John Mason (poet)

John Mason (1646?–94) was a Calvinistic Anglican priest, poet and hymn-writer.

He belonged to a clerical family living in the neighbourhood of Kettering and Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. He was educated first at Strixton in Northamptonshire, and was admitted a sizar of Clare Hall, Cambridge, on 16 May 1661, graduated B.A. in 1664, and M.A. in 1668. After acting as curate at Isham in Northamptonshire, he was presented on 21 October 1668 to become vicar of the village of Stantonbury in Buckinghamshire (then virtually deserted, having no vicarage, and he may really have been chaplain to Sir John Wittewronge); he left for the rectory of Water Stratford in the same county on 28 January 1674, presented by Viscountess Baltinglass, the daughter by his first marriage of Sir Peter Temple, 2nd Baronet.

Under the influence of James Wrexham, a puritan preacher at Haversham, formerly vicar of Kimble Magna and of Woburn, Mason's thoughts turned to the prospect of the millennium, and he constantly suffered from pains in the head. He was sensitive to noise, and retired to an empty house, where even the sound of his own footsteps and his low voice when he prayed caused him pain. He was liable to vivid and terrifying dreams, and subject to visual hallucination. His wife died in February 1687; in 1690 he preached a sermon on the parable of the ten virgins, an attempt to interpret apocalyptic passages of scripture in the light of recent events. The sermon, repeated in other places, made some stir, and was published in the following year. About the same time he ceased to administer the sacrament in his church, and preached on no other subject than that of the personal reign of Christ on earth, which he announced as about to begin in Water Stratford. His teaching attracted some believers, to whom he expounded an extreme form of predestination doctrine. An encampment of his followers was formed on the plot of ground south of the village, called the 'Holy Ground,' where a rough life in common was lived. Noisy meetings took place in barns and cottages, and dancing and singing was kept up day and night in the parsonage.

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