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Enlightened Piety during the Age of Benevolence: The Christian Knowledge Movement in the British Atlantic World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 May 2016
Abstract
By the 1690s, a religious initiative for benevolence and reform had taken firm hold throughout both England and Scotland. For roughly the next fifty years, a coherent movement for enlightened piety operated in the British Atlantic world that would emphasize institutional stability, social reform, and personal improvement. Constituting this movement were transatlantic religious networks that established unprecedented personal and institutional partnerships among traditionally antagonistic religious rivals. These collaborators sought to cultivate piety through traditional forms such as the enrichment of the liturgy, a refinement of architecture, and a fuller development of the faith through the application of the new learning to received revelation. Other efforts included prison reform alongside educational measures to promote Christian knowledge such as evangelism and missions, the teaching of the catechism, the circulation of libraries, and the establishment of charity schools. This was Britain's age of benevolence; at its core was a trans-denominational effort for spiritual renewal and social reform.
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References
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2 William Robertson, The Situation of the World at the Time of Christ's Appearance, and its Connexion with the Success of his Religion, Considered (Edinburgh: Hamilton, Balfour, and Neill, 1760); Hugh Blair, The Importance of Religious Knowledge to the Happiness of Mankind, A Sermon Preached Before The Society for propagating Christian Knowledge: At their Anniversary Meeting in The High Church of Edinburgh on Monday, January 1, 1750, and published at their Desire (Edinburgh: R. Fleming for A Kincaid, 1750), 3; William Hamilton, The Truth and Excellency of the Christian Religion. A Sermon Preached in the High Church of Edinburgh, Monday, January 3, 1732. Upon the Occasion of the Anniversary Meeting of the Society in Scotland for propagating Christian Knowledge; And published at their Request (Edinburgh: R. Fleming for Gavin Hamilton, 1732), 25–26; Minutes of Committee Meetings, vol. 5, pp. 470–471, SPCK Records, National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh. Hereafter CMM followed by volume and page number.
3 Brent S. Sirota, The Christian Monitors: The Church of England and the Age of Benevolence, 1680–1730 (Yale: Yale University Press, 2014), 7; Richard Sher, Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 1985), 6; David Allan, Virtue, Learning and the Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 1993), 12; Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Roads to Modernity: the British, French, and American Enlightenments (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 5–6; D.D. McElroy, “The Literary Clubs and Societies of Eighteenth Century Scotland, and their influence on the literary productions of the period from 1700 to 1800” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1951–1952), 8–9.
4 Robertson, The Situation of the World at the Time of Christ's Appearance, 15–16.
5 Ibid., 19.
6 Ibid., 43–44.
7 Sirota, Christian Monitors, 2–7.
8 Eamon Duffy, “Primitive Christianity Revived: Religious Renewal in Augustan England,” in Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History: Papers Read at the Fifteenth Summer Meeting and Sixteenth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, vol. 14, ed. Derek Baker (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977), 294.
9 Andrew, Donna T., “On Reading Charity Sermons: Eighteenth-Century Anglican Solicitation and Exhortation,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 43, no. 4 (October 1992): 591Google Scholar.
10 Mills, Frederick V. Sr. “The Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge in British North America, 1730–1775,” Church History 63, no. 1 (March 1994): 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Historiographically, as Mills explained, the SSPCK has been recognized as the most neglected of the major “Protestant missionary organizations” of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries despite its central importance.
11 On the English context, see Eamon Duffy, “Primitive Christianity Revived: Religious Renewal in Augustan England.”
12 F.W.B. Bullock, Voluntary Religious Societies, 1520–1799 (St. Leonards on Sea: Budd & Gillatt, 1963), 109; H.P. Thompson, Thomas Bray (London: SPCK, 1954), 7.
13 Richard B. Hone, The Lives of Bernard Gilpin, B.D. Rectors of Houghton-Le Spring, Durham, Philip De Mornay, Lord of Plessis Marly, in France, Governor of Saumur, Counsellor of State to King Henry the Fourth, William Bedell, D.D., Bishop of Kilmore, in Ireland, and Anthony Horneck, D.D., Prebendary of Westminster, and Preacher at the Savoy (London: John W. Parker, West Strand, 1836), 322–324.
14 David Owen, English Philanthropy, 1660–1960 (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1964), 17–19.
15 Thompson, Thomas Bray, 5–6; G.R. Cragg, From Puritanism to the Age of Reason: A Study of Changes in Religious Thought Within the Church of England, 1660–1700 (New York: Cambridge University, 1950), 34. As Cragg points out, John Tillotson was the embodiment of anti-Calvinism, arguing it was directly opposed to the teachings of Christ and therefore should be accursed. More generally, one of the most daunting barriers to this reform movement was perceived to be the legacy of puritanism that had stripped the altars and destroyed many aspects of traditional worship and pious discourse including liturgy, music, and architecture.
16 Gilbert Burnet, History of His Own Time, vol. 2 (London, 1724–1734), 317–318; F.W.B. Bullock, Voluntary Religious Societies, 130; W.K. Lowther Clarke, A Short History of SPCK (New York: MacMillan, 1919), 13–14; W.M. Spellman, The Latitudinarians and the Church of England, 1660–1700 (Athens: University of Georgia, 1993), 7.
17 Hone, The Lives, 322–324; Thompson, Thomas Bray, 7.
18 J.H. Overton, Life in the English Church, 1660–1714 (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1885), 210.
19 Owen, English Philanthropy, 20.
20 Without a doubt, certain legacies of puritanism lived on in reform efforts. It was Cotton Mather, for example, that stated in 1725 that “‘the country is full of Associations, formed by the Pastors in their Vicinities, for the Prosecution of Evangelical Purposes.’” Nonetheless, this article accepts Verner Crane's argument more generally about these efforts: “If certain of their activities represented merely the resurgence of the old negative Puritan morality, others gave evidence of a more humane temper and a new social earnestness in England.” For the quote by Crane, see, The Southern Frontier, 1670–1732 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1977), 304. On the Mather quote, see E. Brooks Holifield, God's Ambassadors: A History of the Christian Clergy in America (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 2007), 69. On the broader dynamics of religious associations in eighteenth century America, see Holifield, ch. 3.
21 Overton, Life in the English Church, 230.
22 Owen, English Philanthropy, 20; Schmidt, Jeremy, “Charity and the Government of the Poor in the English Charity-School Movement, circa 1700–1730,” Journal of British Studies 49, no. 4 (Oct. 2010)Google Scholar; Joanna Innes, “The ‘Mixed Economy of Welfare’ in Early Modern England: Assessments of the Options from Hale to Malthus (c. 1683–1803),” in Charity, Self-Interest and Welfare in the English Past, ed. Martin Daunton (London: UCL, 1996), 153. Innes noted that during the 1690s an “efflorescence of subscription charities” were implemented into English society.
23 Overton, Life in the English Church, 211; Mary Gwladys Jones, Charity School Movement: A Study of Eighteenth Century Puritanism in Action (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1964). Jones's magisterial work has taught us much about what she termed the “age of benevolence.” During this period, she marveled at the burst of benevolent energy in eighteenth-century England, stating that “the range of . . . philanthropy was remarkable.” Examples she gave included: “the mission field at home and abroad, the distress of religious refugees, the misery of negro slaves, foundling children and climbing boys, the brutalities of the criminal law, the hardships of the very poor, the aged and infirm, the struggle of the ‘second poor’ to keep their heads above water, the suffering of the sick and diseased and those in prison.” Jones asserted that more generally these causes “never failed to stir the consciences and untie the purse-strings of the pious and philanthropic men and women of eighteenth-century England.” She continued that, of all these various causes and concerns, “the charity school was their favorite form of benevolence” and that “it is the most striking of the many social experiments of the age. To it was applied the new method of associated philanthropy and the new device of joint-stock finance.”
24 Thompson, Thomas Bray, 7, 25.
25 Hone, The Lives, 338.
26 Spellman, Latitudinarians and the Church of England, 5–7; G.V. Bennett, “Conflict in the Church,” in ed. Geoffrey S. Holmes, Britain after the Glorious Revolution, 1689–1714 (New York: St. Martin's, 1969), 161. As Bennett points out, in the two years after the Revolution there were “an unprecedented series of vacancies” for both “bishoprics and deaneries” due to deaths and non-jurors. With Tillotson, these vacancies “were filled by moderate Tories, men with real distinction and learning.” This contributed to the Christian knowledge movement, as well.
27 Edgar Legare Pennington, The Reverend Thomas Bray (Philadelphia: The Church Historical Society, 1934), 19; Thompson, Thomas Bray, 7.
28 Owen, English Philanthropy, 17–19; Jones, Charity School Movement, 3.
29 Owen, English Philanthropy, 17–19; Crane, Southern Frontier, 303; Jones, Charity School Movement, 3.
30 Bennett, “Conflict in the Church,” 164.
31 Owen, English Philanthropy, 22.
32 Haynes McMullen, American Libraries before 1876 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2000), 21–22. McMullen demonstrates that Bray and his colleagues’ establishment of libraries in colonial America was substantial.
33 Charles T. Laugher, Thomas Bray's Grand Design: Libraries of the Church of England in America, 1695–1785 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1973), 17–21.
34 Crane, Verner W., “The Philanthropists and the Genesis of Georgia,” The American Historical Review 27, no. 1 (October 1921): 63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
35 John C. Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery: The American Correspondence of the Associates of Dr. Bray, 1717–1777 (Chicago: University of Illinois, 1985), 1. Van Horne argues that Bray was the “chief architect” and “prime mover” of the “missionary and philanthropic movement” more generally during the early eighteenth century.
36 Meyers, Terry L., “Benjamin Franklin, the College of William and Mary, and the Williamsburg Bray School,” Anglican and Episcopal History 79, no. 4 (December 2010): 368–373Google Scholar; Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery, 1; Laugher, Thomas Bray's Grand Design, 17–21.
37 Margaret Connell Szasz, Scottish Highlanders and Native Americans: Indigenous Education in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 2007). Szasz presents a nuanced narrative of the SSPCK along with important treatment of their encounters with Native Americans and Scottish Highlanders. While out of the scope of this article, Szasz provides an important balance to the colonial realities tied into efforts of education and evangelism in the British Atlantic world. She also provides a quintessential angle of British education from the perspective of Native Americans and Highlanders themselves.
38 Pennington, Reverend Thomas Bray, 46.
39 Travis Glasson, Mastering Christianity: Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World (New York: Oxford University, 2012), 34; Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery, 1.
40 Crane, “The Philanthropists and the Genesis of Georgia,” 63, 67.
41 Sweet, Julie Anne, “‘The Excellency and Advantage of doing Good’: Thoughts on the Anniversary Sermons Preached before the Trustees of Georgia, 1731–1750,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 90, no. 1 (Spring, 2006): 34Google Scholar. Also see Pennington, Edgar Legare, “John Wesley's Georgia Ministry,” Church History 8, no. 3 (September 1939): 232Google Scholar. Again and again, Anglican ministers preached sermons to the Associates and Trustees that expressed not only the material and practical but also the spiritual bedrock of the settlement itself: that is, its “charitable designs” and religious ideals as a benevolent effort bringing about reform and improvement. See, for example, Sweet, “‘The Excellency and Advantage of Doing Good,’” 5–6, 11–12, 14, 23–26, 29, 32, 34; Crane, Southern Frontier, 303.
42 Pennington, Edgar Legare, “Anglican Influences in the Establishment of Georgia,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 16, no. 4 (December 1932): 295Google Scholar.
43 Ned C. Landsman, From Colonials to Provincials: American Thought and Culture, 1680–1760 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1997), 77; David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1975). Landsman provides a lucid and important account of transatlantic thought and culture during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. However, he, following the lead of David Brion Davis, overlooks or dismisses the formidable humanitarian movements during the first half of the eighteenth century, which I have recognized as part of the Christian knowledge movement. The humanitarian aid to German refugees and persecuted emigrants is just one example. On this, see Spalding, Phinizy, “Oglethorpe, Georgia, and The Spanish Threat,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 78, no. 3 (Fall 1994): 463–464Google Scholar; Candler, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, 3: 387. There are many works demonstrating this reality of humanitarian reform taking place in America during the early decades of the eighteenth century. A few examples directly related to this article include Sweet, “‘The Excellency and Advantage of doing Good’”; Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery; Meyers, “Benjamin Franklin, the College of William and Mary, and the Williamsburg Bray School”; Owen, English Philanthropy; Jones, Charity School Movement; Crane, “The Philanthropists and the Genesis of Georgia”; Laugher, Thomas Bray's Grand Design; Sirota, Christian Monitors.
44 Spalding, Phinizy, “Some Sermons Before The Trustees of Colonial Georgia,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 57, no. 3 (Fall 1973): 340Google Scholar.
45 Spalding, “Some Sermons Before The Trustees of Colonial Georgia,” 338.
46 Spalding, “Oglethorpe, Georgia, and The Spanish Threat,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 78, no. 3 (Fall 1994): 463Google Scholar.
47 Crane, “The Philanthropists and the Genesis of Georgia,” 63, 67; Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery, 1, 17.
48 Nathan Philip Gray, “A publick benefite to the nation: The Charitable and Religious Origins of the SSPCK, 1690–1715” (PhD diss., University of Glasgow, 2011), 101; Mills, Sr. “The Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge in British North America,” 16; Thompson, Thomas Bray, 103–104; Murray C. T. Simpson, “Kirkwood, James (b. c.1650, d. in or after 1709),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (New York: Oxford University, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15682. Hereafter ODNB.
49 Gray, “‘A publick benefite to the nation,’” 7. This quote came from Gray, who was summing up Kirkwood's sentiments on this issue.
50 Gray, “A publick benefite to the nation,” 89, 104, 101–114. It should be emphasized that, as Gray put it, “mutual prejudices and suspicions” continued between the Anglican and Presbyterian sides, but men such as Kirkwood persisted in forging an alliance between two very unlikely groups.
51 Simpson, “Kirkwood, James,” ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15682; Thompson, Thomas Bray, 103–104; Gray, “A publick benefite to the nation,” 101–102.
52 Alexander Belsches, An Account of The Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, from its Commencement in 1709. In which is included, The present state of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland with regard to Religion (Edinburgh: A. Murray and J. Cochrane, 1774), 4; R. Wodrow, Correspondence, III: 193, which was found in Jones, Charity School Movement, 176; Bullock, Voluntary Religious Societies, 150.
53 Nathan Gray rightly points out that pious communities pre-dated societies for the reformation of manners including, for example, privy kirks, which played a significant role during the Scottish Reformation. Especially in the seventeenth century, house conventicles along with other “pre-revolutionary prayer groups” also set a precedent for private groups established for prayer and piety. Indeed, the new societies for the reformation of manners may have provided a safe haven for the “personal troubles” of those “under suspicion of participating in illegal religious activities” and which “pushed them to join the societies from 1700.” Nonetheless, societies for the reformation of manners were following within the tradition of prayer societies, which were not seeking to subvert the established church but were working within its given confines for the cultivation of piety. See Gray, “‘A publick benefite to the nation’,” 15, 61–63. Portions of this idea expressed in the text can be found in R.L. Roberson, “Religious Networks and Scottish Missions in the British Atlantic World,” in eds. Stuart Macdonald and Daniel MacLeod, Keeping the Kirk: Scottish Religion at Home and in the Diaspora (Guelph: Center for Scottish Studies at University of Guelph, 2014), 66.
54 D.D. McElroy, Scotland's Age of Improvement: A Survey of Eighteenth-Century Literary Clubs and Societies (Pullman, Wash.: Washington State University, 1969), 1–2; Roberson, “Religious Networks and Scottish Missions in the British Atlantic World,” 66.
55 The two works to which this refers were written in the late 1690s. Josiah Woodward definitely wrote the first volume, An Account of the Rise and Progress of the Religious Societies in the City of London, &c., And of the Endeavours for Reformation of Manners Which have been made therein, 1st ed. (1697), 2nd ed. (1698). The second volume is attributed to Woodward though his name is not attached to it as the author. This latter work is thought to have had the most significant influence on Scottish efforts for the establishment of reformation societies. This work is entitled, An Account of the Societies for Reformation of Manners in London and Westminster, And other Parts of the Kingdom. With a Persuasive to Persons of all Ranks to be Zealous and Diligent in Promoting the Execution of the Laws against Prophaneness and Debauchery, For the Effecting A National Reformation. Published with the Approbation of a Considerable Number of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal (1699). For this information and interpretation, see Gray, “A publick benefite to the nation,” 54–55.
56 McElroy, “The Literary Clubs and Societies of Eighteenth Century Scotland,” 16.
57 Peter Clark, British Clubs and Societies (New York: Oxford University, 2000), 5.
58 Josiah Woodward, An Account of the Progress of the Reformation of Manners, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, And other Parts of Europe and America. With Some Reasons and Plain Directions for our Hearty and Vigorous Prosecution of this Glorious Work, 12th ed. (London: Joseph Downing, 1704), 8–9; R.L. Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious Enlightenment in Colonial America: the SSPCK in Transatlantic Context” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 2012), 46–47; Roberson, “Religious Networks and Scottish Missions in the British Atlantic World,” 66–67.
59 Clark, British Clubs and Societies, 85.
60 Register of the Resolutions and Proceedings of a Society for Reformation of Manners, October 21, 1707, April 22, 1707; Davis D. McElroy, Scotland's Age of Improvement: A Survey of Eighteenth-Century Literary Clubs and Societies (Pullman, Wash.: Washington State University, 1969), 3, 7–9; Daniel Defoe, Reformation of manners, a satyr (London, 1702), 1, 12.
61 Olive M. Griffiths, Religion and Learning: A Study in English Presbyterian Thought from the Bartholomew Ejections (1662) to the Foundations of the Unitarian Thought (New York: Cambridge University, 1935), 68; Edwin Welch, Popish and Infidel Parts of the World: Dr. Daniel Williams & the Scottish SPCK (London: Dr. Williams's Trust, 1996), 5; Clarke, “Carstares, William (1649–1715),” ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4777.
62 Woodward, An Account of the Progress of the Reformation of Manners, 8–9. Also see Roberson, “Religious Networks and Scottish Missions in the British Atlantic World.”
63 Laugher, Thomas Bray's Grand Design, 2. Laugher submits that “Harvard College had the largest collection of books in North America at the end of the seventeenth century. By 1723, when the first catalog was printed, the library contained some 3,500 volumes, 2,183 of which were related to theology.”
64 Clifford K. Shipton, Biographical Sketches of Those Who Attended Harvard College in the Class 1690–1700 with Bibliographical and Other Notes, vol. 4: 1690–1700 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1933), 120.
65 Richard L. Bushman, The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 174.
66 E. Brooks Holifield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, 2003), 80.
67 Fiering, Norman, “The First American Enlightenment: Tillotson, Leverett, and Philosophical Anglicanism,” The New England Quarterly 54, no. 3 (September 1981): 324–325Google Scholar.
68 Anonymous, Life of the Right Reverend Dr. White Kennett, Late Lord Bishop of Peterborough, with several Original Letters of the late Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Tennison, the Late Earl of Sunderland, Bishop Kennett, &c. And some curious Original Papers and Records, never before Published (London: Printed for S. Billingsley, 1730), 122–124. Kennett's letter was dated July 28, 1716.
69 William L. Sachs, The Transformation of Anglicanism: From state Church to global communion (New York: Cambridge University, 1993), 16.
70 Fiering, “The First American Enlightenment,” 325. Fiering states that “Tillotson was also Colman's favorite writer, or at least the author Colman most often cited in his ninety-odd published sermons and other works.”
71 Fiering, “The First American Enlightenment,” 307, 309–310. Tillotson's popularity reached the Anglican South just as much as Congregational-centered New England.
72 Frank Lambert, “Pedlar in Divinity:” George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals, 1737–1770 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 1994), 80.
73 Shipton, Harvard College Graduates, 4:123–124. This statement was made by Henry Newman in a letter to the Bishop of London.
74 Holifield, Theology in America, 80–81; Shipton, Harvard College Graduates, 4:121–124; Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious Enlightenment in Colonial America,” 81–87.
75 John Corrigan, The Prism of Piety: Catholick Congregational Clergy at the Beginning of the Enlightenment (New York: Oxford University, 1991), vii-x, 3–4. For a deeply insightful perspective on the relationship between tradition and innovation within the Scottish context, see Kidd, Colin, “Scotland's invisible Enlightenment: Subscription and Heterodoxy in the Eighteenth-Century Kirk,” Records of the Scottish Church History Society 30 (2000)Google Scholar. Related to this is Kidd's recommendation that scholars “assign a more central role to the theology of latitude which emerges in Scottish Restoration churchmanship as a harbinger of Enlightenment.” This article's description of a distinct Christian knowledge movement is an attempt to demonstrate one transatlantic dimension of Kidd's suggestion. See Kidd, , “On Heroes, Hero-Worship and Demonology in Scottish Historiography: A Reply to Dr. Ferguson,” The Scottish Historical Review 86:1, no. 221 (April 2007): 111–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
76 Bushman, Refinement of America, 174; Shipman, Biographical Sketches, 5:120; Ebenezar Turell, Life and Character of the Reverend Benjamin Colman (Boston, 1749), 1–3; Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious Enlightenment in Colonial America,” 83–84.
77 Life of the Right Reverend Dr. White Kennett, 123–124.
78 Owen, English Philanthropy, 17.
79 Life of the Right Reverend Dr. White Kennett, 123–124.
80 Edward L. Bond, Spreading the Gospel in Colonial Virginia: Sermons and Devotional Writings (Lanham, Md: Lexington Books, 2004), 11.
81 William Kellaway, The New England Company, 1649–1776 (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1961), 1, 4, 10–12; Laugher, Thomas Bray's Grand Design, 55–56.
82 Margaret Connell Szasz, Indian Education in the American Colonies, 1607–1783 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1988), 38–39.
83 For the Anglican context more broadly, see Rowan Strong, Anglicanism and the British Empire c. 1700–1850 (New York: Oxford University, 2007), 6. For an anecdote of the Scottish context, see Laura M. Stevens, “The Souls of Highlanders, the Salvation of Indians: Scottish Mission and Eighteenth-Century British Empire,” in Native Americans, Christianity, and the Reshaping of the American Religious Landscape, eds. Joel W. Martin and Mark A. Nicholas (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2011), 180–181.
84 Register of the Actings and Proceedings of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, vol. 1, pp. 1–4, National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh. Hereafter GMM followed by the volume and page number. Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious Enlightenment in Colonial America,” 53–54.
85 Welch, Popish and Infidel Parts of the World, 6–7; Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious Enlightenment in Colonial America,” 61–62.
86 Welch, Popish and Infidel Parts of the World, 6–7. Welch's very informative and insightful essay underestimates the role of the London Board. For more on this topic, see Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious Enlightenment in Colonial America,” 60–61.
87 A True Copy of the Last Will and Testament of the late Reverend Daniel Williams, D.D. (London: Printed for R. Burleigh, 1717), 17–18; Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious Enlightenment in Colonial America,” 60–61.
88 Concerning the link between the SSPCK's colonial work in America during the 1730s and the larger efforts of the Christian knowledge movement, there is much evidence to demonstrate this reality. For the Massachusetts context, see General Ledger, 1709–1779, pp. 235–237, SSPCK Records, National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh; CMM 5:3; Benjamin Colman's commentary published as part of A Sermon Preached in Boston, December 12, 1733, at the Ordination of the Reverend Mr. Stephen Foster, Mr. Ebenezer Hinsdell, and Mr. Joseph Seccombe, chosen by the Commissioners to the Honourable Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, at Edinburgh, to carry the Gospel to the Aboriginal Natives on the Borders of New England (Boston: S. Knefland & T. Green, 1733), 28–29; Belsches, An Account of the Society in Scotland, 14. For the Georgia context, see GMM, 4:111; Duane Meyer, The Highland Scots of North Carolina, 1732–1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1961), 66; Michael Newton, We're Indians Sure Enough: The Legacy of the Scottish Highlanders in the United States (Auburn, N.H.: Windhaven, 2001), 69–70, 109, 233; Anthony W. Parker, Scottish Highlanders in Colonial Georgia: the Recruitment, Emigration, and Settlement at Darian, 1735–1748 (Athens: University of Georgia, 1997), 43, 77–81; Pennington, “John Wesley's Georgia Ministry,” 242; The Report of the committee of both Houses of Assembly of the province of South-Carolina, appointed to enquire into the causes of the disappointment [sic] of success, in the late expedition against St. Augustine, under the command of General Oglethorpe. Published by order of both Houses (1742); Grigg, John A., “‘How This Shall Be Brought About:’ The Development of the SSPCK's American Policy,” Itinerario 32, no. 3 (2008): 50–52Google Scholar; “Harman Verelst to Thomas Jones, Nov. 6, 1741, Westminster, C.O. 5/668, pp. 65–66,” in ed. Kenneth Coleman, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia: Trustees Letter Book, 1738–1745 Volume 30 (Athens: University of Georgia, 1985), 221; Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious Enlightenment in Colonial America,” 99–100. For McLeod's further actions in the South as well as other requests to the SSPCK in that region, see the April 1, 1742 minute in GMM 4:280.
89 CMM 4:44, 50–53, 108–109; Grigg, “‘How This Shall Be Brought About,’” 50–51; David Wykes, “Williams, Daniel,” ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29491.
90 CMM 4:12–13, 33. See Kenneth Milne, The Irish Charter Schools, 1730–1830 (Dublin: Four Courts, 1997), 21.
91 CMM 4:116; Landsman, From Colonials to Provincials, 68–69. Landsman demonstrates how Watts was on the cutting edge of reforming music that had stagnated with the Puritans. In producing some of “the century's most popular religious works” of composition, Watts was part of the vanguard in searching for the “nature of music itself and its effects on the mind” along with the role of music in relation to other interests related to the affections and sociability, which were so dominant during the religious enlightenment.
92 Henry Hunter, A Brief History of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge in the Highlands and Islands; and of the Correspondent Board in London, from the Establishment of the Society in the year 1701, down to the Present Time (London, 1795), 48. Hunter made this comment in direct reference to the London Board during the 1770s, but the records indicate this awareness described by Hunter from the Board's inception in the late 1720s as it learned how to integrate into the social circles that promoted benevolence and reform.
93 CMM 4:198, 213, 238. Through consultation with Alexander Hamilton, professor and later principal of the University of Edinburgh and also a prominent leader of the SSPCK, the Edinburgh Directors reported “over eighty copies of Blair's Paraphrase on our Saviour's Sermon on the Mount, and the like number of a Scriptural Catechism” were given as “Doctor Bray's present to the Society, for which William Brown's receipt was produced, and he reported, that the treasurer and he, having looked over the specimen of the other books designed to be sent, they were of opinion that several of them were not proper to be taught in the schools, but might be useful for the schoolmasters” (213). Bray also gave the SSPCK books for libraries in the schools and parishes of the Highlands (238).
94 Related to the SSPCK, an important example was the Dundas family who were helping to lead the movement both in London and in Edinburgh. They were instrumental in 1728 and 1729 in initiating the SSPCK's work overseas through collaboration with a wide group of contacts. In 1729, Alexander Dundas wrote the SSPCK in Edinburgh and suggested, among other things, that the Society could make the best use of the bequest by commissioning missionaries in the colonies who were already familiar with Native American language and culture. It was during the late 1720s that John Dundas and Baillie Dundas also sat on the Committee of Directors in Edinburgh, and John Dundas was the Edinburgh Secretary in 1728. See CMM 4:44, 49–50, 144, 203, 244–245; Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious Enlightenment in Colonial America,” 68–70.
95 Durie, “Adam Anderson (1692–1765),” ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/462; Crane, “The Philanthropists and the Genesis of Georgia,” 68fn24. Crane states in passing that Anderson was the “second accountant at the South Sea House.”
96 An historical and chronological deduction of the origin of commerce from the earliest accounts to the present time, containing an history of the great commercial interests of the British empire (London: Millar, 1764). Anderson dedicated this work to the Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce.
97 Durie, “Adam Anderson,” ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/462.
98 CMM 4:208–209, 245, 258.
99 CMM 8:286.
100 Allen D. Candler, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia Compiled and Published Under Authority of The Legislature, vol. 1 (New York: AMS, 1970), 28.
101 Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery, 9–12, 15. Consistent with this article's contention that Anderson played a vital role in the Christian knowledge movement, Alastair Durie has noted that, in relation to his work as a Georgia Trustee, Anderson “was raising funds to assist the Atlantic passage of poor potential emigrants, and took part in a scheme to establish parochial libraries in Britain and the colonies.” See Durie, “Adam Anderson,” ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/462.
102 Van Horne, Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery, 15.
103 Spalding, “Oglethorpe, Georgia, and The Spanish Threat,” 464; Candler, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, 3:387.
104 Kenneth Coleman, ed. The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia: Trustees Letter Book, vol. 30, 1738–1745 (Athens: University of Georgia, 1985), 195.
105 Greene, Everts B., “The Anglican Outlook on the American Colonies in the Early Eighteenth Century,” The American Historical Review 20, no. 1 (Oct. 1914): 81Google Scholar; Bennett, “Conflict in the Church,” 168.
106 Kenneth Coleman and Milton Ready, eds., The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia: Original Papers, Correspondence to the Trustees, James Oglethorpe, and Others, vol. 20, 1732–1735 (Athens: University of Georgia, 1982), 218; Fogleman, Aaron Spencer, “Shadow Boxing in Georgia: The Beginnings of the Moravian-Lutheran Conflict in British North America,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 83, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 629Google Scholar. As Fogleman delineates clearly in the case of division between evangelical Moravians and Lutherans, there were distinct boundaries around the limits of toleration. Similarly, the Church of England would only tolerate so much of the supposed ecumenism that came out of the revivals surrounding the Great Awakening. This new type of ecumenism around the doctrines of Calvinism and the New Birth was overwhelmingly divisive for the Church of Scotland and other English non-conformists, as well.
107 Coleman and Ready, eds. The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, 20:457–458. The definitive work on this settlement is Parker, Scottish Highlanders. As Parker explains, the Highlands more generally during the first half of the eighteenth century was “in a state of flux,” and Highland culture was being systematically oppressed and smothered by a British government who feared further insurrection. There was also a precedent of using Highlanders simultaneously as soldiers and family units meant to provide stability on the periphery of the Empire itself. See Parker, 23, 33–34. Regarding this particular Scottish immigration, see Meyer, Highland Scots, 66. Similar to Parker, Meyer explains that this community was leaving the Highlands due to the rapid decline of the socio-economic conditions in the Highlands (many wanted to reclaim wealth lost during the 1715 Jacobite uprising), and the British government's systematic attempts “to disarm and defuse the Highlands.”
108 Coleman and Ready, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, 20:458. The Society did ask that the recruited minister abide by its Commission and Instructions given by the Society to its missionary ministers in New England. Spencer also stated that the SSPCK wanted to have correspondents in Georgia. The Edinburgh Directors recorded on July 9 that 110 men and 50 women boarded a Captain Dunbar's ship in Inverness and Cromarty. According to Anthony Parker, one third of the Highlanders immigrating to Georgia in 1735 were from the Mackay clan. This clan was particularly known as “some of the staunchest defenders of traditional Highland life,” and they were fully intent on “taking their heritage and culture with them for preservation.” See Parker, Scottish Highlanders in Colonial Georgia, 33.
109 CMM 5:232–234. The minutes asserted that these Highland families were in “communion” with the Church of Scotland and needed a minister to travel with them to Georgia. Although the SSPCK's leaders in Edinburgh were also concerned as to whether or not this Georgia project was compatible with the Williams bequest, they ultimately made the decision to pursue the project. Regarding the eagerness around this collaboration, see “Herman Verelst to Nicholas Spencer, Secretary to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in the Highlands of Scotland, Aug. 23, 1735,” in The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia: Trustees’ Letter Book, 1732–1738, ed. Kenneth Coleman and Milton Ready, vol. 29 (Athens: University of Georgia, 1985), 138–139.
110 For further details about the SSPCK's first three missionaries, see Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious” Enlightenment in Colonial America,” 92–96.
111 CMM 4:203; Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious Enlightenment in Colonial America,” 76.
112 Along with correspondence and coordination, Benjamin Colman also mentored the first ministers of the SSPCK for their work in New England. See Colman's Commentary published as part of A Sermon Preached in Boston.
113 Mills, “The Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge in British North America,” 19.
114 Ibid.
115 Ibid., 15–17. It must be emphasized, however, that this ecumenical embrace both religiously and politically was met with fierce opposition, as well. For example, see Ned Landsman, “The Episcopate, the British Union, and the Failure of Religious Settlement in Colonial British America” in The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America, ed. Chris Beneke and Christopher Grenda (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2011), 81, 83–85. Landsman argues that an “asymmetry” existed within the British Empire due to “divergent relationships of the two national churches to the new British state.” The internal Anglican divisions between high church and latitudinarians is one of the most common tropes of British religious history during this period. For a recent assessment, see Sirota, Christian Monitors. For the internal divisions and the unprecedented cooperation and comity within the Scottish context as represented within the SSPCK, see Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious Enlightenment in Colonial America,” 239–248.
116 CMM 4:203, 245.
117 Ibid., 203, 245, 299, 303–304. On Anderson's visit to the Trustees of Dr. Williams, see 299.
118 Regarding Scottish non-conformists, the new churches began supporting the SSPCK not long after each was established. For example, by at least the 1760s, support for the SSPCK came from Thomas Gillespie's Relief Church, James Fisher and the Burgher Synod, and Adam Gib and the Associate Synod of Antiburghers. See CMM 8:170–172; Kenneth B.E. Roxburgh, “Gillespie, Thomas (1708–1774),” ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10739; Roberson, “Scottish Missions and the Religious Enlightenment in America,” 238–240.
119 John Corrigan, The Hidden Balance: Religion and the Social Theories of Charles Chauncy and Jonathan Mayhew (New York: Cambridge University, 1987), 23. Corrigan describes Wigglesworth as being renowned for his catholick and undogmatic spirit. According to Corrigan, he was tolerant, moderate, and avoided all extremes.
120 CMM 4:298–299. Part of Colman's leadership included letters to the Scottish Society about its work in America. See CMM 5:103.
121 Henry Sefton, “‘Neu-lights and Preachers Legall:’ some observations on the beginnings of Moderatism in the Church of Scotland,” in Church, Politics and Society: Scotland 1408–1929, ed. Norman MacDougall (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1983), 188.
122 CMM 4:44; Roberson, “Scottish Missions and Religious Enlightenment in Colonial America,” 67–74.
123 See Schmidt, Jeremy, “Charity and the Government of the Poor in the English Charity-School Movement, circa 1700–1730,” The Journal of British Studies 49, no. 4 (October 2010): 774Google Scholar; John Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1400–1700 (New York: Oxford University, 1985). The term “charity” is, of course, a contested term in the modern world and one that implies what Jeremy Schmidt has called, “the heroic act of an individual” with “its meanings as a social act . . . diluted, secondary, and obscure.” In substantial ways, however, vestiges of the traditional Western understanding of charity as what Schmidt (in reference to John Bossy) called a “social virtue” that existed during “the patristic and medieval world” and that “extended far beyond almsgiving” remained embedded in the language and activities of the Christian knowledge movement.
124 Meek, Donald E., “Scottish Highlanders, North American Indians and the SSPCK: Some Cultural Perspectives,” Scottish Church History Society Records (1989): 387–389Google Scholar, 393, 395–396, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; Meek, “Protestant Missions and Evangelization of the Scottish Highlands,” International Bulletin Missionary Research 21 (April 1997), 68Google Scholar; Alexander Murdoch, Scotland and America, c. 1600-c. 1800 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 112.
125 Examples during these few years include Jonathan Wesley, George Whitefield, Samson Occom, and the Brainerd brothers. See GMM 4:307; CMM 6:490–491, 552–553; S.P.C.K. Records: General Ledger, 237; Kenneth Coleman and Milton Ready, eds, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia: Trustees’ Letter Book, 1732–1738, vol. 29 (Athens: University of Georgia, 1985), 143; Robe, James, The Christian Monthly History: Or, An Account of the Revival and Progress of Religion, Abroad, and at Home, no. 5 (March, April, August 1744): 25–31Google Scholar; Allen D. Candler, WM. J. Northern, Lucian Lamar Knight, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, vol. 22, pt. 2: Original Papers, Correspondence, Trustees, General Oglethorpe and Others, 1737–1740 (Atlanta: Chas. P. Byrd, State Printer, 1913), 299, 358. Whitefield wrote a very interesting letter to Mr. Henry Newman from Savannah on Jan. 22, 1739/1740. The second portion related to Darien comes from p. 358 and is a letter from Whitefield in Savannah addressed “to the Trustees” on March 10, 1739/1740. This correspondence suggests that the Christian knowledge movement is an important context in which to consider the early efforts of what would become the evangelical revivalist leadership. White, “The Anglican Outlook on the American Colonies in the Early Eighteenth Century,” 82. As White demonstrates, even the Church of England was willing to collaborate with early evangelicals such as Franke at Halle. Rogal, Samuel J., “William Stephens and John Wesley: ‘I cannot pretend to judge,’” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 90, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 261–262Google Scholar; Sweet, Julie Anne, “William Stephens versus Thomas Stephens: A Family Feud in Colonial Georgia,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 92, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 1Google Scholar; Candler, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, 202–203.
126 David Brainerd, Mirabilia Dei inter Indico or the Rise and Progress Of a Remarkable Work of Grace Amongst a Number of the Indians In the Provinces of New-Jersey and Pennsylvania, Justly Represented in A Journal Kept by Order of the Honourable Society (in Scotland) for propagating Christian Knowledge. With some general Remarks (Philadelphia: William Bradford, 1746). The SSPCK continued distribution of Brainerd's journals. For an example in 1748, see CMM 4:489–490.
127 Glasson, Mastering Christianity, 8–9. It is understood by a large consensus of scholars that earlier evangelistic efforts such as that by the New England Company planted seeds for future missionary endeavors.
128 Meek, “Scottish Highlanders, North American Indians and the SSPCK,” 387–389, 393, 395–396. Meek recognized that the SSPCK's annual reports and sermons drew a wide audience, and he also suggested that “there is reason to believe that its [SSPCK's] influence was” much greater than has been realised hitherto.”
129 Sefton, Henry R., “The Scotch Society in the American Colonies in the Eighteenth Century,” Records of the Scottish Church History Society 17 (1972), 184Google Scholar; Meek, “Scottish Highlanders, North American Indians and the SSPCK,” 387–389, 393, 395–396; Meek, “Protestant Missions and Evangelization of the Scottish Highlands,” 68.
130 Michael Warner, “The Preacher's Footing” in eds. Clifford Siskin and William Warner, This Is Enlightenment (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010), 368.
131 Glasson, Mastering Christianity, 8–9; Andrew Porter, Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University, 2004); Jeffrey Cox, The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700 (New York: Routledge, 2008).
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