Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dyke, Daniel (d.1614)
DYKE, DANIEL, B.D. (d. 1614), puritan divine, was born at Hempstead, Essex, where his father, who had been silenced for nonconformity, was a minister. He received his education at Cambridge, proceeded B.A. at St. John's College in 1595–6, and M.A. at Sidney Sussex College in 1599; became fellow of the latter house in 1606, when or soon after he proceeded B.D., and became minister of Coggeshall, Essex. On the publication of Whitgift's articles in 1583 he was suspended for nonconformity by the Bishop of London (Aylmer), and directed to leave the county. He accordingly removed to St. Albans, where he became a preacher, and it is recorded that his ministry was ‘particularly acceptable and profitable.’ Dyke strove to effect a more thorough reformation in the church, and combined with others for that purpose. This, with the fact that he had neglected to take priest's orders, and refused to wear the surplice (counting them remnants of popery), and was accused of teaching doctrines contrary to the tenets of the church, caused Aylmer to suspend him, and in default of submission to deprive him of his preferment. The parishioners petitioned Lord-treasurer Burghley, who is said to have frequently befriended Dyke, to intercede with Aylmer for his restoration, which was done; but the bishop declined, as charges of incontinency had also been made against Dyke. This led to his character being investigated, and he was tried for the alleged offence at the St. Albans sessions, when the woman who had accused him confessed her fraud and publicly implored his forgiveness. Burghley again interceded on his behalf, but Aylmer still refused to restore him, as he considered the parish sufficiently served and Dyke would not take priest's orders. He died in 1614; the place of his burial is uncertain. Brook (Lives of the Puritans, ii. 235) says he ‘was a man of unblemished character, a divine of great learning and piety, and a preacher of sound heart-searching doctrine;’ Bishop Wilkins classes his sermons among the most excellent in his day, and of his ‘Mystery of Self-deceiving’ Fuller says that ‘it is a book that will be owned for a truth while men have any badness in them, and will be owned as a treasure while they have any goodness in them.’ His name or that of his brother, Jeremiah Dyke [q. v.], is among those of the ministers who subscribed the ‘Book of Discipline’ (Brook).
Dyke wrote: 1. ‘The Mystery of Self-deceiving,’ 1615. 2. ‘Certaine comfortable Sermons vpon the 124 Psalme,’ 1616. 3. ‘Six Evangelical Histories: of Water turned into Wine, of the Temple's Purgation, of Christ and Nicodemus, of John's last Testimony, of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, of the Ruler's Son's Healing,’ 1617. 4. ‘Exposition upon Philemon and the School of Affliction,’ 1618. 5. ‘Two Treatises: The one, of Repentance; the other, of Christ's Temptations.’ His works were collected and published by his brother in two volumes in 1635.
[Fuller's Worthies, i. 437 (ed. 1811); Baker's MS. Collect. xv. 79; Manuscript Register, p. 385; Strype's Life of Aylmer, p. 104 (ed. 1824); Neal's Hist. of the Puritans; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 788; Williams's Christian Preacher, p. 453; Brook's Puritans, ii. 235; Carter's Hist. of Cambridge, p. 376; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xii. 127, 176, 3rd ser. ix. 534.]