Lee, Samuel, Dd

Lee, Samuel, D.D.

a Congregational minister, was born in London, England, in 1625. From his father, Samuel Lee, he inherited a large estate. After remaining some time at St. Paul's school, he went, in 1640, to Oxford, and continued his studies there until 1648, when he received the degree of M.A. Soon after he was appointed to a fellowship in Wadham College, and became proctor of the university in 1656. At that time he was a lecturer in Great St. Helen's Church in London. In 1677 he became associated with the celebrated Theophilus Gale, as minister in a nonconforming congregation in Holborn. In September 1679, he was preaching at Bignel, in Oxfordshire, where he remained for some time. Afterwards, for several years, he was pastor of an Independent Church at Newington Green. Although strongly advised to enter the Established Church, conscientious scruples forbade it. In 1686 he landed in New England, and was employed to preach in Bristol, R.I. The next year, in May, he was chosen pastor of the newly organized Church there. As religious toleration began to prevail in England, he resolved to return thither. Resigning his pastorate in Bristol, he set sail in 1691, but was captured by a French privateer and carried to St. Malo, where he died in the latter part of the same year. It is said of him that there was scarcely a department of knowledge with which he was not familiar. At one time he devoted a great deal of attention to astrology, but disapproved of it afterwards, and burned a hundred books relating to it. His benevolence was manifested in frequent gifts to the poor. Besides a number of sermons, he published several books. His Triumph of Mercy was popular in New England, and was reprinted in Boston in 1718. Another work, Orbis Miraculumn; or, The Temple of Solomon Portrayed by Scripture Light (1659, fol.), printed at the expense of the University of Oxford, was much admired. Another, De Excidio Anti-Christi (eod. fol.), was a study of popery. See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 2:209.