MATHER, INCREASE (1639-1723), American Congre gational minister and author, was the youngest son of Richard Mather (q.v.). Born in Dorchester on June 21, 1639, he gradu ated at Harvard in 1656. took his M.A. degree at Trinity college, Dublin, in 1658, and ministered to congregations at Great Tor rington, Devonshire, at Guernsey, at Gloucester, and at Wey. mouth and Dorchester in Dorsetshire. He returned to Boston in 1661, and in the next year married Maria, daughter of the Rev John Cotton. He became teacher of the Second church in Boston in 1664, licenser of the press in 1674, fellow of Harvard in 1675, and in 1685 president of the college. In 1688 he went to London as the emissary of some of the Massachusetts churches to try to regain the old colonial charter. In 1690 he was made one of the Colony's official agents in England. He stayed in London till 1692, interviewing James II., William III., Queen Mary, and many others influential in politics. He enlisted in his cause the good offices not only of his Puritan brethren but of Penn the Quaker and of Bishops Burnet and Tillotson, the Anglicans. The old charter was not restored, but Mather was instrumental in making some of the terms of the new charter of 1691 more fa vourable to the colonists than they might otherwise have been. The king allowed him to nominate the royal governor and the other officers for the first year under the new charter. Phips, the governor of Mather's choice, proved unpopular, as did the charter itself, so that in 1701 those who combated Mather's political views or envied his power forced him from the presidency of Harvard.
For the rest of his life he was less active in public affairs, but wrote much and remained a dominating figure in Congregational councils. In 1721 he joined the campaign for inoculation for smallpox, in spite of his age and heedless of popular opposition. He published more than 150 books, most of them theological, but a few dealing with history, biography, or, in part, with science. Among the more interesting to-day are his life of Richard Mather (1670), his political tracts written in 1688-93, his Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences (1684), a collection of nar ratives of strange happenings in New England with discussion of a few scientific topics, his Brief History of the War with the In dians (1676), and his account of the Indian wars in New England, A Relation of the Troubles . . . (1677). His Cases of Con
science (1693) displays his attitude toward the witchcraft trials of 1692, and it is probable that the appearance of this book did much to end convictions for witchcraft in Massachusetts.
Harvard developed during Mather's term of office; his agency in England had important historical results; and to the fame given him by these things was added that derived from his reputa tion as preacher and scholar. He manifested his interest in sci ence by forming a scientific society in Boston in 1683. His large library reflected the wide range of his reading in politics, science, the classics and history, as well as in theology. His hot temper, his stout championing of his own doctrines—though he was more moderate in debate than most of his adversaries—and his reputed ambition made enemies, who were, however, always outnumbered at home and abroad by those who revered him as a leader. He grew in tolerance, and in 1718 helped to ordain a Baptist minister in Boston. On one occasion at least, members of other sects were admitted to communion in his church. Among his many friends were Richard Baxter, the great English Puritan, and the physicist, Robert Boyle. To them he seemed, as to most later historians, the most powerful man of his time in the Puritan Colonies.