Brooke Foss Wescott 1825 - 1901

Bishop of Durham 1890-1901

Brooke Foss Westcott (12 January 1825 – 27 July 1901) was a British bishop, Biblical scholar and theologian, serving as Bishop of Durham from 1890 until his death.

The basis of Westcott's religious teaching was his belief in the Incarnation of the Son of God. For him the  Incarnation was the central fact of history, not caused by the fall of man but fore-ordained from the beginning . He held that in becoming man, in dying on the Cross, and rising from the dead, God had so revealed Himself to man that henceforth mankind had a religion which would be found sufficient for all human needs, for all holy and humble men of heart who were seeking after God, a religion which, as history told, would fulfil the spiritual desires of all men. 

Over and over again, Westcott, in his sermons and addresses, dwells on this belief in the Incarnation and presents it to his hearers, as the key and illumination of life. The experience of his own heart confirms this belief, and he can declare in old age:

"I say without reserve , that I have found my absolute trust in the Gospel of the Word Incarnate confirmed with living power, when I have seen with growing clearness that no phrases of the schools can adequately express its substance, or do more than help men provisionally  to realize some part of it's relation to thought and action; when I have learnt through the researches of students in other fields to extend the famous words of the Roman dramatist, and say, Christianus sum, nihil in rerum natura a me alienum puto- I am a Christian;  and therefore nothing in man and nothing in nature can fail to command  the devotion of my reverent study- that I have found, even in the slow and fitful progress of the Church, which still does not move forward, a spring of hope, when I turn, as I must from time to time, to take count of the unutterable evils of great cities, and great nations, and whole continents, which wait for atonement and redemption in the long suffering and wisdom of God" 

All Saints Church, Cambridge