John Wilson (poet)
John Wilson (poet) was an English-born Puritan poet and pastor, born around 1588 in Windsor, England. He studied at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, earning his bachelor's and master's degrees. Initially intending to follow his father’s career as a preacher, Wilson's conversion to Puritanism led to the loss of his expected fellowship at King's College. In 1630, he immigrated to Massachusetts Bay with a group of Puritans, where he became the pastor of the First Church of Boston and played a significant role in the church-state dynamics of the colony. His involvement in the Antinomian Controversy, particularly against Anne Hutchinson's teachings, highlighted the tensions within Puritan beliefs about salvation. Wilson was also known for his literary contributions, having published a children's poem before leaving England and writing several elegies using anagrams, which were particularly innovative for their time. His works reflect his deep commitment to his faith and the theological debates of his era, although many of his poems remained unpublished.
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John Wilson (poet)
Writer
- Born: c. 1588
- Birthplace: Windsor, England
- Died: August 7, 1667
Biography
John Wilson was born in Windsor, England, sometime around 1588, the son of a canon. He studied at Eton, and then entered King’s College at Cambridge, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1610, and a master’s degree in 1613. He had intended to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a preacher in the established church. However, his conversion to Puritanism some time prior to 1610 resulted in the loss of his natural preferment, which included a lifetime fellowship at King’s College. This loss was cushioned somewhat by the intervention of influential family friends.
Wilson immigrated to the United States in 1630, part of the first group of Puritans led by John Winthrop to arrive in Massachusetts Bay. By this time he had been married to Elizabeth Mansfield for about fifteen years and had been a lecturer at Sudbury in Suffolk, England, for more than a decade. Sudbury was a Puritan stronghold and had sent more immigrants to New England than any other town or village in East Anglia.
Wilson was a devout Puritan, and for thirty-five years he was the pastor of the first organized church in Boston, later known as the First Church of Boston. He was committed to the church- state of Massachusetts Bay, where law and religion were one and the same. Between 1636 and 1638, Wilson was involved in what was called the Antinomian Controversy in the church. Puritanism embraced the concept of predestination, believing an individual was either saved or not saved at birth and that the outward manifestations of this salvation could be seen in a person’s actions. The Antinomian Controversy evolved when a woman named Anne Hutchinson and her followers argued that an individual would only know they were saved if they had a personal experience with God and that outward actions accounted for little. Such beliefs were in direct opposition to strict Puritanism. The controversy raged for two years and ended with Wilson excommunicating Hutchinson from the church.
During this time, Wilson was chosen as chaplain for an expedition to Connecticut to subdue the Pequot Indians. As a result of this service, he was given a small land grant. He was also associated with the Reverend John Eliot, who converted the local Indians to Christianity. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Wilson played an active role in the punishment and hanging of defiant Quakers.
In 1626, prior to leaving for America, Wilson published a poem for children, A Song: Or, Story, for the Lasting Remembrance of Divers Famous Works, Which God Hath Done in Our Time. . . (also known as A Song of Deliverance for the Lasting Remembrance of Gods Wonderful Works, Never to Be Forgotten. . . . After his arrival in Massachusetts, he wrote a number of other poems, most of which were never published. He was best known for his ability to use anagrams based on a person’s name to write funeral elegies. In particular, he composed a series of elegies in English and Latin for Puritan clergymen Thomas Shepard and John Norton. His anagrammatic elegy for the mother of poet Benjamin Thomson was notable for its use of a woman’s voice.