon business of greatest trust and concernment; and soon after his return, it pleased God, suddenly and unexpectedly, to take him away by death, on the fifth day of April, 1663. His body was honourably buried at Boston.6
On whose much lamented death, take this following elegy.An elegy on the death of that eminent minister of the gospel, Mr. John Norton, the reverend teacher of the church of Christ at Boston, who exchanged this life for a better, April 5, 1663.
And none but mourners seen in ev’ry street?
Our crown, alas, is fallen from our head;
We find it off: woe to us, Norton’s dead.
Our breach is like the sea, no healing’s known:
To comfort Sion’s daughter is there none?
Oh teach your daughters wailing every one
Their neighbours’ deepest lamentation.
Oh that mine eyes a fountain were of tears!
I’d day and night in mourning spend my years.
My father! father! Israel’s chariot thou,
And horsemen wert! Sons of the prophets now,
Weep since your master from your head is taken:
This father of the muses hath forsaken
His study here, not liking our dark room,
Doth choose those mansions in his Father’s home.
The schoolmen’s doctors, whomsoe’er they call
Subtile, seraphic, or angelical:
Dull souls! their tapers burnt exceeding dim;
They might to school again to learn of him.
Lombard must out of date: we now profess
Norton the master of the sentences.
Scotus a dunce to him: should we compare
Aquinus here, none to be named are.
Of a more heavenly strain his notions were,
More pure, sublime, scholastical, and clear;
More like the apostles Paul and John, I wist,
Was this our orthodox evangelist.
And though an exile from his native land,
As John in Patmos was; yet here the hand
Of Christ leads forth, more clearly to espy
The New Jerusalem in her bravery.
Who more acute in judgment was than he?
More famous too for heavenly policy?
He was a wise and faithful counsellor,
One of a thousand, an interpreter.
Mighty in word and prayer, who could have
Whate’er almost from heaven he did crave:
On him, with things without (which I’ll not name)
The care of all the churches daily came.
He car’d thus naturally: Oh hear that rod,
Which us bereaved of such a man of God!
Zealous for order, very critical
For what was truly congregational.
A pillar of our church and state was he,
But now no more, no more his face we see!
Who thought more fit of all his tribe to stand
Before our king, for favour for our land,
Lately? but now translated is to rest,
This agent of New England’s interest.
When last he preach’d, he us the pattern gave
Of all that worship Christ in’s church would have;
God then him up into the mount did call,
To have the vision beatifical.
As Thomas to the twelve said, Come, let’s go
And die with him; I’d almost said so too:
I’ll yet a while in tears sow, that I may,
With him, in joyful reapings live for aye.
A tomb now holds his soul’s beloved shrine,
Of th’ Holy Ghost, a temple most divine.
And well New England’s heart may rent at this!
Wonder not, reader, I so greatly miss
Fit words, his worth, our loss and grief to fame,
When as no epitaph can declare the same.
—T. S.7
Not long after, namely, in the month of July, followed the death of that eminent servant of God, Mr. Samuel Stone, who was another star of the first magnitude in the firmament of New England. He was a learned, solid, and judicious divine, equally able for the confirmation of the truth, and confutation of errors. His ministry was with much conviction and demonstration, and when he set himself to application, very powerful. He was teacher to the church of Hartford fourteen years, together with Mr. Hooker, and sixteen years after him, thirty years in all. He died on the twentieth of July, and was honourably buried at Hartford.
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