# John Shower > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/John_Shower > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/John_Shower.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shower > Source revision: 1326061985 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|English nonconformist minister}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}} '''John Shower''' (1657–1715) was a prominent English [nonconformist](/source/Nonconformist_(Protestantism)) minister. ==Life== The elder brother of [Sir Bartholomew Shower](/source/Sir_Bartholomew_Shower), he was born at [Exeter](/source/Exeter), and baptised on 18 May 1657. His father, William, a wealthy merchant, died about 1661, leaving a widow (Dorcas, daughter of John Anthony) and four sons. Shower was educated in turn at Exeter, and at [Taunton](/source/Taunton) under [Matthew Warren](/source/Matthew_Warren).{{DNB Cite|wstitle=Warren, Matthew}} His mother moved with him to London, and he was taught by [Edward Veal](/source/Edward_Veal){{DNB Cite|wstitle=Veel, Edward}} and at the [Newington Green](/source/Newington_Green) academy by [Charles Morton](/source/Charles_Morton_(educator)).{{DNB Cite|wstitle=Morton, Charles (1627-1698)}} In 1677, before he was twenty, he began to preach, on the advice of Morton and [Thomas Manton](/source/Thomas_Manton_(minister)) Next year, in the period of the [Popish Plot](/source/Popish_Plot), a merchant's lecture was begun in the large room of a coffee-house in [Exchange Alley](/source/Exchange_Alley). Four young preachers were chosen as evening lecturers, among them being Shower (with [Theophilus Dorrington](/source/Theophilus_Dorrington), Thomas Goodwin the younger and James Lambert).''[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography](/source/Oxford_Dictionary_of_National_Biography)'', article on Dorrington. Shower was ordained on 24 December 1679 by five ejected ministers, headed by [Richard Adams](/source/Richard_Adams_(religious_writer)). He at once became (still retaining his lectureship) assistant to [Vincent Alsop](/source/Vincent_Alsop) in Tothill Street, Westminster, and held this post till 1683, when [Sir Samuel Barnardiston](/source/Sir_Samuel_Barnardiston%2C_1st_Baronet) sent him abroad with two other young ministers as companions of his nephew, [Samuel Barnardiston](/source/Sir_Samuel_Barnardiston%2C_2nd_Baronet). They made the [Grand Tour](/source/Grand_Tour), visiting France, Switzerland, Italy, and the Rhine. At Amsterdam, in July 1684, they parted. Shower remained in Holland till 1686. Returning to London, he resumed his lecture at Exchange Alley, but the pressure to which nonconformists were then subjected led him to return to Holland in the same year. He joined [John Howe](/source/John_Howe_(Puritan)) at [Utrecht](/source/Utrecht_(city)). At the end of 1687 he became evening lecturer in the English presbyterian church at [Rotterdam](/source/Rotterdam), of which [Joseph Hill](/source/Joseph_Hill_(lexicographer)) was one of the pastors. He returned to London on receiving a call (19 January 1691) to succeed [Daniel Williams](/source/Daniel_Williams_(theologian)) as assistant to Howe at Silver Street. Here he was popular, and soon received a call to the pastorate of the presbyterian congregation at Curriers' Hall, [London Wall](/source/London_Wall), which he accepted on 8 May 1691. In this charge he remained till death, having been ‘married’ to his flock by [Matthew Mead](/source/Matthew_Mead_(minister)), as [Edmund Calamy](/source/Edmund_Calamy_(historian)) puts it. Twice he moved the congregation to larger meeting-houses, in Jewin Street (1692) and [Old Jewry](/source/Old_Jewry_meeting-house) (1701), having successively as assistants [Timothy Rogers](/source/Timothy_Rogers) (1658–1728) and Joseph Bennet. Shower was a member of a club of ministers which, for some years from 1692, held weekly meetings at the house of Dr. Upton in Warwick Lane, Calamy being the leading spirit. He succeeded (1697) [Samuel Annesley](/source/Samuel_Annesley) as one of the Tuesday lecturers at Salters' Hall. A fever, in May 1706, left his health permanently impaired. [John Fox](/source/John_Fox_(biographer)), who visited him in 1712, was impressed by his ‘state and pride.’ On 14 September 1713 he had a paralytic stroke at [Epping](/source/Epping%2C_Essex). He was able to preach again, but retired from active duty on 27 March 1715. He died at [Stoke Newington](/source/Stoke_Newington) on 28 June 1715, and was buried at [Highgate](/source/Highgate). His [funeral sermon](/source/funeral_sermon) was preached on 10 July by [William Tong](/source/William_Tong_(minister)). ==Works== He published twenty-one single sermons, including funeral sermons for Anne Barnardiston (1682), Richard Walter (1692), Queen Mary (1695), Nathaniel Oldfield (1696), Jane Papillon (1698), Nathaniel Taylor (1702), [Nehemiah Grew](/source/Nehemiah_Grew), and an exhortation at the ordination of [Thomas Bradbury](/source/Thomas_Bradbury_(minister)); also * ‘A Sermon Occasion'd by the Late Repentance and Funeral of a Young Man,’ 1681. 6th ed. printed for Sprint & Nicholson in Little Britain, 1707. * ‘Practical Reflections on the late Earthquakes in Jamaica,’ 1693. * ‘The Day of Grace … Four Sermons,’ 1694. * ‘Family Religion, in Three Letters,’ 1694. * ‘Some Account of the … Life … of Mr. Henry Gearing,’ 1694. * ‘The Mourner's Companion,’ 1699 (2 parts). * ‘God's Thoughts and Ways,’ 1699. * ‘Heaven and Hell,’ 1700. * ‘Sacramental Discourses,’ 1702 (2 parts). * ‘Serious Reflections on Time and Eternity,’ 5th ed. 1707. ==Family== He married, first, on 24 September 1687, at Utrecht, Elizabeth Falkener (died 1691), niece of [Thomas Papillon](/source/Thomas_Papillon); secondly, on 29 December 1692, Constance White (died 18 July 1701), by whom three children survived him. ==Notes== {{Reflist}} ==References== *{{DNB|wstitle=Shower, John}} ==External links== * {{Librivox author |id=19423}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Shower, John}} Category:1657 births Category:1715 deaths Category:17th-century English Presbyterian ministers Category:18th-century English Presbyterian ministers --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [John Shower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shower) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shower?action=history)). 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