Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Price, William (1597-1646)
PRICE, WILLIAM (1597–1646), divine, one of the Prices of Denbighshire, matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 16 Oct. 1616, aged 19. He graduated B.A. and M.A. on 21 June 1619, and B.D. on 14 June 1628. Taking holy orders, he was, on 26 Sept. 1621, elected the first reader in moral philosophy on the foundation of Thomas White. On White's death in April 1624 Price pronounced his funeral oration, which was included in 'Schola Moralis Philosophiæ Oxon. in Funere Whiti pullata,' Oxford, 1624. In 1630 Price joined in a protest to the king on technical grounds against the appointment of Bishop Laud as chancellor of Oxford (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1629-31 , p. 241). He was instituted on 10 Feb. 1631 to the rectory of Dolgelly, Merionethshire, where he died in 1646, and was buried in the church. He married Margaret, daughter of Robert Vaughan [q. v.] of Hengwrt, the antiquary.
A contemporary William Price (d. 1666), born in London, delivered before the lord mayor and aldermen at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, in 1642 a 'spittle sermon,' afterwards printed. He became pastor of a presbyterian church at Waltham Abbey, Essex, and was chosen one of the Westminster divines. He served on one of the committees, and took considerable part in the discussions. He was called from London on 9 Aug. 1648 by the presbyterian or reformed church of Amsterdam, and remained its pastor until his death in July 1666. He was author of two sermons (1646 and 1660), and of:
- 'Janitor Animae, or the Soule's Porter to cast out sinne and to keepe out sinne: a Treatise of the Feare of God,' London, 1638, 8vo.
- 'Triumphus Sapientiae: seu conciones aliquae in selecta Theologiae capita,' &c., Amsterdam, 1655, 12mo.
[For the elder Price see: Wood's Athenae Oxon. ii. 352; Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 365, 388, 389; Foster's Alumni Oxon. (1500-1714); Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy, iii. 522; Wood's Antiquities of the University of Oxford, ed. Gutch, ii. 873; Williams's Eminent Welsh-men, p. 423. For the younger Price see his Works; Mitchell's Minutes of the Westminster Assembly, and his Hist. of the same, xviii. 145, 162; Steven's Scottish Church, Rotterdam, p. 279; Wagenaar's Amsterdam, vii. 595.]