all the neighbouring ministers a grand Antinomian, if not one of the founders of the sect so called’ (Wood, Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 21). Eaton, though undoubtedly much of a fanatic, made an excellent vicar; ‘in a few years the parish was generally reformed: insomuch that most children of twelve years old were able to give a good account of their knowledge in the grounds of religion’ (Brook, Puritans, ii. 466). At length his heterodox preaching gave offence to his diocesan, and he was deprived of his living 29 April 1619, as being ‘an incorrigible divulger of errors and false opinions’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1619–23, p. 41). He persisted, however, in promulgating his doctrine, for which, as he says, he suffered ‘much hurry’ and ‘divers imprisonments’ (preface to The Honey-Combe). He bore his persecution with equanimity. The time of his death is uncertain. Wood, whose knowledge of his latter days was evidently founded on a misreading of the title-pages and prefaces of his works, erroneously states that Eaton, having been instituted ‘in 1625 or thereabouts,’ continued vicar of Wickham Market until his death in ‘1641,’ and ‘was there buried,’ and he has been followed by all subsequent writers. Strype, in citing portions of an undated letter from John Echard, vicar of Darsham, Suffolk, in 1616, in which mention is made of Eaton and the court of high commission, absurdly refers it to 1575 (Annals, 8vo edit., vol. ii. pt. i. pp. 562–3). None of Eaton's writings were permitted to be published in his lifetime. After his death there appeared: 1. ‘The Discovery of the most dangerous dead Faith,’ 12mo, London, 1641 (a second impression with an addition. of “Abraham's Steps of Faith” and “The True Treasure of the Heart,”’ was issued, 12mo, London, 1642; a third edition in William Cudworth's tracts entitled ‘Christ alone Exalted,’ 8vo, London, 1747). 2. ‘The Honey-Combe of Free Justification by Christ alone. Collected out of the meere Authorities of Scripture, and common and unanimous Consent of the faithful Interpreters and Dispensers of God's Mysteries upon the same, especially as they expresse the Excellency of Free Justification,’ 4to, London, 1642, edited by Robert Lancaster, who in his ‘Advertisement to the Reader’ promised to publish at some future time a life of Eaton, but failed to do so. Brook says that Eaton ‘committed some mistakes in his assertions about the doctrines of grace.’
[Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 269, 299; Echard's Hist. of England, 3rd ed. pp. 519–20; Lancaster's Vindiciæ Evangelii; Paget's Heresiography, p. 92.]
EATON, NATHANIEL (1609?–1674), president-designate of Harvard College, born in or about 1609, was the sixth son of the Rev. Richard Eaton, and a younger brother of Theophilus Eaton [q. v.] He was educated on the foundation of Westminster, whence he was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1629 (Welch, Alumni Westmon. 1852, pp. 101–2). His stay at the university was not long enough to admit of his taking a degree, for by 1633 he appears as an advanced pupil of Dr. William Ames [q. v.] at Franeker. In that year was published ‘Inquisitio in variantes Theologorum quorundam Sententias de Sabbato et Die Dominico, quam … proponit, sub præsidio D. D. Guilielmi Amesii, Nathanael Eatonus, Anglus, ad diem Martij hora prima pomeridiana loco consueto,’ 8vo, Franeker, 1633. Eaton, who had in the meantime taken orders and married, accompanied his two elder brothers, Theophilus and Samuel [q. v.], to America in 1637. He was admitted a freeman 9 June 1638. While Harvard College was in progress of building, classes of students were being formed by Eaton as president designate. He was also entrusted with the management of the funds. Every encouragement was given him to continue in office, a grant of five hundred acres being made to him and his heirs on that condition. But, writes Cotton Mather, he ‘marvellously deceived the expectations of good men concerning him, for he was one fitter to be master of a Bridewel than a colledge’ (Magnalia Christi Americana, 1702, bk. iv. pp. 126–7). Thomas Hooker (1586–1647), who knew him in Holland, says ‘he did not approve of his spirit, and feared the issue of his being received here [in America]’ (cited in Young, Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, p. 551 n.) Eaton was in fact a drunkard and something worse, cruel and avaricious. While he unmercifully chastised his pupils, inflicting ‘between twenty and thirty stripes at a time,’ and embezzled the college money, his wife half starved and neglected the hapless boarders committed to her care (see her very curious confession in Winthrop, Hist. of New England, ed. Savage, 1853, i. 373–4). At length a too vigorous cudgelling administered for ‘about the space of two hours’ to his usher, Nathaniel Briscoe, ‘a gentleman born,’ with ‘a walnut-tree plant big enough to have killed a horse and a yard in length,’ brought Eaton under the notice of the court at Boston in September 1639. After some grotesque proceedings, during which the elders found, as the result of many hours' persuasion, that ‘he was convinced and had freely and fully acknowledged his sin,
