John Pearson was an English theologian and scholar.

Life

He was born at Great Snoring

Great Snoring

Great Snoring is a rural village in North Norfolk by the River Stiffkey, in the east of England. Its population in the 2001 census was 168, a dramatic decrease since 1841 when it was 556 .At the centre of the village is the 13th century St. Mary's Church and the Old Rectory...

, Norfolk.

From Eton College

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 he passed to Queens' College, Cambridge

Queens' College, Cambridge

Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou , and refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville...

, and was elected a scholar of King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

 in April 1632, and a fellow in 1634. On taking orders in 1639 he was collated to the Salisbury prebend of Nether-Avon. In 1640 he was appointed chaplain to the lord-keeper Finch, by whom he was presented to the living of Thorington in Suffolk. In the Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

 he acted as chaplain to George Goring

George Goring, 1st Earl of Norwich

George Goring, 1st Earl of Norwich was an English soldier.He was the son of George Goring of Hurstpierpoint and Ovingdean, Sussex, and of Anne Denny, sister of Edward Denny, 1st Earl of Norwich. He matriculated from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in 1600, and may subsequently have spent some...

's forces in the west. In 1654 he was made weekly preacher at St Clement's, Eastcheap

Eastcheap

Eastcheap is a street in the City of London. Its name derives from cheap, market, with the prefix "East" distinguishing it from the other former City of London market of Westcheap . In medieval times Eastcheap was the City's main meat market, with butchers' stalls lining both sides of the street...

, in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

.

With Peter Gunning

Peter Gunning

Peter Gunning was an English Royalist church leader, Bishop of Chichester and later of Ely.-Life:He was born at Hoo St Werburgh, in Kent, and educated at The King's School, Canterbury, and Clare College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow in 1633. Having taken orders, he advocated the Royalist...

 he disputed against two Roman Catholics, John Spenser

John Spenser (Jesuit)

John Spenser was an English Jesuit theologian.-Life:He was born in Lincolnshire. He was converted to Catholicism while a student at Christ's College, Cambridge, and entered the Society of Jesus in 1627. After having professed moral theology at Liège, 1642, and also having served the "Camp...

 and John Lenthall, on the subject of schism

Schism (religion)

A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...

, a one-sided account of which was printed in Paris by one of the Roman Catholic disputants, under the title Scisme Unmask't (1658). Pearson also argued against the Puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

 party, and was much interested in Brian Walton's polyglot Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

. In 1659 he published in London his celebrated Exposition of the Creed

Exposition of the Creed

Exposition of the Creed was a work by John Pearson which was first published in 1659. It was based on sermons he delivered at St. Clement's, Eastcheap. It was one of the most influential works on the Apostles' Creed in the Anglican Church....

, dedicated to his parishioners of St Clement's, Eastcheap, to whom the substance of the work had been preached several years before.

Soon after the Restoration he was presented by Juxon

William Juxon

William Juxon was an English churchman, Bishop of London from 1633 to 1649 and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1660 until his death.-Life:...

, Bishop of London

Bishop of London

The Bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km² of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the River Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey...

, to the rectory of St Christopher-le-Stocks; and in 1660 he was created doctor of divinity at Cambridge, appointed a royal chaplain, prebendary of Ely

Ely, Cambridgeshire

Ely is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England, 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about by road from London. It is built on a Lower Greensand island, which at a maximum elevation of is the highest land in the Fens...

, archdeacon of Surrey, and Master of Jesus College, Cambridge

Jesus College, Cambridge

Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...

. In 1661 he was appointed Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity

Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity

The Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity is the oldest professorship at the University of Cambridge. It was founded initially as a readership by Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, in 1502....

; and on the first day of the ensuing year he was nominated one of the commissioners for the review of the liturgy in the conference held at the Savoy. There he won the esteem of his opponents and high praise from Richard Baxter. On April 14, 1662 he was made Master of Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

. In 1667 he was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

.

Upon the death of John Wilkins in 1672, Pearson was appointed bishop of Chester

Bishop of Chester

The Bishop of Chester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chester in the Province of York.The diocese expands across most of the historic county boundaries of Cheshire, including the Wirral Peninsula and has its see in the City of Chester where the seat is located at the Cathedral...

. He died at Chester on 16 July 1686, and is buried in Chester Cathedral

Chester Cathedral

Chester Cathedral is the mother church of the Church of England Diocese of Chester, and is located in the city of Chester, Cheshire, England. The cathedral, formerly St Werburgh's abbey church of a Benedictine monastery, is dedicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary...

.

Works

In 1659 he published the Golden Remains of John Hales

John Hales

John Hales was an English theologian born in St. James's parish, Bath, England. As eminent divine and critic, his singular talents and learning have procured him by common consent the title of the "Ever-memorable".-Life:...

 of Eton, with a memoir. In 1672 he published at Cambridge Vindiciae epistolarum S. Ignatii, in 4to, in answer to Jean Daillé

Jean Daillé

Jean Daillé was a French Huguenot minister and Biblical commentator. He is mentioned in James Aitken Wylie's History of Protestantism as author of an Apology for the French Reformed Churches.-Life:...

. His defence of the authenticity of the letters of Ignatius has been confirmed by J. B. Lightfoot

Joseph Barber Lightfoot

Joseph Barber Lightfoot was an English theologian and Bishop of Durham, usually known as J.B. Lightfoot....

 and other scholars. In 1682 his Annales cyprianici were published at Oxford, with John Fell

John Fell (clergyman)

John Fell was an English churchman and influential academic. He served as Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and later concomitantly as Bishop of Oxford.-Education:...

's edition of that father's works. His last work, the Two Dissertations on the Succession and Times of the First Bishops of Rome, formed with the Annales Paulini the principal part of his Opera posthuma, edited by Henry Dodwell

Henry Dodwell

Henry Dodwell was an Anglo-Irish scholar, theologian and controversial writer.-Life:He was born in Dublin, Ireland. His father, William Dodwell, lost his property in Connacht during the Irish rebellion and settled at York in 1648...

 in 1688.

See the memoir in Biographia Britannica

Biographia Britannica

Biographia Britannica was a multi-volume biographical compendium, "the most ambitious attempt in the latter half of the eighteenth century to document the lives of notable British men and women". The first edition, edited by William Oldys, appeared in 6 volumes between 1747 and 1766...

, and another by Edward Churton

Edward Churton

Edward Churton was an English churchman and Spanish scholar.-Life:He was born on 26 January 1800 at Middleton Cheney, Northamptonshire, the second son of Ralph Churton, archdeacon of St. David's. He was educated at Charterhouse School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he proceeded B.A. 1821, and...

, prefixed to the edition of Pearson's Minor Theological Works (2 vols., Oxford, 1844). Churton also edited almost the whole of the theological writings.