The following
introductory paragraph is reproduced from the 1816 Edition of Jane Lead's Wars of
David, printed by Thos. Wood, London where it appeared immediately following Francis
Lee's "The Publishers Address to his Readers".
“Francis Lee, M. D. was a
man of stupendous learning, he was most intimate with Robert Earl of Oxford, when Lord
High Treasurer, to whom several proposals were made by him for the lasting honour and
advantage of these nations. His works are almost innumerable; but as he rarely could
be prevailed on to affix his name to any one of them, they have been made public under the
names of others, or have come into the world anonymously. The greatest part of Mr.
Nelson's "Feasts and Fasts" I found (saith the Author of his life) in his
own hand, after his decease; he was the first that put Mr. Hoare and Mr.
Nelson upon the founding of Charity Schools, upon the same plan as that of Halle
in Germany (superintended by the famous Augustus Franck): and he (Dr. Lee) was
continually promoting and encouraging all manner of charities, both public and
private." Peter the Great, Czar of Muscovy, was exceedingly partial to
him, for whom, by request, he wrote (in the year 1698) Proposals for the right framing of
his government.” — Vide Dissertations, Theological, Mathematical and
Physical, by Francis Lee, M.D.; 2 vol. octavo, printed anno 1752.
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According to
Christopher Walton, Notes and Materials for an Adequate Biography of The Celebrated
Divine and Theosopher, William Law:
London -1854 {otherwise referred to on this page as Notes and
Materials}
“Francis Lee, (Fellow of
St. John's College, Oxford) was not only an enlightened practical Christian, but
profoundly versed in the Jewish, Philosophic, and Christian Mystic science of all
ages. His deep devotion to God, and pure love of the truth, be the depository of it
where it might, and the operations of it never so offensive to unregenerate reason, may be
inferred by what is related in his Treatises. Many of the Manuscripts referred to by
his daughter, in her preface to his posthumous Dissertations, the writer of these
lines {Christopher Walton} recently found amongst Mr. Law's {William
Law's} odd papers, from which source the extracts herein given, are
obtained. When Law retired from town, in the year 1740, some three years or so
after the decease of his old friend Mr. Gibbon, he, it would appear, borrowed Dr.
Lee's papers to look over; and, judging from the carefully-written copies he has
made of numerous of those papers, and from his own latter conformity of opinion upon
certain mysterious theological points, he must have entertained a great respect for Lee's
talents as a learned spiritual writer. The paraphrase of {Jacob
Boehme's or Behmen's} Supersensual Life, which was inserted in
some of the last issue of the fourth volume of Behmen's works, published 1781, and there
incorrectly stated in a note, to have been composed by Mr. Law, (the manuscript of it
having been found in his handwriting,) was written by Lee, and merely copied by
Law. The writer of these lines {Walton}
has in his possession both the original of Lee, and the copy of Law . . .”
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Thanks to the
providential and excellent research done in a doctoral dissertation, entitled God's
Healing Angel: A Biography of Jane Ward Lead completed by Joanne Magnani
Sperle; May, 1985; Kent State University. we can share the following excerpts.
“From the biographical
sketch written by Lee's daughter, we learn that Lee was born on March 2, 1660, the fourth
son of Edward and Frances Lee of Cobbam, in the county of Surrey. Both parents were
descended from nobility and died when Francis was only four years old. Even before
this loss, Lee began to shun the company of other children, preferring solitude, reading,
and meditation. His interests lay in subjects far beyond his age and
comprehension. Mrs. de la Fontaine uses her father's own words to describe his youth
when he 'could not, in those young and tender Years, bear with any trifling Conversation,
or what was common to Children of his Age; and that his Parents and Masters did constrain
him to that upon which others are generally bent to by Nature.' His childhood
disposition seems very similar to Jane Lead's as it is described in her publisher's {Francis
Lee's} preface to Wars of David. ”
“Lee was elected Fellow
of St. John's College, Oxford in 1682 and remained there for seven years. In 1691 he
went to Italy by way of Germany and Holland, returning to England at the end of
1694. It was at this point that the young Lee was urged coincidentally by two
separate sources to seek out the elderly Lead whose works were being eagerly devoured
abroad. Mrs. Lead had retired from the world and was living out her final days
in a private dwelling when Lee visited her. (She clearly had not expected the
acclaim that would occur when a few of her works went abroad purely by chance and were
translated.) During his visits, Lee read all of her writings "which
consisted for the most part of loose papers, like the Sibylline leaves, occasionally
penned for her own private memory and recollection, except what had been thence
transcribed by an ancient friend of hers"{John Pordage}
"and he {Lee} published a volume of them completely
from his own initiative (Notes and Materials, p 508).
An important fact not generally noted, but evident in Lee's manuscripts, is the great
sense of responsibility which he felt toward Mrs. Lead when her work, that he published,
caused her to acquire a multitude of friends and enemies, as well as a deluge of mail from
other countries. She rapidly was growing blind from a cataract and had no secretary
to help with the foreign correspondence, which he had generated. At this point, Mrs.
lead began to dictate her correspondence to Lee who felt bound to her by Christian charity
and benevolence. ... Ironically, Lee later would lose his own eyesight
because of a cataract only eight years after his mother-in-law's death.” {Jane
Lead died in 1704, so Francis Lee's loss of sight would have occurred in 1712 at the age
of 52}.
“Life became increasingly
difficult for the young Francis Lee during 1694 and 1695 — several friends died, an
estate was lost because he could not prove the deed within the time limit; and he was
ejected from his college because he could not submit to certain propositions without
violating his conscience. Being divested of all he had, Lee offered himself totally
to God's will. He strictly examined Mrs. Leads pretentions {the laying
of a claim to something} and decided to enter with her into a life of
faith and total dependence on God. ... Thus the thirty-four-year-old Lee and
the seventy-year-old Lead became spiritual partners. They had met during a
vulnerable period in Lee's life, and Lead had helped him to find purpose and direction.
Lee, on the other hand, felt bound by honor to assist her because of the furor
which he created by publishing her volumes. It is important to note that this
relationship was reciprocal, if only because most scholars only present the fact that Lee
assisted the blind seer. At that time, Mrs. Lead's friends had encouraged her to
take better care of herself because God had chosen her for His messenger. They
urged her to find someone to live with her and assist her because of her blindness.
Baron Kniphausen, a wealthy benefactor, bestowed a sum of money to enable Mrs. Lead and
her daughter {Barbara Walton} (who we are told suffered
greatly in her life) to live together in a suitable place. (Notes and
Materials, p. 226)”
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Francis Lee
would come to know Jane Lead's widowed daughter, Barbara Walton, who was also affiliated
with the Philadelphian Society. They worked together over the affairs of the
Society as well as the correspondence generated by Lead's published writings, which,
over time, helped their relationship to grow into a close spiritual friendship.
Through Providential circumstances, they were led to become partners in marriage, — a
relationship described by Francis Lee himself as “consecrated to Christ, beyond any
instance that is commonly known” — “blessed, and holy to God, whatever man
shall judge concerning it”.{Notes and Materials, p. 227}
Lee would use his gifted
intellect to answer the controversy, that erupted upon his publication of Mrs. Lead's
writings which were received with much appreciation by some like-minded souls in parts of
Europe but which set off an uproar in her own country. God would use him to
fill the void, left first by John Pordage and then by Thomas Bromley as the scholarly
warriors set to defend the messages given to Jane Lead. Later his works would
infiltrate and influence others, most notably William Law, who would preserve the
continuity of the truths that had been revealed, and would valiantly balance and
lovingly correct the counterfeit gospels that were multiplying in his day.
More than thirty years after
Francis Lee's death, his papers were published in a book entitled, Apoleipomenia or
Dissertations by Francis Lee, M.D.; Alexander Strahan, London, 1752, for which his
daughter, Deborah Jemima de la Fontaine, served as editor. |
Serge Hutin
gives us a bit more information that he gleaned from Deborah de la Fontaine, Francis Lee's
daughter, in her foreword of the first volume of her father's collected works, the Dissertations
or Apoleipomenia - 1752), which information was included in Hutin's book, Les
disciples anglais de Jacob Boehme, Denoël, Paris, 1960
“Francis Lee died while
doing business in France, in the city of Gravelines, on August 23, 1719, from strong
fevers he suffered. Before dying, he converted 'in extremis' to the Catholic
Faith. He is buried in the Gravelines Abbey's graveyard.”
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