John Knowles

John Knowles (fl. 1646–1668) was an English antitrinitarian preacher, imprisoned in 1665. Life Probably a native of Gloucester, he first appears as a lay preacher among the Independents there; in 1648 he described himself as a preacher of the gospel, formerly in and near Gloucester. He was acquainted with the Greek text of the New Testament and with Latin commentators, and his antitrinitarian sentiments were the result of his own scriptural studies. He mentioned meeting John Biddle, who left Gloucester in 1646, but he did not adopt Biddle's specific opinions, his doctrine being of the Arian, not the Socinian type. He expressly states in 1668 that he had not read any of the writings of F. P. Socinus. By the parliamentary committee at Gloucester he was examined (1646?) on suspicion of unsoundness in the article of the Trinity, and gave a written statement in which he owns to having ‘had some questionings,’ but gives his reasons for being now satisfied of ‘the Godhead of the Holy Ghost.’ He seems to have left Gloucester for London, where he lodged with Edward Atkinson, an antitrinitarian, in Aldersgate Street. Joining the parliamentary army, he belonged in 1648, according to his own account, to the lifeguard of Sir Thomas Fairfax. He still continued to preach, publishing a defence of ‘a private man's preaching.’ Early in 1650 he became public preacher to the garrison at Chester, in succession to Samuel Eaton. The biographer of John Murcot, writing in 1657, speaks of Knowles as having been ‘a formidable and blazing comet at Chester,’ where ‘in public sermons, private conferences, and by a manuscript’ he ‘denied Jesus Christ to be the Most High God.’ A short paper of arguments for the deity of Christ, sent by Eaton to Chester from Dukinfield, was published by Knowles in 1650, with his own reply. The pamphlet purports to have been ‘printed by T. N.’ for Gyles Calvert, the publisher of unorthodox theology; and in July 1650 John Whittell, girdler, of Milk Street, London, was brought before the council of state on the charge of having caused it to be printed. Replies were published by Eaton (1650 and 1651), and by Thomas Porter of Whitchurch, Shropshire (1651).