Mede, Joseph, Bd

Mede, Joseph, BD.

a learned English divine, was descended from a respectable family at Berden, in Essex, and was born in 1586. When but a boy ten years old he lost his father, but his education was provided for by friends. He became a commoner of Christ Church, Cambridge, in 1602, where hd took the degree of master of arts in 1610, having made such progress in all kinds of learning that. he was universally esteemed an accomplished scholar. He was appointed Greek lecturer on Sir Walter Mildmay's foundation, and particularly employed himself in studying the history of the Chaldaeans and Egyptians. He appears to have had many offers of preferment, but unhesitatingly declined them 'all in favor of this position, which afforded him leisure for favorite studies. He died in 1638. "Mr. Mede," says his biographer, " was an acute logician, an accurate philosopher, a skilful mathematician, an excellent anatomist, a great philologist,. a- master of many 'languages, and a good proficient in history and chronology." His principal production, worthy the labors of a lifetime, he sent 'forth in 1627, under the title Clavis Apocalyptica (Cambridge, 1627, 4to); to which he added in 1632, In Sancti Joannis Apocalypsin Commentarius, ad amussim Clavis Apocalypticce. An English translation of this celebrated work was published in London in l1650, entitled The Key of Revelation searched and demonstrated out of the natural and proper Characters of the Visions, etc.; to which is added a Conjecture concerning Gog and Magog. This work has been honored with high commendation from the learned Dr. Hurd, in his' Introduction to the Study of the Prophecies (ii. 122, etc.), where Mede is spoken of as "a sublime genius, without vanity, interest, or spleen, but with a single, unmixed love of truth, dedicating his great talents to the study of the prophetic Scriptures, and unfolding the mysterious prophecies of the Revelation." A collection of the whole of Mede's writings was published in 1672, in 2 vols. folio, by Dr. Worthington, who added to them a life of the author. He was a pious and profoundly learned man; and in every part of his works the talents of a sound and learned divine are eminently conspicuous. He was- distinguished for his meekness, modesty, and prudence, and for unbounded liberality towards the needy. A very full account of Mede is given in Allibone's Dict. Brit. and Amer. Authors, s.v. See also English Cyclop. s.v.; Genesis Biog. Dict. s.v.; Darling, Cyclop, Bibliog. 1:2028; Horne, Bibl. Bibl. 1839, p. 331; Orme, Biblioth. Biblia, s.v.; Hunt, Hist. of Religious Thought in England, 1:167.