Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 40.djvu/330

Newcomen . And therewith also the Schlaunders wherewith the Aduersaries do burden the Churches of the Lowe Countrey are plainly confuted,’ black letter, London (John Daye) [1575?], 12mo. This is a translation of a work which had appeared in Dutch and Latin, and it is dedicated by Newcomen to his ‘singular good lord and patron, the Lord Cheyne.’ The printing of the book is erroneously ascribed by Ames to William Middleton. A letter from him to Sir Francis Walsingham, written in October 1588, is in the Record Office (State Papers, Dom., Eliz. ccxvii. art. 78).

[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), i. 576; Cal. State Papers, Dom. Eliz. 1581–90, p. 556; Strype's Whitgift, pp. 26, 59, fol.; Marshall's Genealogist, passim.]  NEWCOMEN, MATTHEW (1610?–1669), ejected minister, and one of the authors of ‘Smectymnuus,’ born at Colchester about 1610, was second son of Stephen Newcomen by his first wife, and second cousin of [q. v.] The father was the third son of John Newcomen, and Alice, daughter of John Gascoigne of Leasingcroft, Yorkshire. He was grandson of Brian, and great-grandson of Martyn le Newcomen (d. 1536), all of Saltfleetby, Lincolnshire. He was presented to the vicarage of St. Peter's, Colchester, on 18 July 1600, and was enrolled a burgess of the town (Morant MSS., Colchester Museum). His will was proved on 31 May 1631.

Matthew was educated under William Kempe, at the Royal Grammar School of Colchester, and on 8 Nov. 1626 was elected the second scholar on the foundation of ‘Robert Lewis and Mary his wife,’ at St. John's College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1629, and M.A. in 1633. Calamy says ‘he was much esteemed as a wit, and for his curious parts, which being afterwards sanctified by Divine grace fitted him for eminent service in the church.’ On the death of [q. v.] on 18 Oct. 1636, Newcomen was recommended by his friend [q. v.], then lecturer at Colchester, to the lectureship, which was supported by voluntary contributions at Dedham, seven miles off.

Newcomen soon became the leader of the church reform party in Essex. He married the sister of Calamy's wife, and assisted Calamy to write ‘Smectymnuus’ [see under ], published in London in 1641. The authors at once became marked men, and on 24 Nov., when Newcomen preached at the weekly lecture at Stowmarket, where [q. v.], another Smectymnuan, was vicar, there were ‘abundance of ministers,’ and a quart of wine was ‘sent for’ at the lecture dinner (churchwarden's accounts in Hist. of Stowmarket, pp. 146, 189).

Newcomen, who drew up a catechism with [q. v.] and Anthony Tuckney, was chosen one of the Westminster divines, and preached the opening sermon before the assembly and both houses of parliament on the afternoon of Saturday, 7 July 1643. He wishes that ‘their traducers might be witnesses of their learned, grave, and pious debates.’ He was on the third committee, which met in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was to deal with Articles 8, 9, and 10. He was also on committees to ‘consider a way of expediting the examination of ministers,’ to inquire of scandalous books, to petition parliament, and to communicate with the Scottish assembly.

Newcomen did not sign the petition for the presbyterian form of church government presented by the Essex and Suffolk clergy on 29 May 1646, but he drew up and signed, with one hundred and twenty-nine others, the ‘Testimony of the Ministers in Essex,’ London, 1648.

When the ‘Agreement’ was sent down for the signatures of the clergy, Essex men were again in arms, and headed by Rogers of Wethersfield, Collins of Braintree, Newcomen and his friend, George Smith, vicar of Dedham, they drew up ‘The Essex Watchmen's Watchword,’ London, 1649, protesting against evils lurking under its proposals, and especially against ‘one parenthesis [proposing toleration], which like the fly in the box of ointment may make it abhorrent in the nostrils of every one who is judicious and pious.’

Newcomen was appointed an assistant to the commission of ‘Triers of Scandalous Ministers,’ &c., for Essex in 1654. In 1655 he was town lecturer at Ipswich (, Hist. of Congregationalism in Norfolk and Suffolk, pp. 152, 157). He refused the office of chaplain to Charles II at the Restoration, although Calamy, Young, Manton, Spurstow, and others accepted. He was a member of the Savoy conference in 1660, ‘the most constant,’ Baxter wrote, ‘in assisting us.’ On 10 Oct. 1661 he was created D.D. But ‘for such a man to declare unfeigned assent and consent, as required by the Act of Uniformity, was impossible’ (, Hist. of Evangel. Nonconf. in Essex). He preached his last sermon as lecturer at Dedham, on 20 Aug. 1662, on Rev. iii. 3. He urged those ‘unable to enjoy public helps for sanctifying the Lord's day at home, to travel to other congregations, or to redouble their fervour in secret and family devotion.’ A few weeks later he preached