By Dr. Rick Chromey
If Increase Mather were alive today, he’d likely be the kind of pastor who’d be a popular podcaster, bestselling author, and political influencer. The type who could discuss theology over coffee, reconcile enemies, and lead family devotions. Mather was intense, brilliant, and fearless in the face of kings, colleges, demons, and culture.
We live in a time when Christian conviction is shrinking. Parents struggle to pass down their faith, colleges drift from their principles, fear dominates headlines, politics seems unstable, churches face divisions, and biblical literacy is fading.
Sound familiar?
It should. Increase Mather lived through all of it – 400 years ago.
And the remarkable thing is this: Mather didn’t just survive it. He shaped it. He stood in the gap. He fought for truth. He held the line for the next generation. And in many ways… he won.
Mather’s story reads like a mini-series – faith, family, political intrigue, college battles, spiritual warfare, and even a daring escape under disguise. You can’t make this stuff up.
A Life Forged By Fire
Increase Mather was born in 1639 into a world on fire – spiritually and politically. His father, Richard Mather, a Puritan pastor in England, refused to compromise his faith, rejecting the bishop’s demand to wear a white surplice. Under pressure, he moved his family – his wife, Katherine, and four sons – to New England.
Increase grew up in a home where the Bible was read every morning and evening. The Mather family didn’t just “go to church” – they were the church. Psalms were sung, catechisms memorized, and family prayers spoken aloud.
And then tragedy visited his life. At age fifteen, his mother died, sending Increase spiraling into grief and spiritual turmoil. He later wrote that he fell into “anguish and horror” until he finally surrendered his life fully to Christ.
That moment forged his life and Divine Calling.
Harvard Drifts…
Increase entered Harvard at age twelve. And quickly discovered this historic university was in mission drift. The school’s charter stated the “main end of a student’s life” was “to know God and Jesus Christ,” but in practice, pagan writers – Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus – shaped the curriculum. Ancient philosophy gradually supplanted biblical authority, opening the way for students to explore skepticism, atheism, and Enlightenment ideas.
This “drift” impacted churches since Harvard was a clergy training school.
Consequently, his father removed him from Harvard and handed his training to Pastor John Norton in Boston, who shaped him into a preacher, scholar, and defender of the faith.
A Family of Faith
After a study and preaching stint in Ireland and England, Mather returned to Boston and married Maria Cotton, daughter of the famed theologian John Cotton. Together they raised ten children – including the brilliant, prolific author Cotton Mather (who penned 388 books and pamphlets).
The Mathers believed family worship wasn’t optional. It was the engine of generational faith. In one diary entry, Increase poured out a father’s prayer: “Tears gushed from me… that my children may live to do service for the Lord.”
And that prayer was answered. The Mather home produced pastors, scholars, authors, and leaders.
The Fight for Harvard and America’s Christian Soul
In 1685, Mather became president of Harvard and stepped into a spiritual battle. The Puritan founders envisioned Harvard as a place where Scripture shaped intellect, character, and calling. But a new faction – broad-minded, reason-heavy, less doctrinal – wanted something different.
They weren’t full-blown “infidels” yet – that wouldn’t happen until the late 1700s – but they were moving in that direction: less supernaturalism, more Enlightenment moral philosophy.
Increase pushed back hard.
He reminded Harvard elites that the point of education wasn’t classical elegance – it was Christian character. He warned that too many graduating clergy sounded more like Aristotle than Christ. He met privately with students, urging them to repent and live holy lives. He fought for a Bible-centered college when few others would.
But the tide had turned. In 1701, Mather was pushed out, and seven years later, the more liberal John Leverett took the helm. He guided Harvard toward a path that started with intellectual skepticism but eventually led to agnosticism, atheism, and hostility toward Christianity.
Mathers saw the future. He preached a sermon called “Ichabod” – “the glory has departed” – warning that once a college abandons Christian foundations, the culture will follow.
A Fight for Freedom
By the 1680s, New England faced a new threat: the English Crown. King James II dissolved the colonial government, installed the authoritarian Sir Edmund Andros, restricted worship, and seized printing presses.
The colony needed a defender. They chose Increase Mather.
Because the Crown saw him as a threat, he fled Boston in disguise with his teenage son, Samuel, then sailed to London, where Mather spent three years lobbying for New England’s rights. Then the Glorious Revolution happened (James II was ousted), and Mather seized the moment. In 1691, he secured a new charter for Massachusetts that restored:
Mather later wrote: “God has made me instrumental in obtaining for my country a Magna Charta…”
Without Increase Mather, New England’s political liberty might have died 80 years before the American Revolution ever began.
Salem Witch Trials
Now comes the part everybody knows – Salem. But here’s what most people don’t know: Increase Mather helped shut the famed witch trials down.
The crisis erupted from a toxic mix of fear, spiritual confusion, frontier warfare, church division, and even Caribbean folk magic (brought by enslaved persons from Barbados). Some pastors fueled the panic.
Mather did not.
In his 1692 book, “Cases of Conscience”, Mather argued that the courts were making a terrible mistake by accepting “spectral evidence” – testimony that someone’s ghost or “shade” had harmed another. He warned: “It were better that ten suspected witches should escape than that one innocent person be condemned.”
Governor Phips read Mather’s work, shut down the spectral evidence, and the executions stopped. Mather brought biblical justice back to a community swallowed by fear.
The Final Years
Mathers lived long enough to see New England change dramatically. Towns grew. Churches struggled. Colleges declined. Moral life softened. And yet he kept preaching, warning, teaching, discipling, and pleading for revival.
On August 23, 1723, Mathers died in the arms of his son Cotton. His legacy was extraordinary:
Increase Mather wasn’t perfect. But he lived up to his name. He was faithful and fruitful, bringing an increase. And maybe that’s the lesson for us today.
We don’t need perfect leaders. We need godly, productive ones. We need men and women who will stand in the gap – committed, grounded, and fearless – when their culture shifts, their institutions tremble, and their communities lose their way.
Increase Mather did it in the 1600s. Who is God calling to do it again…today?
Dr. Rick Chromey is a historian, theologian, and educator who speaks and writes on matters of religion, culture, and history. He also leads Bible and Church History tours for churches, schools, and faith-based organizations. Rick and his wife Linda live in Star, Idaho. www.rickchromey.com.
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