WHICHCOTE, Benjamin Several Discourses …… the Fourth and last Volume [only]. London: printed by W. Botham for James Knapton. 1707.

WHICHCOTE, Benjamin Several Discourses …… the Fourth and last Volume [only]. London: printed by W. Botham for James Knapton. 1707.

Volume IV only. Portrait frontispiece after R. White; [viii], 455[1] pp. Contemporary panelled calf, chipped at top and bottom of spine, partially split on joints.

Whichcote's (1609-1683) writings were all published posthumously. Whichcote's reaction (recorded in his letters) against the narrow Calvinism of his teacher, Anthony Tuckney, set a marker for the other so-called Cambridge Platonists. Whichcote led the way in setting out a tolerant, rational approach to religion which became the hallmark of Cambridge Platonists. Like the other Cambridge Platonists, he underlined the importance of reason in religion, both as a way to understanding religious truth and as the basis of moral action. …. By sustaining a tolerant outlook rooted in Christian ethics, Whichcote helped to shape the envrionment in which Cudworth and More were to flourish. Sarah Hutton in 'Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century British Philosophers'.