William Jenkyn

William Jenkyn (1613–1685) was an English clergyman, imprisoned during the Interregnum for his part in the 'Presbyterian plot' of Christopher Love, ejected minister in 1662, and imprisoned at the end of his life for nonconformity.

Life Jenkyn was the eldest son of William Jenkyn (died 1618), vicar of All Saints', Sudbury, Suffolk, born at Sudbury and baptised at All Saints' Church in December 1613. His father, son of a gentleman of landed property at Folkestone, Kent, had been disinherited for his Puritanism. His mother was daughter of Richard Rogers of Wethersfield, Essex. On his father's death his grandfather sent for him to Folkestone; when he was nine years old his mother, who had remarried, claimed him, gave him a good education.

He attended St John's College, Cambridge, where he matriculated on 3 July 1628. He graduated B.A. 1632, migrated to Emmanuel College in 1634, and graduated M.A. 1635. Some time afterwards he began to preach. Having held a lectureship at St. Nicholas Acons, London, he was presented by the crown (27 January 1641) to the rectory of St. Leonard's (or the Hythe), Colchester.

Fear of the ague brought him back to London about 1642. On 1 February 1643 he was admitted to the vicarage of Christ Church, Newgate, which had been vacated by the death of Edward Finch. A few months later he obtained in addition a lectureship at St. Anne's, Blackfriars, of which William Gouge, was rector. His controversy (1647–8) with John Goodwin exhibits him as a strong advocate of the presbyterian discipline. Jenkyn was committed to the Tower of London, and escaped execution only by help of a very submissive petition to the government. John Arthur, D.D., rector of Clapham, Surrey, drew it up for him, and parliament ordered it to be printed (15 October 1651; on 21 July 1688 it was burned by order of the convocation of Oxford University). Jenkyn was released from prison, and his sequestration removed, He allowed Feake to retain the vicarage of Christ Church, but conducted a Sunday-morning lectureship there (at seven o'clock), and another at St. Anne's, Blackfriars. On Gouge's death he succeeded him (1654) as rector of St. Anne's, but resigned this preferment on being again presented, some time (probably 1655) after Feake's deprival, to the vicarage of Christ Church. his only son, William, was executed at Taunton, on 30 September 1685, aged about 22, for complicity in Monmouth's rebellion.

Works Jenkyn published a number of separate sermons, 1643–75, including a Latin concio ad theologos Londinensos (1659), funeral sermons for William Gouge (1654), and Lazarus Seaman (1675). Also:

The Busie Bishop, or the Visitor Visited, &c., 1648, and The Blind Guide, or Doling Doctor, &.. 1648, (these two against John Goodwin). Certain Conscientious Queries, &c., 1651, (a defence of his petition after Love's plot). An Exposition of the Epistle of Jude, &c, 1652-4, 2 vols.; reprinted 1658, fol. 1 vol.; also Glasgow, 1783, and London, 1840, 8vo, edited by James Sherman (Robert Grove, afterwards bishop of Chichester, accused him of plagiarising from Thomas Adams. Celeuma; seu Clamor ad Coelum adversus Theologos Hierarchiae Anglicanae, &c., 1679, (a vindication of the strong language used in his funeral sermon for Seaman). Refutatio eujusdem Scripti . . . Rob. Grovii, &c., 1681, fol. (defence of the foregoing from the Responsio, 1680, of Grove).

Verses by him are prefixed to the Marrow of Ecclesiastical History, 1654, by Samuel Clarke. He prefixed an epistle to Jonathan Clapham's Full Discovery ... of the Quakers, &c., 1656; and subscribed the epistle prefixed to the second edition (1676) of Quakerism no Christianity, by John Faldo.

His farewell sermons are in the Compleat Collection, &c., 1663; three of his sermons are in A Supplement to the Morning Exercise at Cripplegate, 1674–1676. He dissuaded Louis du Moulin from translating into Latin John Durel's View of the Government ... in the Reformed Churches (1662), threatening him, according to Anthony à Wood, with eternal damnation if he did it.