Francis Sanders

“ Yet the greatest and best qualities are ascribed to him, if not unanimously, at least by many eminent and good men.' Tillotson says of him: 'I think I may truly say that there are or have been few in this age and nation so well known and greatly esteemed and favoured by so many persons of high rank and quality and of singular worth and eminence in all the learned professions.' Burnet speaks equally highly of him. 'He was a man,' he says, 'of as great a mind, as true a judgement, as eminent virtues, and of as good a soul as any I ever knew. ”

“ In the troubled years which ensued Pearson cannot have resided much at Thorington. He certainly spent a portion of his time at Cambridge up to 1643. In that year, just before the opening of the Westminster Assembly, he preached a remarkable university sermon on ‘The Excellency of Forms of Prayer.’ He boldly declared his theological and political views, and with undisguised passion—from which his other published writings are wholly free—lamented the risk to which the cherished institutions of the church were being subjected by men who had little regard for learning and tradition. ”

“ Though he married Cromwell's sister, yet made no other use of that alliance but to do good offices, and to cover the university of Oxford from the sourness of Owen and Goodwin. At Cambridge he joined with those who studied to propagate better thoughts, to take men off from being in parties or from narrow notions, from superstitious conceits and fierceness about opinions. ”

“ In 1656 he increased his influence by marrying Robina, widow of Peter French, canon of Christ Church, and sister of Cromwell, from whom he obtained a dispensation to retain his wardenship, in spite of a statute against marriage.
As warden of Wadham Wilkins exercised a wise and beneficent rule. The college quickly became the most flourishing in the university. The cavaliers gladly placed their sons under the care of one who strove to be tolerant. Youths of promise were attracted by his learning and versatility. ”

“ Clement's, Eastcheap, to deliver a weekly sermon in their parish church. This he appears to have regularly continued up to the Restoration, without receiving any pecuniary recompense. It was at St. Clement's that he preached in substance the series of discourses which he published in 1659 under the title of ‘An Exposition of the Creed,’ a work which is, within its limits, the most perfect and complete production of English dogmatic theology. ”

“ He was a lover of mankind, and had a delight in doing good.' Anthony à Wood says: 'He was a person endowed with rare gifts; he was a noted theologist and preacher, a curious critic in several matters, an excellent mathematician and experimentist, and one as well seen in mechanisms and new philosophy, of which he was a great promoter, as any man of his time. He also highly advanced the study and perfection of astronomy both at Oxford and London ”

“ Peploe was a man of great determination, and totally regardless of public opinion in the discharge of his duties. A strong and unflinching partisan in politics, his whole life was passed in an atmosphere of strife. ”

“ MAJENDIE, HENRY WILLIAM (1754–1830) , bishop of Chester and Bangor, was of Huguenot extraction. His grandfather, André de Majendie, a member of an ancient family of Béarn, was compelled to leave France by the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and, after a few years' residence in Holland, was naturalised as a British subject in 1700. He settled at Exeter, where for many years he ministered to the French congregation. His elder son, John James (1709-1783) , the bishop's father, took orders in the church of England, received the degree of D.D. from Archbishop Cornwallis at Lambeth, 6 Sept. ”

“ On 1 July 1718 Peploe was nominated by the king warden of the collegiate church of Manchester, in succession to Dr. Richard Wroe [q. v.] The statutes requiring the warden to be B.D. or LL.D., he obtained the former degree from Archbishop Wake, and thereby was thought to have cast a slur upon Oxford. On presenting himself for induction the visitor, Francis Gastrell [q. v.] , bishop of Chester, hesitated to perform the office, on the plea that a university degree was essential to the dignity. ”

“ Pearson's reputation as a scholar was soon established, and his commendation was considered sufficient evidence of the value of a work. Prefaces by him were published with Meric Casaubon's edition of Hierocles, Stokes's ‘Explication of the Minor Prophets,’ and John Hales's ‘Remains.’ In 1657 Pearson, with his friend Peter Gunning [q. v.] , engaged in a conference with two Roman catholics on the question whether England or Rome was guilty of schism at the Reformation. A garbled account of this controversy, under the title of ‘Schism Unmaskt,’ appeared in the following year. ”

“ The ‘Critici Sacri’ was an undertaking of some of the deprived clergy, and embraced a commentary on holy scripture. The selection of commentators and the collection of tracts in the last two volumes were probably the work of Pearson, who also contributed the preface. 12. ‘Dedicatio et Præfatio ad Diogenem Laertium Menagii,’ London, 1664. An English edition of the author, as published by Gilles Ménage, was preceded by a short dedication to Charles II, and a preface by Pearson. 13. ‘Præfatio Parænetica ad Vetus Testamentum Græcum ex Versione LXX interpretum,’ Cambridge, 1665. ”

“ The work was the first of its kind to present to Englishmen an adequate example of the emblem books that had issued from the great continental presses; and it was mainly from it, as a representative book of the greater part of emblem literature which had preceded it, that Shakespeare gained the knowledge which he evidently possessed of the great foreign emblematists of the sixteenth century. Whitney's verses are often of great merit, and always manifest a pure mind and extensive learning. ”

“ On the death of Gastrell, Peploe was nominated to succeed him at Chester. He was consecrated on 12 April 1726, when he resigned Preston, retaining Manchester in commendam. A fresh legal difficulty at once arose. The bishop of Chester was visitor of Manchester College, and the warden of Manchester was one of the persons to be visited. But the two offices were now united in one person, and he could not visit himself. ”

“ Subsequently Pearson joined the last remnant of Charles I's party in the west, acting as chaplain in 1645 to Goring's forces at Exeter (Sherman, Hist. MS. Coll. Jesu, Cantabr. p. 407) . On the collapse of the royal cause he withdrew to London, where he seems to have remained till the Restoration, devoting the greater part of his time to his studies. He had lost the revenue of his prebend as early as 1642, and had resigned or been deprived of his rectory four years later ”

“ And this making him ready to swear allegiance to Charles II after he was restored to the crown, as to the usurpers while they prevailed, he was charged with being various and unsteady in his principles, with having no principles at all, with Hobbism and everything that is bad. ”

“ In 1771 he entered at Christ's College, Cambridge, where in the following year he secured a scholarship. He graduated B.A. in 1776 without honours, but in the same year procured election to the fellowship just vacated by William Paley. ”

“ Pearson's essay is a singular proof of the many strange untrodden paths of learning which he had explored, and with much curious illustrative criticism combines some notice of the last efforts of Gentile philosophy againt Christianity. ”

“ That office he retained till his death in 1639, zealously aiding Bishops Wren and Montague in their enforcement of ecclesiastical order in the diocese. Archdeacon Pearson married Joanna, daughter of Richard Vaughan [q. v.] , successively bishop of Bangor, Chester, and London, by whom he had a large family.
John, the eldest child, seems to have received his early training under his father's eye. In after life he ‘took occasion very often and publicly to bless God that he was born and bred in a family in which God was worshipped daily’ (Wilson, Parochialia) . ”

“ Wilkins died of suppression of the urine at Tillotson's house in Chancery Lane on 19 Nov. 1672. He was buried in St. Lawrence Jewry on 12 Dec., William Lloyd (afterwards bishop of St. Asaph's) preaching the funeral sermon. Tillotson was appointed executor to the bishop's will, wherein legacies were left to the Royal Society and Wadham College. ”

“ It has won the highest praise, not only from Anglican theologians, but from such men as Dr. Johnson, Dean Milman, and Hallam. The last-mentioned writer says: ‘It expands beyond the literal purport of the Creed itself to most articles of orthodox belief, and is a valuable summary of arguments and authorities on that side. ”

“ He took a prominent part in building a bluecoat school in 1702, and in founding Cadley School in 1707. After the Jacobite occupation in 1715 he viewed with alarm the large number of Roman catholic residents in the town, and he procured the erection of two new churches. ”

“ He subsequently returned to England, and resided in the neighbourhood of his birthplace. At Ryles (or Royals) Green, near Combermere Abbey, he made his will on 11 Sept. 1600, which was proved on 28 May 1601. He seems to have died unmarried. ”

“ Paul's, and, at the king's special request, the vicarage of Hungerford for that of Windsor (Gent. Mag. 1830, pt. ii. p. 273) . On the translation of Bishop Cleaver [q. v.] from Chester to Bangor in 1800, Majendie was nominated to Chester, which he governed for nine years, holding his Windsor canonry in commendam. As bishop of Chester he preached before the House of Lords on the occasion of the peace of Amiens. ”