John Stoughton (1593?–1639) was an English clergyman, of influential millennial views. He was the stepfather and preceptor in their youth of Ralph Cudworth and James Cudworth.
Origin and religious background
Thomas Stoughton, father of John
John Stoughton, baptized at Naughton, Suffolk in 1593, was one of the three sons of the clergyman Thomas Stoughton (died 1622), and his wife, Katherine. Thomas Stoughton, the father, was born an only child in Sandwich, Kent. The University career suggested for him in the Alumni Cantabrigienses is shown by a detailed study to be a confusion with another person. He became Rector of Naughton from 1586 to 1594, when he was deprived by Archbishop Whitgift. During this time his first children, including John and Thomas, were born.
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). He served as assistant minister at Great Burstead, Essex before being presented by Baron Rich of Leez to the Vicarage of Coggeshall, Essex in 1600. By 1603, when his wife Katherine died, she had borne him twelve children, of whom a further son Israel and four daughters also reached adulthood. 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, and held it for two years. After some time at Great Totham Stoughton returned to Kent (by 1615) and died there in 1622.
Works
Thomas Stoughton published four principal works:
A Generall Treatise against Poperie (1598) The Dignitie of God's Children (1610) Two profitable treatises (1616) The Christians sacrifice (1622)
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. The Two Profitable Treatises were dedicated to the Mayor and Jurats of Sandwich, were published in London in 1616, and were dated by Stoughton from St Bartholomew's Hospital in Sandwich. The Christians Sacrifice (dedicated to Robert (2nd) Earl of Warwick, and Baron of Leez, and to his son Robert, Lord Rich) contains "The Authors Postscript to his children as it were his last will and testament unto them", dated 22 August 1622. He states he has lived to twice his father's age, and twelve years more. Having seven children then living, he declares he has nothing to leave them but his precepts. "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."
Life
University
John Stoughton reached university age while his father was still in East Anglia, and entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1607, where he was tutored by William Sancroft the elder, uncle of Archbishop Sancroft. Graduating B.A. in 1611 and M.A. in 1614, he was elected a Fellow of the college in 1616. His ordination as priest is probably that recorded in December 1617, performed by Samuel Harsnett: he took the degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1621. In the following year his father died, but by this time John was well-established in his university position. In 1623, when the Master of Emmanuel, John Preston (admitted 1622), sought confirmation of a college statute concerning the requirements for his residency, John Stoughton's signature headed the list of Fellows' names who certified their formal response in two separate orders.
He was considered a preacher of unusual eloquence. Two notable sermons given by him in 1624, reflecting political circumstances of the time, concern the theme of marriage. 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. Stoughton quoted many classical and patristic sources in his exposition. 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.