gy, and it was the most important
intellectual nursery of the great Puritan movement in England. During
Sterry's University period there was a remarkable group of tutors and
fellows gathered in Emmanuel College. Foremost among them was Tuckney,
who was tutor to Benjamin Whichcote the founder of the school of
Cambridge Platonists, or "Latitude-Men," and Whichcote himself was at
Emmanuel College {280} throughout Sterry's period, graduating M.A. the
same year that Sterry graduated B.A.

Sterry was a thorough-going Platonist in his type of thought and had much
in common with Henry More, whose writings were "divinely pleasant" to him
and whom he calls "a prophet" of the spiritual unity of the universe, and
with Ralph Cudworth, the spiritual philosopher, though he finds "somewhat
to regret" in the work of both these contemporary Cambridge
Platonists.[37] Sterry is not usually reckoned among the Cambridge
Platonists, but there is no reason why he should not be included in that
group. He was trained in the University which was the natural home of
the movement, he read the authors most approved by the members of this
school, and his own message is penetrated with the spirit and ideals of
these seventeenth-century Platonists. His writings abound with
references to Plato and Plotinus, with occasional references to Proclus
and Dionysius the Areopagite; and the world-conceptions of this composite
school of philosophers, as they were revived by the Renaissance, are
fundamental to his thought. He was thoroughly acquainted with the
writings of Ficino, and quotes him among his approved masters. He had
also profoundly studied the great mystics and was admirably equipped
intellectually to be the interpreter of a far different type of
Christianity from that of the current theologies.

He became intimate in his public career with Sir Harry Vane, and there
are signs of mutual influence in their writings, which gave occasion for
Richard Baxter's pun on their names: "Vanity and sterility were never
more happily conjoined."[38] Upon the execution of Charles I., Sterry
was voted a preacher to the Council of State with a salary of one hundred
pounds a year, which was soon after doubled and lodgings at Whitehall
added. He generally preached before Cromwell on Sundays, and on every
other Thursday at Whitehall, frequently before {281} the Lords and
Commons. A number of his sermons were printed "by Order of the House,"
and enjoyed a wide p