PEARSON, Jotter, an English prelate of high celebrity, was h. in 1612 at Snoring, in Norfolk, of which place his father was rector; educated 'at Eton and King's college, Cambridge, where he took the degree of M.A. in 1639, and in the same year took orders, and was collated to a prebend in Salisbury cathedral. In 1640 he was appointed chap lain to Finch, lord-keeper of the great seal, and on the outbreak of the civil war became chaplain to lord Goring. and afterward to sir Robert Cook, in London. In 1650 he was appointed minister of St. Clement's, Eastchcriip, London; and in 1659 published the great work by which he is now remembered, An &position of the Creed It was dedi cated to his flock, to whom the substance of it had been preached some years before in a series of discourses. The laborious learning and the judicial calmness displayed by the author in this treatise have long been acknowledged, and command the respect even of those think his elaborate argumentation tedious and not always forcible. It is gen erally reckoned one of the ablest works produced in the greatest age of English theol ogy—the 17th century. During the same year, Pearson published The Golden Remains if the Ever Memorable Mr. John Hales of Eton. At the restoration, honors and emolu ments were lavishly showered upon him. Before the close of 1660 he received the rec
tory of St. Christopher's, in London; was created D.D. at Cambridge; installed prebend ary of Ely and archdeacon of Surrey; and made master of Jesus college, Cambridge. In 1661 he obtained the Margaret professorship of divinity, and was one of the most promi nent commissioners in the famous Savoy conference; in 1662 he was made master of Trinity. Cambridge, and in 1673 was promoted to the bishopric of Chester. The year before he had published his Vindicip Epistotarum S. Ignatzi, in answer to M. Daille, who had denied the genuineness of the epistles. It was imagined for years that Pearson had triumphed over his opponent. The history of the controversy, however (see Ioserics), has shown that Daille was right and Pearson wrong. In 1684 appeared his Annales Ogprianici. He died July 16, 1686. Pearson's Opera Posthurna Chronologicu were pub lished by Dod well (Loud. 1688), and his Onationes, Condones et Determinationes 2 kw contain much valuable matter, for, as Bentley used to say, Pearson's " very dross was gold." Bishop Burnet thought him "in all respects the greatest divine of his age.'