PIERCE or PEIRSE, THOMAS (1622–1691), controversialist, son of John Pierce or Peirse, a woollen-draper and mayor of Devizes, Wiltshire, was born in 1622. He was appointed chorister of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1633, and was trained in 'grammar-learning' in the free-school adjoining the college by the Rev. William White, for whom in 1662 he obtained preferment (Wood, Athenæ Oxon. iii. 1167). On 7 Dec. 1638 he matriculated from the college, his father being then described as 'plebeius,' and in 1639 he became a demy. He graduated B.A. on 4 Dec. 1641, and M.A. on 21 June 1644, when he was 'esteemed a good poet and well skill'd in the theory and practice of music' (ib.) This musical reputation was maintained in after years; Evelyn mentions, on making his acquaintance in 1656, that he was 'an excellent musician' (Diary, 1827 edit. ii. 117). In 1643 he was elected a fellow of his college, and was expelled on 15 May 1648 by the parliamentary visitors, a proceeding which gave zest to his satire upon them, entitled 'A Third and Fourth Part of Pegasus, taught by Bankes his Ghost to dance in the Dorick Moode, 1 July 1648;' it was signed Basilius Philomusus. Like most of the royalist divines, he must have endured much poverty for some years; but he was fortunate enough to enter the household of Dorothy, countess of Sunderland, as tutor to her only son, Robert Spencer, afterwards secretary of state to James II. He spent some years in travelling with the youth through France and Italy, and in 1656 he was presented by the countess to the rectory of Brington, Northamptonshire, which he held until 1676. There he was much admired, says Wood, for his 'smooth and edifying way of preaching,' but everywhere else his words were 'very swords.' In 1659 he was appointed prælector of theology at his college.
Until the end of 1644 Pierce was imbued with calvinism, but he then changed his views, and attacked his abandoned opinions with the zeal of a neo-convert. For some time he was content to confine his thoughts to manuscript, but in 1655 he expounded his creed, that the sin in him was due to his own and not to God's will, and that the good done by him was received from the special grace and favour of God, in 'A correct Copy of some Notes concerning God's Decrees, especially of Reprobation.' The first edition (1655) was signed 'T. P.,' the second (1657) and the third (1671) bear his name. Pierce further defined his position in 'The Sinner impleaded in his own Court, wherein are represented the great Discouragements from Sinning which the Sinner receiveth from Sin itselfe,' 1656 (2nd and 3rd edit, with additions, 1670). Controversy raged about these works until 1660, and in further tracts Pierce replied to spirited attacks by William Barlee, rector of Brockhall, Northamptonshire, Edward Bagshawe, Henry Hickman, and especially Richard Baxter, with whom he was long at enmity. In 1658 he reprinted his contributions to the controversy, as far as it had then gone, in 'The Christian's Rescue from the Grand Error of the Heathen.'
At the Restoration, Pierce was reinstated in his fellowship, proceeding also D.D. on 7 Aug. 1660, and being appointed in the same year chaplain-in-ordinary to Charles II. He became the seventh canon of Canterbury on 9 July 1660, and prebendary of Langford Major at Lincoln on 25 Sept. 1662, holding both preferments until his death. After a strong opposition from some of the fellows, which was silenced at last by a peremptory letter from court, he was elected president of Magdalen College, Oxford, on 9 Nov. 1661. The result was a long-continued warfare. Wood rightly deemed him more qualified for preaching than for the administration of a college, and considered him 'high, proud, and sometimes little better than mad.' His own statement was that he was the 'prince' of his college. He deprived Thomas Jeanes of his fellowship, ostensibly for a pamphlet justifying the proceedings of the parliament against Charles I, but really for criticising the latinity of his 'Concio Synodica ad Clerum' (Wood, Fasti, ii. 220). Another of his victims was Henry Yerbury, a senior fellow and doctor of physic, whom he first put out of commons and then expelled. His conduct very soon brought about a visitation of the college by the bishop of Winchester, whom he treated with discourtesy. Pierce endeavoured to justify his action in 'A true Account of the Proceedings, and of the Grounds of the Proceedings' against Yerbury, who promptly vindicated his own conduct in a manuscript defence. Two vindications of Pierce appeared in the guise of lampoons, viz., 'Dr. Pierce his Preaching confuted by his Practice' (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. vi. 341), and 'Dr. Pierce his Preaching exemplified in his Practice.' Pierce assisted John Dobson in the first and wrote the second himself, although Dobson, to screen him, owned the authorship, and was expelled the university for a time. Eventually, after ten years of constant contentions with the fellows, he was induced to read his resignation at evening prayers in the chapel on 4 March 1671-2. He himself
