PETERS. 351 great acceptance and success, at St. Sepulchre's in the city. A certain scurrilous writer says, " he set up the trade of an itinerary preacher, never being constant or fixed to any one place or benefice ; and he roved about the world like universal churchmen, calledjesnits.". Mr. Peters, speaking of his labours at Sepulchre's, says, " there were six or seven - thousand hearers ;" and adds, " I believe above one hundred everyweek were persuaded from sin to Christ."r His great popularity and usefulness, together with his nonconformity; at length awakened the envy and malice of his enemies. He was noticed by the ruling prelates;. and having prayed for the queen in Sepulchre's church, " That as she came into the Goshen of safety, so the light of Goshen might shine into her soul, and that she might not perish in the day of Christ ;" he was apprehended by Archbishop Laud, silenced from his ministry, and committed close prisoner to New Prison, where he remained for some time before any articles were exhibited against him : and though certain noblemen interceded and offered bail for him,it was refused ; and at length, after obtaining his release, he was obliged to flee to New England,§ We are aware that several writers of the adverse party have assigned a very different, reason for his going into exile. Langbaine insinuates something of " an affair that he had with a butcher's wife of Sepulchre's ;" and Granger says, "That being prosecuted for criminal conversation with another man's wife, he fled to Rotterdam.1 Mr. Peters himself appears not to have been insensible of his ill character among his enemies ; but he terms it altogether a reproach, and attributes it to his zeal in the cause he espoused. " By my zeal," says he to his daughter, " it seems I have exposed myself to all manner of reproach : but one of his chaplains, who stood by, " the, very mention of the text is not allowable for the present times." The bishop said, " Look to thyself ; for if thou speakest any thing that shall not please, I vow to break thy- neck and thy back too." The preacher replied, that he had nothing to speak but the truth, and so was dismissed. Though his lordship was ex- ceedingly displeasedwith the sermon, it contained a faithful account of the awful condition of those who forsake the faith they once received only he observed, that they might expect some application, but he was not ambiti- ous of lying in prison; and thus closed the sermon.-Baker's MS. Colleen xxi. p. 104. o Bates's Lives of the King's Murderers, p.40. Edit. 1661. + Peters's Dying Legacy, p. 100. Edit. 1660. t Huntley's Prelates' Usurpations, p. 162. § Prynne's Cant. Doome, p.419. U Historical and Critical Account of Hugh Peters, p. 34. Edit. 1751.-- Granger's Biog. Hist. vol. iii. p. 54.
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