440 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. RICHARD MA-rum-This excellent divine was born at Lowton in Lancashire, in the year 1596, and educated first at Winwick school in that county, then at Brazen-nose college, Oxford. Afterwards he was chosen minister and schoolmaster at Toxteth-park, near Liverpool. His first sermon was preached November 13, 1618, to a crowded assembly, and with great acceptance. He was ordained by Bishop Morton of Chester, who, at the close of the service, selected him from the rest who had been ordained, intimating that he wished to speak to him alone. Mr. Mather was afraid of some information on account of his puritanism; yet, when the bishop had called him from the rest of the company, he said, " I have an earnest request to make of you, sir, and you must not deny me. I know the prayPrs of men who fear God will avail much ; and you I believe to be such a one. I therefore request that you would pray for me." Mr. Mather entered upon his sacred charge with great zeal and fidelity. He preached twice every Lord's day at Toxteth, and delivered a lecture regularly at Prescot. This he didwithout interruption for fifteen years; until the month of August, 1633 ; when complaints were brought against him, and he was suspended for nonconformity. His suspension did not, however, continue very long ; for in November following, by the kind intercession ofseveral worthy friends, hewas again restored. This awakened him to a close examination of the controversy about ecclesiastical matters, the result of whichwas, that he became more than ever dissatisfied with the established church, and fully persuaded that the principles and government ofcongrega- tional churches was the model laid down in the New Testament. This worthy divine did not, indeed, long enjoy his liberty. For, the next summer, Archbishop Neile of York,. sending his visitors into Lancashire, he was again brought under the ecclesiastical censure. During his examination before his unmerciful judges, they would not suffix him to speak for himself;, but 'proceeded to suspend him, with- out hearing what he had to say in his own defence. While his persecutors treated him with so much rashness and severity, he was enabled to exercise much wisdom, It is observed that Archbishop Neile taught the people to pray for his predecessor after he was dead, on which account the king very seasonably admonished him far his inclinations to popery. - Mother's Hist of Mess Eng. b. iii. p. Lives annexed to his Haetyrologie, p. 130.
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