Increase Mather

Increase Mather (June 21, 1639 – August 23, 1723) was a Puritan educator and clergyman. The son of Richard Mather and the father of Cotton Mather, Increase was the second in a line of three Mathers who played a large role in the history of Massachusetts and colonial New England.

Early life

Increase was born in Dorchester, Suffolk County, Massachusetts the youngest son of the Rev. Richard Mather (1596-1669) and Catherine Hoult (1596-1655). He entered Harvard University in 1651, and graduated in 1656. In 1657, on his eighteenth birthday, he preached his first sermon. The same year he studied at Trinity College, graduating in 1658 with an MA.

He became chaplain to the English garrison at Guernsey from April through to December of 1659 and then again in 1661. During his second tenure as chaplain, the authorities attempted to compromise his Puritan ideals by bribery. Refusing to go along with this, he was forced to return to New England and embarked for Boston, Massachusetts in the same year.

Religious activity after his return

In the winter of 1661/62, he commenced preaching at the Old North Church of Boston, and was ordained there on May 27, 1664.

Doctrinal beliefs

During the 1662 Puritan Synod (Representing the Church of Dorchester) he opposed the Halfway Covenant, which was adopted by the Synod and proposed by his father. Soon afterwards, though, he switched sides and became one of the chief exponents of the Covenant. Despite this, he was bitterly opposed to the liberal practices that followed the Covenant and (after 1677) particularly to the doctrine of Solomon Stoddard (1643-1729).

Stoddard's doctrine

Stoddard stated that all "such Persons as have a good Conversation and a Competent Knowledge may come to the Lord's Supper" i.e. that only those of openly immoral life should be excluded from the ritual meal that roughly paralleled the Eucharist. Stoddard would have allowed both church members and non-members to take part in the ritual. In opposition to Stoddard, Mather held to the orthodox Puritan position, and therefore wished to exclude many more from this. According to Puritan doctrine, only full church members were allowed to participate in the Lord's Supper. In order to gain full church membership, one had to be recognized by the church as a "visible saint," a person who was known to be saved. Mather's problem with Stoddard was that the latter would allow even the "unsaved" (those destined for hell) to participate in the Lord's Supper.

Church government Framer

In May 1679 Mather petitioned the General Court (The colony's Legislature) to call a synod to consider a reformation in New England of what he thought of as "Evils that have Provoked the Lord to bring his Judgments." When the synod met in September it appointed him one of a committee to draft a creed. The committee reported back in May 1680 at the second session (which Increase moderated) with the "Savoy Declaration". After some modification to the Declaration's "Civil Magistrate" chapter and other portents, the Declaration was finally approved, but was never made mandatory on the churches by the General Court (Judgment reaffirmed: Saybrook, Connecticut, 1708).

The Cambridge Platform of 1646, which was drafted by his father, and the Confession of 1680, for which Increase was largely responsible, were later printed together as a book of "doctrine and government" for the churches of Massachusetts.

Defending Massachusetts

He published in 1676 A Brief History of the Warr with the Indians in New-England, a contemporary account of King Philip's War.

In 1683 a Quo Warranto writ was issued demanding the surrender of the Massachusetts charter, in effect depriving it of what self-government it had. Mather used all his influence to persuade the colonists not to surrender it, and the Boston freemen unanimously voted against compliance. The royal agents immediately sent to London a letter containing treasonous statements falsely attributed to Mather, who escaped punishment.

He became a leader in the opposition to Sir Edmund Andros, to his secretary Edward Randolph, and to Governor Joseph Dudley, publishing A Narrative of the Miseries of New-England, By Reason of an Arbitrary Government Erected there Under Sir Edmund Andros (1688), and: A Brief Relation for the Confirmation of Charter Privileges (1691), and other pamphlets. He was active in influencing the British House of Commons to vote in 1689 to restore the charters of the New England colonies, in effect repudiating Andros.

He was chosen by the General Court to represent the colony's interests in England, eluded officers sent to arrest him, and in disguise boarded a ship to Weymouth. Arriving on May 6, 1688, he went to London. There he met with Sir Henry Ashurst, the resident agent, and had two or three fruitless audiences with James II. His first audience with William III was on January 9, 1689.

In 1690 he was joined in England by Elisha Cooke (1638-1715) and Thomas Oakes (1644-1719), additional agents, who were uncompromisingly for the renewal of the old charter. Mather, however, was instrumental in securing a new charter (signed on October 7, 1691), and prevented the loss of the Plymouth Colony to New York. The nomination of officers left to the Crown was reserved to the agents. Mather had expressed strong dissatisfaction with the clause giving the governor the right of veto and regretted the less theocratic tone of the charter which made all freemen (and not merely church members) voters. With Sir William Phips, the new Governor and a member of Mather's church, he arrived in Boston on May 14, 1692. The value of his services to the colony at this time is not easily over-estimated. In England he won the friendship of Richard Baxter, John Tillotson and Thomas Burnet, and effectively promoted the union in 1691 of English Presbyterians and Congregationalists. He incurred heavy expenses throughout his stay, and even greater than his financial loss was the loss of authority and control in the church and at Harvard during his absence. His trip abroad may be compared with Benjamin Franklin's, whose mission resembled Mather's, although Franklin's ultimately failed.

President of Harvard

Mather had been acting president of Harvard College in 1681-1682, and in June 1685 he again became acting president (or rector), but still preached every Sunday in Boston and would not comply with an order of the General Court that he should reside in Cambridge. In 1701 after a short residence there he returned to Boston and requested the General Court appoint a new president. Having been faced with increasing opposition, his resignation was accepted, and Samuel Willard took charge of the college as vice-president, although he also refused to reside in Cambridge. Mather's administration was praised by Josiah Quincy III, in his History of Harvard University.

His personality

Like the most learned men of his time he was superstitious and a firm believer in presageful impressions; his Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences: Wherein an Account is Given of many Remarkable and very Memorable Events which have Hapned in this Last Age, Especially in New England (1684) shows that he believed only less thoroughly than his son in witchcraft, though in his Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits (1693) he considered some current proofs of witchcraft inadequate. The revulsion of feeling after the Salem witch trials undermined his authority greatly, and Roberts Calef's More Wonders of the Spiritual World (1700) was a personal blow to him as well as to his son.

Legacy

Mather House at Harvard, which opened in 1970, was named in his honor.

References

Online edition of his A Brief History of the Warr with the Indians in New-England (1676)

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