James Peirce

James Peirce (1674?–1726) was an English dissenting minister, the catalyst for the Salter's Hall controversy.

This Monument is erected by mournful friends as a lasting testimony of their high regard, to the Memory and Honour of the Reverend, Pious, and Learned Mr JAMES PEIRCE; a most worthy and indeared Pastor of this Church; a rational, judicious, and affectionate Preacher; a very laborious, and sagacious interpreter of the holy Scriptures; a sincere Lover, and Strenuous Defender of truth; a courageous sufferer, while living, for maintaining the doctrines of the Gospel of CHRIST. And for asserting the Liberties of Christians; and, after death, denied a just Encomium on his Tomb in Leonard's Church-Yard, by the Rector of the Parish. The great good man departed hence in Peace, 30 March 1726, in the 53d year of his age.

Early life

The son of John Peirce, he was born at Wapping about 1674. His parents, who were in easy circumstances, were members of the congregational church at Stepney, under Matthew Mead. Left an orphan about 1680, he was placed, with a brother and sister, in the charge of Mead as guardian. Mead took him into his own house, and educated him with his son Richard Mead. He was taught by John Nesbitt and Thomas Singleton; he then studied at Utrecht (from 1689) and Leyden (from 1692). At Utrecht he formed a lasting friendship with his fellow-student Adrian Reland, the orientalist; and he made friendships among his class-mates at Leyden, then the gathering-place of the upper crust of English dissent. He travelled in Flanders and Germany before returning home in 1695.

After spending some time in Oxford, to study at the Bodleian Library, he returned to London, was admitted (11 February 1697) a member of Mead's church, and preached the evening lecture at Miles Lane congregational church, of which Matthew Clarke the younger was minister. He did not interest himself in the current disputes in London between Presbyterians and Congregationalists; and was ordained in 1699 by four London Presbyterians, headed by Matthew Sylvester, the literary executor of Richard Baxter. His own ideal of church government was based on Baxter's rectoral theory; he had no theoretical objection to a modified episcopacy.

Minister

Early in 1701 Peirce's Presbyterian friends urged his acceptance of a charge in Green Street, Cambridge, where there was a mixed congregation of Independents and Presbyterians; in 1696 some of Joseph Hussey's congregation had seceded to it. Agreeing to take it for three years, he was duly 'dismissed' to it by the Stepney church. He held it for six years (1701–6). Pierce still was ranked as an Independent, for he was made a trustee of the Hog Hill chapel on 23 January 1702. At Cambridge he was intimate with William Whiston, who described him as 'the most learned of all the dissenting teachers I have known.' He read much, especially in the topics of nonconformist controversy. John Fox described him as sitting in his study from nine at night till four or five next morning.

His move to the presbyterian congregation at Toomer's Court, Newbury, Berkshire, probably coincided with his first controversial publication (end of 1706) in defence of nonconformist positions against Edward Wells. The appearance of his Vindiciæ (1710) in reply to the Defensio (1707) of William Nicholls brought him into prominence as a nonconformist polemicist. According to Fox the latinity of the Vindiciæ was corrected by Thomas Knipe. The work, which is dedicated to the clergy of the church of Scotland, contains a digest of nonconformist history and argument; the theology of the second part is strongly Calvinistic.

Early in 1713 he received a call to succeed George Trosse as one of the ministers of James's Meeting, Exeter, to preach also in rotation at the Little Meeting. Peirce accepted the offer and settled in Exeter before the end of 1713. four editions same year. The Charge of Misrepresentations maintain'd against … Sherlock, 1719. A Defence of the Case of the Ministers, 1719. A Justification of the Case of the Ministers, 1719. A Letter to Mr. Josiah Eveleigh, Exeter, 1719; Eveleigh was minister at Crediton, Devon, from 1702, and died on 9 September 1736. Animadversions upon … A True Relation of … Proceedings at Salters-Hall, 1719. A Letter ... in Defence of the Animadversions, 1719. A Second Letter to … Eveleigh, Exeter, 1719 Remarks upon the Account of what was transacted in the Assembly at Exon, 1719; second edition, same year, has a Postscript. An Answer to Mr. Enty's Defence … of the Assembly, 1719; to John Enty. The Western Inquisition, 1720. The Security of Truth without … Persecution, 1721, (against Enty). Inquisition Honesty display'd, 1722. A Paraphrase and Notes on … Colossians, 1725 (anon.); reprinted, with name, 1727; 1733. A Paraphrase and Notes on ... Philippians, 1725 (anon.); reprinted, with name, 1727; 1733.

Posthumous were:

A Paraphrase and Notes on … Hebrews, 1727 (edited by Hallett, his successor); also in Latin, J. Peircii Paraphrasis et Notæ ... in Epistolam ad Hebræos, 1747. Dissertations on Six Texts, 1727. An Essay in favour of ... giving the Eucharist to Children, 1728. Fifteen Sermons … To which is added A Scripture Catechism, 1728 (edited, with a memorial preface, by Benjamin Avery); contains the single sermons printed in his lifetime, and eight others.

His funeral sermon for Mrs. Hallett is reprinted in the Practical Preacher, 1762. Some above are doubtful.

Several anonymous pamphlets in the paper war at Exeter were ascribed to Peirce, and have been catalogued and referred to as his, apparently without ground; of these the most important is The Innocent vindicated, 1718; 2nd edition, 1719, which, Peirce says, he never read, and supposed to be by a lay hand; an appendix to the second edition has Thirteen Queries on the Trinity, which are defended as Peirce's in The Truth and Importance of the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, 1736, a publication against Daniel Waterland, which has been ascribed to Hallett.