Life

The son of Jeremiah Whitaker

Jeremiah Whitaker

Jeremiah Whitaker was an English Puritan clergyman, and important member of the Westminster Assembly.-Life:He was born at Wakefield, Yorkshire, in 1599. After being educated at the grammar school there under the Rev. Philip Jack, he entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, as a sizar in 1615, two...

, he was born at Oakham

Oakham

-Oakham's horseshoes:Traditionally, members of royalty and peers of the realm who visited or passed through the town had to pay a forfeit in the form of a horseshoe...

, Rutland

Rutland

Rutland is a landlocked county in central England, bounded on the west and north by Leicestershire, northeast by Lincolnshire and southeast by Peterborough and Northamptonshire....

. Aged 14 he was admitted a member of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...

, where he became noted as a linguist. He took the degree of B.A. in 1642. Two years later he was admitted a Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge

Queens' College, Cambridge

Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou , and refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville...

, and in 1646 he graduated M.A. there.

In 1652 he took orders and became minister of Hornchurch

Hornchurch

Hornchurch is a large suburban town in England, and part of the London Borough of Havering. Hornchurch is in North-East London .It is located east-northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the locally important district centres identified in the London Plan. It comprises a number of shopping...

, Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

. He succeeded his father in the living of St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, in 1654. After the Restoration

English Restoration

The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...

 of 1660 he was one of the London ministers who drew up and presented to the king the memorial against the Act of Uniformity 1662

Act of Uniformity 1662

The Act of Uniformity was an Act of the Parliament of England, 13&14 Ch.2 c. 4 ,The '16 Charles II c. 2' nomenclature is reference to the statute book of the numbered year of the reign of the named King in the stated chapter...

.
After his ejectment he gathered a private congregation, which assembled in a small meeting-house in Long Walk, Bermondsey. For many years he took into his house candidates in divinity, including some from abroad. He also took part in conventicle

Conventicle

A conventicle is a small, unofficial and unofficiated meeting of laypeople, to discuss religious issues in a non-threatening, intimate manner. Philipp Jakob Spener called for such associations in his Pia Desideria, and they were the foundation of the German Evangelical Lutheran Pietist movement...

s at the house of Frances Cecil, Dowager Countess of Exeter (nee Brydges, widow of Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter

Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter

Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, KG , known as Lord Burghley from 1598 to 1605, was an English politician and soldier.-Life:...

, who died in 1663), with her chaplain Thomas Jacomb and Matthew Poole

Matthew Poole

Matthew Poole was an English Nonconformist theologian.-Life to 1662:He was born at York, the son of Francis Pole, but he spelled his name Poole, and in Latin Polus; his mother was a daughter of Alderman Toppins there. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from 1645, under John...

.

Samuel Annesley

Samuel Annesley

Samuel Annesley was a prominent Puritan and nonconformist pastor, best known for the sermons he collected as the series of Morning Exercises.-Life:...

preached his funeral sermon.

Works

He has two sermons in Samuel Annesley's Morning Exercises. In 1674 eighteen of his sermons, which had been taken in shorthand, were published by his widow, with a dedication to Elizabeth Cecil, Countess of Exeter, and a sketch of the author's character by Thomas Jacomb.