Whichcote, Benjamin, Dd

Whichcote, Benjamin, D.D.

an eminent English divine, was born at Whichcote Hall; in the parish of Stoke, in Shropshire, March 11, 1610. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1629; became a fellow there in 1633; was a distinguished tutor; was ordained in 1636; organized a Sunday-afternoon lectureship at Trinity Church, and became preacher to the university; was presented to the living of North Cadbury, in Somersetshire, in 1643; appointed provost of King's College in 1644; — presented to the rectory of Milton, in Cambridgeshire, in 1649; was removed from his provostship at the Restoration in 1661, but retained his rectory at Milton; obtained the living of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, London, in 1662; and the vicarage of St. Lawrence's, Jewry, in 1668. He died while on a visit at Cambridge, in May, 1683. "Dr. Whichcote is regarded as one of the heads, if not the chief founder, of what is called the latitudinarian school of English divines." He enjoyed great fame as a preacher, and left considerable results of his literary labors, although he published nothing during his lifetime. His Observations and Apothegms (1688), and his Sermons (1698), were edited by the earl of Shaftesbury. Dr. John Jeffery edited his Moral and Religious Aphorisms (1703), and his Discourses (1701-3,3 vols.), to which Dr. Samuel Clarke added a fourth in 1707. An edition of his Sermons, in 4 vols., accompanied by a Life by Drs. Campbell and Gerard, appeared in 1751.