John White (of Dorchester)
1575–1648
"Patriarch of Dorchester"; New England Company organiser and senior moderator.
Biography
Rector of Holy Trinity, Dorchester for over forty years, where his catechetical and disciplinary regime made the town a Puritan model and seeded the Massachusetts Bay migration through the Dorchester Company. At Westminster, the elderly White served as Second Assessor and was widely respected as a non-partisan elder. He died in July 1648 before the Assembly's later petering-out under the Independent ascendancy.
Principal works
- The Way to the Tree of Life (1647)
- A Commentary upon the Three First Chapters of Genesis (1656)
Assessor to the Prolocutor
The two assessors were senior divines appointed to assist the Prolocutor and to take the chair in his absence — which, given William Twisse's infirmity, meant they did much of the real work of presiding. Cornelius Burgess and John White were the original assessors.