Benjamin Whichcote

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Benjamin Whichcote, portrait by Mary Beale

Benjamin Whichcote (March 1609 – May 1683) was an English

Puritan divine
, Provost of King's College, Cambridge and leader of the Cambridge Platonists. He held that man is the "child of reason" and so not completely depraved by nature, as Puritans held. He also argued for religious toleration.

Life and career

Whichcote was born at Whichcote Hall in

Restoration he was removed from his position at King's College, but reinstated when he accepted the Act of Uniformity
in 1662.

From that time he was the Curate of

St. Anne's Church, Blackfriars, until it burnt down in 1666. In 1668, he was appointed Vicar of St Lawrence Jewry.[2] He was a brother to Jeremy Whichcote and Elizabeth Foxcroft, wife of Ezechiel Foxcroft.[3]

Whichcote was one of the leaders of the

Latitudinarian
.

He died in Cambridge in May 1683 aged 74 and was buried in London at the church of St Lawrence Jewry.

Works

Nearly all of his works were published posthumously. They include Select Notions of B. Whichcote (1685), Select Sermons (1689), Discourses (1701), and Moral and Religious Aphorisms (1703).

References

  1. ^ "Whichcote, Benjamin (WHCT626B)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  2. ^ a b Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Whichcote, Benjamin" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 587–588.
  3. ^ "Elizabeth Whichcote b. 1604 2nd dau". geni_family_tree. Geni.com. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  • Cross, F. L., and E. A. Livingstone, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. London: Oxford UP, 1978

External links

Academic offices
Preceded by
Provost of King's College, Cambridge

1644-1660
Succeeded by