, a learned professor of Groningen, was born at Gretha, a village
, a learned professor of Groningen, was born at Gretha, a village in East Friesland, Dec. 5, 1547. He was the son of Emmo Diken, a minister of that village, who had been Luther’s and Melancthon’s disciple; and at nine years of age was sent to study at Embden. He continued there till he was eighteen, and was then sent to Bremen, to improve under the famous John Molanus. Returning to his father, he did not go immediately to the university, but passed some time at Norden. Being turned of twenty-three, he was sent to Rostock, a flourishing university, where he heard the lectures of David Chytraeus, a celebrated divine and historian; and of Henry Bruce, an able mathematician and physician. The death of his father obliged him to return to East Friesland, after he had continued above two years at Rostock.; and his mother’s excessive grief upon this occasion hindered his taking a journey into France, as he had wished, and induced him to continue with her three years, after which he went to Geneva, where he staid two years. Being returned into his own country, he had the choice of two preferments, either to be a minister or the rector of a college: but, from a great degree of natural timidity, he could not venture to engage in the ministry, thoagh it was very much his inclination. He chose therefore to be rector of a college, which was that of Norden and was admitted into that post in 1579. He made his college flourish exceedingly but was turned out of his employment in 1587, through the zeal of some Lutherans, because he would not subscribe the confession of Augsburg. He was chosen the year after to be rector of the college of Leer, whose reputation he raised so high, that it surpassed that of Norden; which the Lutherans could never retrieve from the declining state into which it fell after Emmius was deposed. They had banished from Groningen several persons who followed Calvin’s reformation; and those of the exiles who retired to Leer, meeting with the same fate as Emmius, engaged in a particular friendship with him: so that, when the city of Groningen confederated with the United Provinces, and the magistrates resolved to restore their college, Emmius being recommended by several persons, they chose him to be the rector of that college, and gave him a full power to make or abrogate there such statutes as he should think proper.