Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dyke, Daniel (1617-1688)
DYKE, DANIEL (1617–1688), baptist divine, son of Jeremiah Dyke, M.A. [q. v.], minister of Epping, Essex, was educated first at a private school in the country, and then sent to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he appears to have remained until he took the degree of M.A. He received episcopal ordination, but this was subsequently disputed, and on a marriage performed by him being sought to be set aside he produced his letters of ordination. He is stated (Lansd. MS. 459, fol. 109) to have been presented to Eastwick, Hertfordshire, about 1636, and to have resigned in 1658. In 1645 his great learning and brilliant oratory caused him to be appointed to the rectory of Great Hadham, Hertfordshire, a living worth 300l. per annum, by the parliament. Cussans (Hist. Hertfordshire, 'Edwinstree,' p. 186) says this was because his principles were opposed to those of his predecessor. In 1651 he was appointed by Oliver Cromwell one of his chaplains in ordinary, and in 1653 a trier for the approval of ministers, an office for which his learning, judgment, and piety rendered him well qualified, and was, with two exceptions, the only professed baptist on that commission. Although urged to conform he resigned his preferments immediately after the Restoration, asserting that however well disposed the king might be towards dissent the royalists would insist on the expulsion of the nonconformist clergy and their persecution. Calamy, however, counts him among the ejected ministers (Nonconf. Memor. ii. 304). Dyke continued to preach whenever an opportunity offered, and, although writs were frequently issued for his apprehension, was never imprisoned longer than a few hours. In February 1668, after preaching for a year on trial, he was 'set apart' as joint elder with Kiffin to the baptist congregation at Devonshire Square, London, which office he continued to hold until his death in 1688. His remains were interred in the dissenters' burial-ground in Bunhill Fields, his funeral sermon being preached by Warner. Dyke was a man of sincere piety, a grave and solid divine, and humble and unobtrusive in disposition. Crosby (Hist. Baptists, i. 359) says that 'his several sermons and made additions to the modesty was such that he could never be persuaded to publish anything under his own name;' but it is certain that the following were written wholly or in part by him:
- 'The Quakers' Appeal Answered, and a full Relation of the Occasion, Progress, and Issue of a Meeting at the Barbican between the Baptists and the Quakers,' 1674.
- 'The Baptists' Answer to Mr. Wills' Appeal,' 1675.
- 'Recommendatory Epistle before Mr. Cox's Confutation of the Errors of Thomas Collier.'
He also edited a volume of sermons by his father, Jeremiah Dyke.
[Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, ii. 304; Wilson's Hist. of Dissenting Churches, i. 433; Crosby's Hist. of the Baptists, i. 355-9; Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire (1827), iii. 165, 401; Cussans's Hist. of Hertfordshire, Hundred of Edwinstree, p. 186; Fuller's Worthies; Smith's Antiquakeristica.]