Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dove, John (1561-1618)
DOVE, JOHN, D.D. (1561–1618), ‘a Surrey man, born of plebeian parents,’ was a scholar of St. Peter's College, Westminster, whence he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1580. He proceeded B.A. in 1583, M.A. 1586, B.D. 1593, and D.D. 1596. In 1596 he was presented to the rectory of Tidworth, Wiltshire, by Lord-chancellor Egerton, to whom he dedicates a sermon preached at St. Paul's Cross, 6 Feb. 1596. ‘Myself,’ he says, ‘among many other of both the universities, had set my heart at rest, as one resolved to die within the precinctes of the colledge, like a monke shut up in his cell, or an heremite mured up within the compasse of a wall, without hope of ever being called to any ecclesiastical preferment in this corrupt and simoniacall age, had I not been by your honour preferred.’ At the same time he obtained the rectory of St. Mary, Aldermary, London, from the Archbishop of Canterbury, which he held till his death in April 1618. His works, besides the sermon already mentioned, are: 1. ‘A Sermon preached at Pauls Crosse the 3 of November 1594, intreating of the second comming of Christ, and the disclosing of Antichrist: With a Confutation of divers conjectures concerning the ende of the world, conteyned in a booke called the Second Comming of Christ,’ n.d. 2. ‘Of Divorcement: A Sermon preached at Pauls Cross, May 10, 1601,’ 1601. 3. ‘A Perswasion to the English Recusants to reconcile themselves to the Church of England,’ 1603. 4. ‘A Confutation of Atheism,’ 1605 and 1640. 5. ‘A Defence of Church Government; wherein the church government establishment established in England is directly proved to be consonant to the Word of God; together with a Defence of the Crosse in Baptisme, &c.’ 1606. 6. ‘Advertisement to the English Seminaries and Jesuits, shewing their loose kind of Writings, and negligent handling the Cause of Religion, &c.,’ 1610. 7. ‘The Conversion of Solomon. A direction to holinesse of life handled by way of a commentarie upon the whole Booke of Canticles,’ 1613.
[Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 92, 229; Fasti, vol. i. passim; Welch's Alumni Westmon. p. 56; Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 436; Lansdowne MS. 983, f. 326.]