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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2016
Throughout the last quarter of the seventeenth century a spectre was haunting Europe, the spectre of Catholicism. The Savoyard invasion of the Vaudois, the accession of a catholic elector in the Palatinate, the ill-judged policies of James II in England, above all the revocation of the edict of Nantes in France, served to persuade protestants of the dangers besetting the reformation. The nine years war, therefore, could be looked on as a crusade, and William III as God’s instrument for the preservation of the Gospel, Ezechias Alterus, Europae totius tutelaris Pater, Hostium veritatis Flagellum. The peace which followed the treaty of Ryswick did not materially alter this view; refugees from France, Orange and Piedmont provided uncomfortable reminders that the Beast was not dead, but sleeping.
1 The rhetorical flowers are those of dean Otto Grassus, head of the synod of the Grisons, [Archives of the] S[ociety for the] Propagation of the] G[ospel]; A.42.1 am indebted to the USPG and to its archivist, Mr Ian Pearson, for permission to quote from SPG archives.
2 For one example of the hundreds of contemporary reminders, see The History of the Persecution of the Reformed Churches in France, Orange and Piedmont. From the Year 1655 to this time (London 1699).
3 A convenient summary of the religious state of Europe at this period will be found in McManners, J., ‘Religion and the Relations of Church and State’, NCModH, 6, ed Bromley, J. S. (1970) pp 119–53Google Scholar.
4 Sptner’s remark is quoted in Stoeffler, [F. Ernest], [The Rise of Evangelical Pietism] (Leiden 1965) p 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burnet, Gilbert, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England. The Second Part (2 ed London 1683) preface (no pagination)Google Scholar.
5 Stephens, Edward, The Life of St. Antony (London 1697)Google Scholar preface.
6 Woodward, [Josiah], [An Account of the Religious Societies in the City of London, &c, and of their Endeavours for Reformation of Manners] (London 1712)Google Scholar Jenkins, D. E. (Liverpool 1935) PP 57–8, 68–9Google Scholar.
7 Ostervald, Jean Frederick, [A Treatise Concerning the Causes of the Present] Corruption of Christians, [and the Remedies thereof] (London 1700) pp 260–1Google Scholar.
8 For the early history of the society, Allen, [W. O. B.] and McClure, [Edmund], [Two Hundred Years; The History of the SPCK 1698-1898] (London 1898)Google Scholar; Clarke, [W. K.] Lowther, [The History of the SPCK] (London 1959)Google Scholar; Cowie, [Leonard W.], [Henry Newman, An American in London 1708-1743] (London 1956)Google Scholar.
9 Puffendorf, Samuel, The History of Popedom, Translated by J(ohn) C(hamberlayne), (London 1691)Google Scholar; Allen and McClure, p 18; Lowther Clarke p 15; Cowie pp 37-8. Burnet, [Gilbert], [Some] Letters, [Containing an account of what seemed most remarkable in Switerland, Italy, &c] (Rotterdam 1686) pp 259Google Scholar et eq; Clarke, T. E. S. and Foxcroft, H. C., A Life of Gilbert Burnet Bishop of Salisbury (Cambridge 1907) p 396Google Scholar.
10 [Archives of the] S[ociety for] P[romoting] C[hristian] Knowledge], Minutes, 6 May 1699. I am indebted to the SPCK, and to their archivist Mr A. E. Barker, for permission to quote from their records. In quoting from MSS I have silently expanded conventional abbreviations. Spelling is otherwise unaltered.
11 I hope to deal with the links between Halle and the SPCK elsewhere.
12 Kimber, E. and Johnson, R., The Baronetage of England, 2 (London 1771) p 61Google Scholar. References in a letter from Robert Hales to George Harbin 10 October 1712, BL, Add Ms. 32096 fols 104-6 make the identification of Hales with the younger son of the Beaksbourne family certain.
13 SPCK Wanley Mss, xxvi fols 67-9, Chamberlayne, John to John Jacob Scherer, 12 November 1700, printed in McClure, [E.] [A] Chapter [in English Church History] (London 1888) pp 89Google Scholar et seq; xxviii fols 71-3, Chamberlayne to Robert Hales 3 December 1700, printed in McClure, Chapter, pp 93-4; [SPCK] Abstract Letters 239 Robert Hales at Schaffhausen to Chamberlayne 12 June 1701. The books sent to Scherer for translation included works by Burnet (on the 39 articles) Tillotson, John Kettlewell, and an account of the Societies for Reformation of Manners.
14 SPCK Abstract Letters 239 Hales at Schaffhausen to Chamberlayne 12 January 1701; 240 J.J. Scherer at St Gall to the SPCK 24 January 1701; 258 Hales at Lindau in Germany to Mr John Hodges 8 February 1701.
15 SPCK Abstract Letters 283 Hales at St Gall to Hodges 11 April 1701; 259 Scherer at St Gall to Chamberlayne 18 February 1701.
16 Abstract Letters 239 Hales at Schaffhausen to Chamberlayne 12 January 1701: Burnet, Some Letters, p 259; Werndley, John Conrad, Liturgia Tigurina: or, the Book of Common Prayers and Administration of the Sacraments … of the City and Canton of Zurich (London 1693)Google Scholar, the prayer is unpaginated, but printed directly after the dedication.
17 Louis Tronchin 1629-1705, pastor at Geneva from 1662, doyen de la Compagnie from 1698, professor of Theology at the Geneva Academy from 1662.
18 Jean Alphonse Turretini 1671-1731. Turretini met Burnet, who was on close terms with his father, while travelling in England. He was professor of ecclesiastical history at Geneva from 1697 to 1705, and of theology from 1705 till his death.
19 Samuel Werenfels 1657-1740, educated at Basel, Zürich, Berne, Lausamie and Geneva. Professor in the faculty of theology at Basel from 1696.
20 For an excellent survey of Ostervald’s career, and a consideration of his significance, see Neeser, [Maurice] [Grandeur d’Ostervald] (Neuchatel 1938)Google Scholar.
21 For similar emphases among English reformers at this time, see my ‘Primitive Christian ity Revived; Religious Renewal in Augustan England’, SCH 14, pp 287-300.
22 Ostervald, Corruption of Christians, epistle dedicatory to Burnet by the translator Charles Durel.
23 SPCK Minutes 20 January 1701.
24 Ostervald, Corruptions of Christian’s pp 262-3.
25 Abstract Letters 264 Ostervald to the SPCK 11 March 1701.
26 Ibid 278 Ostervald to Mr Masson 21 March 1701; 292 same to same 6 April 1701; 310 23 May 1701.
27 SPCK Minutes 28 April 1701.
28 Ibid 12 May 1701.
29 SPCK Wanley Mss xxxvii fol 96 Chamberlayne to Scherer no date, printed in McClure, Chapter, p 115; Abstract Letters 259 Scherer to Chamberlayne 18 February 1701; 283 Hales to Hodges n April 1701; 284 Scherer to Chamberlayne 11 April 1701.
30 Abstract Letters Hales to Chamberlayne 19 May 1701; 312 Scherer to Chamberlayne 22 May 1701.
31 Stoeffler pp 162-9.
32 Abstract Letters 259 Scherer to Chamberlayne 18 February 1701; Sykes, [Norman], [William Wake Archbishop of Canterbury 1657-1737] (Cambridge 1952) 2, p 28Google Scholar.
33 Abstract Letters 284 Scherer to Chamberlayne 11 April 1701; 292 Ostervald to Masson 6 April 1701.
34 Ibid 356 Scherer to Chamberlayne 30 September 1701; Minutes 29 December 1701, 12 January 1702, 26 February 1702; 5 March 1702. Similar and even more pronounced suspicion of voluntarism was hindering the attempts of a group of Huguenot refugees in Holland to found a branch of the SPCK there—see Abstract Letters 230, 285, 307, 326, and McClure, Chapter, pp 94-6, 145-6.
35 For example, Kennett, White, A Sermon Preach’d at Bow Church … 29th December 1701 (London 1702)Google Scholar.
36 Abstract Letters 283, Hales to Hodges 11 April 1701; 348 Ostervald to Chamberlayne 17 September 1701.
37 The letter from Dr Klingler, the antistes of Zurich, is printed in full in McClure, Chapter, pp 185-91. SPCK Minutes 14 May 1702, 21 May 1702, 4 June 1702, 22 October 1702, 7 January 1703, 14 January 1703. For the founding of the SPG see Pascoe, C. F., Two Hundred Years of the SPG., 1701-1901 (London 1901) pp 1–9Google Scholar.
38 The distinction was explained by Chamberlayne in a letter to the antistes of St Gall, 13 October 1702, printed in Groteste, [Claude] de la Mothe, [Entretiens sur la Correspondence Fraternelle De l’Eglise Anglicane, Avec les autres Eglises Reformees] (Amsterdam 1707) pp 147–53Google Scholar.
39 Ibid pp 150-3; and compare the SPG’s letter to the synod of the Grisons, 26 March (OS) 1703, Groteste de la Mothe pp 154-6.
40 SPG MS A130 Hales to Chamberlayne, Berlin, 29 September 1703; A131 Hales to Hodges 11 December 1703. Hales’s letters, in the SPG, SPCK archives and in the BL show him to have played an important part in the ecumenical activities of Jablonski at Berlin, and deserve special examination.
41 I have used the English translation, The Grounds and Principles of the Christian Re ligion, Explain’d in a Catechetical Discourse, for the Instruction of Young People (London 1704); for the disputes surrounding the original, Durand, D., La Vie de Jean Frederic Ostervald (London 1778) pp 113–18Google Scholar; Neeser pp 17, 19 et sea.; Sykes 2, p 28.
42 SPCK Minutes 4 February, 23 February, 6 May 1703.
43 SPG MS A130 Hales to Chamberlayne, Berlin, 29 September 1703.
44 SPG MS A41 synod of the Grisons to the SPG 6 June 1702. This letter was received in January 1703—SPG Journal 15 January 1703.
45 Leonhardi, John, 1651-1725, held a number of Grison pastorates, and according to the Dictionaire Historique et Biographique de la Suisse (Neuchatel 1921-34)Google Scholar had published works in French, German and Romanche. None of the works mentioned in the text are listed in the BL or National Union Catalogues, but an interesting list of his writings is printed in at the end of his An Account of the Grisons (London 1711). For Leonhardi’s own account of himself, see SPG MS A188, Leonhardi to Chamberlayne 17 May 1703.
46 A True and Faithful Representation of the Miserable State of the Church of Christ in the Country of the Grisons; and the imminent Dangers to which they are exposed from Rome … together with some humble Signs and Prayers on the behalf of an hundred Churches adjoining to Italy; beseeching by the Bowels of Christ, and the Mercies of God the Father, for the Continuance of the Light of the Gospel among them(London 1704).
47 Ibid pp 7-8.
48 SPG Journal 18 August 1704; SPCK Minutes 17 August 1704.
49 Ibid 14 September 1704.
50 SPG MS A2.49 Ostervald to Chamberlayne 3 December 1704.
51 PRO MS SP 96 10, despatch of William Aglionby, envoy to Switzerland, Zurich 29 March 1704.
52 SPG MS A 2 63 Leonhardi to SPG 29 December 1704; A 2 64 Otto Grassus, dean of the Upper League of the Grisons, to SPG 28 February 1705: A 2 82 Leonhardi to Chamberlayne 22 August 1705.
53 PRO MS SP 96 10, despatch of William Aglionby 12 March 1704.
54 See the remarks by Lossky, Andrew to this effect in ‘International Relations in Europe’, NCModH 6, p 188Google Scholar.
55 Klingler, Antoni, Bella Jehovae, elportio Israelis. Das ist; Die Kriege des Herrn … beschrieben von …Jesua … erklart; una… vorgenstellt dutch A. Klinglerum. Demnach die Zwei Tafelen Mosis, oder das Cesetze der heilegen zelen Gebotten Gottes. Mit beygefutgen Trost-predigten … vorgestellt durch A. Klinglerum (Zürich 1704)Google Scholar. The honorarium was still unpaid a year later—PRO MS SP Dom 34 6 63 J. C. Werndley to Sir C. Hedges 28 June 1705.
56 Johann Konrad Werndli, 1656-1727. Details of Werndli’s pastorates in England will be found on the title page of his Liturgia Tigurina (above, note 16); PRO MS SP Dora 34 5 8 J. C. Werndley (sic) to Sir Charles Hedges, 9 December 1704.
57 PRO MS SP Dora 34 6 69 Werndley to Hedges 3 July 1705.
58 SPG MS A 2 49 Ostervald to Chamberlayne 3 December 1704; A 2 61 Scherer to Chamberlayne 16 December 1704; SPCK Minutes 9 November 1704.
59 Ibid 28 December 1704; SPG MS A 2 50 Tronchin and Turretini to Chamberlayne 19 December 1704; A 2 51 Ostervald to SPG 3 December 1704.
60 SPG MS A 2 62 Scherer to Chamberlayne 22 January (OS) 1705; SPCK Minutes 9 November 1704; 22 February 1705.
61 SPCK Minutes 3 January 1706; SPG MS A 2 109 Ostervald to Chamberlayne 27 August 1705.
62 PRO MS SP 96 10 ‘An Account of my Negotiation in Switzerland in the years 1702, 1703, 1704, and 1705’, fol 18.
63 Groteste, Claude de La Mothe, Correspondence Fraternelle de l’Eglise Anglicane avec les autres Eglises Reformees et Etrangers (Hague 1705)Google Scholar.
64 Woodward p 44.
65 Sykes, [Norman] [Daniel Ernst] Jablonski [and the Church of England] (London 1950)Google Scholar passim; Sykes 2 chapter 6; Martin Schmidt, ‘Ecumenical Activity on the Continent of Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, A History of the Ecumenical Movement 1517-1948, ed Rouse, Ruth and Neill, Stephen (London 1954) pp 105–17Google Scholar.
66 Pietas Hallensis; or, an Abstract of the Marvellous Footsteps of Divine Providence in the Building of a very large Hospital … at Glaucha near Hall … Related by the Reverend Hermannus Franck …With a Preface written by Josiah Woodward, D.D. (2 ed London 1707) p viGoogle Scholar.
67 Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS 983 c fols 47-53, J. C. Werndley to bishop Compton, 24 April 1706.
68 Rawlinson MS 982 c fols 60-1 same to same 12 May 1706; Carpenter, [Edward], [The Protestant Bishop] (London 1956) pp 344–56Google Scholar.
69 SPG MS A 2 173 Ostervald to Chamberlayne 10 April 1706.
70 A Letter from the most renowned Pastors and Professors of the Church and University of Geneva to the University of Oxford. Together with the Answer of the University of Oxford to the same Letter (Edinburgh 1707) pp 3-8; The Life of the Right Honourable and Right Reverend Dr. Henry Compton Late Lord Bishop of London (London 1713) pp 70-6; Carpenter pp 347-9; Bodleian Library, Ballard MS 7 no 7 fol 16, George Smalridge to Dr A. Charlet 22 April 1708. In the same letter Smalridge commented that archbishop Tenison, as low a churchman as Hickes was high, ‘is very much upon the reserve always as to the Foreign-Reform’d and cares not for giving any Opinion either for or against them.’
71 Rawlinson MS 982 c fols 47-53, Werndley to Compton 24 April 1706. For the attempts of apologists for the Church of England’s practice in this matter to render it acceptable to non-episcopal protestants abroad, see Sykes, Norman, Old Priest and New Presbyter (Cambridge 1956) pp 122–8Google Scholar.
72 The Copy of a Letter from the Pastors and Professors of the Church and Academy of Geneva, to the King of Prussia … To which is added, The Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving used at Neufchatel … Nov. 3 1707, Transmitted by the Reverend Mr. Ostervald. Published by fosiah Woodward D.D. (London 1708). The occasion of the thanksgiving prayers at Neuchatel was the inauguration of the king of Prussia to that principality—English religious and secular authorities had worked to secure the Neuchatel succession for Prussia.
73 Nicholsii, G. … Defensio Ecclesiae Anglicanae in qua vindicantur omnia, quae ab adversariis in doctrina, cultu, et disciplina ejus improbantur (London 1717)Google Scholar. I have used Nicholls’s, own translation, [A] Defence [of the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England] (3 ed London 1730)Google Scholar.
74 Defence pp 326-8.
75 Ibid pp 133-42.
76 PRO MS SP 96 10 ‘An Account of my Negotiation in Switzerland …” fol 18; see note 70 above.
77 Defence pp 138-43.
78 Peirce, James, A Vindication of the Dissenters: In Answer to Dr. William Nichol’s Defence … of the Church of England (2 ed London 1718)Google Scholar preface. Peirce sent a copy of this work to Ostervald, asking him to ‘appear towards those who are call’d the Hierarchiques to persuade them to a good reunion with the Presbyterians and to reform what is amiss in the Church of England’, but the letter took two and a half years to reach him, by which time he judged that ‘the time is not favourable at present’; SPCK Papers and Memorials fols 109-11 Ostervald to Chamberlayne 22 January 1713. A revealing example of Anglican attitudes towards relations with foreign protestants is the exchange on this subject between the upper and lower houses of convocation, otherwise at loggerheads, in 1705. The lower House, in particular, expressed a wish to encourage the ‘good dispositions’ of ‘several reformed churches to accommodate themselves to our liturgy and constitution’; in this accommodation, this ‘fraternal correspondence’, lay the means of strengthening the protestant interest ‘against the common enemy’. Once again one is struck by the one-sidedness of this view of the nature of the ‘fraternal correspondence’, as an accommodation to Anglicanism—Cardwell, Synodalia (1842) 2 pp 718-23; Lathbury, Thomas, A History of the Convocation of the Church of England (2 ed London 1853) pp 394–405Google Scholar.
79 Lambeth Palace Library, Tenison MS 676, a bound volume containting Nicholls’s draft letters and the surviving replies. Copies of some of these replies are in SPG MS A4.
80 Tenison MS 676 pars secunda item 5, SPG MS A 4 48, Ostervald to Nicholls 11 June 1708.
81 Benedict Pictet, 1655-1724. Pastor at Geneva from 1680, professor of theology there from 1686. His interest in protestant union and support for the king of Prussia’s initiatives is reflected in his election to the Berlin Academy of Science in 1714. Tenison MS 676 pars secunda item 2, SPG MS A 4 46 Pictet to Nicholls 1 April 1708. The SPG copy includes a translation, from which I have quoted.
82 SPG MS A 5 24 Pictet to Nicholls 20 May 1709; A 4 102 Ostervald to Nicholls 9 March 1709.
83 SPCK Minutes 9 November 1704, 4 October 1705, 3 January 1706, 20 June 1706, 27 March 1707, 5 February 1708, 21 April, 9 June, 23 June, 31 July, 13 October 1709, 23 February 1710, 29 March, 19 April, 4 October, 1 November, 29 November 1711; The Liturgy used in the Churches of the Principality of Neufchatel; with a Letter from the Learned Dr. Jablonski Concerning the Nature of Liturgies … (London 1712). Jablonski’s letter is printed in full in Sharp, Thomas, The Life of John Sharp D.D. (London 1825) 2, pp 156–64Google Scholar, and is discussed in Sykes, Jablonski pp 15-16.
84 Abstract Letters 3992 Ostervald to Chamberlayne 8 March 1714; Special Letters (CS3/2) fols 120-4 Henry Newman to the dean and pastors of Neufchatel 16 June 1714, same to Ostervald same date.
85 SPG Committee Minutes 1 December 1702; Journal appendix A no 21.
86 SPCK Minutes 24 February 1709; SPG MSS A 4 69 Pictet and Turretini to Chamberlayne, 28 December 1708; A 4 134 Isaac Basnage to Chamberlayne 30 July 1709. This activty was continued after the peace, especially with relation to Piedmont and the Palatinate—SPCK Society Letters 4, Henry Newman to George Smalridge 22 March 1714; Minutes 13 January, 3 February 1715. In the 1730s the society became deeply involved in care for the Salzburger refugees and the Georgia emigration scheme, through the agency of Samuel Urlsperger—Cowie pp 228-49.
87 SPCK Minutes 25 August 1709, 17 November 1709, 17 August 1710.
88 SPG Journal, appendix A no 75; SPCK Minutes 14 March 1706, 3 August 1710; Abstract Letters 1705, 2151, 2450, 3028, 3127, 4039, 4221, Appia brothers to SPCK 1709-14; Papers and Memorials loose original letter, Cyprian and Paul Appia to Chamberlayne 1 February 1712; ibid fols 148-9 same to same 22 May 1714. The volume of Papers and Memorials contains copies of many official documents relating to the liberties of protestant minorities 1707-15.
89 SPCK Society Letters 2, Henry Newman to Mr Benjamin Broid 23 August 1711; Papers and Memorials fols 109-11 Ostervald to Chamberlayne 22 January 1713; (Bray, Thomas), Papal Usurpation and Persecution as it has been exercised in Ancient and Modern times … design’d as a supplemental to the Book of Martyrs (London 1712)Google Scholar.
90 PRO MS SP 96 11 Abraham Stanyan to the secretary of state 15 May 1706, Leonhardi to Stanyan 22 April (OS) 10 May 1706, Stanyan to secretary of state 5 June, 3 July 4 December 1706, 22 January, 15 February 1707; Leonhardi, Account of the Grisons, pp 33-6; SPG MS A 4 124 dean Otto Grassus to SPG 2 August (OS) 1707.
91 SPCK Minutes 27 March 1712, 24 March 1715, 18 August 1715, 3 November 1715, 8 March 1716; Ostervald, J. F., The arguments of the books and chapters of the Ola Testament, with poetical observations, 2 vols (London 1716)Google Scholar. The new testament volume appeared in 1718.
92 SPCK Minutes 8 August 1717.
93 Sykes 2, pp 1-88.
94 Abstract Letters 292 Ostervald to Masson 6 April 1701.
95 Ibid 2597 Ostervald to Chamberlayne 10 November 1711.
96 Henry Fielding The History of Tom Jones (first publ 1749) bk 3 chapter 3.
97 John Chamberlayne to Mr Deberinghen (sic) at the Hague 3 December 1700, printed in McClure pp 94-6.
98 BL., Sloane MS 4045 fol 164 Robert Hales to Sir Hans Sloane 3 November 1718.
