Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Robinson, Ralph (1614-1655)
ROBINSON, RALPH (1614–1655), puritan divine, born at Heswall, Cheshire, in June 1614, was educated at St. Catharine Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1638, M.A. 1642. On the strength of his preaching he was invited to St. Mary's Woolnoth, Lombard Street, and there received presbyterian ordination about 1642. He was scribe to the first assembly of provincial ministers held in London in 1647, and united with them in the protest against the king's death in 1649. On 11 June 1651 he was arrested on a charge of being concerned in the conspiracy of Christopher Love [q. v.] He was next day committed to the Tower, and appears to have been detained there at any rate until October, when an order for his trial was issued. Perhaps he was never brought up, but if so it was to be pardoned. He died on 15 June 1655, and was buried on the 18th in the chancel of St. Mary Woolnoth. His funeral sermon was preached by Simeon Ashe [q. v.], and published, with memorial verses, as 'The Good Man's Death Lamented,' London, 1655. By his wife, Mary, Robinson had a daughter Rebecca (1647-1664). Besides sermons, Robinson was the author of: 1. 'Christ all in all,' London, 1656 ; 2nd edit. 1660; 3rd edit. Woolwich, 1828; 4th edit. London, 1868, 8vo. 2. 'Πανοπλία. Universa Arma' ('Hieron; or the Christian compleatly Armed'), London, 1656.
[Transcript of the Registers of St. Mary Woolnoth, by the rector, 1886, pp. xiv, 48, 228, 233 ; Cal. of State Papers, Dom. 1651, pp. 247, 249, 251, 252, 457, 465; Brook's Lives of the Puritans, iii. 237 ; information from the registrary of Cambr. Univ.]