Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, Edward (1605-1685)
LANE, EDWARD (1605–1685), theological writer, born in 1605, was elected a scholar at St. Paul’s School, where he was among the pupils of Alexander Gill the elder [q. v.], and was admitted on 4 July 1622 at St. John's College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. 1625–6, M.A. 1629. In 1631 he was presented (admitted 24 March) to the vicarage of North Shoebury, Essex, by the crown, through the lord keeper, Thomas Coventry [q. v.]; he resigned on 28 Jan. 1636, being presented by the same patron to the vicarage of Sparsholt, Hampshire. He was also rector of Lainston, Hampshire, a parish adjoining, probably from 1637. On 9 July 1639 he was incorporated M.A. at Oxford. In 1644, being a ‘time of warre,’ Lane was absent from Sparsholt. He was recommended by the assembly of divines to fill the sequestrated benefice of Sholden, Kent, 27 Feb. 1644–5 (Addit. MS. 15669, p. 39b). His incumbency at Sparsholt lasted fifty years. He collected, and transcribed the registers from 1607, and seems to have been an exemplary parish clergyman. He died on 2 Sept. 1685 in his eighty-first year, and was buried on 4 Sept. in the chancel of Sparsholt Church. His wife Mary was buried on 27 Oct. 1669. His children, none of whom survived him, included Edward, buried 17 May 1660, who had been in Ireland, and Henry, baptised 11 April 1639, probationer scholar of New College, Oxford, buried 6 Oct. 1659.
He published:
- ‘Look unto Jesus,’ &c., 1663, 4to (British Museum copy has author's corrections, and a manuscript presentation, with pretty verses, to Anne and Catherine Chettle).
- ‘Mercy Triumphant,’ &c. 1680, 4to (against Lewis du Moulin [q. v.], who held that ‘probably not one in a million’ of the human race would be saved); 2nd edition, with title ‘Du Moulin’s Reflections Reverberated,’ &c., 1681, 8vo, has appended ‘Answer’ to the ‘Naked Truth. The Second Part Part,’ by Edmund Hickeringill [q. v.] (Wood). Bound with the British Museum copy (696, f. 13) of No. 1 is a autograph manuscript, pp. 229, ready for press, and included in the gift to the Misses Chettle, its title being ‘A Taste of the Euerlasting ffeast … in Heauen At the Marriage-Supper of the Lambe … by E.L.,’ &c.
From 1638 to 1641 he wrote his surname ‘LLane.’ Lane left in manuscript a ‘Discourse of the Waters of Noah,’ in reply to Thomas Burnett’s Theory of the Earth’ (Notes and Queries, 5th ser. x. 181, 273). ‘An Image of our Reforming Times,’ &c., 1654, 4to, is by Colonel Edward Lane, ‘of Ham-pinnulo,’ a Fifth monarchy man.
[Wood’s Fasti (Bliss), i. 510 sq., ii. 127; Gardiner’s Register of St. Paul’s School, 1884. p. 34; information from the Rev. Evelyn D. Heathcote, vicar of Sparsholt.]