Perry, Joseph, a Congregational minister, was born about 1733, and was educated at Harvard College, class of 1752. He entered the holy ministry, and be- came minister of East Windsor, Conn., where he died in 1783. He published, Sermon on the Death of R. Wvl- cott (17G3) -.—Sermon on the Death of N. Hooker (1771) : — Election Sermon (1775).
Perry, Solomon C, a minister of the ^Methodist Episcopal Church, w as born in what is now called East Attleborough, Mass., May 27, 1807. His parents were members of the Congregational Church, and exceed- ingly rigid in their theological creed and strict in their morals. His early education was such as a New Eng- land rural neighborhood and the times afforded. He passed his youth mostly with his father on the farm. When quite a young man he was awakened to the dan- gers of an unregeneratcd state, and, encouraged by an uncle who was a Methodist preacher, began to attend Methodist meetings. To do this, however, he had to travel seven miles, there being no Methodist church within that distance from his father's house. It was while making this journey on a certain occasion that he was converted. Soon after he felt called of God to preach, and attached himself as a student to the Wil- braham Academy, then under the care of the late Dr. Fisk. At the termination of his preparatory course he entered, a year in advance. Brown University, under the presidency of Dr. Wayland. After his graduation he taught at Swinburn's Academy, a very flourishing institution at the time, in the village of White Plains, N. Y, He was licensed as a local preacher. He joined the Now York Conference in 1838, and his successive fields of labor were, for the years 1838, 1839, Yonkers; 1840, Durham and Middlefield ; 1841, Stratford and Bridgeport; 1842, Bridgeport; 1843, Bnshwick; 1844, 1845, Peekskill; 1846, 1847, New York, Twenty-seventh Street: 1848, 1840, Yonkers and Kingsbridge; 1850, 1851, New York, Fiftieth Street ; 1852, Red Hook ; 1853, 1854, Salisbury; 1855, 1856, Yorkville ; 1857, 1858, Tre- niont ; 1859, Washington Heights. In the year 1860 he was made supernumerary, and in 1861 he was superan*
PERSE
963
PERSECUTION
nuated, in which relation he continued until the time of his death, March G, 1872. •' Mr. Perry was a sound theologian, an excellent preacher, an earnest Christian, and in every sense a safe, conservative man. The transparency and purity of his character were singu- lar and distinctive. In his death the ministry has lost one of its most faithful laborers, the Church has been deprived of the presence and influence of one who was devoted to her interests, and whose uniform con- sistency and integrity reflected upon her the greatest credit; and the fragrance of his good name and exem- plary life will ever be grateful to our memories and yield us unceasing satisfaction" (iV. 1'. Christian Advocate, May 23, 1872). (J. H. W.)
Perse, William, an English divine, flourished in the second half of the 17th century. He was educated at Cambridge University, and was made fellow of his alma mater, the King's College, Cambridge. After taking holy orders he was presented to the living of Malton and the rectory of Hesterton, Yorkshire. He published Sei-iaon on Acts a-xii, 3, which he preached to the Eaton scholars (Lond. 1C82, 4to).
Persecution is any pain or affliction which a per- son designedly inflicts upon another. In its variability it is threefold: (1.) Me?ital, when the spirit of a man rises up and malignantly opposes another; (2.) Verbal, when men give hard words and deal in uncharitable censures; (3.) Actual or oj)en by the hand; such as the dragging of innocent persons before the civil tribunal. In its more restricted sense, 2>ersecution for conscience^ sake concerns us here only in so far as it has occurred within the Church, or the Church has been the guilty party. The Church of Christ, in her purity, knows nothing of intolerance, and therefore can never be guilty of persecution. Indeed, the unlawfulness of persecution for conscience' sake, under the New-Testament dispen- sation, must appear plain to every one that possesses the least degree of Christian thought or feeling. " To banish, imprison, plunder, starve, hang, and burn men for religion," says the shrewd Jortin, " is not the Gospel of Christ ; it is the Gospel of the devil. Where perse- cution begins, Christianity ends. Christ never used anything that looked like force or violence except once; and that was to drive bad men out of the Temple, and not to drive them in." Yet would we not overlook that true religion is essentially aggressive and intoler- ant of error, inasmuch as it "earnestly contends for the faith," and therefore abhors indift'erentism and syncre- tism, believing that their true source is not faith and charity, but the very opposite of these, Laodicean luke- warmness and tacit intidclity. Toleration of error on the part of the Church would render useless God's rev- elation of truth, would make God the abettor of error — would either destroy the Church as a society of believ- ers, or contradict the divine order which establishes it as the way of salvation. Hut the Church as such uses only spiritual weapons — the earnestness of cntreatj^, the force of prayer, the terrors of conscience, the powers of the Gospel. Its punishments, too, are entirely spiritual censures, and the ditl'erent degrees of excommunication. This is shown from the nature of religion in general and the spirit of Christianitj- in particular; from the consti- tution of the Church as a spiritual body; from the tenor of Scripture, which explains the compulsion of Luke xiv, 23 as being spiritual compulsion only; from Paul's lan- guage to Timothy, as 2 Tim. ii, 24, etc. (see Samuel Clarke's Sermon against Persecution for Relir/ion, Serm. i, p. 659), and from the fathers (see Bp. Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying, § 14). For these very reasons, how- ever, all temporal penalties inflicted by the Church as a spiritual bod\' must be classed as persecution ; for such penalties can be meted out only by a power either usurped or wrongfully given. The Church, being a spiritual society, has no power over the physical, i. e. the body. Its capital punishment is deliverance to Sa- tan. It may impose penance, it may enjoin restitution,