Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rogers, Daniel (1573-1652)
ROGERS, DANIEL (1573–1652), divine, eldest son of Richard Rogers (1550?–1618) [q. v.] of Wethersfield, Essex, by his first wife, was born there in 1573. Ezekiel Rogers [q. v.] was his younger brother. He proceeded to Christ's College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1595–6, and M.A. in 1599, and was fellow from 1600 to 1608. Reared in the atmosphere of puritanism, Rogers became at college a noted champion of the cause. It is related that when Archbishop Laud sent down a coryphaeus to challenge the Cambridge puritans, Rogers opposed him with such effect that the delighted undergraduates carried him out of the schools on their shoulders, while a fellow of St. John's bade him go home and hang himself, for he would never die with more honour. On leaving the university Rogers officiated as minister at Haversham, Buckinghamshire, but when Stephen Marshall [q. v.], his father's successor at Wethersfield, removed from that place to Finchingfield, Rogers returned to Wethersfield as lecturer, with Daniel Weld or Weald, another puritan, as vicar. He had several personal discussions with Laud, who paid a high tribute to his scholarship, but, after being much harassed for various acts of nonconformity, he was suspended by the archbishop in 1629. The respect of the conforming clergy in North Essex was shown by their presenting a memorial to the bishop on his behalf, but he apparently left Essex for a time. It is doubtful if he be identical with Daniel Rogers, M.A., who was presented by the parliament to the rectory of Green's Norton, Northamptonshire, on 22 July 1643, in succession to Bishop Skinner, who vacated the rectory on 16 July 1645, and seems to have been intruded into the vicarage of Wotton in the same county in 1647 (Bridges, Northamptonshire, ed. Whalley, ii. 293).
The latter part of Rogers's life was passed at Wethersfield. where he had for neighbour as vicar of Shalford his relative, Giles Firmin (1614–1697) [q. v.], a warm royalist. On the fast day proclaimed after the execution of the king, Rogers, who had preached at Wethersfield in the morning, attended Firmin's church in the afternoon, which he had only once done before. After the service he went home with Firmin and 'bemoaned the king's death' (Preface to Firmin's Weighty Questions). When the army's petition for tolerance, called 'the agreement of the people,' was sent down for the Essex ministers to sign, Rogers, on behalf of the presbyterians, drew up, and was the first to sign, the Essex 'Watchmen's Watchword,' London, 1649, protesting against the toleration of any who refused to sign the Solemn League and Covenant.
Rogers died on 16 Sept. 1652, aged 80. He was buried at Wethersfield. Rogers's first wife, Margaret Bishop, had the reputation of a shrew. His second wife, Sarah, daughter of John Edward of London, was buried at Wethersfield on 21 Dec. 1662. A daughter married the Rev. William Jenkyn, vicar of All Saints, Sudbury, Suffolk [see under Jenkyn, William]. His son by his first wife, Daniel, was minister of Haversham, Buckinghamshire, from 5 Oct. 1665 until his death, 5 June 1680; Daniel's daughter, Martha Rogers, was mother of Dr. John Jortin [q. v.]
Rogers was of a morose and sombre temperament, and his creed was severely Calvinistic. Never securely satisfied of his own salvation, he offered to 'exchange circumstances with the meanest Christian in Wethersfield who had the soundness of grace in him.' His religious views developed in him a settled gloom, and Firmin's 'Real Christian,' London, 1670, was mainly written to counteract his despondency. Rogers's stepbrother, John Ward, said of him that, although he 'had grace enough for two men, he had not enough for himself.'
Several of Rogers's works are dedicated to Robert Rich, second earl of Warwick [q. v.], and to his countess Susanna, at whose house at Leighs Priory he, like 'all the schismaticall preachers' in the county, was often welcomed. Their titles are: 1. 'David's Cost, wherein every one who is desirous to serve God aright may see what it must cost him,' enlarged from a sermon, London, 1619, 12mo. 2. 'A Practicall Catechisme,' &c.; 2nd ed. corrected and enlarged, London, 1633, 4to, published under the author's initials; 3rd ed. London, 1640, 4to ; in 1648 appeared 'Collections or Brief Notes gathered out of Mr. Daniel Rogers' Practical Catechism by R. P.' 3. 'A Treatise of the Two Sacraments of the Gospel,' &c., by D.R.; 3rd ed. London, 1635, 4to, dedicated to Lady Barrington of Hatfield Broad Oak, Essex. 4. 'Matrimoniall Honour, or the mutuall crowne and comfort of godly, loyall, and chaste marriage,' London, 1642, 4to. 5. 'Naaman the Syrian, his Disease and Cure,' London, 1642, fol.; Rogers's longest work, consisting of 898 pages folio.
[Firmin's Weighty Questions Discussed, and his Real Christian; Chester's John Rogers, p. 243; Brook's Lives of the Puritans, ii. 231, iii. 149; Crosby's Hist. of Baptists, i. 167; Davids's Hist, of Evangel. Nonconf. in Essex, p. 147; Life and Death of John Angier, p. 67; Prynne's Canterburies Doom, 1646, p. 373; Fuller's Hist, of the Univ. Cambr. ed. Prickett and Wright, p. 184; Masson's Life of Milton, ed. 1881, i. 402; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1629-31, p. 391; Division of the County of Essex into Classes, 1648; Essex Watchmen's Watchword, 1649; Baker's Hist, of Northamptonshire, ii. 63; Lipscomb's Hist, of Buckinghamshire; Ranew's Catalogue, 1680: Harl. MS. 6071, f. 482; information kindly supplied by the master of Christ's College, Cambridge; Registers at Wethersfield, which only begin 1648, and are dilapidated.]