Life

He was second son of Anthony Sclater, who is said to have held the benefice of Leighton Buzzard

Leighton Buzzard

-Lower schools:*Beaudesert Lower School - Apennine Way*Clipstone Brook Lower School - Brooklands Drive*Greenleas Lower School - Derwent Road*Dovery Down Lower School - Heath Road*Heathwood Lower School - Heath Road*Leedon Lower School - Highfield Road...

 in Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....

 for fifty years, and to have died in 1620, aged 100. William Sclater was born at Leighton in October 1575. A king's scholar at Eton College

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

, he was admitted scholar of King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

, on 24 August 1593, and three years later was admitted fellow of his college. He graduated M. A., and was admitted to priest's orders in 1599, shortly after which he left Cambridge and served a curacy at Walsall

Walsall

Walsall is a large industrial town in the West Midlands of England. It is located northwest of Birmingham and east of Wolverhampton. Historically a part of Staffordshire, Walsall is a component area of the West Midlands conurbation and part of the Black Country.Walsall is the administrative...

. The sermons he preached there on Romans (i-iii.) were printed in London in 1611, and passed to a second edition; they had a strong puritan bias.

On 4 September 1604 he was preferred to the rectory of Pitminster

Pitminster

Pitminster is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated south of Taunton in the Taunton Deane district. The village has a population of 929. The parish also includes the villages of Angersleigh, Blagdon or Blagdon Hill and Staplehay...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

; after some resistance, he accepted the ceremonies and the surplice

Surplice

A surplice is a liturgical vestment of the Western Christian Church...

 which he had rejected in his former diocese. He secured him the patronage of Lady Elizabeth Poulett and her husband, John Poulett, 1st Baron Poulett

John Poulett, 1st Baron Poulett

John Poulett, 1st Baron Poulett, was an English sailor and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1610 and 1621 and was later raised to the peerage....

, who in September 1619 preferred him to the living of Limpsham in Somerset; but Sclater suffered from bad health and returned to Pitminster, where he died in 1626.

Works

Besides several volumes of sermons, Sclater was author of four exegetical and other works, which were published posthumously under the editorship of his son William:

• A Key to the Key of Scripture: an Exposition, with Notes, upon the Epistle to the Romans (an enlargement of his previous discourses on Romans i-iii.), dedicated to Sir Henry Hawley, knt., and other Somerset gentlemen of puritan leanings, London, 1629.
• The Question of Tythes revised; Arguments for the Moralitie of Tything enlarged and cleared; Objections more fully and distinctly answered; Mr. Selden's Historie viewed, London, 1623; an expansion of a previous essay, called 'The Minister's Portion' (Oxford, 1612); this was an attempt to refute John Selden
  John Selden
  John Selden was an English jurist and a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law...
  
  's historical work on tithes. It was praised by Edward Kellett, who described the proofs as unanswerable by 'sacrilegious church-robbers.'
• Utriusque Epistolae ad Corinthios Explicatio Analytica, Oxford, 1633.
• Commentary, with Notes, on the whole of Malachi, London, 1650.