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Sarah Jones and the Jacob-Jessey Church: the Relation of a Gentlewoman Stephen Wright Sarah Jones and the Jacob-Jessey Church: The Relation of a Gentlewoman Stephen Wright Sarah Jones was a member of the London semi-separatist congregation founded in 1616 by Henry Jacob, and then led by its successive pastors John Lathrop (from 1625 to 1634) and Henry Jessey (1637 to 1662). Though sharply hostile to the government, ministry and liturgy of the Church of England, this congregation refused to renounce it formally,and was thus able to maintain contact with godly parishioners, whilst gathering members from across parish boundaries.1 At the end of April 1632, many of these members were arrested at a house in Blackfriars’ precinct in London, and brought before the Court of High Commission.The accused included Sarah Jones of Lambeth. Despite her gender, Jones responded defiantly to questioning by Edward Sackville Earl of Dorset (the Queen’s Lord Chamberlain), George Abbot and Richard Neile (Archbishops of Canterbury and of York),William Laud (Bishop of London), and the King’s Advocate of the Court of High Commission, amongst the most powerful and intimidating males in England. On 8 May, having appeared first of all the accused, she was asked by Laud: ‘Doe you come to the church?’ S. Jones,‘None accuseth me to the contrary.’ London: Where were you upon Sunday was sennight?’ S. Jones, ‘When I have done evill and my accuser come, I will answer.’King’s Advocate:‘I doe accuse you, take your oath and you shall know your accusation.’ S. Jones: ‘I am afraid to take God’s name in vain, I know none other worship then God hath appointed.’ London, ‘This you are commanded of to do of God who saith you must obey your superiors.’ S. Jones,‘That which is of God is according to God’s word, and the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.’ Even a demand to know the parish in which she resided drew a principled evasion:‘she said she dwelleth at Lambeth’.2 The examination of Sarah Jones occupies as much or more space in the court record than that of any other member of the congregation, not excluding John Lathrop himself. It is clear that Jones remained unconvinced of the errors of her ways. In June 1634 she was arrested again: ‘Refusing to take the oath to answer articles she was committed to the Gatehouse and afterwards discharged upon bond for her appearance’.3 Now Henry Jessey recalled that in the year 1632, Sarah Jones drafted a manuscript of ‘Grievances’, which was ‘read openly at ye commission court’. He referred to a second text by Jones, her ‘answers’ to the commissioners – evidently set down in writing, for in 1642 they were ‘yet extent for ye comfort & encouragement of others’ – and to a third, a 1 Accounts in B. R.White, The English Separatist Tradition (London, 1971) and M.Tolmie, The Triumph of the Saints (Cambridge, 1977). 2 S. R. Gardiner (ed.), Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, Camden Society,vol. xl (1886), pp. 284-5, 292; extracts in C. Burrage, Early English Dissenters,2 vols (Cambridge, 1912) [hereafter Burrage], vol. ii, pp. 314-16. 3 C[alendar of] S[tate] P[apers] D[omestic], (1634-5), p. 112: 12 June 1634. 1 eBLJ 2004,Article 2 Sarah Jones and the Jacob-Jessey Church: The Relation of a Gentlewoman ‘Cronicle of Gods remarkable judgments in that year’ [i.e. 1632].4 It will be argued here that a fourth work can also be attributed to her. The Relation of a Gentlewoman long under the persecution of the bishops adds to our sketchy knowledge of the Jacob/Lathrop/Jessey church and its members. It was printed in London in 1642 ‘at the cost of S. J. for her owne use and her private friends’ (fig. 1).5 The author had had other works confiscated, and this was a motive for publication: in ‘1640 our houses were searched, I know not for what, but little they had, but some of my writings they keep from me; wherefore lest such times may be again, I would willingly keep my poor labours from the spoil, and desire to scatter these few lines among the scattered saints in every parish’. 4 [B. Stinton], ‘A Repository of Divers Materials Relating to the English Anti-Paedobaptists. Collected from Original Papers of faithful extracts’, no. 1 (Oxford, Regent’s Park College,Angus Library), printed from the re-transcript of George Gould, in Burrage, vol. ii, pp. 292-302, and also in T[ransactions of the] B[aptist] H[istorical] S[ociety],vol. i (1908-09), pp. 205-25, from which here cited, pp. 214, 215. 5 The Relation of a Gentlewoman long under the persecution of the bishops; with some observations passed in the High Commission Court during her bondage (1642), title page: Wing J33AB: unique paper copy in the Alexander Turnbull Library,Wellington, New Zealand. I am grateful to the staff there for arranging that a microfilm copy of the work be sent to me, and for permission to lodge that filmed copy in the British Library. I have since found that a second microfilm copy is in the keeping of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. 2 eBLJ 2004,Article 2 Sarah Jones and the Jacob-Jessey Church: The Relation of a Gentlewoman It is clear that this work of ‘S.J.’was written by a woman who had appeared before High Commission later in 1632. It was compiled in November/December that year by a wife or widow, for as the author explains: ‘Thus having not time in regard of my duties of my familie, I cannot enlarge my self; for my light hath not gone out by night since the 29 November 1632 to the third of December following, for I could not spend much time of the day’, and she confirms that ‘since the 29 of November 1632, then in three dayes after I writ most of these things’.6 The book opens with an epistle ‘To the Reader’which explains the significance of this date: Being in the Bishops court the 29 November 1632 and one of the fortie who suffered for refusing the oath ex officio, that day Dr Burgess7 was fined for not contributing toward the reparation of Pauls; there was much pleading by the prelates for the building of that great House, oft repeating, that God was a great God, and would have a great House to dwell in. Mr Rowbarie8 and Mr Simpson,9 and many other preachers being in the Court, my spirit being stirred to some of them, I spake and writ this writing, being a sufferer with the fortie; we being blamed, and counted not able (through ignorance) to defend the way we walked in, I strained my self to declare my judgement thus farre, as time would permit me. Now Henry Jessey, in his manuscript account of the history of his church, recalled that ‘about 42’ had been arrested at the end of April 1632, a figure not far from S.J.’s ‘fortie who suffered’ in November. In that year, she tells us, she had been arrested more than once: ‘carried from the High Commission to prison, with constables, and halberts, with jaylors and pursevants. 1632 being oft brought before the High Commission, sometimes to Pauls, sometimes to Lambeth’. Now the church members arrested in April did appear at the consistory of St Paul’s, and the author S.J. certainly shared their views. She desired of God that ‘the great things of his law may not be a strange thing to us; but having respect to our covenant, that are in covenant together, to walk with him in all his ways, so far as we know or shall know’. And she believed that ‘a company of faithful people covenanting together, 6 Relation,pp.55, 39, 33. 7 Almost certainly Cornelius Burgess (d. 1665), rector and lecturer at St Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge, the only doctor (DD, 1627) of the right age. He was a founding assistant at the newly re-chartered Sion House College in 1630-1 and later became its president: E. H. Pearce, Sion College and Library (Cambridge, 1913), pp. 36-7, 344. He had already clashed with the Bishop of Winchester, Richard Neale, in 1630 (J. Davies, The Caroline Captivity of the Church (Oxford, 1992), p. 148), and was cited before High Commission on 28 Jan. 1635/6 for a sermon at St Alphage, London Wall, accusing the Bishops of winking at the spread of Arminianism and popery. H. Milman (Annals of St Pauls Cathedral (London, 1868), p. 335) says fines for refusals to contribute were exacted by High Commission; no evidence has been found that Burgess was fined, but if so, he got his revenge: Parliament appointed him lecturer at St Paul’s in 1643 and he was allotted revenue from the sequestered deanery: P. Seaver, The Puritan Lectureships (Stanford, 1970), pp. 259-60, 270; A. G. Matthews, Calamy Revised (Oxford, 1988). 8 Perhaps Henry Roborough, graduate of Jesus College Cambridge. By April 1634, when lecturer and maybe curate of St Leonard’s Eastcheap, he was in trouble with High Commission for unknown offences; he was rector of the parish in 1647: J. and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses,4 vols (Cambridge, 1922-7); A. G. Matthews, Walker Revised (Oxford, 1988), p. 45; Seaver, Puritan Lectureships,pp. 256, 366; CSPD (1633-4): 24 April 1634, pp. 579, 582; CSPD (1634-5), pp. 50, 110, 117. 9 Not the famous antinomian, who was too young (b.
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