Life
Willis was born in Ribbesford, Worcestershire, where his father was a tanner. He was educated at Bewdley Grammar School and Wadham College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1684 and graduated BA in 1688. He became a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.
Willis became a curate at Cheshunt and then, in 1692, lecturer at St Clement, Strand, where he acquired a reputation as a preacher. In 1694 he was chaplain to King William III on a journey to the Netherlands.
In 1701 Willis was appointed Dean of Lincoln and in 1714 Bishop of Gloucester. In 1721 he became Bishop of Salisbury and in 1723 Bishop of Winchester. There is a memorial to him in Winchester Cathedral. Willis was Lord High Almoner from 1718 to 1723.
He was one of the principal founders of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK). He gave in 1702 the first of the annual sermons on behalf of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG). It proposed an influential set of theories about evangelical missionary work in connection with the Anglican church settlement, commercial life and colonization.
He accused John Locke of “Hobbism” citing a parallel with Leviathan. He attacked deism in general, and John Toland and William Stephens in particular.
He gave a thanksgiving sermon 23 August 1705, for victories of the Duke of Marlborough in the War of the Spanish Succession. Given in St Paul's Cathedral, it was an elaborate effort for a full state occasion, and was published. It attracted also attracted controversy, with John Hughes writing A review of the case of Ephraim and Judah, and its application to the case of the church of England and the dissenters, and Joseph Williamson replying. He was also attacked by the Unitarian Thomas Emlyn.
He was a Whig in politics.
Read more about this topic: Richard Willis (bishop)
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Your faith an’ trouth yese never get
Nor our trew Love shall never twain
Till ye come within my bower
And kiss me both cheek and chin.
My mouth it is full cold, Margret,
It has the smell now of the ground;
An’ if I kiss thy com’ly mouth
Thy life days will not be long.”
—Unknown. Clerk Saunders (l. 109–116)
“The nature of women’s oppression is unique: women are oppressed as women, regardless of class or race; some women have access to significant wealth, but that wealth does not signify power; women are to be found everywhere, but own or control no appreciable territory; women live with those who oppress them, sleep with them, have their children—we are tangled, hopelessly it seems, in the gut of the machinery and way of life which is ruinous to us.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)
“I think it beats the heck out of life after death, that’s for sure.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)