Peter Sterry

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Peter Sterry (1613-1672) was an English Independent theologian. He was chaplain to Parliamentarian general Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke and then Oliver Cromwell, a member of the Westminster Assembly[1], and a leading radical Puritan preacher attached to the Council of State. He was made fun of in Hudibras[2].

Contents

[edit] Life

He went to St. Olave's Grammar School, Southwark[3]. He was a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from 1636, where he had studied since 1629[4]; but gave up the fellowship quite soon[5].

He preached to Parliament on important occasions: in 1649 after the surrender of Drogheda and Waterford[6], in 1651 after the battle of Worcester. His sermons, widely allusive[7] were considered opaque: David Masson[8] quotes a contemporary opinion:

“ Of Sterry's preaching, already notoriously obscure, Sir Benjamin Rudyard had said that "it was too high for this world and too low for the other" […] ”

After the Restoration, he retired to a community in East Sheen[9]. He took part in preaching, for example at Hackney[10] and conventicles[11].

He is commemorated by a stained glass window in the chapel of Emmanuel College[12], which has an archive of unpublished writings.

[edit] Views

Described as a ‘Platonizing Puritan’[13], as well as a Behmenist[14], he was a follower of leading Cambridge Platonist Benjamin Whichcote[15][16]. As a mystic, he spoke of ‘hidden music’[17]. A millenarian, he expected in the early 1650s the Second Coming shortly, with 1656 a decisive year.[18].

He with William Erbery ‘had difficulty in distinguishing themselves from Ranters.’[19]; but he wrote against Ranter ‘errors’[20]. He was a sympathiser with early Quakerism[21][22] .

[edit] Family

The Oxford academic Nathaniel Sterry was his younger brother[23].

[edit] Works

  • The Spirit Convincing of Sinne, fast sermon for Parliament, November 26 1645
  • England's Deliverance from the Northern Presbytery, Compared with its Deliverance from the Roman Papacy (1652) sermon on the Battle of Worcester
  • Way of God with his people in these nations, sermon for Parliament 5 November 1656
  • Free Grace Exalted (1670)
  • A Discourse of the Freedom of the Will (1675)
  • The Rise, Race, and Royalty of the Kingdom of God in the Soul (1683)
  • The Appearance of God to Man in the Gospel (1710)

[edit] References

  • F. J. Powicke, "Peter Sterry: A Puritan Mystic." Primitive Methodist Quarterly Review 47 (1905): 617-25.
  • Vivian de Sola Pinto (1968) Peter Sterry, Platonist and Puritan, 1613-1672;: A biographical and critical study with passages selected from his writings
  • V. de Sola Pinto, Peter Sterry and His Unpublished Writings, The Review of English Studies, Vol. 6, No. 24 (Oct., 1930), pp. 385-407
  • Nabil I. Matar (1994), Peter Sterry: Select Writings
  • Matar, "Peter Sterry and the Comenian Circle: Education and Eschatology in Restoration Nonconformity," The Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society, 5 (1994): 183-192.
  • Matar, "Aristotelian Tragedy in the Theology of Peter Sterry," Literature and Theology, 6 (1992): 310-20.
  • Matar, "'Oyle of Joy': The Early Prose of Peter Sterry," Philological Quarterly, 71 (1992): 31-46.
  • Matar, "John Donne, Peter Sterry and the ars moriendi," Exploration in Renaissance Culture, 17 (1991): 55-71.
  • Matar, "Peter Sterry and the Puritan Defense of Ovid in Restoration England," Studies in Philology, 88 (1991): 110-121.
  • Matar, "Peter Sterry and the 'Paradise Within': A Study of the Emmanuel College Letters," Restoration, 13 (1989): 76-85.
  • Matar, "Peter Sterry and Jacob Boehme," Notes and Queries, 231 (1986): 33-36.
  • Matar, "Peter Sterry and the First English Poem on the Druids," National Library of Wales Journal, 24 (1985): 222-243.
  • Matar, "Peter Sterry and the Ranters," Notes and Queries, 227 (1982): 504-506.
  • Matar, "Peter Sterry and the 'lovely Society' at West Sheen," Notes and Queries, 227 (1982): 45-46,
  • Matar, "Peter Sterry, the Millennium and Oliver Cromwell," The Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society, 2 (1982): 334-343.
  • Matar, "A Note on George Herbert and Peter Sterry," George Herbert Journal, 5 (1982): 71-75.
  • Matar, "Peter Sterry and Morgan Llwyd," The Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society, 2 (1981): 275-279.
  • Matar, "The Peter Sterry MSS at Emmanuel College, Cambridge," Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 8 (1981): 42-56. With P. J.Croft.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ [1], [2], as Sterrey.
  2. ^ [3]; Canto I of Book III.
  3. ^ St Olave's London - Founded 1571
  4. ^ Concise Dictionary of National Biography.
  5. ^ Christopher Hill, Milton and the English Revolution, p. 42.
  6. ^ Hill, A Nation of Change and Novelty (1990), p. 188.[4]
  7. ^ Reverend Peter Sterry, a chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, regularly used pagan mythology, especially Ovid, in his sermons and was known to carry Aquinas, Boehme, Shakespeare and Ovid with him when he traveled.[5]
  8. ^ The Life of John Milton, online
  9. ^ The Cambridge Platonists (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Winter 2004 Edition)
  10. ^ Hackney - Protestant Nonconformity | British History Online
  11. ^ CDNB
  12. ^ [6].
  13. ^ M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp, p. 60.
  14. ^ [7]; Hill, Milton, p. 330.
  15. ^ Richard Popkin, Pimlico History of Western Philosophy, p. 366.
  16. ^ DNB page on Cambridge Platonists
  17. ^ Make Music for the Lord to hear
  18. ^ Peter Sterry, John Tillinghast and John Rogers concurred in Archer's opinion that 1656 or 1666 were likely dates for the commencement of the Reign of the Saints. PDF, p.2; Hill, Milton, p. 283, p. 301.
  19. ^ Hill, Milton, p. 315.
  20. ^ Hill, Nation of Change and Novelty, p. 214.
  21. ^ Mentioned (with Giles Randall, Francis Rous, William Dell, John Saltmarsh) in connection with inner light: online extract from biography of George Fox.
  22. ^ Jon Parkin (1999), Science, Politics and Religion in Restoration England, p.77.
  23. ^ CDNB
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