Ridge, John (1590–1637?), puritan divine, was born in Oxford; nothing is known of his parents. He matriculated at St John's, Oxford, on 16 June 1610 and graduated BA on 23 May 1616, having already been ordained a deacon on 16 March 1611 and a priest in 1612. His nonconformist views limited his opportunities in England, so in 1618 he settled in the more congenial surroundings of Co. Antrim where the local bishop Robert Echlin (qv) permitted puritans a great deal of latitude. On 7 July 1619, he was admitted to the vicarage of Antrim town on the presentation of Sir Arthur Chichester (qv). According to the 1622 visitations Ridge was a resident clergyman and had recently rebuilt his parish church. Ridge greatly admired and praised the diligence of Scottish ministers in Antrim, many of whom had been forced to leave Scotland due to their radical presbyterianism. He noted that he was perceived by most of his neighbours as being a conformist, north-east Ulster being one of the few places in the three kingdoms where he would have been regarded as such. His fellow minister John Livingstone (qv) described him as a skilful preacher, a great urger of charitable works, and a very humble man. Henry Leslie (qv) made reference to his melancholic disposition.
Around 1626 James Glendinning began to preach at Oldstone, outside Antrim, once a month, and soon began to attract large crowds with his fiery sermons. However, his preaching concentrated solely on the retribution exacted by God upon sinners. Ridge and a number of other puritan ministers, including Robert Blair (qv), Robert Cunningham, and James Hamilton, began attending these gatherings to offer a measured alternative to Glendinning. It is likely that Ridge in particular was uncomfortable with Glendinning's theatrics and with the over-wrought reactions he inspired in his listeners. Ridge's more pedagogic approach to preaching reflected his desire to instruct (and not merely to terrify) the faithful. Encouraged by the manner in which some lay protestants began meeting in Antrim for prayer and discussion, he established a religious lecture on the first Friday of every month in the town.
This represented an important step in the harnessing by Ridge and others of the manic spiritual enthusiasm inspired by Glendinning (who was pointedly excluded from these lectures). These meetings developed into mass outdoor events where between 500 and 1,500 protestants from south Antrim and north Down would congregate to hear Ridge and other ministers preach. Associated with these lectures was the practice of holding public communions at regular intervals in a different church in the locality to which members of the surrounding parishes were invited to attend. These became three-day events, which the laity would spend fasting, praying and listening to preaching. Contemporaries and historians placed great importance in these revival meetings in the development of a populist fire-and-brimstone brand of protestantism in Ulster.
At the Antrim lecture meetings, the local puritan clergy would also meet to discuss religious matters, which has led to claims that these ministers functioned as a presbytery in all but name. While Blair and Livingstone established proto-presbyteries in their parishes, Ridge did not share their ambitions in this regard. In practice these clerical conferences were more akin to the county unions of independent congregations that emerged in 1650s England. Behind the public displays of solidarity there appears to have been some differences between the English and Scottish protestants in the area. Revealingly, Ridge's congregation at Antrim appears to have been largely if not exclusively English. He took a more conservative view of the celebration of communion (for long insisting that his congregation kneel upon receiving the sacrament) and also disliked the manner in which the Scots sometimes used unconsecrated bread and wine to cope with larger than expected attendances at their public eucharists. Privately he expressed misgivings regarding the confrontational stance adopted by his Scottish colleagues towards the episcopalian character of the established church.
However, attempts by the religious and secular authorities to enforce a far stricter form of orthodoxy in the early 1630s radicalised him. In October 1632, he abolished the practice of kneeling to take communion in his congregation. The imposition of high church reforms on the Church of Ireland in 1634 drove him into outright opposition to the established church. On 10 August 1636 Henry Leslie, bishop of Down and Conor, called on Ridge and four other ministers to subscribe to the canons of the Church of Ireland or publicly declare their objections. Leslie had previously engaged in a private disputation with the ministers but had been angered by rumours that he had been bested. The second debate occurred the next day and was conducted in a reasonably moderate manner, with Ridge acknowledging that Leslie had shown a willingness to give them a fair hearing. However, Bishop John Bramhall (qv), who was also present, curtailed the debate and prevailed on Leslie to pass sentence against the ministers the next day for nonconformity. They were condemned to perpetual silence within their dioceses. Ridge, Blair, and Cunningham left Ireland for Scotland in 1637, where they were employed by David Irvine to preach in his church in Irvine, Ayrshire. It is believed that Ridge died there in 1637. He married (wife's name unknown), and had daughters. An oil painting of him is in the possession of his descendants.