18 History of Hingham. 



THE LIFE OP MR. PETER HOBART. 

 BY COTTON MATHER. 



It was a saying of Alphonsus (whom they sir-named " the wise, King 

 of Arragon,") that " among so many things as are by men possessed or 

 pursued in the course of their lives, all the rest are baubles, besides old 

 wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to converse with, and old 

 books to read." Now, there having been Protestant and reformed colo- 

 nies here formed, in a new world, and those colonies now growing old, it 

 will certainly be no unwise thing for them to converse with some of their 

 old friends, among which one was Mr. Peter Hobart, whom therefore a 

 new book shall now present unto my readers. 



Mr. Peter Hobart was born at or near Hingham, a market town in the 

 county of Norfolk, about the latter end of the year 1604. His parents 

 were eminent for piety, and even from their youth " feared God above 

 many ; " wherein their zeal was more conspicuous by the impiety of the 

 neighbourhood, among whom there were but three or four in the whole 

 town that minded serious religion, and these were sufficiently maligned 

 by the irreligious for their Puritanism. These parents of our Hobart 

 were such as had obtained each other from the God of heaven, by Isaac- 

 like prayers unto him, and such as afterwards " besieged Heaven " with a 

 continual importunity for a blessing upon their children, whereof the 

 second was this our Peter. This their son was, like another Samuel, 

 from his infancy dedicated by them unto the ministry, and in order 

 thereunto, sent betimes unto a grammar school ; whereto, such was his 

 desire of learning, that he went several miles on foot every morning, 

 and by his early appearance there, still shamed the sloth of others. He 

 went afterwards unto the free-school at Lyn, from whence, when he 

 was by his master judged fit for it, he was admitted into a colledge in the 

 University of Cambridge ; where he remained, studied, profited, until he 

 proceeded Batchellor of Arts ; giving all along an example of sobriety, 

 gravity, aversion from all vice, and inclination to the service of God. 



Retiring then from the university, he taught a grammar school ; but 

 he lodged in the house of a conformist minister, who, though he were no 

 friend unto Puritans, yet he employed this our young Hobart sometimes 

 to preach for him ; and when asked, " What his opinion of this young 

 man was? " he said, "I do highly approve his abilities ; he will make an 

 able preacher, but I fear he will be too precise." When the time for it 

 came he returned unto the university, and proceeded Master of Arts : but 

 the rest of his time in England was attended with much unsettlement of 

 his condition. He was employed here and there, as godly people could 

 obtain permission from the parson of the parish, who upon any little dis- 

 gust would recal that permission : and yet all this while, by the blessing 

 of God upon his own diligence and discretion, and the frugality of his 

 virtuous consort, he lived comfortably. The last place of his residence 

 in England was in the town of Haverhil, where he was a lecturer, labori- 

 ous and successful in the vineyard of our Lord. 



His parents, his brethren, his sisters, had not, without a great affliction 

 to him, embarked for New-England ; but some more time after this, the 

 cloud of prelatical impositions and persecutions grew so black upon him, 



