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he had felt constrained to oppose, were the men chiefly concerned, at least for a time, in the direction and government of Harvard College.

It has been stated already, that Mr. Mather was called to the duties of the presidency, in 1685. These he continued to discharge, till 1688, when he entered on his embassy to England. During the four years of his absence, his parochial duties were discharged by his son Cotton Mather, who was ordained as his colleague, in 1684; and the college was committed to the care and instruction of Mr. John Leverett, and Mr. William Brattle, tutors. Mr. Mather returned, and the government of the province was organized under the new charter, in 1692. In the same year, he prepared a charter for the college, which received the sanction of the General Court. It was afterwards negatived in England; but while it continued in force, the corporation conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. It is remarkable that this degree had never before been conferred in British America; nor was it conferred again until, almost eighty years afterwards, it was bestowed on Rev. Nathaniel Appleton of Cambridge.

Repeated attempts were made, during the next seven or eight years, to procure a charter for the college, which should receive the sanction of the king; and in more than one instance, President Mather seemed on the point of embarking for England, with a view to the furtherance of this important object. But for one cause or another, these attempts all failed, and the college continued in an unsettled, and, consequently, an embarrassed state. During the troubles of this period, President Mather proposed, in repeated instances, to resign his office; but the proposition was discouraged and resisted by the corporation. It was an object with the General Court, to induce him to resign his pastoral charge, and to reside at Cambridge; but he could not be satisfied that this was his duty. To gratify the friends of the college, he did remove his residence there for a few months; but neither he nor his family seem to have been happy; nor were his people willing that he should be taken from them. Consequently he soon returned to Boston.

It was this question of residence, which finally closed his connection with the college. He seems not properly to have resigned his office; but on his refusing to reside at Cambridge, the duties of it passed out of his hands, and devolved on those of Rev. Samuel Willard, who was appointed vice-president.

That Dr. Mather was faithful and successful in the office of president, is testified by all who have written on the subject. Mr. Peirce, in his History of Harvard University, says:

"His services at the college were assiduous and faithful. The moral and religious instruction of the students had his particular attention. The college appears to have been in a flourishing condition, while he was at its head. Its numbers increased, and it was enriched, in no small degree, by the hand of munificence." p. 64. President Quincy also says: "That he (President Mather) was well qualified for the office, and had conducted himself in it faithfully and laboriously, is attested by the history of the college, the language of the legislature, and the acknowledgment of his contemporaries. It was honorable and useful to the institution to have for its head an individual, who had taken so large a share in the political, religious, and literary controversies of the times, and had in consequence acquired both celebrity abroad, and influence in his own country." Vol. I. p. 116.

Dr. Mather lived, after his connection with the college had been dissolved, twenty-two years; during which time, in addition to all his other labors, he issued from the press not far from fifty distinct publications,-the most of them on important practical subjects. In 1715, he received from the ministers of the province a flattering request to go to England on their behalf, with an address to George I., on his accession to the throne; but this he thought proper to decline.

"His old age," says Mr. Peirce, "was blessed with the inestimable satisfaction which flows from faith and hope, and from a vigorous exercise of the faculties and affections. He died, August 23d, 1723, in the eighty-fifth year of his age, and was interred with all the honors due to his character, and to the rank he had so long held in society. He had been a preacher sixty-six years, during sixty-two of which he was connected with the North Church in Boston."

Dr. Elliot speaks of him as " the father of the New England clergy, whose name and character were held in veneration, not only by those who knew him, but by succeeding generations."*

VINDICATION OF THE CHARACTER OF INCREASE MATHER.

It remains that we inquire, more particularly than we have yet done, into the propriety and correctness of some of the representations of President Quincy and others, in regard to that

* Biog. Dictionary.

venerable father in Israel, of whose life and character a brief sketch has been given.

President Quincy charges him, in the first place, with an efficient instrumentality in producing and prolonging the excitement in New England respecting witchcraft. "That both the Mathers had an efficient agency in producing and prolonging that excitement, there can be, at this day, no possible question." Vol. I. p. 62. Of the connection of Cotton Mather with the subject of witchcraft, I shall have occasion to speak more particularly hereafter. How Increase Mather could have had any agency in producing the excitement referred to, it is impossible to conceive. The strange appearances at Salem commenced in February, 1692, when President Mather was in England, where he had constantly resided, and been most intensely occupied with the important subject of his agency, for nearly four years. He arrived at home, May 14th of this year, when the excitement was at its highest point. Shortly afterwards-as soon as it could be prepared-he published his treatise, entitled "Cases of Conscience concerning Witchcraft;" in which," with incomparable reason and reading," he refuted the received doctrine of spectral evidence, on the ground of which so many innocent persons had been tried and condemned. mediately" upon this, the governor pardoned such as had been condemned," and those that were accused were, I believe, in all cases acquitted. "The confessors, too, came, as it were, out of a dream wherein they had been fascinated; and the afflicted, in most instances, grew easy.' It would seem from this account of an eye and ear witness, that, instead of contributing to prolong the excitement, President Mather was a principal instrument in bringing it to a close. That he was a believer in witchcraft there can be no doubt; as who, in that age, whether learned or unlearned, judges or juries, physicians, ministers, or lawyers, were not believers in it? Even Thomas Brattle himself, who wrote a book in opposition to the proceedings of the times, was a believer in the reality of what was called witchcraft. He thought that, not only the afflicted, but most of the confessors, "were possessed with the devil; and therefore not fit to be regarded, as to any thing they say of themselves or others." But that Increase Mather had any instrumentality in producing or prolonging the excitement on this

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* Remarkables, etc., p. 166.

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subject, we believe to be a groundless accusation. He is expressly mentioned by Mr. Brattle, as one of those that "utterly condemned the proceedings" of the courts, affirming that, if persisted in, they would "ruin and undo poor New England."* Another objection, or rather series of objections, urged by President Quincy against his venerable predecessor, grows out of his treatment of the Messrs. Brattle, Leverett, Colman and others, in reference to the founding of the Brattle-street Church, and the ecclesiastical innovations connected with that transaction. He represents President Mather as acting, in these proceedings, under the influence of" excited temper and wounded pride," as exhibiting "great violence and personality," an "ill governed and overbearing spirit." as roused" to such a height of indignation, as to lose all sense of prudence and character,' "all patience and self-possession." Vol. I. pp. 133-143. But after much attention given to the subject, I can perceive no ground at all for these heavy accusations. That President Mather was conscientiously attached to the order of the New England churches, as established by the Cambridge Platform, and was disposed to discountenance any considerable departure from it, there can be no doubt. That he was especially dissatisfied with those alarming innovations which the Brattles and Mr. Leverett were laboring to introduce, is equally clear. For what were these innovations, according to the statement of President Quincy himself? These men, he tells us, "refused to inquire into the regeneration of communicants; denied the necessity of explicit covenanting with God and the church; admitted that persons, not communicants, might elect pastors; referred admission to the sacraments to the prudence and conscience of the minister; and held that admission to the pastoral relation might be valid, without the approbation of neighboring churches; and other not less obnoxious deviations from the early Platform and discipline.' ""* Vol. I. p. 200. Now whatever Presi

* Mass. Historical Collections, Vol. V. first series, pp. 75, 78. † Could Dr. Colman and his supporters be consulted on the subject, they would say, I have no doubt, that this account of their "deviations" is quite too strong. Taking it, however, as it stands, it will be seen that it involves no dereliction in point of doctrine, no departure from the Calvinistic system of theology. We shall find, as we proceed, that Dr. Colman, and those associated with him were very decided Calvinists.

dent Quincy may think of these "deviations," President Mather certainly deemed them of most alarming import. He saw that, if they were not effectually discountenanced, these churches of New England (this "garden of the Lord," as our fathers termed it) were undone. He would be led, therefore, not by "excited temper or wounded pride," but by the dictates of his conscience and the fear of God, to oppose the threatened innovations, and to discountenance the men who insisted on promoting them. He would labor by all fair means (and I have yet to learn that he used any other) to counteract the example and influence of these men, (so far as their objectionable measures were concerned,) and to prevent the college from falling into their hands.

This was one cause, I have no doubt, which led President Mather, near the close of his connection with the college, to hesitate as to the duty of resigning his office. He had before wished and repeatedly proposed to resign; but now he seems to shrink back from it, fearing, probably, into whose hands the institution might fall. He could not think it right to leave his flock in Boston, and become a resident at Cambridge, but was willing to discharge the office of president, as he had done, to general acceptance, during the previous years; and if the legis lature would not consent to this, he preferred that they, rather than himself, should take the responsibility of closing his connection with the college.

As little can it be doubted, that those who differed from him on questions of church order were exerting, at this time, an underhanded influence to get the college out of his hands; hoping and expecting that it might fall into their own. It was owing to their influence, in great measure, that the legislature pursued the course they did. As Cotton Mather tells the story, his enemies" obtained a vote, that no man should act as president of the college, who did not reside at Cambridge ;" well knowing "that the Doctor would not remove his habitation from a loving people at Boston to reside at Cambridge, while the college was as it then was ;" i. e. without a charter, and consequently in an unsettled, embarrassed state; and that, in this way, they should get the college out of his hands.*

I will not say that in President Mather's controversial publications, growing out of what he conceived to be the irregular

* Mr. Leverett was at this time a leading member, and I believe the Speaker, of the House of Representatives.

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