Memoires of the lives, actions, sufferings & deaths of those noble, reverend and excellent personages that suffered by death, sequestration, decimation, or otherwise, for the Protestant religion and the great principle thereof, allegiance to their soveraigne, in our late intestine wars, from the year 1637 to the year 1660, and from thence continued to 1666 with the life and martyrdom of King Charles I / by Da. Lloyd ...

THE Life and Death OF Dr. EDWARD MARTIN, Dean of Ely.

DOctor Edw. Martin, who had six Ancestors in a direct line, learned before him, & six Libraries bequeathed to him, though inclined to any thing more than learning; Yet, as he would say, was he Hatched a Scholar, as Chickens are at Gran-Cairo, by the very heat of the Family he was related to; his parts, as his nature, inclining to Solidity, rather than Politeness; he was for the exact Sciences, Logick and Mathematicks in his Study, as he was for strict Rules in his Conversation. His exact obedience to publick establishments in his own person, raised him to a power and trust to see them obeyed by others, being incompa∣rably well skilled in the Canon, Civil, and Common Law, especi∣ally as far as concerned the Church in general, and in the Statutes of the University of Cambridge in particular; to be bred under a good Governor, is the best step to be one; he was therefore first ad∣mitted

1627/8. Chaplain to Bishop Laud, and thence preferred Ma∣ster of Queens Colledge, and Rector of—Government is an Art above the attainment of every ordinary Genius; and requires a wider, a larger, and a more comprehensive soul, than God hath put into every body; he would never endure men to mince and mangle that in their practice, which they swallowed whole in their Subscriptions: owning a well-regulated and resolved zeal in himself, and incouraging it in others; for (to usea 1.1 an excellent Persons expression in a Sermon, whereof our Doctor was a Copy) not to support men in the ways of an active Conformity to the Churches rules, he knew would crack the sinews of Government by weakning the hands, and damping the spirits of the obedient. And if only scorn and rebuke shall attend men for asserting the Churches dignity, many will choose rather to neglect their du∣ty safely and creditably, than to get a broken pate in the Chur∣ches service, only to be rewarded with that which will break their hearts too.

Although he was so resolvedly honest, and upon such clear Principles conscientious, that he tired the persecutions of his ene∣mies, and out-lived the neglect of his friends, finding the satis∣faction flowing from his duty, out-ballancing the sufferings for it.

1. When Chaplain, much troubled by Arch-bishop Abbot, Sir H. Lynde, and Mr. P. 1. For Licensing a Book called, An Histori∣cal Narration of the Iudgment of some most Learned and Godly English Bishops, holy Martyrs, Confessors in Queen Maries dayes, concerning Gods Election, and the Merits of Christs death, Novemb. 27. 1630. 2. For maintaining universal Grace and Redemption, in a Passion Sermon at St. Pauls Cross about the same time.

2. When Master of Queens Colledge, as much persecuted by the Faction for six or seven years from Cambridge to Ely•• house, thence to Ship-board, and thence to the Fleet, with the same disgrace and torment I mentioned before in Dr. Beals life, for being active in sending the University-Plate to the King, and in undeceiving peo∣ple about the proceedings of the pretended Parliament, i. e. in sending to the King that which should have been plundred by his enemies: and preaching as much for him as others did against him; his sufferings were both the smarter and the longer, because he would not own the Usurpation so much as to Petition it for fa∣vor, being unwilling to own any power they had to Imprison him, by any address to them to Release him.

And when in a throng of other Prisoners he had his Liberty, he chose to be an exile beyond Sea at Paris, rather than submit to the tumult at home at London, or Cambridge. If he was too severe a∣gainst the Presbyteries of the Reformed Churches, which they set up out of necessity, it was out of just indignation against the Presbytery of England, which set up it self out of Schism. And when he thought it unlawful for a Gentleman of the Church of England to marry a French Presbyterian, it was because he was transported by the oppression and out-rage of the English. But being many years beyond Sea, he neither joyned with the Calvi∣nists,

nor kept any Communion with the Papists: but confined himself to a Congregation of old English and Primitive Prote∣stants: where by his regular Life and good Doctrine, he reduced some Recusants to, and confirmed more doubters in the Protestant Religion, so defeating the jealousies of his foes, and exceeding the expectation of his friends. Returning with his Majesty 1660. he was restored to his own Preferments, and (after Dr. Loves death, the natural Wit, and Orator, Master of Bennet Colledge, Margaret Professor after Dr. Holdsworth; in which place he was sure to affront any man that put up Questions against the Doctrine or Discipline of the Church of Engl. in the worst of times, and Dean of Ely) made Dean of Ely; in which dignity he dyed 1662/3 having this Memorial, That he had bred up his Colledge so well in the Principles, of Religion and Loyalty, that no one there from the highest to the lowest, submitted to the Usurpers; for there, was a through Reformation, neither Master, Fellow, not Scholar being left of the Foundation; so that according to the Laws of the Ad∣miralty it might seem a Wreck, and forfeited in this Land-tem∣pest for lack of a living thing therein, to preserve the propriety thereof: a severity contrary to the eternal moral of the Jewish Law provided against the Depopulation of Birds-nests, that the old and young ones should be destroyed together. The Doctors Predecessors, Dr. Humphrey Tyndal Master of Queens, and Dean of Ely, was, as is reported, offered by a Protestant party in Bohemia, to be chosen King in Queen Elizabeths Reign, and he refused it, al∣leadging, That he had rather be a Subject under Queen Elizabeth, than a forraign Prince. And the Doctor himself was offered (as I have heard) honorable accommodations by some in the Church of Rome, but he accepted them not, because he said, He had rather be a poor Son of the afflicted, but Primitive Church of England, than a Rich Member of the flourishing, but corrupt Church of Rome.

Edvardus Martin S. Th. Dr. Cato sequioris saculi, qui nihil ad famam omnia ad conscientiam fecit Rigide pius vir, et severe Iustus; sibi theatrum omnia ad normam exigens non amplius ambivit quam ut sibi placeret et Deo.

Notes

• a 1.1

  Dr. South on Tit. 2. ult.