the adjoining residence and garden were settled (16 July) by the congregation on Mead and his heirs ‘in consideration for’ his sufferings and services. Mead went heartily with the movement initiated (1690) by John Howe [q. v.] for an amalgamation of the presbyterian and congregationalist bodies. The ‘happy union’ held its meeting at Stepney on 6 April 1691, when Mead preached his famous sermon ‘Two Sticks made One’ (Ezek. xxxvii. 19). On the rupture of the union (1694) through the alleged heresies of Daniel Williams, D.D. [q. v.], Mead took a moderate part, but remained in the Pinners' Hall lectureship when the presbyterians seceded. When Calamy applied to him (1694) for ordination he declined to act, from no scruples of his own, but for fear of giving umbrage to others. He preached his last sermon on May day 1699, and died on 16 Oct. 1699, aged 70. He was buried in Stepney churchyard; Calamy gives the Latin inscription on his tombstone. Howe preached his funeral sermon. Peirce describes him as a gentleman and a scholar. An elegy on his death, ‘Tristiæ Christianæ,’ was issued in a folio sheet, 1699. He had thirteen children, of whom Richard Mead, M.D. [q. v.], was the eleventh. An elder son, Samuel, was a fellow-student with Calamy at Utrecht in 1687; published at Utrecht a ‘Disputatio,’ 1686, 4to, an ‘Exercitatio,’ 1687, 4to, and an ‘Oratio,’ 1689, 4to; in 1694 was an evening lecturer at Salters' Hall; was not ordained, and became a chancery practitioner.
Besides separate sermons, 1660–98, including funeral sermons for Thomas Rosewell (1692) and Timothy Cruso [q. v.], he published:
- ‘Ἐν ὀλίγῳ Χριστιανός, the Almost Christian Discovered,’ &c., 1662, 8vo (substance of sermons at St. Sepulchre's, Holborn, in 1661); often reprinted; in Dutch, Utrecht, 1682, 12mo; in Welsh, Merthyr Tydfil, 1825, 12mo.
- ‘Solomon's Prescription for the Removal of the Pestilence,’ &c., 1666, 4to; 1667, 12mo (with appendix).
- ‘The Good of Early Obedience,’ &c., 1683, 8vo (Mayday sermons).
- ‘The Vision of the Wheels,’ &c., 1689, 4to (sermons on Ezekiel). Posthumous were:
- ‘The Young Man's Remembrancer,’ &c., 3rd edit. 1701, 8vo (his last two Mayday sermons; often reprinted).
- ‘Original Sermons on the Jews [5]; and on Falling into the Hands of … God [12] … with a Memoir,’ &c., 1836, 12mo (edited from shorthand notes transcribed by James Andrews in 1703 and 1710; the manuscripts, long preserved in the family of Sir Thomas W. Blomefield, bart., are now in the British Museum).
He had a hand in the ‘English Greek Lexicon,’ 1661, 8vo. His farewell sermon before ejection was published separately, 1662, 4to and 12mo, and also in the ‘Compleat Collection,’ 1663, 8vo. He wrote a preface to ‘The Life and Death of Nathaniel Mather,’ 1689, 8vo. In earlier documents he spelled his name ‘Meade,’ but used the spelling ‘Mead’ from about 1679.
Three engraved portraits are known.
[Funeral Sermon by Howe 1699; Calamy's Account, 1713, p. 471; Calamy's Continuation, 1727, ii. 614; Calamy's Own Life, 1830, i. 142, 341 sq.; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, 1714, ii. 215, 260; Peirce's Vindication of the Dissenters, 1718, i. 258; Peirce's Remarks, 1719, p. 42; Protestant Dissenter's Magazine, 1799, p. 140; Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, 1802, ii. 461 sq.; Wilson's Dissenting Churches of London, 1808, ii. 252, 1810, iii. 31; Toulmin's Historical View, 1814, p. 104; Neal's Hist. of the Puritans (Toulmin), 1822, v. 37; Urwick's Nonconformity in Hertfordshire, 1884, p. 647; Jones's Notes on the Early Days of Stepney Meeting [1887]; Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. App. x. 269; Cole's manuscript Hist. of King's College, Cambridge, iii. 201 sq.; A Booke for Church Affaires att Stepny (folio manuscript records from 1644 to present time).]
MEAD, RICHARD, M.D. (1673–1754), physician, eleventh child of Matthew Mead [q. v.], minister of Stepney, Middlesex, was born in that parish on 11 Aug. 1673. His father was ejected for nonconformity in 1662, but, his private means being large, continued to reside in comfort at Stepney, and educated his thirteen children at home. Richard learnt Latin till ten years old from John Nesbitt, a nonconformist, and from 1683 to 1689 was sent to a private school kept by Thomas Singleton, who was probably a good scholar, as he was at one time second master at Eton, and was certainly a sectary, since he declined to conform in 1662. Mead became a good classic and a consistent whig. He entered at the university of Utrecht in the beginning of the academical year at the end of 1689, and, under the instruction of Grævius for three years, acquired an extended knowledge of classical literature and antiquities. In 1692 he entered at Leyden as a student of medicine, attended the botany lectures of Paul Herman, and became acquainted with Boerhaave, then a young graduate and student of theology. The professor of physic was Archibald Pitcairne [q. v.], the chief of the iatromechanical school, who taught that physiological and pathological processes were the result of physical as distinct from chemical forces. Mead admired his lectures, and in spite of Pitcairne's reserved disposition obtained some private conversations with him.
In 1695, with his eldest brother, who had also belonged to the university of Utrecht,
