PEARSON, JOHN, a learned English bishop, was born at Snoring in 1613. After his education at Eton and Cambridge, he entered into holy orders in 1639, and was the same year collated to the prebend of Netherhaven, in the church of Sarum. In 1640 he was appointed chaplain to the lord-keeper Finch, and by him presented to the living of Torrington in Suffolk. In 1650 he was made minister of St Clement's, East-Cheap, in London. In 1657, he and Mr Gunning had a dispute with two Roman Catholics upon the subject of schism, a very unfair account of which was printed at Paris in 1658. Some time afterwards he published at London an Exposition of the Creed, in folio, dedicated to his parishioners of St Clement's, East-Cheap, to whom the substance of that excellent work had been preached several years before, and by whom he had been desired to make it public. The same year he likewise published the Golden Remains of Mr John Hales of Eton; to which he prefixed a preface, containing a character of that great man, with whom he had been acquainted for many years, drawn up with great elegance and force. Soon after the Restoration, he was presented by Juxon, then bishop of London, to the rectory of St Christopher's in that city; created doctor of divinity at Cambridge, in pursuance of the king's letters mandatory; installed prebendary of Ely, archdeacon of Surrey, and made master of Jesus College in Cambridge, all before the end of the year 1668. On the 25th of March 1661, he was appointed Margaret professor of divinity in that university; 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. On the 14th of April 1662, he was admitted master of Trinity College in Cambridge; and, in August, resigned his rectory of St Christopher's and his prebend of Sarum. In 1667 he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1672 he published at Cambridge, Vindiciae Episcoporum S. Ignatii, in 4to, in answer to M. Daillé; to which is subjoined, Isaaci Vossii Epistolae Duce adversus Davidem Blondellum. Upon the death of the celebrated Dr Wilkins, Pearson was appointed his successor in the see of Chester, to which he was consecrated on the 9th of February 1672-1673. In 1682, his Annales Cyprianici, sive tredecim annorum, quibus S. Cyprianus inter Christianos versatus est, Historia Chronologica, was published at Oxford, with Fell's edition of that father's works. Pearson was disabled from all public service by ill health a considerable time before his death, which happened at Chester, on the 16th of July 1686.