AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ACCOUNT OF HUGH PETERS. HUGH PETERS born in the year 1599, was the son of considerable parents, of Foy in Cornwall. His father was a merchant; his mother of the ancient family of the Treffys' of Place in that town. He was sent to Cambridge at fourteen years of age; 'The ancient family of the Treffys of Place.] Thus the name is spelt in Peters's last legacy: but the same family was lately, if it is not now in being, in the same house, whose name is always, I think, spelled Treffry. However, from hence it is very apparent, that Peters's parentage by the mother, was very considerable. For the antiquity of the family is known to most; nor does it yield in gentility to any of the Cornish; which is no mean character in the eyes of those who value themselves on birth and descent. Chiefly extracted from a dying Father's last Legacy to an only Child; or Mr. Hugh Peters's Advice to his Daughter. London, 1660, 12mo. where, being placed in Trinity College, he took the degree of batchelor of arts in 1616, and of master in 1622. He was licensed by Dr. Mountain, bishop of London, and preached at Sepulchre's with great success2. * Preached at Sepulchre's with great success.] His account of his coming to Sepulchre's, and the success that he met with, will let us see something of the man. "To Sepulchre's I was brought by a very strange providence; for preaching before at another place, and a young man receiving some good, would not be satisfied, but I must preach at Sepulchre's, once monthly, for the good of his friends. In which he got his end (if I might not shew vanity) and he allowed thirty pounds per ann. to that lecture; but his person unknown to me. He was a chandler, and died a good man, and member of parliament. At this lecture the resort grew so great, that it contracted envy and anger; though I believe above a hundred every week were persuaded from sin to Christ: There were six or seven thousand hearers, and the circumstances fit for such good work." -Great success this! and what few preachers are blessed with. But some, I know, would attribute this to enthusiasm, which is very contagious, and produces surprising, though not lasting effects. However this be, it is no wonder envy and anger were contracted by it. For church governors are wont to dislike popular preachers, especially when they set themselves to teach in a manner different from them. -I will only remark further, that Peters was as great a converter as our modern Methodists. * Peters's Legacy, p. 101. Meeting with some trouble on the account of his nonconformity', he went to Holland, 3 Trouble on the account of his nonconformity.] Never was there any thing in the world more inconsistent with Christianity or good policy than persecution for conscience sake. Yet, such was the madness of the prelates, during the reigns of the Stuarts, as to harass and distress men most cruelly, merely on account of nonconformity to ecclesiastical ceremonies. Laud was an arch tyrant this way, as is known to all acquainted with our histories; nor were Wren and others much inferior to him. The very spirit of tyranny actuated their breasts, and made them feared and loathed whilst living, caused them to be abhorred since dead, and will render them infamous throughout all generations. I can add nothing to what Locke and Bayle have said on the reasonableness and equity of toleration: to them I will refer those, who have any doubts about it. Only as to the popular objections of its being inconsistent with the good of the state, and the wars and tumults occasioned by it, I will beg leave to observe, that it is evident to a demonstration, that those communities are more happy in which the greatest number of sects abound. Holland, the free cities of Germany, and England, since the revolution, prove the truth of my assertion. And I will venture, without pretending to the spirit of prophecy, to affirm, that, whenever the sects in England shall cease, learning and liberty will be no more amongst us. So that, instead of suppressing, we ought to wish their increase. For they are curbs to the state clergy, excite a spirit of emulation, and occasion a decency and regularity of behaviour among them, which they would, probably, be otherwise strangers to. where he was five or six years; from whence he removed to New England, and, after And for civil wars about religion; they are so far from arising from toleration, that, for the most part, they are the effect of the prince's imprudence." He must needs (says an indisputable judge) have unseasonably favoured one sect, at the expence of another: He must either have too much promoted, or too much discouraged the public exercise of certain forms of worship: He must have added weight to party-quarrels, which are only transient sparks of fire, when the sovereign does not interfere, but become conflagrations when he foments them. To maintain the civil government with vigour, to grant every man a liberty of conscience, to act always like a king, and never to put on the priest, is the sure means of preserving a state from those storms and hurricanes, which the dogmatical spirit of divines is continually labouring to conjure up1." Had Charles the first had the wisdom and prudence of this great writer, he never had plunged his kingdoms into the miseries of a civil war; nor by hearkening to his chaplains, refused terms which would have prevented his unhappy catastrophe. a • Where he was five or six years.] It seems that he behaved himself so well, during his stay in Holland, as to procure great interest and reputation in that country; for, being afterwards in Ireland, and seeing the great distress of the poor protestants, that had been plundered by the Irish rebels, he went into Holland, and procured about thirty thousand pounds to be sent from thence into Ireland for their relief.-Ludlow's Memoirs, Vol. III. p. 75. a Anti-Machiavel Eng. Trav. p. 328, edit. 1741. |