Paul Hobson: ‘The Odour of Unsanctity’?

ABSTRACT In 1939, Whitley wrote a paper in the Baptist Quarterly which began ‘Paul Hobson came to the surface for a score of years, then vanished in the odour of unsanctity’. 1 This damning overview results from the fact that in 1665 two women at Devonshire Square Church, were disciplined for wanton conduct with him. Whitley also condemned Hobson for betraying his friends to save his own life. 2 In this paper, I will explore Hobson’s life history, his writings and the archival recordings about imprisonment in the Tower of London between 1663 and 1665, to shed light on his personality, spirituality and vision. The evidence shows that he was a civil war soldier who made an outstanding contribution to the early baptising congregationalist movement. His resistance to the Restoration and subsequent long imprisonment without trial, broke his health and he died soon after his release