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Ecumenical Relations Between Boston Puritanism and German Pietism: Cotton Mather and August Hermann Francke*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Ernst Benz
Ernst Benz
Affiliation:
Marburg/Lahn, Germany
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Extract

May I begin with a personal introduction to the theme of this evening's lecture, the encounter between continental pietism and New England Puritanism? I began teaching Church history at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg in 1932. There I had the opportunity to study the archives of August Hermann Francke, in the old library of Francke's orphanage. These archives were in a state of highly inspiring disorder, for there were chances of all kinds of unforeseen discoveries, both in the many boxes containing Francke's correspondence and on the shelves holding all the books sent to this head of pietism by his friends all over the world. At first, I studied his correspondence with ministers, scholars, bishops and generals in Russia and the Baltics, publishing an article about Francke in Russia. Then I came across some boxes which held an enormous mass of material connected with New England, letters to German ministers and German communities in Pennsylvania, diaries of emigrants, together with letters in English from Puritan theologians and New England missionaries. I was especially interested in Francke's correspondence with Cotton Mather.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , July 1961 , pp. 159 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1961

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References

1 Benz, Ernst, “August Hermann Francke und die deutschen evangelischen Gemeinden in Russland,” Auslandsdeutschtum und Evangelische Kirche, 1936, 143–192Google Scholar.

2 Earlier studies, all by Francke, Kuno, are: “Cotton Mather and August Hermann Francke,” [Harvard] Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, V (1896), 57–67Google Scholar; “Further Documents Concerning Cotton Mather and August Hermann Francke,” Americana Germanica, I — iv (1897), 31–66Google Scholar; and “The Beginning of Cotton Mather's Correspondence with August Hermann Francke,” Philological Quarterly, V — iii (1926), [193]–195Google Scholar.

See also Holmes, Thomas James, Cotton Mather: A Bibliography of His Works, in Three Volumes (Cambridge, 1940), III, 1358Google Scholar.

3 Benz, Ernst, “The Pietist and Puritan Sources of Early Protestant World Missions” (Mather and Francke), Church History, xx—ii (1951), 28–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Even today, there is no major study of Boehm. Some notes about him appear in Rieger's, J. “The British Crown and the German Churches,” which is in the volume edited by Franz Hildebrand, And Other Pastors of Thy Flock: A German Tribute to the Bishop of Chichester (Cambridge, 1942), 101Google Scholar ff.

5 Allen, William O. B. and McClure, Edmund say little about these events in their Two Hundred Years: The History of the S.P.C.K. (London, 1898)Google Scholar.

6 I have used the 1720 London edition of Arndt's Four Books of True Christianity in this lecture. The broad influence of Arndt upon English and American Protestantism should receive special attention; it goes back to the following editions of his writings:

A) the Latin edition (London, 1708) entitled Verus Christianismus;

B) several English editions, including:

i) A Short Instruction Concerning the Principles of True Christianity, both as to the Fall of Man and his Restauration by Jesus Christ (London, 1709);

ii) Of True Christianity (London: I, 1712; II, 1714); second edition in two volumes (London, 1720) ;

iii) The Garden of Paradise: or, Holy Prayers and Exercises; Whereby the Christian Graces and Virtues may be planted and improved in Man, the divine Image renew'd, true Christianity promoted, the Kingdom of God established, and a heavenly Life raised up on the Spirit. Pursuing the Design of the famous Treatise of True Christianity. By John Arndt, Sometime Superintendent General in the Dutchy of Luneburgh. Now done into English from the German Original (London, 1716).

Editions ii and iii were translated by A. W. Boehm, and are to be understood, as Boehm says in his preface to The Garden of Paradise (pp. iv—v), as “a Sort of a Spiritual Library, for such as are either not able to purchase vast and various Books, or not willing to run through large and voluminous Composures.” Boehm goes on to warmly recommend Arndt's writings because they “do happily keep the Middleway, betwixt False Enthusiasm, and False Naturalism, the two great and dangerous Rocks so many do split upon in these latter Days” (p. v). In his preface to the 1720 edition of True Christianity, Boehm writes regarding Arndt:

One of the greatest Efforts of this Divine was, to remove from Christianity the abominable Idol of a mere external Formality (commonly called Opus Operaturn.) and to inspire People with an inward Sense of all the Duties and Functions they did outwardly perform. He would have ‘em not only maintain the Purity of the Doctrine, but adorn also a pure Doctrine with a suitable Purity of Life and Manners; counting this the noblest Ornament, the Crown and Topstone of a true Reformation, to which all other Endeavours ought directly to tend. [P. xviii.]

Cotton Mather, in his “nuncia bona” of 1715 (see below), speaks admiringly of … what the Holy John Arndt, about an Hundred Years ago, in his Treatise of True Christianity, inculcated on the loose Christians of his Age; (a Treatise of Mighty Use among them at this time, and long since Bless'd for the Conversion of Millions of Souls.…” [Pp. 11–12.]

7 Pietas Hallensis was extremely important in the spreading of pietism throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. It was reprinted several times in English, each time being brought up to date, and often under different titles. Thus, the London edition of 1787 appeared as The Footsteps of Divine Providence, or, The Bountiful Hand of Heaven defraying the Expenses of Faith: Wonderfully displayed in erecting and managing the Hospital at Glaucha without Halle in the Prussian Dominions, for the Education of Students in Divinity, and for the Reception, Cloathing, Feeding, and Educating of Poor Children. Carried on by the Instrumentality of the humble and blessed Servant of God, Augustus Hermannus Francke.

The title of the first German edition is, in itself, an introduction to the theological background of this basic document of pietist social ethics: Segens = voile Fussstapfen des noch lebenden und waltenden liebreichen und getreuen Gottes, Zur Beschämung des Unglaubens und Stärckung des Glaubens entdecket durch eine wahrhafte und umständliche Nachricht von dem Wäysen-Hause und übrigen Anstalten zu Glauche vor Halle, welche Im Jahr 1701 zum Druck befördert, jetzo aber zum dritten mal ediret, und bis auf gegenwärtiges Jahr fortgesetzet, von August Hermann Francken, S. Theol. Prof, und Past. Halle, in Verlegung des Wäysen- Hauses, MDCCIX.

8 Magnalia Christi Americana: or, The Ecclesiastical History of New-England, from Its First Planting in the Year 1620. unto the Year of our Lord, 1698 (London, 1702), 3 (“A General Introduction”). The two-volume edition published at Hartford in 1820, I, 26.

The theme of the “obscure America” may also be found in Mather's publication of Francke's report on pietist activities at Halle, Nuncia Bona e Terra Longinqua. A Brief Account of Some Good and Great Things A Doing For the Kingdom of GOD, In the Midst of Europe. Communicated in a letter to From Cotton Mather, D.D. & F.R.S. (Boston, 1715). This letter begins:

Sir. Such is the Candor to be found in Persons of a Superior Character on the other side of the wide Atlantick, that they will admit us obscure Americans into Correspondencies with them; from which our Information of such Things, as are most worthy to be Known, and perhaps also our Opportunities to do Good in the World, may be very much befriended, and Enlarged. One as Worthy of Obscurity, as any of them, that ly hid a thousand Leagues of the Westward of Thyle, has had so much Experience of this Candor, that he cannot forbear imparting some Effects of it, unto a Person, in whom I am sure to find it again exemplifyed.

Here one feels that self-conscious irony which has been the charming supplement to Puritan gravity in American literature, and which even so rigid a Puritan as Cotton Mather could not avoid using.

9 Ernst Benz, “Ost und West in der christlichen Geschichtsanschauung,” Die Welt als Geschichte, VI (193s), 488–513-

10 “The Joyful Sound,” 32–33. See footnote 25, below, and related section of this lecture.

11 Boehm continues in this “Short Account” (which, it may be noted, was also published independently of Pietas Hallensis) on p. 4:

This present Narrative may present the Reader with some few Instances both of the Difficulties some Zealous Persons have lately encountred with, and of the Success they have obtained in their Endeavours to revive, in some degree, the Practice of real and substantial Religion, and to shew the difference betwixt an outside formal Profession of Godliness and the vital Power of true Virtue and Piety.

12 “Preface” to Of True Christianity, I, p. xiv.

13 Propagation of the Gospel in the East, part III, London, 1714, p. vGoogle Scholar.

14 In his first letter (Francke, Nachlass Schachtel, 32, Nr. 47, Blatt 280, Corresp. H. Dr. Cottoni Matheri in Boston, Prof. Theologiae, 1717, in America).

15 The concept of the Evangelium Aeternum seems to be connected with a special tradition of missionary theology, no doubt directly with Eliot. There is an earlier pamphlet from Mather's pen, entitled: The Everlasting Gospel. The Gospel of Justification By the Righteousness of God: As ‘tis Held and Preach'd in the Churches of New-England: Expressed in a Brief DISCOURSE on that Important Article; Made at Boston in the Year, 1699 (Boston, 1700). In this discourse, the Eternal Gospel is identified (as the title indicates) with the doctrine of justification. I did not discover any allusion to his later concept of the “Maxims of the Eternal Gospel” being the foundation of a missionary (as well as ecumenical) theology. On the other hand, the three “Maxims of the Everlasting Gospel” printed in “Notitia Indiarum” (see Section IV of this lecture) are connected with a full translation in the Indian language, and may belong to an earlier missionary tradition, possibly worked out by Eliot himself.

16 Benz, Ernst, “Verheissung und Erfüllung: Über die theologischen Grundlagen des deutschen Geschichtsbewusstseins,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, LIV (1936), 520 ff. and 529 ffGoogle Scholar

17 See Ernst Benz in footnote i of “Verheissung und Erfüllung …,” and Eduard Winter, Halle als Ausgangspunkt der deutschen Russlandkunde im 18. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1953), pp. 32 ff. and index heading, “H. W. Ludolf.” Heinrich Wilhelm Ludolf, an illustrious scholar of oriental languages like his brother Hiob, was from 1686 secretary of Prince George of Denmark, and from 1700 a member of the S.P.C.K. after his return from the Near East and Egypt. Cf. also Ernst Benz, A. H. Francke und die deutschen evangelischen Gemeinden in Russland, in Auslandsdeutschtum und evangel. Kirche, Jb. 1936 S. 150 ff. H. W. Ludolf also published the first grammar in vernacular Russian, with ecumenical conversations of a Protestant with an orthodox Russian. Cf. J. S. G. Simmons, H. W. Ludolf and the Printing of his Grammatica Russica at Oxford in 1696, Oxford Slavonic Papers t. 1, Oxford, 1950, 104 ff.

For the relations between German pietism and the Eastern Orthodox Church, see Benz, Ernst, “Die Ostkirche im Lichte der protestantischen Geschichtsschreibung von der Reformation bis zur Gegenwart,” Orbis Academicus, iii.— i (Munich, 1952), Part II, 64–115Google Scholar, and bibliographical notes, 402–405.

18 I have found copies of this rare book in Harvard's Houghton Library and in the Congregational Library, 14 Beacon Street, Boston.

19 Latourette, Kenneth Scott, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, III: Three Centuries of Advance, A.D. 1500–1800 (New York & London, 1939), 24Google Scholar ff.

20 See Lehmann, Arno, Es begann in Tranquebar — Die Geschichte der ersten evangelischen Mission in Indien (Berlin, 1955; second edition, 1956)Google Scholar.

21 Francke's letter to Mather was printed in Pietas Hallensis, 57 ff. of Part III (London, 1716). See footnote 7, above.

22 In “The Joyful Sound,” 29–30 (see footnote 25, below, and related section of this lecture), Cotton Mather praises Eliot's work in these words:

… our celebrated ELIOT … Visited the Villages of these Indians, and with a very discrete Management Preached the Word of Truth and the Gospel of their Salvation, in their own Language unto them. This Memorable Servant of GOD, was no sooner at work, but in some other Parts of the Country, the Harvest had some other Labourers appearing in it, who did vertuously; but no One is wronged, if it be confessed, that our ELIOT shone as the Moon among the Lesser Stars, and Excelled them all. This Good Man had the Hand of the Lord with him; & his Evangelical Attempts were so blessed of GOD, that anon (beyond what any Xavier could pretend unto!) Churches were formed among these Indians, and in an Holy Covenant they gave themselves unto the LORD, and then unto one another, Engaging to Live in the Service of GOD, and carry on together the Worship of our SAVIOUR, according to the Directions of the Gospel.

23 At Halle, I have discovered the originals of this letter, written on Dec. 31, 1715, and of its English translation (made by Boehm). The letter is printed in the second half of India Christiana, subtitled “Notitia Indiarum,” 62–74 (see footnote 25, below, and related section of this lecture); the excerpts cited follow the pagination of this printed version.

24 Benz, Ernst, “Zinzendorf in Amerika,” in Benz, E. and Renckewitz, H., Zinzendorf-Gedenkbuch (Stuttgart, 1951), 140–161Google Scholar; and in the same volume, E. Benz, “Zinzendorfs ökumenische Bedeutung,” 118–139, especially p. 130: “Die Heidenboten sollen den Heiden die Kirchen ‘nicht wieder aufputzen' und sollen vermeiden, ‘neue Nebensekten zu machen' and ‘neue Samariterkirchen zu errichten.’”

In Rouse, Ruth and Neill's, Stephen C.History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517–1948 (London, 1954)Google Scholar, Kenneth Scott Latourette entitles his contribution: “Ecumenical Bearings of the Missionary Movement.” These “bearings” go back to the earliest Protestant missionary activity in Puritan New England as well as to early eighteenth century German pietism.

25 Cotton Mather cites these facts in the work referred to in my footnotes 10 and 22 as “The Joyful Sound,” p. 27. As my lecture will next indicate, “The Joyful Sound” and “Notitia Indiarum” are sections one and two of Mather's India Christiana (Boston, 1721)Google Scholar.

26 In his original works Paracelsus never talks about the inferior nature of the aboriginal Americans. On the contrary he expresses a quite opposite meaning, considering the Americans as natural “children of eternal bliss,” whose special happiness consists in the matter of fact that they never were infected with the “vermin” of the Roman dogma. In an appendix to his early sketches to the commentary to St. Matthew he writes: “wie selig sind die inseln des meers, darin der rattensamen (the doctrines of the Roman church) nicht kommen ist. das sind die inseln der nackenden leute. die wissen nichts umb euren betrug. die irrung, die sie haben, die wäschet ihnen der regen hinweg. und seindt kinder der ewigen seligkeit. besser wäre es, dass der, der sie find und sie bekleidet mit den unsern sitten, des galeere wäre steinen und fiele mit ihnen gen boden. lernen Christum kennen und neben dem alle büberei; vergessen Christum wieder und gebrauchen das ander.” (Extract in modern orthography in Paracelsus, Vom Licht der Natur und des Geistes. Eine Auswahl., von Kurt Goldammer; Stuttgart (Reclam) 1960, 170 f. Cf. Kurt Goldammer, Aus den Anfängen evangelischen Missionsdenkens. Kirche, Amt und Mission bei Paracelsus, in Ev. Missions-Zeitschrift IV, 1943, 64–66.)

27 See Griewank, Karl, Der neuzeitliche Revolutionsbegriff: Entstehung und Ent wicklung (Weimar, 1955)Google Scholar. The modern political understanding of “revolution” goes back to the French Revolution. The English Revolution called itself “The Great Rebellion.” The use of “revolution” to describe a reformation of the Christian Church (as Mather does with his “Happy Revolution”) is quite unusual, and constitutes a typical Puritan contribution to our understanding of reformation.