Blackwell Reference Online

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A manual labourer and autodidact turned preacher, polemicist, and sectary, Lawrence (or Laurence) Clarkson (c.1615–67) was the author of nine different printed works issued at London between 1646 and 1660. Born by his account at Preston, Lancashire, he may have been apprenticed and was later described as a tailor. Though his parents conformed to the Church of England's teachings, Clarkson claimed to have dissented by refusing to receive communion kneeling at a railed altar. Instead he took it sitting, administered by sympathetic preachers in the countryside. His youth, moreover, was marked by puritanical devotions: long walks to hear godly ministers, keeping the Sabbath, fasting, private prayer, and memorizing the Authorized (or King James) Version of the Bible. He took the Protestation Oath at Preston in January 1642, but with the outbreak of Civil War went to London. Much of our knowledge of his life comes from his well-known spiritual autobiography The lost sheep found (1660), a colourful, self-serving and indeed problematic text that should not be taken at face value. Evoking the wanderings of the children of Israel during their journey from Egypt to the promised land of Canaan and written after he had become a Muggletonian, it uses the seven churches of Revelation 2–3 as a type, recounting Clarkson's progress through seven forms of church fellowship: Episcopalian, Presbyterian, ... log in or subscribe to read full text