Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rolle, Samuel

691701Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 49 — Rolle, Samuel1897Charlotte Fell Smith

ROLLE or ROLLS, SAMUEL (fl. 1657–1678), divine, born in London, was admitted a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, on 24 April 1646, became a minor fellow on 28 Sept. 1647, and was appointed ‘sublector tertius’ in 1650. He took orders, and in August 1657 was minister of Isleworth, Middlesex, and weekly lecturer at Hounslow chapel. He was afterwards beneficed at Dunton, Buckinghamshire. At the Restoration he pronounced against the ‘prodigious impiety of murdering’ the king, but he was ejected from Dunton by the Act of Uniformity, 1662. He afterwards preached in divers places, asserting that but for ‘an impediment,’ known to the archbishop, he would have worked within the church. He was admitted doctor of physic at Cambridge, by the king's letter mandatory, on 27 Oct. 1675. He then publicly disavowed anything in his signed or anonymous writings contrary to the principles acknowledged by the church of England and the university of Cambridge. About 1678 he was appointed chaplain in ordinary to the king, but mainly devoted himself to writing religious books. He was living in 1678.

He published:

  1. ‘The Burning of London commemorated and improved in CX Discourses,’ &c., London, 1667, 8vo; in four parts, with titles and separate pagination.
  2. ‘London's Resurrection, or the Rebuilding of London,’ London, 1668, 8vo.
  3. ‘A Sober Answer to the Friendly Debate betwixt a Conformist and a Nonconformist, written by way of a Letter to the Author’ (Simon Patrick [q. v.], bishop of Ely), 3rd edit. 1669, published under the name of Philagathus.
  4. ‘Justification Justified, or the great Doctrine of Justification stated,’ in opposition to William Sherlock, London, 1674.
  5. ‘Loyalty and Peace, or Two Seasonable Discourses,’ London, 1678, 8vo.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 106, 108; Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, i. 298; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1657–8, pp. 81, 264; Lipscomb's Hist. of Buckinghamshire, iii. 343; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, iii. 570; Owen's Works, ed. Goold, 1851, ii. 276; Orme's Life of Owen, p. 380; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ii. 88, 139; Sylvester's Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, iii. 13; notes kindly furnished by W. Aldis Wright, esq. Rolls has been confounded with a Dr. Daniel Rolles, whose funeral sermon by Daniel Burgess [q. v.] was published, London, 1692, dedicated to his widow Alice.]

C. F. S.