John James
John James was a New England Congregational preacher, likely born in 1633 or 1634, who immigrated to America around 1657. He became the chief pastor in Derby, Connecticut, in 1658, during a time marked by civil war and religious conflict in England. His journey to the New World reflects a response to the tumultuous issues of his homeland, although no writings from James reveal his views on these matters. Renowned for his eloquence, he was a passionate preacher, yet he led a reclusive life, avoiding public office and maintaining a solitary existence without records of marriage. His ministry included stints in Brookfield, Massachusetts, and Wethersfield, Connecticut, where he served until his death in 1729. Unlike many contemporaneous ministers, James produced limited written work, with a notable focus on poetry rather than sermons. His literary legacy is often highlighted by a ten-line elegy celebrating the life of the English preacher John Bunyan, illustrating his deep engagement with themes of salvation and transformation through the metaphor of alchemy. James's unique life and work provide a fascinating glimpse into the spiritual landscape of early American religious life.
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John James
Poet
- Born: c. 1633
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: 1729
Biography
Little is known about the early life of the New England Congregational preacher John James, part of the second wave of English settlers into the Connecticut wilderness. Records indicate he was most likely born in either 1633 or 1634 and that he immigrated to the New World sometime around 1657, as church records indicate that in1658 he assumed responsibilities as chief pastor in Derby, Connecticut, a fledgling inland settlement along the Housatonic River. James lived during a tempestuous era of civil war and religious strife in England, and his flight to the American wilderness would indicate something of his reaction to the holy wars and cultural tensions of his native country. However, no extant writing of James has survived that would suggest his opinions on the political turmoil of his day nor explain his rationale for coming to the New World.
Among the New England clerics, James was reputedly an articulate and often passionate preacher, much admired for his eloquence. Yet he stayed a fiercely private individual, never seeking community office or wider influence than his pulpit. There are no records indicating that James ever married. His solitary life, indeed his intense devotion to the religious life and the secluded outposts where he practiced his Christian calling, helped shaped a body of work that broods on the event of death. Indeed, he is described in the few surviving accounts as being eccentric, lacking the engaging people skills of other wilderness ministers. His appointment at Derby led to a similar posting in Brookfield, Massachusetts, and he ultimately returned to Connecticut in 1693 to help stabilize the religious community at Wethersfield, which had been shaken by the experience of witch trials. James remained there until his death in 1729, when he was in his nineties.
In his long life, James devoted himself to the duties of his religious calling in a most inhospitable wilderness and expressed himself in print only in a slender body of poetry. He never sought the public attention of publication; a broadside, On the Death of the Very Learned, Pious, and Excelling Gershom Bulkley, Esq., M.D., was his only work to be published in his lifetime. The remainder of his work was discovered by archivists after his death, written in longhand in James’s notebooks and published posthumously. Unlike other preachers of his generation who published copious sermons and exegeses on the spiritual temperament and the implications of Christian doctrine, James confined his religious reflections to presentations in church.
His literary reputation, however, rests on verse he wrote only infrequently, occasioned by the passing of either public figures or members of his congregation. Indeed, his most compelling legacy is often cited as a single ten-line elegy, Of John Bunyans Life and Etcetera. James wrote this poem upon learning in late 1688 of the death of the controversial English preacher John Bunyan, whose The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) influenced James’s generation as a powerful allegory for the difficult struggle for Christians to maintain appropriate perspectives in a dark world fraught with persuasive temptations. James’s poem draws its defining conceit from the medieval practice of alchemy and argues that God’s powerful grace converted the cheap “brass” of Bunyan’s unpromising existence into the radiant gold of the elect. Using the transformative metaphors implicit in both alchemy and metallurgy, James creates a vivid celebration of Bunyan’s salvation into the Christian afterlife.