Blackwell Reference Online

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Benjamin Whichcote (1609–83), was a student and fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, a centre of Puritan thought in the early seventeenth century. Known for his religious rationalism, he was tutored by Anthony Tuckney and subsequently formed his own circle including John Smith, John Worthington, Ralph Cudworth, Peter Sterry, and Nathaniel Culver-well – the so-called Cambridge Platonists. This group incorporated members of Whichcote's family – his niece Mary (married to Worthington), his sister Elizabeth Foxcroft, and her husband and son. In 1645, Whichcote was appointed provost of King's College and, in 1650, vice-chancellor of Cambridge University. His influential weekly lectures at Trinity Church were considered dangerous by his former tutor Tuckney, while others admired his moral energy in ‘those wild and unsettled times’, when he was said by archbishop of Canterbury John Tillotson to have brought more students ‘to a sober sense of religion than any man in that age’ ( Tillotson 1683 ). Whichcote had a successful career during the Interregnum. He obtained the living of Milton, near Cambridge, in 1651, contributed a poem to a collection celebrating Cromwell's peace with the Netherlands in 1654, and backed educational projects associated with Samuel Hartlib in Wales, supporting meritorious students at university. At the Restoration in 1660, Whichcote was forced to resign his provostship ... log in or subscribe to read full text