Pearson, JOHN, a learned English divine, was born 28th February 1612, in the same year as Jeremy Taylor, at Great Snoring, Norfolk, the son of the rector of that parish and Archdeacon of Suffolk. He was educated at Eton and at Queen's and King's Colleges, Cambridge, and became Fellow of the last in 1634. Five years later he took orders, and was collated to a prebend in Salisbury Cathedral. In 1640 he was appointed chaplain to the lord-keeper Finch, and soon after was presented to the rectory of Thorington in Suffolk. In 1650 he was appointed preacher at St Clement's, Eastcheap, London, and here in 1659 he published his admirably learned and judicial Exposition of the Creed. It was dedicated to his flock, to whom the substance of it had been preached some years before in a series of discourses, and it is still esteemed one of the very ablest works produced in the greatest age of English theology. During the same year (1659) Pearson edited the Golden Remains of the Ever Memorable Mr John Hales of Eton, with an admirable preface; and next he had a share in editing the Critici Sacri (1660). At the Restoration honours and emoluments were lavishly showered upon him. Before the close of 1660 he was presented by Juxon to the rectory of St Christopher's, in London; was created D.D. by Cambridge, and chaplain in ordinary to the king; installed prebendary of Ely and Archdeacon of Surrey; and made Master of Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1661 he was one of the most prominent commissioners, and the principal antagonist of Baxter, in the famous Savoy Conference; later in the year he received the Margaret professorship of Divinity, and gave up his Sarum prebend and London living; in 1662 he was made Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1673 Bishop of Chester. His Vindiciæ Epistolarum S. Ignatii (1672) defended the genuineness of the epistles. In 1684 appeared his Annales Cyprianici. His Latin works on sacred chronology, his Orations, his Conciones ad Clerum, and his Determinationes Theologicæ contain much valuable matter. He died July 16, 1686.
See editions of the Exposition on the Creed by Burton (1833) and Chevallier (1849); of the Minor Theological Works, by Churton (1844).