Name Peter Sterry Died 1672 | ||
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Education University of Cambridge | ||
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, and a leading radical Puritan preacher attached to the English Council of State. He was made fun of in Hudibras.
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Life
He went to St. Olave's Grammar School, Southwark. He was a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from 1636, where he had studied since 1629; but gave up the fellowship quite soon.
He preached to Parliament on important occasions: in 1649 after the surrender of Drogheda and Waterford, in 1651 after the battle of Worcester. His sermons, widely allusive, were considered opaque: David Masson quotes a contemporary opinion:
After the Restoration, he retired to a community in East Sheen. He took part in preaching, for example at Hackney and conventicles.
He is commemorated by a stained glass window in the chapel of Emmanuel College, which has an archive of unpublished writings.
Views
Described as a 'Platonizing Puritan', as well as a Behmenist, he was a follower of leading Cambridge Platonist Benjamin Whichcote. As a mystic, he spoke of 'hidden music'. A millenarian, he expected in the early 1650s the Second Coming shortly, with 1656 a decisive year.
He with William Erbery 'had difficulty in distinguishing themselves from Ranters'; but he wrote against Ranter 'errors'. He was a sympathiser with early Quakerism, and preached in their defence when James Nayler was under attack by MPs at the parliament of 1656.
Family
The Oxford academic Nathaniel Sterry was his younger brother.