Sekker, Thomas

Early years

Thomas Secker was the second of three children of Thomas Secker, the grandson of a butcher from Marston ( Lincolnshire ) and his third wife Abigail Brau, daughter of a wealthy farmer from Nottinghamshire . Secker's father was a poor Yeomen and nonconformist , hoping to see his son as a dissident priest, but died in 1700. Since 1699, little Thomas lived in Chesterfield in the family of his half-sister Elizabeth and her husband Richard Milns, attended a free school. In 1708, he entered the disserver academy in not far from Sheffield , but was unsatisfied with the level of teaching at this institution. While living in Attercliffe, Secker met the future Lord Chancellor of Ireland, , and from 1710 he lived in his father’s house in London, gaining, in addition to his knowledge of ancient Greek and Latin, skills in geometry, algebra and French, as well as studied John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and met his neighbor, the famous non-conformist theologian Isaac Watts , who recommended the dissenter in Gloucester to continue his education. There, Secker improved his knowledge of ancient languages ​​by adding Hebrew , Chaldean and Syriac to them , and also studied logic and mathematics. In 1713, Jones transferred his academy to Tewkesbury ( Gloucestershire ), but the level of education in it decreased; in 1714, Secker left the academy and returned to Chesterfield ^[1] .

Studying at the Jones Academy, Thomas began correspondence with Joseph Butler , which continued in subsequent years. By 1715, Secker lived in London, studying the works of Eusebius of Caesarea and William Whiston , who were in the center of the religious debates of supporters and opponents of the Church of England . Apparently, during this period, Secker doubts arose about the validity of non-conformist teachings.

In the years 1716-1717, Secker studied the anatomy of the famous surgeon and atheist , in 1718-1721 he studied dissection in the Paris hospital for the poor Salpetriere , without leaving all this time and his studies in theology.

Oxford, Church, Politics

In 1721, Thomas Secker returned to England and enrolled at at Oxford University (obviously, no later than this moment he abandoned dissenting beliefs, since admission to Oxford required written recognition of the truth of 39 articles of the Anglican religion ). In 1722, Secker received his Bachelor of Arts degree , and later that same year, the ordained him to the deacon in Piccadilly , London. In 1723, the same Bishop Talbot ordained Secker to the priesthood in the same cathedral, later Thomas went to Darham as chaplain of Bishop Talbot, and in 1724 he was appointed rector of the church in near Durham ^{[2] ]} . In the same year, Secker received his master 's degree in art from Oxford.

In 1732, Thomas Secker was appointed royal chaplain due to the fame in society that brought him the sermon (in his new position, he sometimes addressed the royal court of George II and Carolina ). In 1733, Secker became rector of the at Piccadilly in London, retaining the parish of Ryton. In his new position, he also demonstrated his business abilities by putting in order the financial statements of the parish, and continued to preach.

In 1734, on the initiative of George II, Secker was elevated to the episcopal dignity and occupied the Bristol , where he also first studied the financial situation of the diocese, and then began to go around parishes to get acquainted with the situation on the ground.
In 1737, he became ; since 1738 he traveled around the diocese, and his questionnaires and letters to the clergy represent an important source of information about the church life of that period (the answers of the priests were published in print). Sekker made five pastoral visits from 1738 to 1753, seeking the priests to carefully fulfill their duties. During his tenure as bishop, he retained the prebenda of the Cathedral of Darham and the rector of the Church of St. James (until 1750), since both of his bishopric departments were considered financially poor. He spent most of his time in London, continuing to preach and worthily performing the duties of a parish priest.

Among the parishioners of Secker as rector of the Church of St. James was Prince of Wales Frederick , and unreliable rumors circulated in London society that the rector in the presence of the prince personally read a sermon on the fifth commandment (“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has told you to so that your days may be long, and that it may be good for you on that land that the Lord your God gives you ”), when Frederick was in conflict with George II from 1737. Sekker denied this fact and claimed that his relationship with the king’s son was correct (he baptized seven of Frederick’s nine children), but not too close, and he did not try to influence the actions of a high-ranking parishioner.

As a bishop, Secker became a member of the House of Lords , and until the end of the 1740s he regularly attended chamber meetings, leaving many handwritten recordings of debates that later served as William Cobbet one of the sources of parliamentary history. Contrary to the government’s position, in 1736 Secker, together with all the bishops, voted against the bill, which facilitated the position of the Quakers , in 1739 against with Spain on matters of smuggling, Asiento and freedom of navigation, in 1742 for the creation of a committee to investigate the actions of the British command in the war with Spain, as well as in a number of other cases in subsequent years. Being a supporter of the Whigs , he considered it useful to include the “best” Tories in the government.

In 1750, Secker became the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral , after which he left the Darham Prebenda and the post of rector of the Church of St. James. The king authorized the appointment, since by this time he had become convinced that Secker had refused political support for the opposition. As dean, Thomas systematized the archives of the cathedral and managed to provide the necessary repairs.

Between 1749 and 1755, Secker supported in his discussion with on the question of the existence of miracles after the time of the apostles , and also assisted the biblical scholar Benjamin Kennicott in his work on collecting Hebrew manuscripts and supported the scientific method of studying the Bible followers of .

Archbishop of Canterbury

On April 21, 1758, Thomas Secker became Archbishop of Canterbury ( George II authorized the appointment, only making sure that he was no longer involved in the opposition). In 1760, the archbishop’s relationship with the monarch improved even more, as the throne was taken by the grandson of George II, George III , whom Secker had baptized at one time. In 1761, Sekker held the ceremony of the wedding of the new king with Charlotte Mecklenburg-Strelitskaya , and later in the same year - held the coronation. During the archbishopric of Sekker, the center of the religious life of the country became the Lambeth Palace , in which the owner received a large number of clergy and aristocrats. By decree of Secker, the librarian of the Lambeth Palace, systematized the archives remaining from the archbishops of the past, but the work of Secker himself is now also described in detail in the documents of this archive.

Secker worked closely with York Archbishop to manage , which financed the poor clergy, and in other areas affecting church-wide interests. At the same time, he sharply reduced his participation in parliamentary work and sought to smooth out the concern of a part of society with the excessively strengthened church power. However, in 1765 he spoke in the House of Lords against the abolition of the 1753 , which introduced a single wedding ceremony. With the assistance of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Abroad, Secker, since 1741, had been seeking the establishment of bishopric departments in the American colonies .

A characteristic feature of Archbishop Thomas Secker was his desire to help the Protestants who were persecuted in Europe. He did everything possible to disseminate information in England about the massacre of Protestants in Thorne in 1757 and to provide financial assistance to the Protestant community of this city to restore the church building. In 1767-1768, he organized a campaign to help the Waldenses community and Hungarian Protestants, and helped the Huguenots in France and the Huguenot emigrants in London.

Thomas Secker died at the Lambeth Palace on August 3, 1768 and was buried in the covered passage between the palace and the northern entrance to the Lambeth Church.

Family

In 1725, Thomas Secker married Catherine Benson (held the ceremony by Bishop in London), the Secker family continued to live next door to the Talbot family in London and in , where Secker performed not only duties of a village priest, but also used his medical skills to help parishioners. Due to her deteriorating state of health, Mrs. Secker Thomas secured the position of rector of the church in ( Tyne and Wear ) and the third prebenda in Durham , and then the couple moved Bath to London, where they remained until 1728.

• The Biographical Magazine: Containing Portraits of Eminent and Ingenious Persons of Every Age and Nation, with Their Lives and Characters . - E. Wilson, 1819. - Vol. one.
• Carpenter E., Hastings A. Cantuar: The Archbishops in Their Office . - Continuum, 1997. - 607 p. - ISBN 978-08-2643-089-2 .
• Dr Gibson W., Gibson W. The Church of England 1688-1832: Unity and Accord . - Routledge, 2012 .-- 288 p. - ISBN 978-11-3455-205-4 .
• Sykes N. From Sheldon to Secker: Aspects of English Church History 1660-1768 . - Cambridge University Press, 2004 .-- 252 p. - ISBN 978-05-2154-819-9 .

• Jeremy Gregory Secker Thomas // Oxford Dictionary of National Biography