John Stoughton (priest)
Involved with the Conference of reformed ministers at Dedham, Essex, his disputation with Andrew Oxenbridge was on the point of justification by faith alone (sola fide).
[10] As one not conforming to the Anglican formulae he was deprived by High Commission of his living in 1606: Ralph Cudworth, of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, was instituted Perpetual Vicar in his place at the presentation of Baron Rich,[11] and held it for two years.
[12] Thomas Stoughton published four principal works: The Generall Treatise against Poperie was dedicated to Robert, Lord Rich, with a letter to his readers including friends in Kent, London, Essex and Suffolk.
"Let none of you be grieved that I have left you nothing of my inheritance in Kent, neither of my lands since, that I purchased in Suffolke, as also in Essex, all being now gone, and the price thereof spent: not riotously or otherwise lewdly, but by other meanes.
Early in 1623/24 he preached at Paul's Cross in London The Love-Sick Spouse, on a text of lament from the Canticles interpreted to signify the separation of Christ from His true Church.
The Song of Solomon was a rich source for contemporary theological exegesis directed against the threat to protestantism posed by royal marital alliance with Roman Catholic Spain or France.
About ten months later, in The Happinesse of Peace preached during a royal visitation to Cambridge, he spoke to like point before a courtly audience which cannot have missed his meaning.
Here he developed connections with Sir Thomas and Dame Margaret Wroth of Petherton Park, who were highly active in colonial enterprises in North America.
[32] In that year Dr. Stoughton left Aller and was appointed curate and preacher in the City of London church of St Mary Aldermanbury, a strong focus of Puritanism, in the place of Thomas Taylor.
Mary Stoughton died in the summer of 1634,[37] and in December of that year Cudworth wrote at length to his stepfather describing John Endicott's mutilation of the banner and detailing the appointments of ministers and teachers in the various New England townships.
[51] Stoughton's study was sealed and the correspondence found,[52] including a particularly dangerous letter, addressed via a third party for concealment, from Sir Thomas Wroth, newly written from Petherton, lamenting the state of the Church and speaking of "resistance in blood".
[56] With the support of Sir Robert Harley and the Earl of Holland Stoughton managed to escape the worst consequences,[57] though the investigation against him continued until May 1636, when he was discharged.
[61] In March 1637 Sir Nathaniel Brent reported that letters of Stephen Marshall, minister of Finchingfield in Essex, deemed to be a dangerous person, had been found in the search of Stoughton's papers.
[76] Stoughton's millennial pamphlet Felicitas ultimi saeculi was in the form of an address, dated 1638, to John Tolnai (a contact of Comenius) in Hungary.
[77] Hugh Trevor-Roper comments on the language of inauguration of international Protestantism in this work, which upholds Comenius, Francis Bacon and John Dury as its apostles.
[79] Dr. Stoughton died in May 1639 making his wife Jane and her father John Browne his executors, with legacies to her and to their two daughters, and gifts of £25 each to Emmanuel College and to 'Mr Hartlipp a Dutchman'.
John Stoughton married first (c.1624) Mary Machell,[81] widow of Dr Ralph Cudworth senr (Rector of Aller c. 1610–1624),[82] by whom he had no issue.
[98] The opening dedications indicate that "The Widdow of the deceased Authour, in testimonie of her humble and thankefull acknowledgement of his noble favour and respect, shewed to her dearest Husband in his life time, presenteth these ensuing Sermons, which are now, according to the trust reposed in him, published by A.B.
