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Peter Sterry

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Peter Sterry

Peter Sterry(1613 – 19 November 1672) was an Englishindependenttheologian, associated with theCambridge Platonistsprominent during theEnglish Civil Warera. He was chaplain toParliamentariangeneralRobert Greville, 2nd Baron Brookeand thenOliver Cromwell,a member of theWestminster Assembly,[1][2]and a leading radicalPuritanpreacher attached to theEnglish Council of State.He was made fun of inHudibras.[3]

Life

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He was born inSurrey.He went toSt. Olave's Grammar School,Southwark.[4]He was a Fellow ofEmmanuel College, Cambridge,from 1636, where he had studied since 1629;[5]but gave up the fellowship quite soon.[6]

He preached to Parliament on important occasions: in 1649 after the surrender ofDroghedaandWaterford,[7]in 1651 after thebattle of Worcester.His sermons, widely allusive,[8]were considered opaque:David Massonquotes a contemporary opinion:

Of Sterry's preaching, already notoriously obscure,Sir Benjamin Rudyardhad said that "it was too high for this world and too low for the other" […][9]

After theRestoration,he retired to a community inEast Sheen.[10]He took part in preaching, for example atHackney[11]andconventicles.[12]

Literary historianVivian de Sola Pintoobserves that Sterry "had exactly the qualities that Puritans likeBunyanlacked: intellectual freedom, flexibility of mind, imagination, tolerance and loving-kindness. "[13]Sterry "united with this tenderness a wide culture, a true humanist's delight in learning and a love of beauty in all its manifestations."[13]

He is commemorated by a stained glass window in the chapel of Emmanuel College,[14]which has an archive of unpublished writings.

Views

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Described as a 'PlatonizingPuritan',[15]an 'Origenianuniversalist,'[16]as well as aBehmenist(despite disagreeing with Böhme on much),[17][18]he was a follower of leadingCambridge PlatonistBenjamin Whichcote.[19][20]As a mystic, he spoke of 'hidden music'.[21]Amillenarian,he expected in the early 1650s theSecond Comingshortly, with 1656 a decisive year.[22]

He withWilliam Erbery'had difficulty in distinguishing themselves fromRanters';[23]but he wrote against Ranter 'errors'.[24]He was a sympathiser with earlyQuakerism,[25][26]and preached in their defence whenJames Naylerwas under attack by MPs at theparliament of 1656.[27]

Robin Parrysummarizes: "In many ways Sterry is an anomaly—a Puritan who was a lover of the arts and poetry, a Platonist who was a theological determinist, a deeply rational mystic, and a Calvinist universalist."[28]

The following excerpt exemplifies Sterry's thought and style quite well:

The divine love covers all things with the divine loveliness and beauty of the universal harmony, which is the righteousness of God in Christ, the first, the fairest image of the invisible God, in which every other image of God stands, as in the original, the all-comprehending glory.[29]

Family

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The Oxford academicNathaniel Sterrywas his younger brother.[12]

Works

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  • The Spirit Convincing of Sinne,fast sermon for Parliament, 26 November 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)

References

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  • 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.

Notes

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  1. ^"301 redirect".
  2. ^"House of Commons Journal Volume 2: 31 May 1642 | British History Online".www.british-history.ac.uk.
  3. ^"Canto I of Book III".
  4. ^"St. Olave's Grammar School".www.saintolaves.net.
  5. ^"Sterry, Peter (STRY629P)".A Cambridge Alumni Database.University of Cambridge.
  6. ^Christopher Hill,Milton and the English Revolution,p. 42.
  7. ^House of Commons Journal Volume 6: 2 October 1649 | British History OnlineHill,A Nation of Change and Novelty(1990), p. 188]
  8. ^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."A Visit to the Spirit in Prison: Resurrecting Sarah Blackborow".Archived fromthe originalon 26 May 2005.Retrieved6 July2007.
  9. ^The Life of John Milton,onlineArchived15 May 2007 at theWayback Machine
  10. ^"Former SEP Mirror Site".seop.leeds.ac.uk.
  11. ^"Hackney: Protestant Nonconformity | British History Online".www.british-history.ac.uk.
  12. ^abCDNB
  13. ^abPinto,Peter Sterry, Platonist and Puritan(1934), 63.
  14. ^"Emmanuel College - College Life - the Chapel - the Windows".Archived fromthe originalon 8 February 2007.Retrieved6 July2007..
  15. ^M. H. Abrams,The Mirror and the Lamp,p. 60.
  16. ^Pinto,Peter Sterry, Platonist and Puritan(1934), 103-104. "Like Origen he refuses to believe in the doctrine of eternal damnation... Sterry's hell is a place not of damnation but of education and regeneration."
  17. ^"Hill, Milton, p. 330".Archived fromthe originalon 25 June 2007.Retrieved6 July2007.
  18. ^Parry,A Larger Hope?(Vol. 2), 291. In the quoted excerpt, Sterry warns, "The Lord gave [Böhme] his Spirit by measure, leaving much darkness mingled with his light. They that read him had need come to him well instructed in the mystery of Christ...others will be perverted by him."
  19. ^Richard Popkin,Pimlico History of Western Philosophy,p. 366.
  20. ^"DNB page on Cambridge Platonists".
  21. ^"Make Music for the Lord to hear".Archived fromthe originalon 16 April 2007.
  22. ^Peter Sterry,John TillinghastandJohn Rogersconcurred inArcher's opinion that 1656 or 1666 were likely dates for the commencement of the Reign of the Saints.PDFArchived18 May 2006 at theWayback Machine,p.2; Hill, Milton, p. 283, p. 301.
  23. ^Hill, Milton, p. 315.
  24. ^Hill, Nation of Change and Novelty, p. 214.
  25. ^Mentioned (withGiles Randall,Francis Rous,William Dell,John Saltmarsh) in connection withinner light:online extract from biography of George Fox.
  26. ^Jon Parkin (1999),Science, Politics and Religion in Restoration England,p.77.
  27. ^Worden, Blair (2012).God's Instruments: Political Conduct in the England of Oliver Cromwell.OUP. p.70.ISBN9780199570492
  28. ^Parry,A Larger Hope?(Vol. 2), 47.
  29. ^Peter Sterry,A Discourse of the Freedom of the Will(1675), preface, as cited in Vivian de Sola Pinto,Peter Sterry, Platonist and Puritan(1934), p. 131 (excerpt 1), with slightly modernized spelling, punctuation, and syntax.
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