John Paget (Puritan minister)

[5] John Paget entered Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizar, a scholar receiving some support, probably in 1592,[6][7] suggesting a birth date around 1574.

Paget related in An Answer to the Unjust Complaints, a polemical work, that his "ardent affection" or inner compulsion to preach manifested itself at an early age.

The response of Richard Bancroft, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, was a book of canons, later rejected by Parliament, which demanded conformity to the disciplines, not just the teachings, of the Church of England.

Paget's work clearly attracted favourable attention, as in 1607 the Presbytery of Amsterdam appointed him minister of the newly founded English Reformed Church in the city.

[15] After receiving the call from the presbytery Paget preached an inaugural sermon on 5 February[16] on the text Psalms 51:10: "Make thou unto me a cleane heart O Lord" in the Bishops' Bible.

The ceremony was performed by John Douglas, chaplain to the Scottish force stationed at Utrecht,[16] which had fought alongside the English contingents at Mülheim.

The new turn in foreign policy was the work of a coalition of powerful Amsterdam merchants, the Counter-remonstrants or extreme Calvinists and Maurice, Prince of Orange which had overthrown the architect of the truce, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt.

[2] Within a year of his taking up his post, possibly earlier, there was an English Baptist group, centred on John Smyth, in Amsterdam alongside his own and Johnson's congregations.

[23] Paget's aloofness can only have been reinforced by the internal divisions and the later confusions as the remnants of this group fused with the Dutch Mennonites known as Waterlanders after Smyth's death.

Let it be well observed that you are thus noted to have turned your coate & changed your religion five severall times, namely, first being of our religion and a member of the church of England you forsook that Church and separated: Secondly that being separated, you did againe in London being in the hãds of authoritie yeeld to joyne with the worship and ministery of the Church of England: Thirdly, that after this you did againe slide back vnto the separation and renounce the Church of England: Fourthly, that after this when you were in Ireland and in some danger of punishment for your scandal, you did againe returne vnto the communion renounced by you, whether fainedly or vnfainedly, I leave vnto your self to consider: Fiftly, after this you change your profession againe and fall back vnto separation, and stick now presently in this Schisme: and thus whiles by this often revolting you dishonour and disable your self and your ministery...[28]In 1621 John Forbes, the Scottish pastor at Delft, obtained permission from the Dutch authorities to set up an English classis or presbytery for the Netherlands.

Initially he intervened to warn the Dutch authorities against prohibiting the use of the Prayer Book by Stephen Goffe, now chaplain to Vere's regiment, and engineered the removal of Forbes from his post at Delft,[32] replacing him with a Laudian.

After that in many discourses with mr Damport He had found his difference from him in the poynt of Baptisme, wch is not only a matter of judgement but practice both ministers joyning in baptizing every child according to the Dutch custome ((1) one reading the forme, & explicacion of it.

and the other sprinkling the water with those words In the name &c.) He told him that it was necessary for him to admitt all the infants wch were brought, as he & the Dutch alwaies vse to do, or els they could not be fitt colleges in that pastorall charge.

[13] However, Griffin Higgs, the chaplain to Charles I's sister, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, commented: "Mr. Damport is still a Non-Conformist to the Dutch Church as well, as to the English.

In 1635 he concluded hostilities with An Answer to the Unjust Complaints, a broadside against Davenport and William Best, who in reality was a cipher for John Canne, a separatist who had migrated to Amsterdam some years earlier.

Despite his nonconformist status in England, he cultivated relations with the English and Scottish authorities where Protestant solidarity in the Thirty Years War was concerned.

To reassure Boswell of his essential orthodoxy, he lent him a copy of his own service book, partly translated from the Dutch liturgy, signing off with the words: "The God of heaven be with you & cover you with the shadow of his winges.

Evidently he was a guest preacher at the English Reformed Church, as Paget and his congregation wrote to him on 5 November 1634 to congratulate him on a recent sermon and to invite him again to Amsterdam.

[42] The invitation found its way into the papers of Samuel Hartlib, a German scientist and polymath who had taken refuge in England from the Thirty Years War: an indication of the width of the intellectual circle in which Paget moved.

[43] Although they did not enjoy full civil rights until the following century, they were respected by leading Dutch Calvinist intellectuals like Hugo Grotius, who consulted with Jewish scholars on the text of the Hebrew Bible.

Paget was described by Robert, his nephew and adopted son, as having rare skill in the languages that conduce unto the understanding of the originall text of the Scriptures; for he could to good purpose and with much ease make use of the Chaldean, Syriack, Rabbinicall, Thalmudicall, Arabick, and Persian versions and commentaries.

Joseph Justus Scaliger had pioneered Semitic studies there and in 1625 the university press acquired an oriental section, with fonts for a range of Afroasiatic languages, on the initiative of the House of Elzevir.

One of the most notable was Sir William Brereton, 1st Baronet, the future Roundhead commander, who visited the United Provinces in 1634 and reported: June 12.— After we had dined with Mr. Pageatt, where we had a neat dinner and strawberries, longest that I have seen, we went to a house called Dole-hoof, where we saw the pictures made in wax most liveyly...[50]John Paget remained in post until 1637,[13] when he became emeritus.

[55] Robert's concluding peroration began with the words: "Farewell from Dort: Where a most pregnant & effectuall testimonie hath been given, for the needfull authority of Synods."

A Puritan petition from Cheshire to the Long Parliament had proposed the abolition of bishops, canon law, the Prayer Book, and the Thirty-Nine Articles,[56] provoking a concerted response from royalists headed by Sir Thomas Aston, 1st Baronet.

Thomas Paget decided to present his brother's book to Parliament, adding by way of dedication a "Humble Advertisment" [sic], which explained the history of nonconformity in the Diocese of Chester and highlighted his own sufferings for the cause,[58] as well as distinguishing Presbyterianism from more radical Puritan tendencies.

Nathan Paget, his son and John's nephew, had already returned to pursue his career as a physician and lived in London throughout the English Civil War.