PETER

See also:

• PETER GUNNING (1614-1684)

GUNNING (1614-1684)  , English divine, was born at Hoo, in Kent, and educated at the King's School, Canterbury, and Clare College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow in 1633 . Having taken orders, he advocated the royalist cause from the pulpit with much eloquence . In 1644 he retired to Oxford, and held a chaplaincy at New College until the city surrendered to the parliamentary forces in 1646 . Subsequently he was chaplain, first to the royalist Sir Robert Shirley of Eatington (1629-1656), and then at the Exeter House chapel . After the Restoration in 166o he returned to Clare College as master, and was appointed Lady Margaret professor of divinity . He also received the livings of Cottesmore, Rutlandshire, and Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire . In 1661 he became head of St John's College, Cambridge, and was elected Regius professor of divinity . He was consecrated bishop of Chichester in 1669, and was translated to the see of Ely in 1674-1695 . Holding moderate religious views, he deprecated alike the extremes represented by Puritanism and Roman Catholicism . His works are chiefly reports of his disputations, such as that which appears in the Scisme Unmask't (Paris, 1658), in which the definition of a schism is discussed with two Romanist opponents .