John Cotton — An Abstract of the Laws of New England

What Gill proposed in theory, Cotton had already attempted in practice: a civil code drawn out of Scripture, provision by provision, each with its chapter and verse. Massachusetts declined to adopt it, and adopted Ward's Body of Liberties instead. The refusal is part of the evidence, not a footnote to it.

Chapter I. Of Magistrates.

All magistrates are to be chosen. Exod. 18:21; Deut. 1:13; Deut. 17:15.

Of the qualification of magistrates: they are to be men able, men of courage, fearing God, men dealing truly, hating covetousness. Exod. 18:21.

Chapter VII. Of Crimes, and their Punishment.

First, of such as are capital, or worthy of death.

Blasphemy… to be punished with death. Lev. 24:15, 16.

Idolatry… to be punished with death. Deut. 13:6, 10; Deut. 17:2–5.

Witchcraft… to be punished with death. Exod. 22:18; Lev. 20:27.

Wilful murder… to be punished with death. Num. 35:30, 31.

Manslaughter by guile or malice… Exod. 21:14.

…He that smiteth his father or mother, to be put to death. Exod. 21:15, 17; Lev. 20:9.

The excerpt above abridges Cotton’s chapter headings and a portion of the capital laws to show the form of the instrument. The full Abstract runs to ten chapters covering magistrates, freemen, inheritance, commerce, trespass, crimes, and war — each provision carrying its scriptural proof in the margin.

Comment

The form is the argument. Cotton is not writing a treatise that cites Scripture; he is writing a statute book in which every provision is a scriptural citation. There is no independent ground of authority anywhere in the document. This is citation_weight: authority in its purest form, and it is the reason the Abstract matters more than anything Cotton wrote about the law.

Contemporaries named it accurately. It circulated as Moses His Judicialls — meaning the men who read it understood exactly what was being attempted, and had a ready name for the attempt. That the name existed is itself evidence about how ambient the idea was.

It was refused, and the refusal is data. The General Court did not adopt the Abstract. Massachusetts took Nathaniel Ward’s Body of Liberties (1641) instead — a document that blends English common law with Mosaic citation rather than deriving the whole code from Moses. Ward was a trained common lawyer as well as a minister, and the choice of Ward over Cotton is the clearest early test of the maximal position: offered the chance to govern by a digest of Scripture, a Puritan commonwealth chose selective equity instead.

Any honest use of Cotton has to carry that outcome with it. The Abstract proves the position was seriously held and fully workable on paper; the Body of Liberties proves it did not persuade even the people most disposed to it. The pair together is worth more to this collection than Cotton alone.