Peter Sterry

Peter Sterry (1613–1672) was an English independent theologian, associated with the Cambridge Platonists prominent during the English Civil War era. 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 English Council of State. He was made fun of in Hudibras.[2]

Contents

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 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" […][8] ”

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He is commemorated by a stained glass window in the chapel of Emmanuel College,[12] which has an archive of unpublished writings.

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]

Family

The Oxford academic Nathaniel Sterry was his younger brother.[11]

Works

References

Notes

  1. ^ [1], [2], as Sterrey.
  2. ^ [3]; Canto I of Book III.
  3. ^ St Olave's London - Founded 1571
  4. ^ Sterry, Peter in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
  5. ^ Christopher Hill, Milton and the English Revolution, p. 42.
  6. ^ Hill, A Nation of Change and Novelty (1990), p. 188
  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.[4]
  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. ^ a b CDNB
  12. ^ [5].
  13. ^ M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp, p. 60.
  14. ^ [6]; 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.