PEIRCE, JAMES, was born in the east of London in the year 1673, and was brought up, in conse quence of the early death of both his parents, in the family of Matthew Mead, one of the ejected ministers of 1662, and then pastor of the Noncon formist congregation at Stepney. He studied first at Utrecht, under Witsius and Leydecker, and afterwards at Leyden, under Perizonius and Span heim. Having entered the nonconformist ministry, he accepted an invitation to the pastoral charge of the church at Cambridge, from which place he re moved in 1713 to Exeter, where he remained until his death, March 30, 1726. Whilst residing at Cambridge he became intimate with Whiston, and subsequently adopted the same theological senti ments. His writings are chiefly controversial. He took an active part in the discussions occasioned by Hoadley's celebrated sermon on the Church of Christ ; and in the Salter's Hall controversy, on the side of the Arian party. His sole contribution to Biblical literature is—A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians, Philip pians, and Hebrews, after the manner of Mr. Locke. —to which are annexed several critical Dissertations on particular Texts of Scripture. London 1727, 4to. This was a posthumous publication, and was left in an unfinished state. It ends with Heb. x. 34, but adds a fragment on Heb. xii. 25-29. [HAL LETT]. This work attained to considerable repute both in England and in other countries. It was translated into Latin by J. D. Michaelis, and pub lished at Halle 1747, 4to.—S. N.
PEKAH open eyed; Sept. the officer who slew Pekahiah and mounted the throne in his stead (u.c. 758), becoming the eighteenth king of Israel. He reigned twenty years. Towards
the close of his life (but not before the seventeenth year of his reign) he entered into a league with Rezin, king of Damascene-Syria, against Judah ; and the success which attended their operations induced Ahaz to tender to Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, his homage and tribute, as the price of his aid and protection. The result was that the kings of Syria and Israel were soon obliged to abandon their designs against Judah in order to attend to their own dominions, of which considerable parts were seized and retained by the Assyrians. Israel lost all the territory east of the Jordan, and the two and a half tribes which inhabited it were seit into exile. These disasters seem to have created such popular discontent as to give the sanction of public opinion to the conspiracy headed by Hosea, in which the king lost his life (2 Kings xv. 25, seq. ; xvi. 5, seq. ; Is. vii. ; viii. 1-9 ; xvii. 1-1 1). [An Assyrian inscription commemorates the defeating of Rezin and the taking of Damascus by Tiglath pileser, as well as his receiving tribute from the king of Samaria. The name given to the latter on the inscription is Mcnahem, not Pekah • but this may be a mere mistake of the graver (Rawlinson, Ramp's Lect., p. 135, 409). There seems no ground for Mr. Rawlinson's statement that two invasions of Israel by the Assyrians took place during the reign of Pekah ; there is no allusion to this in the monuments, and the narrative in 2 Kings xvi. 7-9 is only the fuller account of what is alluded to in ch. xv. 29.]