(Vol. iii., p. 38.)
Your correspondent's inquiry with respect to the missing MSS. of Peter
Sterry, which were intended to form a second volume of his posthumous
works, published without printer's name in 1710, 4to., and of which MSS.
a list is given in vol. i., does not seem to have led to any result. As
I feel equal interest with himself in every production of Sterry, I am
tempted again to repeat the Query, in the hope of some discovery being
made of these valuable remains. I have no doubt the editor of the
"Appearance of God to Man," and the other discourses printed in the
first volume, was R. Roach, who edited Jeremiah White's _Persuasion to
Moderation_, Lond., 1708, 8vo.; and afterwards published _The Great
Crisis_, and _The Imperial Standard of Messiah Triumphant_, 1727, 8vo.;
and probably Sterry's MSS. may be found if Roach's papers can be traced.
It is curious that a similar loss of MSS. seems to have occurred with
regard to several of the works of Jeremiah White, who, like Sterry, was
a chaplain of Cromwell (how well that great man knew how to select
them!), and, like Sterry, was of that admirable Cambridge theological
school which Whichcot, John Smith, and Cudworth have made so renowned.
Neither of these distinguished men have yet, that I am aware of, found
their way into any biographical dictionary. White is slightly noticed by
Calamy (vol. ii. p. 57.; vol. iv. p. 85.). Sterry, it appears, died on
Nov. 19, 1672. White survived him many years, and died in the
seventy-eighth year of his age, 1707. Of the latter, there is an
engraved portrait; of the former, none that I know of; nor am I aware of
the burial-place of either. The works which I have met with of Sterry
are his seven sermons preached before Parliament, &c., and published in
different years; his _Rise, Race, and Royalty of the Kingdom of God in
the Soul of Man_, 1683, 4to.; his _Discourse of the Freedom of the Will_
(a title which does not by any means convey the character of the book),
Lond., 1675, fol.; and the 4to. before mentioned, being vol. i. of his
_Remains_, published in 1710. Of White I only knew a Funeral Sermon on
Mr. Francis Fuller; his _Persuasion to Moderation_, above noticed, which
is an enlargement of part of his preface to Sterry's _Rise, &c._; and
his _Treatise on the Restoration of all Things_, 1712, 8vo., which has
recently been republished by Dr. Thom. To his _Persuasion_ is appended
an advertisement:
"There being a design of publishing the rest of Mr. White's
works, any that have either Letters or other Manuscripts of his
by them are desired to communicate them to Mr. John Tarrey,
distiller, at the Golden Fleece, near Shadwick Dock."
This design, with the exception of the publication of _The Restoration_,
seems to have proved abortive. White entertained many opinions in common
with Sterry, which he advocates with great power. He does not however,
like his fellow chaplain, soar into the pure empyrean of theology with
unfailing pinions. Sterry has frequently sentences which Milton might
not have been ashamed to own. His _Discourse of the Freedom of the Will_
is a noble performance, and the preface will well bear a comparison with
Cudworth's famous sermon on the same subject.