Richard Kidder

Richard Kidder (1633–1703) was an English Anglican churchman, Bishop of Bath and Wells, from 1691 to his death. He was a noted theologian.

Biography

He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was a sizar, from 1649, graduating 1652.^[1] He became a Fellow there in 1655, and vicar of Stanground, Huntingdonshire, in 1659.^[2] He was deprived in 1662.^[3]

He was rector of Rayne Parva, Essex, from 1664 to 1674, having conformed to the Act of Uniformity 1662. He was later vicar of St. Martin Outwich, London, and in 1689 a royal chaplain,^[4] and dean of Peterborough.

His A Demonstration of the Messias^[5] has been identified as a significant influence on the librettist Charles Jennens, in writing the words for the Messiah of Handel.^[6] This book also took up suggestions of Joseph Mede on multiple authorship of the Book of Zechariah.^[7]

He was killed in the Great Storm of 1703, on 26 November (7 December in today's calendar);^[8] he was in bed with his wife in the episcopal palace at Wells when the chimney fell on both of them.^[9]

Works

• The Christian sufferer supported (1680)
• A Demonstration of the Messias. In which the Truth of the Christian Religion is Proved, Against All the Enemies Thereof; But Especially Against the Jews. In Three Parts (1684, 1699, 1700)
• A sermon upon the resurrection (1694)
• A Commentary on the Five Books of Moses: With a Dissertation Concerning the Author Or Writer of the said books and a general argument to each of them (1694)
• The life of the Reverend Anthony Horneck, late preacher at the Savoy (1698)
• The holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments (1715)
• A Discourse Concerning Sins of Infirmity, and Wilful Sins, with Another of Restitution (reprint, 2010)

Notes

External links