Springfield 1636-1886, History of Town and City, by Mason A. Green ...

SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1SS6. 115
ruled New England. John Cotton, in his last days, when much con-
cerned about a successor to his pulpit, dreamed that he saw Mr.
Norton coming into Boston on a white horse. It fell out (so Cotton
Mather claims) that ]Mr. Norton, when he entered Boston to take
charge of John Cotton's church, did ride upon a white horse. This
was tlie advocate appealed to by Massachusetts to give battle to
William Pynchon over the doctrine of the atonement, and it will be
found upon reading Norton's reply and I^vnchon's second book that
our honored pioneer was quite the equal of the university student as
a logician, and much his superior in the reasoning that is based upon
the inspiration of a catholic heart and a broad mind. We can make
this claim without casting reflections upon the Boston scheme of gov-
ernment, which for that age was a protest against the worldly for-
malism of the English Church.
The cautiously worded retraction which Mr. Pynchon felt justified
in submitting did not