Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Yates, John
YATES, JOHN (fl. 1612–1660), puritan divine, was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.D. As early as 1612 he was curate or parish chaplain of St. Andrew's, Norwich. In 1622 he published ‘A Modell of Divinitie, catechistically composed, wherein is delivered the Matter and Methode of Religion according to the Creed, Ten Commandments, Lord's Prayer, and the Sacraments,’ London, 4to, dedicated to the mayor, officers, and citizens of Norwich. In the same year he was presented by Sir Nathaniel Bacon to the rectories of St. Mary with St. John Stiffkey in Norfolk. In 1624 Yates and Samuel Ward (1577–1640) [q. v.] complained to a committee of the House of Commons of the Arminian and popish opinions expressed by Richard Montagu [q. v.] in ‘A New Gagg for an Old Goose’ (1624). As the session was drawing to a close, the commons referred the complaint to George Abbot [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury. Montagu himself referred the matter to the king in his treatise ‘Appello Cæsarem’ (1625), which was censured by the commons. In 1658 Yates was succeeded at St. Mary Stiffkey by William Mitchel. His son, John Yates, M.D. (d. August 1659), is buried on the north side of St. Nicholas Church, Yarmouth.
Yates assisted to edit a number of the treatises of Jeremiah Burroughs [q. v.] between 1648 and 1660. He was one of those who brought out William Bridge's works between 1649 and 1657. George Walker (1581?–1651) [q. v.] classed him with Hooker and others as ‘men of good note in our church’ (A True Relation, 1642, p. 6).
To a contemporary John Yates are to be attributed two theological works entitled ‘A Treatise of the Honor of Gods House’ (London, 1637, 4to), and ‘Imago Mundi et Regnum Christi’ (London, 1640, 4to).
[Yates's Works; Blomefield's Norfolk, iii. 364, 572, iv. 301, ix. 253, 254, xi. 394; Heylyn's Cyprianus Anglicus, 1671, pp. 120, 121; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 424.]