James Cranford
d. 1657
Christ Church Newgate; anti-Independent controversialist; censor of Reformed presses.
Biography
Of Magdalen Hall Oxford, then rector of Brockhall in Northamptonshire and (from 1645) Christ Church Newgate in London. Cranford was one of the more vehement anti-Independent polemicists at the Assembly — Haereseo-Machia, or the Mischiefes which Heresies doe (1646) catalogued the dangers of toleration — and one of the editors who introduced the work of Continental Reformed authors (especially Voetius's polemics against the Remonstrants) to English readers. He served as licenser for the Sion College divines, controlling much of London's Reformed religious publishing in the late 1640s. Died in 1657, five years before the Great Ejection.
Principal works
- Haereseo-Machia (1646)
- The Teares of Ireland (1642)
English Presbyterian divine
The great majority of the sitting members were English parish ministers of Presbyterian conviction. They formed the drafting core of the Assembly, manning its three standing committees and supplying most of the text of the Confession, the two Catechisms, and the Directory for Public Worship.