ROBINSON, JOHN
(15761 Gainsborough. Lincolnshire1-1 March 1625, Leyden. Holland). Education: Probably B.A. Christi College, Cambridge, 1596. Career: Probably minister. Norwich, c. 1608; minister, Scrooby Manor, Nottinghamshire, 1608; minister, Leyden. 1609-25.
The early life of John Robinson. tutor to the Pilgrims, is cloaked in obscurity. His name has been confused with two other John Robinsons, and it is not always easy to follow the path of each. Robinson was most likely educated at Cambridge, possibly under the direction of the Puritan William Perkins. He likely preached at Norwich for a time. then lost his position due to his Puritan leanings. Thereafter his career becomes easier to follow. He served as minister to the Pilgrims at Scrooby Manor, meeting at the home of William Brewster*.
In 1608 Robinson and some of the Pilgrims moved to Holland. The next year they settled in Leyden, with William Brewster as a ruling elder and Robinson as pastor. Robinson ministered to the people and took part in the doctrinal debates then common in Holland; he was, according to William Bradford*, "terrible to the Arminians." The congregation grew to about three hundred members. In 1620 Robinson dismissed a 'portion of his congregation. allowing them to migrate to Plymouth in New England. He hoped to join them and regretted that he could not go with the first group. telling them that he was "a man divided in fi.1yself with great pain ... having my better part with you." Bradford described Robinson's farewell to his friends as the ship prepared to leave from Holland: "The tide, which stays for no man. calling them away that were thus loath to depart, their reverend pastor falling down on his knees (and they all with him) with watery cheeks commended them with most fervent prayers to the Lord and His blessing."
In certain respects John Robinson was the spiritual leader of the Pilgrims even when they were in New England, having led them for more than a decade before their departure and communicating with them once they reached the New World. His remark upon hearing from Bradford that the Puritans had killed some Indians is often quoted: "Oh, how happy a thing it had been, if you had converted some before you killed any!" Robinson further chided the Pilgrims, "It is also a thing more glorious, in men's eyes, than pleasing in God's or convenient for Christians, to be a terror to poor barbarous people."
Robinson died in 1625, some five years after the Pilgrim migration. He had hoped to join the Pilgrims, and they still thought of him as their own pastor. Hearing the news of Robinson's death, William Bradford wrote, "Mr. Robinson their pastor was dead, which struck them with much sorrow and sadness, as they had cause."
Bibliography
A: A Justification of Separation from the Church of England (Leyden. 1610); Of Religious Communion. Private and Public (Leyden. 1614); The People's Plea for the Exercise of Prophesie (Leyden. 1618); A Briefe Catechisme Concerning Church Government (Leyden, 1624); A Treatise of the Lawfulnes of Hearing of the Ministers in the Church of England (Amsterdam, 1634); Robert Ashton, ed., Works, 3 vols., (Boston, 1851).
B: DNB 17, 18-22; William Bradford, A History of Plymouth Plantation, Samuel Eliot Morison, ed. (New York, 1952).
The early life of John Robinson. tutor to the Pilgrims, is cloaked in obscurity. His name has been confused with two other John Robinsons, and it is not always easy to follow the path of each. Robinson was most likely educated at Cambridge, possibly under the direction of the Puritan William Perkins. He likely preached at Norwich for a time. then lost his position due to his Puritan leanings. Thereafter his career becomes easier to follow. He served as minister to the Pilgrims at Scrooby Manor, meeting at the home of William Brewster*.
In 1608 Robinson and some of the Pilgrims moved to Holland. The next year they settled in Leyden, with William Brewster as a ruling elder and Robinson as pastor. Robinson ministered to the people and took part in the doctrinal debates then common in Holland; he was, according to William Bradford*, "terrible to the Arminians." The congregation grew to about three hundred members. In 1620 Robinson dismissed a 'portion of his congregation. allowing them to migrate to Plymouth in New England. He hoped to join them and regretted that he could not go with the first group. telling them that he was "a man divided in fi.1yself with great pain ... having my better part with you." Bradford described Robinson's farewell to his friends as the ship prepared to leave from Holland: "The tide, which stays for no man. calling them away that were thus loath to depart, their reverend pastor falling down on his knees (and they all with him) with watery cheeks commended them with most fervent prayers to the Lord and His blessing."
In certain respects John Robinson was the spiritual leader of the Pilgrims even when they were in New England, having led them for more than a decade before their departure and communicating with them once they reached the New World. His remark upon hearing from Bradford that the Puritans had killed some Indians is often quoted: "Oh, how happy a thing it had been, if you had converted some before you killed any!" Robinson further chided the Pilgrims, "It is also a thing more glorious, in men's eyes, than pleasing in God's or convenient for Christians, to be a terror to poor barbarous people."
Robinson died in 1625, some five years after the Pilgrim migration. He had hoped to join the Pilgrims, and they still thought of him as their own pastor. Hearing the news of Robinson's death, William Bradford wrote, "Mr. Robinson their pastor was dead, which struck them with much sorrow and sadness, as they had cause."
Bibliography
A: A Justification of Separation from the Church of England (Leyden. 1610); Of Religious Communion. Private and Public (Leyden. 1614); The People's Plea for the Exercise of Prophesie (Leyden. 1618); A Briefe Catechisme Concerning Church Government (Leyden, 1624); A Treatise of the Lawfulnes of Hearing of the Ministers in the Church of England (Amsterdam, 1634); Robert Ashton, ed., Works, 3 vols., (Boston, 1851).
B: DNB 17, 18-22; William Bradford, A History of Plymouth Plantation, Samuel Eliot Morison, ed. (New York, 1952).
