John Paget (1574 18 August 1638) was an English nonconforming clergyman, who became pastor at the English Reformed Church, Amsterdam. He was a steadfast defender of Presbyterianism and orthodox Calvinism in numerous controversies with English exiles in the Dutch Republic.

Origins John Paget seems to have been descended from the Paget family of Rothley, which is on the edge of Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire.Hall, p. 295. He and Thomas Paget, his younger brother and fellow Puritan minister, were possibly born there or elsewhere in the county. His nephew and adopted son, Robert Paget, described himself as, Licestrensis, "a Leicestershire man",Peacock, p. 75. on registration at Leiden University in 1628, suggesting that John and Thomas Paget had at least one brother who continued to live in the county. The vicar of Rothley in 1564 was Harold PagetBooker, p.66. and the family's connection with the village was long-lasting: a memorial window to family members was dedicated in the parish church in 1897.

Education John Paget entered Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizar, a scholar receiving some support, probably in 1592, suggesting a birth date around 1574. He graduated B.A. in 1595, and proceeded M.A. in 1598.

Early career Rector of Nantwich

Paget related in An Answer to the Unjust Complaints, a polemical work, that his "ardent affection" or inner compulsion to preach manifested itself at an early age. By 1598, the year of his MA, he had already been appointed rector of Nantwich in Cheshire. James Hall, a distinguished Victorian historian of the town, implies Paget first appeared in the town as a preacher under the previous incumbent, William Holford.Hall, p. 294. In 1601 he had his first book published in London: A Primer of Christian Religion, or a forme of Catechising, drawne from the beholding of Gods works. In 1602 he married Briget or Bridget the daughter of Richard Masterson and widow of George or John Thrushe.

Paget's Puritan principles must have been well-established by this time. The Puritan perspective was put forward to James I soon after his succession in the Millenary Petition, which prompted him to set up the Hampton Court Conference of 1604. The response of Richard Bancroft, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, was a book of canons, later rejected by Parliament, which demanded conformity to the disciplines, not just the teachings, of the Church of England. Twelve Cheshire clergy refused to subscribe to the canons and some were imprisoned or fled to the Dutch Republic.Urwick, p. viii. Paget's nonconformity forced him to leave Nantwich. In 1605 he went to the Netherlands.

Military chaplain Paget's migration from England took him into a war zone, as the Dutch were in the midst of the Eighty Years' War to secure their independence from Spain. It also took him into Dutch employment, although initially under English direction. For two years Paget was chaplain to the English troops fighting under Sir John Ogle and Sir Horace Vere. Ogle commanded one of four unitsMarkham, p.364 and was second-in-command of the whole force, while Vere commanded another and had overall leadership of the English contingents, which since 1598 had been paid by the Dutch and formed part of the Dutch army. 1605 saw the English troops fighting well outside the Netherlands, alongside a Scottish force as well as Dutch troops, at Mülheim an der Ruhr, where they saved the day and suffered heavy casualties.Markham, p.376-7 Paget must have had a strenuous period of pastoral work and preaching in such difficult circumstances.

Pastor of the English Reformed Church Appointment and its background

Paget's work clearly attracted favourable attention, as in 1607 the Presbytery of Amsterdam appointed him minister of the newly founded English Reformed Church in the city. The church building had belonged to the semi-monastic Beguines: the square in which it stands is still called the BegijnhofSteven, p. 272. The Beguine's chapel had been rebuilt in the 1490s after a fire and had lain disused since they had been expropriated by the city authorities in 1578. After receiving the call from the presbytery Paget preached an inaugural sermon on 5 February on the text : "Make thou unto me a cleane heart O Lord" in the Bishops' Bible. In the later King James Version it runs: "Create in me a clean heart, O God," words that were later inscribed on the wall of the sanctuary. On 29 April he was formally admitted to office. The ceremony was performed by John Douglas, chaplain to the Scottish force stationed at Utrecht,Steven, p. 273. which had fought alongside the English contingents at Mülheim.

Paget's church was entirely separate from the fissile and quarrelsome English Calvinist community that had existed in Amsterdam for some years, which was BarrowistBurrage, volume 1, p. 155-61. or BrownistSteven, p. 269-70. in orientation: committed to separation from the Church of England. From about 1600 its pastor was Francis Johnson, whose assistant was Henry Ainsworth. Paget was from the outset concerned to distinguish his congregation from these as the "English Orthodoxicall church." On the other hand, he rejected any use of the Book of Common Prayer and Anglican ritual. He was committed to the Amsterdam classis and the Presbyterian polity for which it stood. The church was English in language rather than ethnicity: an English-language branch of the Dutch Reformed Church, with affinities to the Church of Scotland, although it was not formally affiliated to it until the following century.

Prosperity

Paget seems to have prospered in his new post. His stipend from the Dutch church was a substantial 150 florins. His wife Briget certainly joined him in Amsterdam, if she had not before, and they owned at least two houses: this is known because Briget's sale of them was recorded in 1647, almost a decade after Paget's death.

The Pagets built up sufficient wealth to buy shares in the Dutch West India Company. This was launched with the authorization of the States General of the Netherlands in 1621, in response to the ending of the Twelve Years' Truce (1609–21) between the Dutch Republic and Spain. The new turn in foreign policy was the work of a coalition of powerful Amsterdam merchants, the Counter-remonstrants or extreme Calvinists and Maurice, Prince of Orange which had overthrown the architect of the truce, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt.Boxer, p. 27-8. The Pagets' investment represented a political and religious as well as financial commitment. The West India Company was intended from the outset to strike at the economic power of Catholic Spain and Portugal.Boxer, p. 54. However, its military commitments made it less profitable than its revenues from plantation slavery and sugar seemed to promise. There was the bonanza of a 75% dividend for the year 1629–30, following the capture of the Mexican silver fleet. This must have been a boon to the Pagets, as it was in 1631Booker, p.67. that they faced the arrival of Thomas Paget, former incumbent of Blackley Chapel, and his family as refugees from England. However, it was more or less the end of profitability and the fortunes of the Company were dogged by internal divisions between different religious and regional factions during the 1630s.

Controversies and conflicts Paget was very careful to keep his congregation distinct from other English-speaking congregations, both in Amsterdam and in the Netherlands more generally. Within a year of his taking up his post, possibly earlier, there was an English Baptist group, centred on John Smyth, in Amsterdam alongside his own and Johnson's congregations.Burrage, volume 1, p. 32. Paget's aloofness can only have been reinforced by the internal divisions and the later confusions as the remnants of this group fused with the Dutch Mennonites known as Waterlanders after Smyth's death.These problems are documented in Burrage, volume 2, p. 177-259. He resolutely opposed what he regarded as schismatics of every kind. This included the more radical Calvinists. Key issues included formal prayer and an ordained ministry, which were rejected by Henry Ainsworth, Thomas Baker and other Brownist-influenced leaders, as Paget noted in his 1618 riposte, An Arrow Against the Separation of the Brownistes, the occasion for which he claimed was:

a certaine mayde who pretendeth that she is troubled to ioyne with our Church because of the use of the Lords prayer among us; because of my calling unto this Church, whereof I am a Minister, which calling he (Baker) tells her is unlawfull; & because there is no difference betwixt us and the Church of England...An Arrow Against the Separation of the Brownistes, p. 1b. Note that this part of the publication has numbered leaves, not pages: this is on the second page of the first leaf.

Paget dealt with issue of formal prayer, specifically the Lord's Prayer, in Chapter 2 of the Arrow, rebutting what he regarded as Ainsworth's misconceptions about practice in the Presbyterian church. However, his key argument was that such an issue was adiaphorous, or at least no grounds for separation and withdrawal of communion:

that the saying of this prayer by rote even in the worst sense without feeling and understanding could be no warrant for the people to separate from us, though it should be our sin so to use it.An Arrow Against the Separation of the Brownistes, p. 67.

Ainsworth and Baker were proponents of a Congregationalist polity that Paget firmly rejected in favour of the Presbyterian polity existing in the Netherlands and Scotland. They had broken with Johnson over Ainsworth's contention that authority rested in the whole congregation, not just the elders,Steven, p. 270. as well as separating themselves from Paget's congregation and from the Church of England. Paget was vituperative in his assault on separatism, taking Ainsworth to task for his allegedly patchy record.

Let it be well observed that you are thus noted to have turned your coate & changed your religion five severall times, namely, first being of our religion and a member of the church of England you forsook that Church and separated: Secondly that being separated, you did againe in London being in the hãds of authoritie yeeld to joyne with the worship and ministery of the Church of England: Thirdly, that after this you did againe slide back vnto the separation and renounce the Church of England: Fourthly, that after this when you were in Ireland and in some danger of punishment for your scandal, you did againe returne vnto the communion renounced by you, whether fainedly or vnfainedly, I leave vnto your self to consider: Fiftly, after this you change your profession againe and fall back vnto separation, and stick now presently in this Schisme: and thus whiles by this often revolting you dishonour and disable your self and your ministery...An Arrow Against the Separation of the Brownistes, p. 91-2.

In 1621 John Forbes, the Scottish pastor at Delft, obtained permission from the Dutch authorities to set up an English classis or presbytery for the Netherlands.Burrage, volume 2, p. 270. Paget opposed the establishment of the classis and refused to have anything to do with it. He obtained the backing of the Amsterdam Dutch Reformed classis and of the North Holland synod for his stance – support which the Dutch institutions maintained despite direct personal approaches from Forbes and his circle. The first reason Paget gave for keeping his distance related to theological and ecclesiological differences:

the Ministers of England which come over hither are of severall & inconsistent opinions differing from one another & from all reformed churches, as expressely that some are Brownists, some Brownistically affected in particular opinions, as 1. in allowing private men to preach, 2. In denying formes of praier, 3. In admitting Brownists to their Congregations...