Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/8

 tutor was Anthony Tuckney [q. v.], a divine with whose subsequent career his own became closely interwoven. In 1629–30 he was admitted B.A., proceeded M.A. in 1633, in which year also he was elected a fellow of his college. According to his biographer, he was ordained by John Williams [q. v.], bishop of Lincoln, on 5 March 1636, ‘both deacon and priest;’ ‘which irregularity,’ says Salter, ‘I know not how to account for in a prelate so obnoxious to the ruling powers both in church and state’ (ib. p. xvii). In the same year he was appointed to the important post of Sunday afternoon lecturer at Trinity Church in Cambridge, a post which he continued to fill for nearly twenty years. About this time he received also his licence as university preacher.

His discourses at Trinity Church, which were largely attended by the university, survive only in the form of notes, but it was through these that he attained his chief contemporary celebrity. It was his aim ‘to turn men's minds away from polemical argumentation to the great moral and spiritual realities lying at the basis of all religion—from the “forms of words” to “the inwards of things” and “the reason of them”’ (Letters, p. 108).

In 1634 he succeeded to the office of college tutor, in which capacity ‘he was famous for the number, rank, and character of his pupils, and the care he took of them.’ Among those who afterwards attained to distinction were John Smith (1618–1652) [q. v.] of Queens', John Worthington [q. v.], John Wallis (1616–1703) [q. v.], the mathematician, and Samuel Cradock.

In 1640 he proceeded B.D.; in 1641 his candidature for the divinity chair at Gresham College was defeated by Thomas Horton (, Gresham Professors, p. 65); and in 1643 his college presented him to the rectory of North Cadbury in Somerset. He now married Rebecca, widow of Matthew Cradock, governor of Massachusetts, and retired to Cadbury. In 1644, however, he was summoned back to the university by the Earl of Manchester, to be installed as provost of King's College in the place of the ejected Dr. Samuel Collins [q. v.] His honourable character and scrupulous nature were shown by the reluctance with which he at length, under considerable pressure, consented to supplant one whom he highly respected, as well as by the generosity which led him to stipulate that his predecessor should continue to receive a moiety of the stipend attaching to the provostship (Pref. &c. pp. xviii, xix). The arguments pro and con by which he ultimately arrived at the conclusion that duty required his acceptance of the post were committed by him to writing and are printed in Heywood (King's College Statutes, p. 290) from Baker MS. vi. 90. Alone among the newly installed heads of colleges at Cambridge he refused to take the covenant; he is even said to have ‘prevailed to have the greatest part of the fellows of King's College exempted from that imposition, and preserved them in their places’ (, Sermon, p. 23).

In July 1649 he was created D.D. by mandate; about this time he resigned his Somerset living, but was soon afterwards presented by his college to the rectory of Milton in Cambridgeshire, which he continued to hold as long as he lived (Pref. p. xxii). In November 1650 he was elected vice-chancellor of the university, and while filling this office preached at the Cambridge commencement (July 1651) a sermon which was the occasion of a notable correspondence between himself and his former tutor, Tuckney (now master of Emmanuel). These letters, eight in number, were edited and published in 1753 by Dr. Salter, a grandson of Dr. Jeffery, Whichcote's nephew and editor; and an analysis and criticism of the same will be found in Tulloch's ‘Rational Theology’ (ii. 59–84). Generally speaking, they represent the main points at issue between a staunch and able upholder of the puritan orthodoxy as formulated in the Westminster confession, and one whose aim it was to bring about a fuller recognition of the claims of private judgment and of ‘the rationality of Christian doctrine.’ Rudely challenged at the outset, Whichcote's views eventually resulted in a movement represented by the body known as the Cambridge Platonists and, in a wider circle, as the Latitudinarians, a remarkable school of writers and thinkers for whom Burnet claims the high credit of having saved the church from losing her esteem throughout the kingdom.

In 1654, on the occasion of the peace with Holland, Whichcote appears as one of the contributors to the volume of verses (‘Oliva Pacis’) composed by members of the university to celebrate the event, and dedicated to Cromwell. In December 1655 he was invited by Cromwell to advise him, in conjunction with Cudworth and others, on the question of tolerating the Jews (Crossley's note to Diary, i. 79). In 1659 he combined with Cudworth, Tuckney, and other Cambridge divines, in supporting Matthew Poole's scheme for the maintaining of students of ‘choice ability at the university, and principally in order to the