Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 23 - David Perronet
David Perronet came to England about 1680, son of the refugee Pasteur Perronet, who had chosen Switzerland as his adopted country, and ministered to a congregation at Chateau D’Oex. The name obtained celebrity through David’s son, Rev. Vincent Perronet, a graduate of Oxford, Vicar of Shoreham (born 1693, died 1785), author of the celebrated hymn whose several stanzas end with the words, “and crqwn Him Lord of all;” the most celebrated verse, however, beginning thus — “O that with yonder sacred throng,” was the composition of an editor. In the Countess of Huntingdon’s Life and Times, vol. i. p. 387, a.d. 1770, a panegyric of him is given, which I abridge:— “Though Vincent Perronet was possessed of talents and accomplishments which would have qualified him to fill any station in the church with dignity, and his connections in life were such that he had good reason to expect considerable preferment, yet as soon as the glorious light of the gospel visited his mind, he renounced every prospect of temporal advantage. An occasional correspondent of Lady Huntingdon, he till this period had never had a personal interview with her. He was one of the most aged ministers of Christ in the kingdom, and was inferior to none in the fervour of his spirit, in the simplicity of his manners, and in the ancient hospitality of the gospel.” Mr. Perronet was represented collaterally by the late Lieut-General Thomas Perronet Thompson (born 1783), Fellow of Queen’s College, Cambridge, and (in 1802) Seventh Wrangler, author, in 1827, of “A Catechism on the Corn Laws,” M.P. for Hull, who died in 1869.