Wake, William, Dd

Wake, William, D.D.

a distinguished English prelate, was born at Blandford, in Dorsetshire, in 1657. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he received the degree of master of arts in 1679, when he decided to take orders' in the Church, although his father designed him for a commercial life. In 1682 he went to Paris as chaplain with viscount Preston, envoy extraordinary to the court of France. On his return to England, in 1685, he was elected preacher to Gray's Inn. Immediately after the Revolution he was appointed deputy- clerk of the closet to king William, and in June, 1689, was made canon of Christ Church, Oxford. In 1693 he obtained the rectory of St. James's, Westminster. In 1701 he was made dean of Exeter, and in, 1705 bishop of London. In the earlier years of his episcopacy he adhered to the Low- Church party, but afterwards became alienated from it, though not becoming a High-Churchman. In January, 1716, he was made archbishop of Canterbury, which office he held until his death, which occurred at Lambeth, Jan. 24, 1737. Among his most important works are the following: Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England (1686): — A Defence of the Doctrine of the Church of England (eod.): — A Second Defence of the Doctrine of the Church of England (1688): — An English Version, of the Genuine Epistles of the Apostolic Fathers, with a Preliminary Discourse concerning the Use of those Fathers (1693): — The Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods Asserted (1697): and other tracts to the same effect. A collection of his Sermons and Charges was published after his death.