¹ Saxby, Trevor, The Quest for the New Jerusalem: Jean de Labadie and the Labadists, 1610–1744 (Boston: M. Nijhoff, 1987), 208Google Scholar.

² Penn, William, “To John de Labadie's Company,” in The Papers of William Penn, vol. 1, ed. Dunn, Mary Maples and Dunn, Richard S. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981), 215–218Google Scholar; Saxby, The Quest for the New Jerusalem, 209–210.

³ Penn, William, An Account of William Penn's Travels in Holland and Germany, Anno MDCLXXVII, for the Service of the Gospel of Christ: By Way of Journal, 3rd ed. (London, 1714), 142–143Google Scholar.

⁴ Penn, An Account of William Penn's Travels in Holland and Germany, 143–152; Penn did not specify these faults, but he had cautioned the group previously to avoid being too much led by a “formal spirit” like that found in the Articles of Reformed Faith. See Penn, “To John de Labadie's Company,” 217.

⁵ Penn, An Account of William Penn's Travels in Holland and Germany, 155–156.

⁶ Penn invoked a language of civility when recording his religious encounter, and he was not the only dissenter to do so See, for example, Roger Williams, George Fox digg'd out of his burrowes (Boston, 1676)Google Scholar. Indeed, this language may help us understand how toleration was negotiated at the local level among dissenters. As Lawrence Klein has argued, politeness and civility were concepts that became important during this period not only to the elite—to those most likely to be labeled as “the polite”—but to many individuals as they navigated their way through social interactions (“Politeness and the Interpretation of the British Eighteenth Century,” The Historical Journal 45, no. 4 [2002]: 898Google Scholar).

⁷ Penn, An Account of William Penn's Travels in Holland and Germany, 144, 152.

⁸ Hartmut Lehmann and Lucinda Martin, for example, have argued that Pietism operated as a set of movements throughout the Northern Atlantic characterized by members' common interest in religious revitalization. Similarly, Rosalind Beiler has shown how Quakers, Pietists, and Mennonites participated in a transatlantic communication network that facilitated aid distribution and European migration. Beiler points out that communication networks among these groups initially arose as a way for dissenters to seek out and have conversations with perceived like-minded or persecuted groups. See Lehmann, Hartmut, “Pietism in the World of Transatlantic Religious Revivals,” in Pietism in Germany and North America, 1680–1820, ed. Strom, Jonathan, Lehmann, Hartmut, and Van Horn Melton, James (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2009), 13–21Google Scholar; Martin, Lucinda, “Female Reformers as the Gatekeepers of Pietism: The Example of Johanna Eleonora Merlau and William Penn,” Monatshefte 95 (Spring 2003): 33–58Google Scholar; Beiler, Rosalind J., “Dissenting Religious Communication Networks and European Migration, 1660–1710,” in Soundings in Atlantic History: Latent Structures and Intellectual Currents, ed. Bailyn, Bernard and Denault, Patricia L. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009), 210–236Google Scholar.

⁹ On the French Prophets see Schwartz, Hillel, The French Prophets: The History of a Millenarian Group in Eighteenth-Century England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Tim Harris, for example, has argued that a fundamental transformation to British polity took place between the 1680s and 1720s, one whose heritage dated to the Glorious Revolution rather than to the British Civil Wars. This transformation involved the solidification of Britain as Protestant and as safe from the threat of continental “popery.” See Claydon, Tony, Europe and the Making of England, 1660–1760 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Harris, Tim, Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, 1685–1720 (New York: Allen Lane, 2006)Google Scholar; Pincus, Steven, 1688: The First Modern Revolution (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

¹¹ Shaw, Jane, Miracles in Enlightenment England (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006), 125–126Google Scholar; Apetrei, Sarah, Women, Feminism and Religion in Early Enlightenment England (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 177–208Google Scholar; Van Horn Melton, James, “Pietism, Politics, and the Public Sphere in Germany,” in Religion and Politics in Enlightenment Europe, ed. Bradley, James and Van Kley, Dale (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), 295Google Scholar.

¹² On the Philadelphians, see Thune, Nils, The Behmenists and the Philadelphians: A Contribution to the Study of English Mysticism in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1948)Google Scholar; Gibbons, Brian J., Gender in Mystical and Occult Thought: Behmenism and Its Development in England (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar. On the French Prophets, see Schwartz, The French Prophets. On the Quakers, see Wilcox, Catherine M., Theology and Women's Ministry in Seventeenth-Century English Quakerism: Handmaidens of the Lord (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edward Mellen, 1995), 96Google Scholar.

¹³ Hillel Schwartz argues that post-Civil-War millenarianism has been under-represented in scholarship. Due to its focus on social history, however, Schwartz's work somewhat obscures the theological underpinnings that divided various millenarian groups in England (and elsewhere). Theological differences among pre-millenarians, post-millenarians, Calvinist millenarians, and non-millenarian apocalyptics—among others—had considerable influence on transsectarian interactions. For a social history of post Civil-War millenarianism, see Schwartz, The French Prophets. For a study of the origins of Protestant millenarianism see Hotson, Howard, Paradise Postponed: Johann Heinrich Alsted and the Birth of Calvinist Millenarianism (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ [Philadelphian Society], Propositions Extracted From the Reasons for the Foundation and Promotion of a Philadelphian Society (London, 1697), 6.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Schwartz, The French Prophets, 102, 151.

¹⁶ de Baar, Mirjam, “Prophetess of God and Prolific Writer: Antoinette Bourignon and the reception of her writings,” in “I have heard about you:” Foreign women's writing crossing the Dutch border, ed. van Dijk, Suzan, Broomans, Petra, van der Meulen, Jane, van Oostrum, Pim, trans. Nesbitt, Jo (Hilversum, Netherlands: Verloren, 2004), 140Google Scholar; Bourignon, Antoinette, Toutes les oeuvres, vol. 4 (Amsterdam, 1686), 51Google Scholar; [Philadelphian Society], The State of the Philadelphian Society (London, 1697), 7Google Scholar; Webb, Elizabeth, A Letter from Elizabeth Webb to Anthony William Boehm, with his Answer (Pennsylvania, 1781), 4Google Scholar; Arnold, Gottfried, Unparteyische Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historie (Leipzig, 1699)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Jeremy Black has pointed out that there was an overall increase in continental and English interactions in the eighteenth-century, in part due to the arrival of Calvinist and Lutheran monarchs (William III and George I), as well as the Dutch and Germans who followed them to England. During these same decades, persecuted French Protestants, Palatines, and Moravians also arrived in England. As Black argues, the international republic of letters facilitated the encounters of reformed Christians in Europe, many of whom made contact with English politicians and clerics. Daniel Brunner emphasizes that the strongest Anglo-German religious connections of the early eighteenth century were between lay voluntary Anglicanism (namely the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge [SPCK]) and Halle. These connections were largely personal rather than ecclesial in nature, and they came out of the efforts of reform-minded individuals. Due to this paper's focus on minority religious groups, I have purposefully omitted considerations of interactions that involved Anglicans or groups such as the SPCK. Because such groups were supported or recognized by the state, issues came into play in their interactions with continental Europeans that are outside the scope of this paper. See Black, Jeremy, “Confessional State or Elect Nation? Religion and Identity in Eighteenth-Century England,” in Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c. 1650–1850, ed. Claydon, Tony and McBride, Ian (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 67–68Google Scholar; Brunner, Daniel, Halle Pietists in England: Anthony William Boehm and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1993), 221CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ Donald F. Durnbaugh, “Communication Networks as One Aspect of Pietist Definition: The Example of Radical Pietist Connections between Colonial North America and Europe,” in Pietism in Germany and North America, 1680–1820, 36–37; Fisher, Elizabeth, “‘Prophesies and Revelations’: German Cabbalists in Early Pennsylvania,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 109, no. 3 (July 1985): 299–300Google Scholar, 320; Levente Juhász, “Johannes Kelpius (1673–1708): Mystic on the Wissahickon,” in Cromohs Virtual Seminars: Recent Historiographical Trends of the British Studies (17th–18th Centuries), ed. M. Caricchio and G. Tarantino, 2006–2007: 1–9, http://www.cromohs.unifi.it/seminari/juhasz_kelpius.html.

¹⁹ Fisher, “‘Prophesies and Revelations’: German Cabbalists in Early Pennsylvania,” 321.

²⁰ Van Horn Melton, James, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 202–203Google Scholar.

²¹ See Apetrei, Women, Feminism and Religion in Early Enlightenment England; Gibbons, Gender in Mystical and Occult Thought: Behmenism and Its Development in England, 143–162; Schwartz, The French Prophets, 210–211.

²² Roach, Richard, The Great Crisis: Or, The Mystery of the Times and Seasons Unfolded (London, 1725 [1727]), 97Google Scholar; Rosamunde von Asseburg, “Letter to Richard Roach,” n.d., Rawlinson MSS D., 832/46, Bodleian Library, Oxford, U.K..

²³ The Petersens, like the English Philadelphians, were influenced by Behmenist theology. As Lucinda Martin points out, William Penn (and other outsiders who wished to break into religious circles in Germany) reached out to a number of well-connected Pietist women such as Anna Maria van Schurman and Johanna Eleonora Merlau Petersen. See Martin, “Female Reformers as the Gatekeepers of Pietism.”

²⁴ Penn, An Account of William Penn's Travels in Holland and Germany, 144.

²⁵ The notable presence of women in the correspondence and print networks of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century dissenters marks a point of contrast to those of later eighteenth-century evangelical correspondence networks, which were largely composed of well-educated men. The religious sphere surrounding the mid-eighteenth-century revivals widened to include a number of responses to revealed religious experience, and this shift influenced how women participated in the mid eighteenth-century revivals. Thomas Kidd has suggested the existence of three points on the continuum of debates surrounding the Great Awakening: anti-revivalists (who rejected religious enthusiasm), moderate revivalists (who embraced revival but wanted to control its direction), and radical revivalists (who emphasized the Spirit). This last category—like their seventeenth-century predecessors—often ignored social convention to allow participation from laymen and laywomen. But they were only one category among several. As less radical revivalist leaders attempted to control the direction of the revivals, they often sought to dictate the parameters of who could participate and what this participation would look like (that is, conversion-centered, with a focus on preaching and the gospel message). The heavy hand of these revivalists is apparent, for example, in Jonathan Edwards's accounts of the conversions of Abigail Hutchinson and Phebe Bartlet. Edwards takes control of the narrative; it is his authorial voice rather than the lay voices of Hutchinson and Bartlet that dominates. See Kidd, Thomas, The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009), xiv–xvGoogle Scholar; Lambert, Frank, Inventing the “Great Awakening,” (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 25Google Scholar; Edwards, Jonathan, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton (London, 1737)Google Scholar.

²⁶ Armitage, David and Braddick, Michael J., “Introduction,” in The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800, ed. Armitage, David and Braddick, Michael J. (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002), 3Google Scholar.

²⁷ Schwartz, The French Prophets, 71.

²⁸ See Durnbaugh, “Communication Networks as One Aspect of Pietist Definition,” 44.

²⁹ Some continental groups brought their ideas to England or to British America in person, such as the French Prophets and several radical Pietist groups. Others influenced British dissenters through their writings, such as the sixteenth-century theologian Jacob Boehme. On Boehme's reception in England see Gibbons, Gender in Mystical and Occult: Behmenism and Its Development in England.

³⁰ Moore, Rosemary, The Light in their Consciences: Early Quakers in Britain, 1646–1666 (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 124.Google Scholar

³¹ Esther Palmer et al., “The Journals of Esther Palmer,” MS Box X1/10, f. 5, Society of Friends Library, London.

³² As Paul Hazard and others have shown, the seventeenth century gave rise to an interest in travel and travel literature. See Hazard, Paul, The European Mind, 1680–1715, trans. May, J. Lewis (Cleveland, Oh.: Meridian, 1969), 3–28Google Scholar.

³³ Chalkley, Thomas, A Journal or, Historical Account of the Life, Travels and Christian Experiences, of That Antient, Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, Thomas Chalkley (London, 1751), 24Google Scholar; Elizabeth Webb, “Memoirs. A Short Account of My Viage [sic] into America with Mary Rogers My Companion, ” eds. Frederick B. Tolles and John Beverly Riggs, MS 975B/22, Quaker Collection, Haverford College Library, Haverford, Pennsylvania. On signs, wonders, and providentialism in early modern England see Walsham, Alexandra, Providence in Early Modern England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar. The fascination with signs, providences, and wonders gradually declined over the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as it became associated with enthusiasm and radical sectarians.

³⁴ Bownas, Samuel, An Account of the Life, Travels, and Christian Experiences in the Work of the Ministry of Samuel Bownas (London, 1756), 58–59Google Scholar.

³⁵ “Trembler” (Fr. “trembleur”) was a French epithet for Quaker. Thomas Chalkley, A Journal or, Historical Account of the Life, Travels and Christian Experiences, of That Antient, Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, Thomas Chalkley, 101–102.

³⁶ Webb, A Letter from Elizabeth Webb to Anthony William Boehm, 37–38.

³⁷ The questions that Bownas answered also allowed him to criticize indirectly his religious adversaries, such as those who had put him in prison. For example, the Indians' questions about religious practices such as the Eucharist gave Bownas the opportunity to point out what he saw as the uselessness of sacramental religion.

³⁸ Bownas, An Account of the Life, Travels, and Christian Experiences in the Work of the Ministry of Samuel Bownas, 79–85.

³⁹ Schwartz, The French Prophets, 217.

⁴⁰ Keimer, A Brand Pluck'd from the Burning Exemplify'd Unparallel'd Case of Samuel Keimer (London, 1718), 5–6Google Scholar. Keimer wrote, “And I being inform'd that a Meeting was intended to be kept in Southwark, by the Invitation of several sober well-meaning People on that side of the Water, who had not yet made Trial of the Spirit operating upon them, got leave of my Master, for half a Day, to go abroad.” As Paul Griffiths has shown for the period just before the French Prophets' movement (1560–1640), there was a “youth culture” in early modern England that allowed for servants and apprentices, both male and female, to experience a more ambiguous and flexible life than the structured, hierarchical world of their elders. For more on youth culture in early modern England, see Griffiths, Paul, Youth and Authority: Formative Experiences in England, 1560–1640 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Chalkley, A Journal or, Historical Account of the Life, Travels and Christian Experiences, of That Antient, Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, Thomas Chalkley, 65.

⁴² Penn, An Account of William Penn's Travels in Holland and Germany, 5, 27.

⁴³ As Penn told the Labadists, for example, “Now since I have with patience, and can truly say with great satisfaction heard your account of your Experiences, give me the like Christian freedom to tell you mine, to the end you may have some sense of the Work of God in me” (Ibid., 149–150).

⁴⁴ Penn, “To John de Labadie's Company,” 216; Crisp, Stephen, A Memorable Account of the Christian Experiences, Gospel Labours, Travels, and Sufferings of that Ancient Servant of Christ, Stephen Crisp, in His Books and Writings Herein Collected (London, 1694), 54–57Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Penn, An Account of William Penn's Travels in Holland and Germany, 152.

⁴⁶ “Papers of the Revd Mr Richard Roach MA Formerly Fellow of St Johns College Oxford,” Rawlinson MSS D., 833/31, Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK.

⁴⁷ “Polemica Sacro-Prophetica Anti-ROACHiana-WILTSHIREiana,” Rawlinson MSS D., 1318/55–6, Bodleian Library, Oxford, U.K.

⁴⁸ Ibid., 63. See also “A Collection of Prophetic Blessings by the Eternal Spirit; Administered by the Laying on of Hands,” Mun A.4.33/346, Chetham's Library, Manchester, U.K.

⁴⁹ Rawlinson MSS D., 1318/55.

⁵⁰ Danckaerts, Jasper, Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679–1680, ed. James, Bartlett Burleigh and Jameson, J. Franklin, trans. Murphy, Henry C. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913)Google Scholar, passim.

⁵¹ Ibid., 86.

⁵² Ibid., 104–107.

⁵³ Bourignon, Antoinette, Toutes les oeuvres, vol. 19 (Amsterdam, 1717), 21Google Scholar; ibid., vol. 5 (Amsterdam, 1686), pt. 2, 8–9. Translation Mine. The original states, “Voilà le sentiment que je porte de toutes les Religions que j'ay icy découvertes . . . j'ay assez vû par ces petits échantillons, que toutes les pieces ne peuvent estre bonnes.”

⁵⁴ Some of those who met with Bourignon were equally adamant in their rejection of her. According to Bourignon's biographer and supporter Pierre Poiret, the Dutch millenarian Peter Serrarius, an associate of Spinoza, initially wanted to promote Bourignon as a living evangelist who would enlighten the world. But when he realized that she did not plan to start a Levitic cult, he declared himself against her. Similarly, a group of Mennonites was drawn to visit Bourignon, but after learning more about her beliefs they left (see ibid., vol. 2, 286–287). Bourignon's theology was unique, and such groups likely had trouble overlooking some of her beliefs that contradicted central tenets of Protestantism—such as her inability to embrace the doctrine of justification by faith.

⁵⁵ Bourignon's extensive correspondence reveals that she did not get along easily with others, including her own followers. See Bourignon, Toutes les oeuvres, vol. 5, pt. 2, 5–9; For an example of Bourignon's attitude toward other religionists see idem., vol. 18, pt. 1, 177; idem, vol. 19, 21; idem, vol. 5, pt. 2, 8–9. Part of this may have been due to the tension between the desire to seek a gathered community and the desire for an individual quest for God that leaned toward eremiticism. Bourignon was not the only radical Pietist to experience this tension. See Bach, Jeff, Voices of the Turtledoves: The Sacred World of Ephrata (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 62Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ On catastrophic millenarianism see Wessinger, Catherine, “Millenialism With and Without the Mayhem,” in Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem, ed. Robbins, Thomas and Palmer, Susan J. (New York: Routledge, 1997), 49Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Dissenters frequently used scripture as warrant to emphasize that their inspiration gave them spiritual authority, regardless of their social standing. For example, some female dissenters cited Joel 2:28–29 (“your sons and your daughters shall prophesy . . . and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit,” cf. Acts 2:17–18). Quakers, especially, invoked Acts 10:34 (“God is no respecter of persons”). It was also not uncommon for radical religionists to reference scripture heavily but to claim that their knowledge and inspiration was prophetic or inspired. Bourignon, for example, tried to downplay her scriptural knowledge by claiming that “the more I forget my own thoughts, the more I receive the inspiration from Heaven, the sense of the scriptures, and the words to be able to express them to others. Numerous persons are astonished how I can adduce so many passages of Scripture without having ever read them” (Toutes les oeuvres, vol. 16, [L'Antéchrist Découvert, Part 1], 116). Author's Translation.

⁵⁸ Danckaerts, Journal of Jasper Danckaerts,104–107; Mirjam de Baar, “Prophetess of God and Prolific Writer: Antoinette Bourignon and the Reception of Her Writings, 140.

⁵⁹ On letters, correspondence, and the private/public see Goodman, Dena, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Melton, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe, 149.

⁶⁰ [Philadelphian Society], Theosophical Transactions: consisting of memoirs, conferences, letters, dissertations, inquiries, etc. for the advancement of piety, and divine philosophy, no. 1 (London: March 1697), 1Google Scholar; See “Letters of Francis Lee, c. 1704,” Lambeth Palace MSS 1559, Lambeth Palace Library, London; “Papers of the Revd. Mr. Richard Roach,” Rawlinson MSS D., 832–833; Mirjam de Baar, “Prophetess of God and Prolific Writer: Antoinette Bourignon and the Reception of Her Writings,” 137.

⁶¹ We cannot deduce from Bourignon's prolific use of correspondence that women, who had more restrictions than men when traveling, turned to writing letters as recourse to make up for such restrictions or limitations. Rather, Bourignon's example fits in with the pattern of dissenters in general, whether male or female. Quakers, Philadelphians, and Pietists all found letter-writing to be useful whether they traveled or not.

⁶² Martin, “Female Reformers as the Gate Keepers of Pietism,” 42.

⁶³ Anton Wilhelm Boehm, in A Letter from Elizabeth Webb to Anthony William Boehm, 44.

⁶⁴ Rawlinson MSS D., 832/46.

⁶⁵ See Kelpius, Johannes, The Diarium of Magister Johannes Kelpius, trans. and ed. Sachse, Julius (Lancaster, Pa.: Press of the New Era Printing Company, 1917)Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 86, 95.

⁶⁷ Ibid., 40. Levente Juhász suggests that Jane Lead's works were likely among the documents sent in Deichmann's earlier packets to Kelpius. While it is somewhat surprising that Kelpius would not have been introduced to Pordage's writings while spending time in London with the Philadelphians, the broader point here is that letters allowed for the transatlantic exchange of information. See Juhász, “Johannes Kelpius (1673–1708): Mystic on the Wissahickon,” 5.

⁶⁸ Martin, “Female Reformers as the Gatekeepers of Pietism,” 36.

⁶⁹ Bourignon, Toutes les oeuvres, vol. 5, pt. 2, 16, 18; ibid., vol. 19, 49–50.

⁷⁰ Ibid., vol. 19, 225; Kelpius, The Diarium of Magister Johannes Kelpius, 40; Boehm, in A Letter from Elizabeth Webb to Anthony William Boehm, with his Answer, 43.

⁷¹ Webb, A Letter from Elizabeth Webb to Anthony William Boehm, with his Answer, 3.

⁷² For a consideration of the Enlightenment public sphere, women writers, and questions of agency and exclusion, see Going Public: Women and Publishing in Early Modern France, eds. Goldsmith, Elizabeth C. and Goodman, Dena (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

⁷³ See Penn, An Account of William Penn's Travels in Holland and Germany.

⁷⁴ For more on Boehme and Behmenism see Nils Thune, The Behmenists and the Philadelphians.

⁷⁵ McDowell, Paula, The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace 1678–1730 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 122; James Van Horn Melton, “Pietism, Politics, and the Public Sphere in Germany,” 315.

⁷⁶ For an overview of censorship during the eighteenth century see Laerke, Mogens, “Introduction,” in The Uses of Censorship in the Enlightenment, ed. Laerke, Mogens (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2009), 1–24Google Scholar. Laerke shows that censorship was a fraught process of negotiation between the laws of censorship and the implementation of these laws. See also Schneider, Hans, German Radical Pietism, trans. MacDonald, Gerald T. (Plymouth, U.K.: Scarecrow Press, 2007), 5Google Scholar, 29.

⁷⁷ “A Short Historical Account of the Message of the Spirit of the Lord to his People in Germany in the Year 1711,” reprinted in “The French Prophets of 1711,” ed. Penny, T. S., Baptist Quarterly 2 (1924): 179Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ McDowell, Paula, “Enlightenment Enthusiasms and the Spectacular Failure of the Philadelphian Society,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 35, no. 4 (Summer 2002), 517Google Scholar; Nils Thune, The Behmenists and the Philadelphians, 81; Richard Roach claimed that Lead “wrote many deep and useful Tracts, chiefly relating to the Kingdom of Christ; which have all been Coveted, and translated into the High German Tongue; and have had great Effect in several Countries; tho' disregarded in her Own” (Roach, The Great Crisis, 99).

⁷⁹ De Baar, “Prophetess of God and Prolific Writer: Antoinette Bourignon and the Reception of Her Writings,” 137; MacEwen, Alexander R., Antoinette Bourignon, Quietist (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910), 5.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ As Willi Temme has noted, translated works allowed for a circular exchange of ideas. See Temme, “From Jakob Böhme via Jane Leade to Eva von Buttlar—Transmigrations and Transformations of Religious Ideas,” in Pietism in Germany and North America, 1680–1820, 101–106.

⁸¹ [Philadelphian Society], The State of the Philadelphian Society, 12.

⁸² The initial swarm of outsiders to Philadelphian meetings was connected to the Toleration Act, which required dissenters to keep their doors unlocked during meetings. Roach notes that they “were necessitated by the law of the land to be public, in that we could not shut out any that intruded upon us” (see [Philadelphian Society], Theosophical Transactions, no. 4 [London, July–August 1697], 224Google Scholar). So many people came to the Philadelphian meetings at Baldwins Gardens that that they had to take a larger place. See Richard Roach, “An Account of the Rise and Progress of the Philadelphian Society,” Rawlinson MSS D., 833/65–66. On the Philadelphians' public campaign see McDowell, “Enlightenment Enthusiasms,” 516.

⁸³ [Philadelphian Society], The State of the Philadelphian Society, 12–13.

⁸⁴ Ibid., 11.

⁸⁵ Pallares-Burke, Maria Lúcia, “The Spectator, or the Metamorphoses of the Periodical: A Study in Cultural Translation,” in Cultural Translation in Early Modern Europe, ed. Burke, Peter and Hsia, R. Po-chia (New York: Cambridge University, Press, 2007), 146Google Scholar; McDowell, “Enlightenment Enthusiasms,” 520.

⁸⁶ [Philadelphian Society]. Theosophical Transactions, no. 1, 5.

⁸⁷ Ibid., no. 2 (London, April 1697), 95–96.

⁸⁸ Ibid., no. 1, 45.

⁸⁹ Theosophical Transactions, no. 2, 83 (see also ibid., no. 1, 46); Theosophical Transactions, no. 3, (May–June 1697), 142–151. See also Becker-Cantarino, Barbara, “Introduction,” in The Life of Lady Johanna Eleonora Petersen, Written by Herself, trans. and ed. Becker-Cantarino, Barbara (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), 14–15Google Scholar.

⁹⁰ About the time that the Philadelphians' public campaign ended, they began another campaign to create a fixed alliance with certain Pietists. They sent a representative, Johann Dittmar, to Germany. While he was received warmly, he failed to accomplish his mission. No one he met was comfortable with the idea of forming a union that would require allegiance to a formal creed. See Hans Schneider, German Radical Pietism, 67–68.

⁹¹ Lambeth Palace MSS 1559/1–2. See also Rawlinson MSS D., 833/89. Both Lee and Roach transcribed Hannah's account. Others in Hannah's circle of acquaintances knew Lead; however, her hosts—a mother and daughter—were likely not followers of Lead. The daughter questioned why Hannah wished to read Lead's “old English wives' dreams.” The mother asked her daughter, “Do you give away that book then? We might yet perhaps read in it.” It is not surprising that both books were religious in nature, as most published items before 1730 dealt with didactic, polemical, or religio-political subjects. See McDowell, The Women of Grub Street, 15–16.

⁹² See Searle, Alison, “Though I am a Stranger to You by Face, yet in Neere Bonds by Faith”: A Transatlantic Puritan Republic of Letters,” Early American Literature 43, no. 2 (2008): 277–308Google Scholar; Tolles, Frederick, Quakers and the Atlantic Culture (New York: MacMillan, 1960)Google Scholar. Durnbaugh, “Communication Networks as One Aspect of Pietist Definition;” Melton, “Pietism, Politics, and the Public Sphere in Germany,” 294–333; Beiler, “Dissenting Religious Communication Networks and European Migration, 1660–1710,” 210–236.

⁹³ Some scholars of early America—such as T. H. Breen, Frank Lambert and Susan O'Brien—have argued for the presence of a religious public sphere in the second half of the eighteenth century, one which functioned as an intellectual space in which writers attempted to reach the public and influence public opinion. See Breen, T. H., “Retrieving Common Sense: Rights, Liberties, and the Religious Public Sphere in Late Eighteenth Century America,” in To Secure the Blessings of Liberty: Rights in American History ed. Pacheco, Josephine (Fairfax, Va.: George Mason University Press, 1993), 55–65Google Scholar; Lambert, Frank, Pedlar in Divinity: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals, 1737–1770 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994)Google Scholar. Susan O'Brien, who also embraces the idea of a mid-eighteenth-century religious public sphere, has probed the role of an evangelical network in facilitating the revivals. She emphasizes the transatlantic nature of this network, arguing that it marked a departure from its earlier counterparts—such as the epistolary network of Puritans—by a greater focus on conversion and evangelism. See O'Brien, “A Transatlantic Community of Saints: The Great Awakening and the First Evangelical Network, 1735–1755,” American Historical Review 91 (October 1986): 811–832Google Scholar. See also Snead, Jennifer, “Print, Predestination, and the Public Sphere: Transatlantic Evangelical Periodicals, 1740–1745,” Early American Literature 45, no. 1 (2010): 93–118Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ In arguing against the historiographical construct of a “Great Awakening,” Jon Butler noted that there was a “long term pattern of erratic movements for spiritual renewal and revival” characterizing both Western Christianity and Protestantism more specifically. See Butler, Jon, “‘Enthusiasm Described and Decried’: The Great Awakening as Interpretative Fiction,” The Journal of American History 69, no. 2 (1982), 323Google Scholar. While acknowledging the validity of this statement, this paper also recognizes that each movement emerged from specific motivations and produced its own characteristics, structures, and cohesiveness depending on the social and political context in which it formed.

⁹⁵ Entrance into the printed world often meant that one's audience often extended past that of dissenters. As one Philadelphian publication noted, “Upon occasion of those Philadelphian Papers, and Theosophical Transactions that fly about, we are often ask'd in the City, both by our Friends in Conversation, and by others that are Inquisitive or Scrupulous. What these Philadelphians are; this new Sect with a hard Name? How are they distinguish'd from other Christians?” See [Philadelphian Society], State of the Philadelphian Society, 1.

⁹⁶ Boehm, in A Letter from Elizabeth Webb to Anthony William Boehm, 44.

⁹⁷ The framework of this essay's treatment of the public sphere is indebted to points made about the public sphere and Pietism in Melton, “Pietism, Politics, and the Public Sphere in Germany.”

⁹⁸ The Theosophical Transactions had similarities not only the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, but also to eighteenth–century revivalists' newspapers and magazines. See Paula McDowell, “Enlightenment Enthusiasms,” 520; O'Brien, “A Transatlantic Community of Saints,” 823.

⁹⁹ Penn, An Account of William Penn's Travels in Holland and Germany, 150.