PETERS. 857 produce a catalogue, not of twenty-two papists, but of above one hundred and twenty, whom he, through the blessingof God, had converted and brought home to Gocl, making them other kind of convertsthan any he had recited, whowere made neither good protestants nor good christians.\ He further added, that he, and many other ministers in England, were able to produce hundreds of true converts to Christ, for every one of his pretended ones ; some of whom, by his own confession, soon turned apostates, and the rest were little better.. Whatever truth there might be in this reply, it certainly discovered Mr. Peters's tot; great forwardness, while it very much offended the arch- bishop. During the archbishop's trial, his library at Lambeth, it is said, was given to Mr. Peters, as a reward for his remark- able services.t 'rho truth of this, however, is rendered rather doubtful, and appears, even from the very words of Laud himself; to have been founded merelyon report. "All my books at Lambeth," says he, " were, by order of the house of commons, taken away, and carried I know not whither ; but are, as it is commonly said, for the use of Mr. Peters. Before this time," his lordship adds, " some good number of my books were delivered to the use of the , synod," meaning the assembly of divines$ In the year 1651, Mr. Peters was one of the committee appointed by the parliament to take into consideration what inconveniencies were in the law, and how the mischiefs that arose from delays, and other irregularities in the pro- ceedings of the law, might be best and soonest prevented. In this committee were Mr. Rushworth and Sir Anthony Ashly Cooper, afterwards the Earl of Shaftsbury and lord chancellor; besides many others of high rank. " But none of them," says Whitlocke, " was more active in this busi- ness than Mr. Hugh Peters, who understood little of the law, and was very opinionative."§ Mr. Peters, speaking of these transactions, says, " When I was called about mending laws, I was there to pray, rather than to mend laws. But in this, I confess, I might as well have been spared.1 Here, in his Own words, his ignorance and inability, in things of this nature, are as frankly acknowledged as they are plainly described by the learned historian. But it is Prynne's Cant. Doome, p. 56. + Walton's Life of Hooker, Pref.-Wood's Athente, vol. i. p. 269. Wharton's Troubles of Laud, vol. i. p. 365. § Whitlocke's Memorials,p. 496, 497. b Peters's Dying Legacy, p. 109.
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