John Geree

John Geree (c.1600 – February, 1649) was an English Puritan clergyman preacher, and author of several tracts engaging in theological and political issues of the day, who was silenced for nonconformism but later reinstated. His elder brother Stephen Geree (1594-1665), also a Puritan minister and author, maintained his ministry through the Commonwealth and Restoration in Surrey.

Stephen and John Geree were born in Yorkshire, and studied at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. Stephen, the elder, became a student there in 1611, aged 17, and went through the courses in Logic and Philosophy, taking B.A. in 1615. He was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Bath and Wells in March 1616, and priest by the Bishop of Llandaff in December 1623. John entered the College in 1615, aged 14, either as batler or servitor. He graduated B.A. on 27 January 1619, and took his M.A. on 12 June 1621, the same day on which John Tombes took his B.A. from the same College.

John Geree made an early appearance in print in 1625, with a dedicatory epistle to the collected lectures of William Pemble of Magdalen Hall, published after his death as Vindiciae Fidei: A Treatise of Justification by Faith. In November 1627 he was licensed as a preacher throughout the dioceses of London, Gloucester and Worcester, and as preacher and curate in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. In 1629 he published at Oxford A Catechisme concerning the Lord's Supper. For refusal to conform to ceremonies of the Church of England he was silenced by Godfrey Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester, and was reduced to living 'by the helps of his brethren.'

In 1641 he was restored to his cure by the Committee for Plundered Ministers. From this date his sermons or tracts recommence, beginning with The Down-Fall of Anti-Christ, dedicated to the Committee itself, and Judah's Joy at the Oath, a sermon celebrating the Parliamentary Covenant, but finding unsoundness in Henry Burton's interpretation of it. In the following year he preached by authority at a public fast on behalf of Ireland (a sermon printed in Dublin and London), and in 1644 published Vindiciæ Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, a treatise showing the need for reform and the ejection of scandalous ministers, but maintaining that reformed ministry need not entail separation from the Church of England. It affirmed the principle of infant baptism.

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