Reconsiderations

THE FACT AND FICTION OF COTTON MATHER’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH GERMAN PIETIST AUGUST HERMANN FRANCKE wolfgang splitter

OTTON MATHER’s correspondence with August Hermann C Francke (1663–1727), the progenitor of Halle Pietism and a Lutheran minister and professor of Greek and Oriental lan- guages at the University of Halle, in Prussia, has been heralded by a number of scholars. In his prize-winning Mather biography of 1984, Kenneth Silverman suggested that Francke’s “spiritual entrepreneurship” “deeply appealed to the Puritan theologian from Boston.” Silverman elaborated, “With something of Mather’s own zealous ingenuity, Francke erected at Halle an exemplary educational-philanthropic community,” the Franckesche Stiftungen (Francke Foundations), “devoted not to transmitting information but to creating ideal Christian adults—persons who would be pious, well- mannered, honorable in business, and sensitive to human needs. Mather found the size, boldness, and success of Francke’s enter- prise dazzling, and initiated a ﬁfteen-year correspondence with him 1 in Germany.” Otho T. Beall Jr. and Richard H. Shryock have referred to Mather’s connection with Francke as “an especially signiﬁcant instance” of continuous intellectual contact between colonial New 2 England and early modern Germany. A “long adulatory Latin letter” from Mather allegedly launched his “lengthy correspondence” with 3 Francke, which over time “included book lists and similar items.”

1 Kenneth Silverman, The Life and Times of Cotton Mather (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), pp. 231–32. Silverman’s book won the Bancroft Prize in 1985. 2 Otho T. Beall Jr. and Richard H. Shryock, Cotton Mather: First Signiﬁcant Figure in American Medicine (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1954), p. 93. 3 Silverman, Life and Times of Mather, p. 232; Renate Wilson, Pious Traders in Medicine: A German Pharmaceutical Network in Eighteenth-Century North America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), p. 3.

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In fact, however, although the two Protestant leaders may well have inspired one another through their many publications, there is little (if any) evidence that they did so by means of a direct correspondence. It only needs a bit of digging in the available sources to reveal some striking inconsistencies that other scholars have overlooked, most pointedly, that the letters Mather and Francke exchanged contain little of substance or import. Moreover, their communication was entirely out of balance, with Mather trying desperately again and again to revive the sluggish correspondence. Although Francke was truly in- terested in Mather’s views and work, he, who could have given his Boston counterpart much-desired access to the German market for devotional literature, kept the Puritan at a distance. Apparently, something dissuaded Francke from regularly communicating and steadily cooperating with Mather. As a handful of letters trickled into Halle over a period of thirteen years, Francke came to understand some dis- tinct traits of Mather’s personality and religiosity at the same time as he became increasingly aware, through other channels, of Mather’s abundant publications and ambitious evangelizing campaigns.

Scholars have noted a number of similarities between New England Puritanism and German Lutheran Pietism in general and between Mather’s and Francke’s Protestant convictions and Christian activism in particular. Based on a 1961 study by Klaus Deppermann, Richard F. Lovelace, in his 1979 biography of Mather, cited “an intriguing list of elements” common to both Puritanism and Pietism, such as “a fo- cus on the methodical development of individual holiness, somewhat legalistic in its flavor; evidence of good works as a means of assurance of a state of grace; belief in providence, final perseverance, and striving for high spiritual goals; the ideal of work as the best ascetic means of leading a godly life; the use of diaries for spiritual growth; and the fostering of responsibility to God through the abolition of pri- 4 vate confession.” Adding to Deppermann’s list, Lovelace emphasized that “both movements share[d] a strong drive to produce devotional literature and a significant affinity for one another’s productions in

4 Klaus Deppermann, Der Hallesche Pietismus und der preußische Staat unter Friedrich III. (Gottingen:¨ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961), p. 177;RichardF. Lovelace, The American Pietism of Cotton Mather: Origins of American Evangeli- calism (1979; reprinted, Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2007), pp. 37–38.

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this line.” Furthermore, referring to church historian James Hastings Nichols, he observed that both groups used “conventicles and prayer 5 meetings as a means of spiritual nurture.” According to Silverman, “Mather admired much else in German Pietism as well: its emphasis on pastoral work and involvement in community life, its far-flung missionary work, perhaps especially its 6 ecumenical attempt to reduce dogma to essentials.” From a global perspective, according to Lovelace, Mather “considered Pietism simply one evidence of a spiritual stirring throughout the Western world,” which “nourish[ed] his hopes of revival on the progress of ‘that PIETY, of which the Incomparable Franckius and his Colleagues, 7 have been such noble Propagators.’” In his eyes, Beall and Shryock have concluded, the German Pietist leader personified “the very qual- ities to which [Mather] himself aspired: a combination of learning, piety, and devotion to the public welfare. ...MatherfeltthatFrancke was serving God nobly in this World, and he was especially impressed by the kindly piety of the latter’s works and by the numbers who were 8 sent out from Halle ‘to do good abroad.’” Indeed, Mather’s approach to religion and piety resembled Francke’s to a striking extent. The similarities can be extracted from Lovelace’s thorough and detailed analysis as follows: r a “profound dependence on objective revelation,” which was “paramount” r in both Mather’s and Francke’s biblicism; r a commitment to family devotions; a view about acquiescence to God’s providence as “the human side of r sanctification”; a dedication to (heavily legalistic) “precision,” i.e., of the scriptural com- mand that Christian believers, as God’s “chosen race,” should be “peculiar” r in their conduct and not take part in the sins of the “depraved world”; a mystical emphasis on achieving “the closest communion with God” as the very goal of the Christian life, thus showing some kinship with Catholic r mysticism; r a belief in the possibility of visions and direct guidance by the Holy Spirit; an experience of “extraordinary consolations of the Spirit”;

5 Lovelace, American Pietism, p. 38. The reference is to James Hastings Nichols, History of Christianity, 1650–1950 (New York: Ronald Press, 1956), pp. 81–82. 6 Silverman, Life and Times of Mather, p. 231. 7 Lovelace, American Pietism, pp. 248, 249, in the second instance, quoting from the preface to Mather’s treatise Utilia: Real and Vital Religion . . . (Boston, 1716). 8 Beall and Shryock, Cotton Mather, pp. 93–94.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/tneq.2010.83.1.102 by guest on 01 October 2021 RECONSIDERATIONS 105 r an eagerness to reinforce pastoral visits by “leaving a continuing literary r echo of piety in the household”; the use of pious conventicles (collegia pietatis)—i.e., small circles of believers, for praying, singing psalms, reading scripture or devotional literature, and sharing spiritual experiences and personal needs—as “instru- r ments of moral reformation” for society at large; r pursuit of a ministry of social concern; a conviction that spiritual revival is “the key to unlocking the hearts of r men to deal with social ills”; and a pronounced ecumenism.9

No matter how remarkably coincident the two men’s views may have been, however, they were not aligned through a deep, sustained, and personal cross-Atlantic correspondence. Scholars have variously identiﬁed the onset of the Mather-Francke 10 correspondence—1702 or 1703, 1709, 1711, 1712, and 1714 —as 11 well as its conclusion—1724, 1726, and 1728. Others have not 12 attempted to pinpoint its end, and still others have avoided the

9 Lovelace, American Pietism, pp. 56, 128, 159, 173, 177, 184, 187, 208, 218–21, 226–27, 237, 252–53. 10 For 1702/3 and 1709, see Ernst Benz, “Pietist and Puritan Sources of Early Protestant World Missions (Cotton Mather and A. H. Francke),” Church History 20 (1951): 32, 34. The date of 1702/3 is inferred from Benz’s (unsubstantiated) statement that Mather’s “history of the North American missions among the Indians, which is found in his Magnalia Christi Americana . . . , was sent to Francke immediately after printing” in 1702. Benz’s assertion that “the ﬁrst—no longer surviving—letters, which wereexchangedbetweenFranckeandMather[,]...datebacktotheyear1709”is not corroborated by any sources either. Lovelace, American Pietism, pp. 32–33,draws on this information by Benz. For 1709 only, see Beall and Shryock, Cotton Mather, p. 93.For1711, see Kuno Francke, “The Beginning of Cotton Mather’s Correspon- dence with August Hermann Francke,” Philological Quarterly 5 (July 1926): 194,his “Cotton Mather and August Hermann Francke,” Harvard Studies and Notes in Philol- ogy and Literature 5 (1896): 57–67, and his “Further Documents Concerning Cotton Mather and August Hermann Francke,” Americana Germanica 1 (October 1897): 31– 66; Silverman, Life and Times of Mather, p. 232; A. Gregg Roeber, “Der Pietismus in Nordamerika im 18. Jahrhundert,” Der Pietismus im achtzehnten Jahrhundert, ed. Martin Brecht and Klaus Deppermann (Gottingen:¨ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), p. 683.For1712, see Samuel Mather, The Life of the Very Reverend and Learned Cotton Mather . . . (Boston: Printed for Samuel Gerrish in Cornhill, 1729), p. 81.For 1714, see Wilson, Pious Traders in Medicine, p. 3. 11 For 1724, see Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 57, and “The Beginning of Mather’s Correspondence with Francke,” p. 193.For1726, see Roeber, “Der Pietismus in Nordamerika,” p. 683.For1728, see Mather, The Life of the Learned Mather, p. 81, and Lovelace, American Pietism, p. 33. 12 See Beall and Shryock, Cotton Mather, pp. 93–94; Silverman, Life and Times of Mather, pp. 231–32, 235, 256; and Wilson, Pious Traders in Medicine, p. 3.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/tneq.2010.83.1.102 by guest on 01 October 2021 106 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY 13 complexity of chronology altogether. The length of the correspon- 14 dence has been pegged anywhere from ten to twenty-six years. Without exception, none of the dates cited is corroborated by the sources. According to the current state of research, no more than six letters—written in Latin in 1711, 1712, 1714, 1715, 1719, and 1724— are known to have been sent or received by Mather or Francke over a period of thirteen years. Four of the six survive in original form: 15 three composed by Mather and one by Francke. The original of the ﬁfth, authored by Mather, is not extant, but its wording has been 16 preserved in two copies, one in Mather’s hand. The sixth letter was sent by Francke and seems to have been lost as it was transported 17 from London to Boston. Evidence suggests that Francke wrote to Mather only two times.

13 See Vier Thaler und sechzehn Groschen: August Hermann Francke. Der Stifter und sein Werk, ed. Paul Raabe et al. (Halle: Verlag der Franckeschen Stiftungen, 1998), p. 214, and Robert Middlekauff, The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596–1728 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 275. 14 Respectively combining the earliest year (1702/3: Benz, “Pietist and Puritan Sources,” p. 32) and the latest year (1714: Wilson, Pious Traders in Medicine, p. 3)of the beginning of the correspondence with the earliest year (1724: Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 57, and “The Beginning of Mather’s Correspondence with Francke,” p. 193) and the latest year (1728:Mather,The Life of the Learned Mather, p. 81,and Lovelace, American Pietism, p. 33) of the end of the correspondence. 15 Mather to Francke, 10 January 1712, Archiv der Franckeschen Stiftungen, Hauptarchiv (hereafter: AFSt/H), C 229: 32a; Mather to Francke, (month? day?) 1715? [Note: According to a message from Dr. Jurgen¨ Groschl,¨ research associate with the archives of the Francke Foundations, to the author, dated 30 June 2008, this letter by Mather most likely was written in early 1715,not1717 as commonly believed.], AFSt/H: D 121: 6a (microﬁlm copy of original), also in Archiv der Franckeschen Stiftungen, Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungsarchiv (hereafter: AFSt/W), II/-/23 (micro- ﬁlm copy of manuscript duplicate), and in Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nachlaß A. H. Francke (hereafter: Stab/F), 32/4: 1 (original), Stab/F 32/4: 5 (manuscript duplicate) [Note: The Staatsbibliothek estimates this letter to have been written sometime in 1717.]; Mather to Francke, 23 June 1724,Stab/F32/4: 4 (original), Stab/F 32/4: 6 (manuscript duplicate); Francke to Mather, 19 December 1714, AFSt/W: II/-/23. 16 Mather to Francke, 28 May 1711, AFSt/H: D 57, 136–39 (Mather’s duplicate) and AFSt/H: D 42, 743–44 (duplicate in another hand). For a transcript from Mather’s duplicate enclosed in the letter to Francke of 10 January 1712, see Francke, “The Beginning of Mather’s Correspondence with Francke,” pp. 194–95. 17 See Henry Newman to Francke, 28 May 1719, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nachlaß A. H. Francke (Stab/F 30/35: 2). In this communication (in English), Newman informs Francke that he has forwarded his letter to New England. Francke very likely wrote this letter in the spring of 1719.In1720,Mather complains that he has not heard anything of “the dear Brethren in the Lower Saxony” for a long time. See Mather to Anton Wilhelm Bohme,¨ 8 May 1720, Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 65.

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In his first letter, dated 28 May 1711, Mather tells Francke 18 that Pietas Hallensis, an English translation—though with a Latin 19 title—of his 1701 tract Die segensvollen Fußstapfen, has rekindled Christian fervor in the colonies’ churches. The two men are, Mather asserts, both dedicated to promoting the Christian cause, and he goes on to praise the orphanage at Halle and implores Francke to accept a gift of gold in support of its beneficent work. Written in a “flowery and turgid style,” the letter exhibits Mather’s “propensity for self- 20 advertising.” Dated 10 January 1712, his second letter essentially 21 recapitulates the first, now condensed to one page. His third letter, the longest of those preserved, was written sometime in 1715—not 22 1717, as previously thought. Having first extolled Halle Pietism, he takes issue with Europeans’ prevailing theological view of America as, following Matt. 25:30, the “outer darkness” into which the cowardly and worthless slave is cast. His principal religious motivation in the letter, however, is to link Protestant reform movements such as Halle Pietism with the goals of Christian mission and ecumenism, and in this regard, he mentions the successful missionary work being conducted among Native Americans. In closing, Mather directs Francke’s attention to his own work in New England and to his many treatises. Once more he includes a present for the Halle orphanage, this time money instead of gold. Mather’s fourth surviving letter is dated 23 June 1724, and its tenor is quite pessimistic. Praising Halle University as a true

18 Pietas Hallensis: Being an Historical Narration Of the wonderful FOOT-STEPS of Divine Providence In Erecting, Carrying on, and Building the Orphan=House, And other charitable Institutions, at Glaucha near Hall in Saxony, Without any visible FUND to support it. By Augustus Hermannus Franck; Professor of Divinity in the Frederician University of Hall, Pastor of Glaucha, and Director of the Pious Founda- tions there. Continued to the beginning of the Year MDCCII, In a Letter to a Friend. And an APPENDIX giving a more clear and full View of the Progress of Learning and Christian Piety, both in the said University, and in the Royal Collegiate Schools. To which is added Several Considerable Papers relating to this WORK, Written by the King of PRUSSIA (London: Joseph Downing, 1705). This English translation and edition was prepared by Lutheran Court Preacher Anton Wilhelm Bohme.¨ 19 [August Hermann Francke], Die Fußstapffen Des noch lebenden und waltenden liebreichen und getreuen GOTTES Zur Beschamung¨ des Unglaubens/und Starckung¨ des Glaubens/Durch den Ausfuhrlichen¨ Bericht Vom Waysen=Hause/Armen=schulen/und¨ ubriger¨ Armen=Verpﬂegung Zu Glaucha an Halle (Halle: Waisenhaus, 1701). The treatise ﬁrst appeared under this, original title at Easter 1701 and saw many reprints and varying titles. In secondary literature, it is commonly referred to as Die segensvollen Fußstapfen. 20 Francke, “The Beginning of Mather’s Correspondence with Francke,” p. 194. 21 For a reduced photocopy of the original document, see Vier Thaler, p. 215. 22 See opinion by Groschl¨ in n. 15.

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servant of piety, he laments the wickedness of the world, which can only be overcome by continuous propagation of the Gospel. How- ever, able candidates for the ministry are lacking because, much to his frustration, most universities are focused on secular science. Francke’s only surviving letter to Mather, dated 19 December 1714, is a belated response to Mather’s communications of 1711 and 1712. Francke ﬁrst thanks Mather for his charitable gift to the orphans’ home. Interspersed with some long-winded, polite phrases are ex- tensive progress reports on the various philanthropic and academic undertakings at Halle, including the orphanage, the university, and the Francke mission in East India, which is proceeding under the aegis of the king of Denmark. Altogether, Mather’s four letters add 23 up to some sixteen manuscript pages. Francke’s 1714 letter, the only one extant, consists of forty-seven folio-size pages, most of which are devoted to his detailed report on his activites. Drawing on Francke’s as yet unpublished diaries, the two stan- dard Francke biographies, one by Gustav Kramer and the other by Erich Beyreuther, do not so much as mention Mather’s name, nor does Silverman’s selected edition of Mather’s letters include corre- 24 spondence with Francke. In his diary, Mather does not conﬁrm the 25 dates of any of the letters he sent to Francke or received from him, 26 although in six entries, he speaks of writing to Francke, and his notes seem to indicate that he wrote to Halle three more times.

23 28 May 1711: 3 pages; 10 January 1712: 1 page; [month?, day?] 1715?: 7 pages; 23 June 1724: 5 pages. 24 Gustav Kramer, August Hermann Francke: Ein Lebensbild, 2 vols. (Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1880–82; reprinted, Hildesheim: G. Olms, 2004); Erich Beyreuther, August Hermann Francke, 1663–1727: Zeuge des lebendigen Gottes (Marburg: Verlag der Francke-Buchhandlung GmbH, 1956); [Cotton Mather,] Selected Letters of Cotton Mather, comp. and ed. Kenneth Silverman (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971). 25 As Kuno Francke observes in “Mather and Francke,” p. 58,n.2, “It is strange that the entry of May 28, 1711, does not contain a mention of a letter of Mather’s to Francke which is referred to in Francke’s letter of Dec. 19, 1714, as bearing that date.” From the extant portions of the diary, it is obvious that this observation can be applied to all the letters exchanged between Cotton Mather and August Hermann Francke. 26 This number also includes those gifts that Mather expressly designated for Francke’s orphanage. However, it does not count those letters and gifts that he exclu- sively addressed to his “friends” at Halle University, since he did not always mean this term (or similar ones he used) to refer to Francke, too, who was a member of the faculty there. For the six entries, see Diary of Cotton Mather, 23 February 1709 (Ford’s dating) or 9 December 1709 (K. Francke’s dating); 12–13 March 1711; 25 March 1711 (Francke’s dating) or 24–25 May 1711 (Ford’s dating); 20 March 1718; 16 May 1718; and 25 June 1724.SeeDiary of Cotton Mather, ed. Worthington C. Ford, 2 vols.

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In 1709, Mather comments, “I shall also endeavour to send these things unto Dr. Franckius, in Saxony,” meaning copies of his treatises The Heavenly Conversation and Dust and Ashes. Precisely when Mather recorded his intention and whether or not he honored it are both matters for speculation. If printed copies of the two tracts were to be sent, however, they cannot have been forwarded prior to their first publication in 1710. Worthington Ford’s edition of Mather’s diary dates the 1709 entry, the first to mention Francke by name, to 12 February, whereas Kuno Francke dates it to 9 December. The familiarity of the phrase “I shall also endeavour to send these things unto Dr. Franckius, in Saxony,” omitting as it does the addressee’s first names, profession, and position, may reflect Mather’s acquaintance with Francke’s Pietas Hallensis, first published in English in 27 1705. In the spring of 1711, Mather again thought about writing to Francke. “When I send unto Dr. Franckius in the Lower Saxony, I would enclose a Present of Gold, for his Orphanhouse, which may be to the Value of four or five Pounds in that Countrey.” Kuno Francke dates the entry to 25 March, Ford to 24–25 May; in Halle, Francke 28 confirmed having received a letter from Mather dated 28 May 1711. “Among my other Ultramarine Services,” notes Mather in December 1712, “I would again transmit unto the Lower Saxony, Such things as being translated into High Dutch, may Serve the Kingdom of God, in these Countries; and Particularly Encourage Dr. Franckius and 29 his Orphan-house.” Whether he acted on his plan is not known. It is also unclear what became of the relationship he was so eager to cultivate, as two more entries show. “I am writing to the famous

(New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1957), 2:23, 74, 524, 534, 734; Francke, “Mather and Francke,” pp. 58, 64–66. 27 [Francke], Pietas Hallensis. According to Ernst Benz (“Ecumenical Relations between Boston Puritanism and German Pietism: Cotton Mather and August Hermann Francke,” Harvard Theological Review 54 [1961]: 163,n.7), “Pietas Hallensis was extremely important in the spreading of pietism throughout the Anglo-Saxon world.” See also Benz, “Pietist and Puritan Sources,” p. 32. In his letter to Francke dated 28 May 1711, Mather expressly referred to Pietas Hallensis. See Francke, “The Beginning of Mather’s Correspondence with Francke,” p. 194. 28 For Francke’s conﬁrmation, see his letter to Mather, 19 December 1714,in Francke, “Further Documents Concerning Mather and Francke,” p. 32. 29 Diary of Cotton Mather D.D., F.R.S. for the Year 1712, ed. William R. Manierre II (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1964), 4 December 1712,p.101.The long-missing 1712 portion of Mather’s diary was discovered only after Ford’s edition of it was published in 1957. For this reason, this quotation is neither included there nor in Francke, “Mather and Francke.”

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Franckius and the Frederician University,” Mather confides to his diary of March 1718, and in May, “I am now again sending to the Lower Saxony, for the Encouragement of what is doing at Hall, by my 30 dear Franckius there.” A June 1724 diary entry is the last record of Mather’s corresponding with Halle. His comment—“I am this Week, writing Letters to my dear Franckius, and the Professors of the Hal- lensian University”—refers to five pages, dated 23 June 1724, that 31 reached Francke later that year. In letters to others, Mather mentions corresponding with Francke only two times. The first letter, directed to Anton Wilhelm Bohme¨ (1673–1722), the Lutheran court chaplain in London and a 32 Francke disciple, was probably written between early March and 33 late July 1715. Exactly when Mather composed the second letter, also to Bohme,¨ is again a matter of controversy: Kuno Francke dates it to 2 October; Ford, to 2 December 1715. With this communication, Mather announces that in dispatching “some scores of American Treatises” and “a few small presents of Gold” designated for the orphanage in Halle, he had wanted to return “the Favours, which ac- 34 companied those of our dear Franckius.” Mather must have waited in vain for Bohme’s¨ answer to his previous letter. “While I was in ye midst of these Thoughts,” he noted earlier that year, “your Letters, 35 with those of my admirable Franckius, arrived unto me.” Mather no doubt meant Francke’s letter to him of 19 December 1714.

30 Diary of Cotton Mather, 20 March 1718 and 16 May 1718, 2:524, 534; Francke, “Mather and Francke,” pp. 64, 65. 31 Diary of Cotton Mather, 25 June 1724, 2:734. The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nachlaß A. H. Francke, preserves the original and one copy (both in Latin) of Mather’s letter of 23 June 1724. 32 Bohme¨ took up his duties at the Lutheran Chapel Royal at St. James’s Palace in London in 1705. After serving Danish-born Prince George (1653–1708), Lutheran husband of Queen Anne (1665–1714), he later ministered to King George I (1660– 1727), the Lutheran elector of Hanover, who ascended to the British throne in 1714. 33 Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 60, broadly dates it to 1715. My calculation is based on the average sailing time of two to three months between North America’s major ports and London, as established from the correspondence of Gotthilf August Francke with his Lutheran missionaries in Georgia and Pennsylvania in the 1730s to 1760s. If Francke mailed his letter dated 19 December 1714 sometime around Christmas 1714, Mather may have received it by late February or early March 1715. Provided that Mather waited at least four months (for his ﬁrst 1715 letter to reach Halle via London and for Francke to answer it) before sending his second letter, and provided that this letter was dispatched no later than early December 1715,hemust have sent the ﬁrst letter in July of 1715 at the latest. 34 Diary of Cotton Mather, 2:332; Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 62. 35 Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 60.

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36 In his diary and correspondence, as elsewhere in his writings, Mather made every effort to create the impression that he and Francke had long been close. In his surviving letters to colleagues in America and Europe, Mather extols him as “our dear Franckius,” “our excellent Franckius,” “the Incomparable Dr. Franckius,”or“my 37 excellent and illustrious friend Dr. Franckius.” Repeatedly praising his “dear,” “admirable,” “excellent,” “illustrious,” or “incomparable” 38 “friend,” Mather uses the ﬁrst-person possessive my or our to insin- 39 uate a special intimacy with this “Wonder of Europe,” “this Great Man, who yet lies for ever in the Lowest Humility, and will know 40 nothing but Self-abasements.” In a similar vein, Mather relishes speaking of “my Friends,” “our Friends,” “our Invaluable Friends at Hall,” or “our Excellent Friends” in the “famous Frederician Univer- sity” in Halle, thereby purporting to be personally acquainted with 41 faculty there. But the intimacy Mather insinuates is belied by his constant complaints about overdue replies. Wondering why earlier letters have remained unanswered, Mather, in 1715, kindly reminds Bohme,¨ who acted as “the clearing-house for the entire global correspondence of Francke,” that “Several Months are passed, since . . . I 42 addressed you with a large Number of packetts.” In May 1718,

36 See, e.g., Mather’s The Heavenly Conversation, preface: “Go on, my dear Franckius, and thy coadjutors. The Lord is with you, ye mighty men of piety.” 37 See, e.g., Mather to Williams, 10 May 1715; Mather to Ashurst, 10 May 1715; Mather to Bohme,¨ 2 October 1715 (K. Francke’s dating) or 2 December 1715 (Ford’s dating), [month? day?] 1716?, 6 August 1716, as noted in Diary of Cotton Mather, 2:315, 332, 406, 413, and Mather, Selected Letters, p. 181. 38 See, e.g., Diary of Cotton Mather, 2 August 1716, 31 May 1717, 20 October 1717, 4 May 1720, 26 October 1720, 23 June 1724;MathertoBohme,¨ [month?, day?] 1715; Mather to Williams, 10 May 1715, Mather to Ashurst, 10 May 1715,MathertoBohme,¨ 2 October 1715 (K. Francke’s dating) or 2 December 1715 (Ford’s dating), 15 May 1718; Mather to John Winthrop, 4 May 1720, 26 October 1720, 17 April 1721.See Diary of Cotton Mather, 2:315, 332, 364, 413, 456, 481, 534, 734; Francke, “Mather and Francke,” pp. 60, 62–66;Mather,Selected Letters, p. 181. 39 [Cotton Mather,] Nuncia Bona e Terra Longinqua: A Brief Account of Some Good & Great Things a Doing for the Kingdom of God in the Midst of Europe. Communicated in a Letter to—(Boston: B. Green, 1715), quoting “a Gentleman” (Bohme?)¨ who sent him a “brief and just Account” of Francke and his work. See Francke, “Further Documents Concerning Mather and Francke,” p. 56, and “Mather and Francke,” p. 61. 40 [Mather,] Nuncia Bona e Terra Longinqua, p. 2; reprinted in Francke, “Further Documents Concerning Mather and Francke,” p. 56. 41 See, e.g., Diary of Cotton Mather, 8 March 1716 and 3 July 1718;Matherto Bohme,¨ 2 October 1715, 6 June 1716, 15 May 1718, 8 May 1720; Francke, “Mather and Francke,” pp. 62–65.SeealsoDiary of Cotton Mather, 27 April 1716, 2:348. 42 Benz, “Ecumenical Relations between Boston Puritanism and German Pietism,” p. 162;MathertoBohme,¨ 2 October 1715 (K. Francke’s dating) or 2 December 1715 (Ford’s dating). Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 62; Diary of Cotton Mather, 2:332.

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he regrets the “long, long time” he has waited for a missive from Bohme,¨ and he gives vent to his disappointment in having “had no 43 letters from our Excellent Friends in ye Frederician University.” As Mather’s protestations reveal, during the previous three years he 44 had not received a single line from Francke. In May 1720, he again grumbled to Bohme¨ about not having heard from “the dear Brethren 45 in the Lower Saxony.” Francke had, however, composed a letter to Mather in early 1719, which was forwarded to New England by Henry Newman, secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian 46 Knowledge. Apparently it never reached its destination. After 1719, Francke never corresponded with Mather again.

Together with the letters and packages he sent via London, Mather’s periodic notations that he hoped to write Francke document his keenness for a sustained friendship with the German Pietist, a persistence that is particularly remarkable in view of the fact that 47 Mather had as many as ﬁfty correspondents at any given time. “I am extremely desirous of maintaining a correspondence with a person of your excellent Spirit and Intention,” Mather ﬂatters Francke’s proteg´ eB´ ohme¨ in 1715 after intimating that a response from the court preacher has long been overdue. “[T]herefore you must give me leave to lay hold as frequently as I can on opportunities to entertain you,

43 See Mather to Bohme,¨ 15 May 1718, Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 64. 44 See Mather to Francke, [month? day?] 1715?, AFSt/H: D 121: 6a (microﬁlm copy of original), also in AFSt/W: II/-/23 (microﬁlm copy of manuscript duplicate), and in Stab/F 32/4: 1 (original), Stab/F 32/4: 5 (manuscript duplicate). [Note: According to the catalog of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, this letter was written in 1717.Thisdate is likely incorrect. See above, n. 15.] 45 8 May 1720, in Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 65. 46 See Newman to Francke, 28 May 1719,Stab/F30/35: 2. 47 1709 (0 letters [l]/1 announcement [a]), 1711 (1l/3a), 1712 (1l/1a), 1716 (0l/2a), 1717 (1l/0a), 1718 (0l/3a), 1721 (0l/2a), 1724 (1l/1a). See Diary of Cotton Mather, 2:23 (12 February 1709 [K. Francke: 9 December 1709]), 2:74 (24–25 May 1711 [K. Francke: 25 March 1711]), 2:524 (20 March 1718), 2:534 (16 May 1718), 2:663 (7 December 1721), 2:734 (25 June 1724); Mather, The Diary for 1712, p. 101 (4 December 1712); Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 58 (9 December 1709 [Ford: 12 February 1709]; 12–13 March 1711; 25 March 1711 [Ford: 24–25 May 1711], 10 November 1711), p. 62 (8 March 1716), p. 63 (6 June 1716), p. 64 (20 March 1718), p. 65 (16 May 1718; 3 July 1718; 9 March 1721), p. 66 (25 June 1724); p. 63,Matherto Bohme,¨ 6 June 1716. For the extent of Mather’s correspondence, see Michael Kraus, The Atlantic Civilization: Eighteenth-Century Origins (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1949), p. 163.

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with such Books of piety as are published in our country”—most of 48 which were authored by none other than Mather himself. In his private papers, Mather was forthright about the end he hoped his gifts and his correspondence might achieve beyond spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. In December 1712, he confided to his diary that his incredible literary productivity issued from “that particular Lust, my Pride, . . . affectations of Grandeur, and Inclinations to be 49 thought Somebody.” Reflecting on his life in early 1716, he counted among its blessings his “correspondencies abroad, especially with the universities of Glasgow, &ofGlaucha [he means Halle],” which are “giving me, tho’ I am a sorry and an obscure creature, a Name among 50 ye great men of ye Earth.” Afraid that posterity might remember him only for his defense of the infamous Salem witchcraft trials of 1692,he yearned to be publicly recognized as a scholar of international stature. Moreover, as an American, he was also striving to confound Euro- peans’ traditional conception of the Western hemisphere as a refuge 51 for Old World outcasts. Such ambitions are evident in Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana of 1702 and his Nuncia Bona of 1715, in which he extols, with a touch of irony, “the Candor to be found in Persons of a Superiour Character on the other side of the wide Atlantick,” such as August Hermann Francke, who “admit us Ob- 52 scure Americans into Correspondencies with them.” “Through his European correspondence,” Silverman has observed, Mather “tried to keep informed on religious and intellectual developments abroad, but also to extend his reputation and influence and to show the Old World 53 what an American could do.” Thinly veiled by the self-humiliating

48 Diary of Cotton Mather, 2:332; Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 62.As Silverman has calculated, Mather belonged to that five percent of over five hundred clergy born in New England before 1703 who published ten or more works. See Silverman, Life and Times of Mather, p. 197. 49 Mather, The Diary for 1712, p. 108. 50 Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 62 (7 March 1716). A Halle suburb, Glaucha was the site of the Francke Foundations. 51 On this eschatological interpretation, based on the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:30 (“And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth”), see Benz, “Ecumenical Relations between Boston Puritanism and German Pietism,” pp. 165–66. 52 See “A General Introduction” in [Cotton Mather,] 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: Printed for T. Parkhurst, 1702), p. 3,and Francke, “Further Documents Concerning Mather and Francke,” p. 55. 53 Silverman, Life and Times of Mather, p. 199.

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phraseology that was so typical of Puritanism (and Pietism), Mather’s craving for admiration drove him to assemble a host of influential correspondents who might disseminate his views. Even exceeding 54 the literary productivity of his great model, “my dear Franckius,” Mather year after year piled his own tracts onto America’s expanding market for devotional literature. As a result, he “not only published far more than any other New England minister” but probably “more 55 than all the New England ministers before his time combined.” Long before 1709, when he stated his desire to enter into contact with Francke, Mather had made a habit of enclosing copies or briefly summarizing his own works when writing theologians, politi- cians, and other notables. At times he even dispatched multiple copies 56 for distribution to congregations, universities, or learned societies. “I beleeve, it is hardly possible for me, to do a greater Service for the Kingdome of God, than to give unto the public, a little Treatise which I have now prepared,” he remarked in 1717, as he applauded the exemplary stamina and “lively Faith” in God with which Francke and other “Servants of God” carried their projects through, “tho’ they 57 have at present little Prospect of accomplishing their Designs.” Again and again, Mather courted prospective sponsors and explored opportunities for publishing his own productions at home and abroad. “I rejoice to find the Magnalia Christi Americana fallen into your hands,” he tells Bohme¨ in 1716, after being informed that his massive 58 history of New England has been circulating at the royal court. Shortly thereafter, he approached the court preacher a second time. “When I readd the preface of our excellent Franckius to his Greek New Testament, it revived in me some Hopes; that our glorious Lord, may in His Time inspire and incline some capable Persons to 59 bring our, Biblia Americana, into the World.” Mather had been

54 See, e.g., Diary of Cotton Mather, 16 May 1718 and 25 June 1724;MathertoJohn Winthrop, 4 May and 26 October 1720, Francke, “Mather and Francke,” pp. 65–66. 55 Silverman, Life and Times of Mather, p. 197. 56 See, e.g., Mather to Bohme¨ [month? day?] 1715, 2 October 1715 (K. Francke’s dating) or 2 December 1715 (Ford’s dating), 6 June 1716, 6 August 1716,and8 May 1720; Mather to Winthrop, 19 November 1716; Diary of Cotton Mather, 9 March 1721, 7 December 1721,and25 June 1724, 2:332, 413, 663, 734; Francke, “Mather and Francke,” pp. 60, 62–65. 57 Diary of Cotton Mather, 31 May 1717, 2:456. 58 Mather to Bohme,¨ 6 June 1716, Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 63. 59 Mather to Bohme,¨ 6 August 1716, Diary of Cotton Mather, 2:413.Inviewof the occasional differences in dating between Ford’s edition of Mather’s diary and

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unsuccessfully promoting his “American Bible,” what would in time 60 turn out to be his most voluminous work, in England and Scotland. Now he received from Bohme¨ not the ringing endorsement he sought but rather “the discouraging advice to copy out the whole of Biblia Americana” and “to lodge the transcript with an eminent London divine, for viewing by persons who might consider subsidizing its 61 publication.” Bohme¨ had good reasons for declining Mather’s request for support. First, he criticized Mather for neglecting to inform potential 62 subscribers where or to whom they might send their names. Another matter, however, was more irksome. A few months earlier, Mather had published Francke’s 1714 letter to him, in English translation, under the Latin title Nuncia Bona e Terra Longinqua. Altering the text here and there, Mather created the false impression that he had witnessed Francke’s accomplishments at Halle ﬁrsthand. To be sure, it was not at all unusual for writers (and composers) in the eighteenth century to take undeserved credit for the intellectual achievements of others. Many contemporaries, rather than despising this way of ap- propriating intellectual property as undue and illegitimate, considered this practice as proof of their great esteem for the original author. However, although most plagiarists would be content with excerpting only select portions from the works of others and incorporating them into their own books or compositions, Mather, in his English render- ing of Francke’s letter to him, took on completely the latter’s role of an eyewitness reporter who had drafted the entire publication himself based upon his own experiences and observations in Halle. When the piece appeared in Boston in 1715, it did not bear Francke’s name but identiﬁed Mather as the author, a writer who was communicating the report of Francke’s activities—the report Francke had supplied but Mather now plagiarized—to an anonymous addressee. In London, Bohme,¨ who once promoted the correspondence between the New England Puritan and the Halle Pietist, was not

K. Francke’s “Mather and Francke,” it is possible that this letter is the one K. Francke dated 6 June 1716. 60 Cotton Mather, New Offer To the Lovers of Religion and Learning (Boston: T. Fleet[?], 1714?). Mather had already advertised Biblia Americana in a ﬁve-page notice in his Bonifacius: An Essay upon the Good, That Is to Be Devised and Designed by Those Who Desire to Answer the Great End of Life, and Do Good while They Live . . . (Boston: B. Green, 1710). See Silverman, Life and Times of Mather, p. 257. 61 Silverman, Life and Times of Mather, p. 258. 62 Silverman, Life and Times of Mather, p. 258.

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63 amused. Yet instead of launching a frontal attack, he chose to pub- lish the letter, in “a rather free and not very correct English translation” of the original Latin, as the first entry in the third volume of Francke’s Pietas Hallensis and specifically to name “the Reverend D. Cotton Mather, Minister of the Gospel in New-England” as the 64 recipient, not the author, of the account. On 15 May 1718, Mather deflected the rebuke, writing Bohme¨ to praise him for having “translated & published” Francke’s “rich & long” letter “highly to my satis- 65 faction.” Given his close relationship with Bohme,¨ Francke would certainly have been informed about Mather’s plagiarism, and it may well have been this incident that discouraged Francke from writing to Boston during the following three years. Mather’s gaffe may also have dashed his chances of having any of his tracts printed by the highly profitable Halle orphanage press. The publisher’s catalog listed 200 titles in 1712, 300 in 1717, and as many as 660 in 1737, but it did not include 66 a single work by Mather. To be sure, although he had assiduously pursued his relationship with Francke, Mather had not fully informed himself about his activities, or perhaps had chosen not to publicize them unduly, as is clear from one of the New Englander’s most notable works of scholarship. The Francke Foundations were heavily engaged in developing and distributing medications throughout Europe and other parts of the world, but Mather’s great medical encyclopedia, The Angel of Bethesda, makes no reference to these drugs, nor does it mention the dispensary at the Francke orphanage or the department of medicine at the University of Halle, with whose faculty Mather also claimed to be in correspondence. In his 1714 letter to Mather, Francke had 67 referred to the dispensary in passing, and in his 1715 condensed,

63 Benz, “Pietist and Puritan Sources of World Missions,” pp. 32, 55,n.15. 64 Francke, “Further Documents Concerning Mather and Francke,” p. 31;[August Hermann Francke], Pietas Hallensis: Or, An Abstract of the Marvellous Footsteps of Divine Providence, Attending the Management and Improvement of the Orphan-House at Glaucha near Hall; and of other Charitable Foundations relating to it (London: J. Downing, 1716). This edition gives Francke’s letter under “Part III.” 65 Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 64. 66 Helmut Obst, August Hermann Francke und die Franckeschen Stiftungen in Halle (Gottingen:¨ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002), p. 69; Hans-Joachim Kertscher, “Die Franckeschen Stiftungen und ihre Druckereien,” www.pierre-marteau.com/resources/ halle/halle-francke.html#a1. See also Beyreuther, August Hermann Francke, 1663– 1727, p. 214. 67 See Francke, “Mather and Francke,” pp. 34 and 49.

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English version of that letter, Mather informed readers that “[t]here is an Officina Pharmaceutica belonging to the Orphan-House. God has put it into the Hearts of Eminent Physicians to send in their Arcana thither; so that the Noblest Remedies upon Earth are known there, and Wonders have been done from thence among the Miserable: 68 Many Polychresta [i.e., great and effective medications] Published!” Four years after writing to Francke for the first time, Mather was thus perfectly aware of the existence of the dispensary as well as of its outstanding achievements in pharmaceutical research and the pro- duction of medications. When he finished work on The Angel some- timeinthemid-1720s, Francke’s pharmaceutical business in Halle had been operating for a quarter century, and Christian Friedrich Richter (1676–1711), in charge of formulating the medications, had long since published his comprehensive self-help manual on their use 69 in promoting health and preventing illness. Moreover, the department of medicine at Halle University, under its founders Friedrich Hoffmann (1660–1742) and Georg Ernst Stahl (1659–1734), had be- come, by 1720, a primary locus for reforming and teaching academic 70 medicine in Central Europe. Nothing suggests that Mather ever came in contact with the medications from Halle, which were sent to America no earlier than the 71 1730s, but he had consulted the rich medical holdings at Harvard University and had access to—and possibly even owned a run of—the proceedings (the so-called Ephemeridum) of the Imperial Academy of German Natural Scientists, known as the Leopoldina. This series of miscellaneous reports, he declared, had served as a model for his 72 letters to the Royal Society in London. Mather’s voluminous library of more than three thousand books held numerous medical and

68 Francke, “Mather and Francke,” p. 60. 69 [Friedrich Christian Richter,] Kurtzer und deutlicher Unterricht Von dem Leibe und naturlichen¨ Leben des Menschen: Woraus ein jeglicher/auch Ungelehrter erkennen kann/Was die Gesundheit ist/und wie sie zu erhalten: . . . (Halle: Waisenhaus, 1705). 70 See Wilson, Pious Traders in Medicine, p. 55. 71 Wilson, Pious Traders in Medicine, p. 101. 72 Beall and Shryock, Cotton Mather, p. 43. Cotton Mather, The Angel of Bethesda, ed. Gordon W. Jones (Barre, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society and Barre Pub- lishers, 1972), p. xl (Jones’s introduction, pt. 4). For the proceedings, see Mis- cellanea curiosa, sive ephemeridum medico-physicarum germanicarum, ed. Sacri Romani Imperii Academia Caesareo-Leopoldinae Naturae Curiosorum [Kaiserlich- Leopoldinisch-Carolinische Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher, commonly known as “Leopoldina”] (varying places: Nuremburg, Frankfurt on the Main, Leipzig, 1670– 1706; continued until 1928 under varying titles).

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scientific works from ancient to early modern times. Still, nothing of his lifelong interest in German science and research and of his acquaintance with the founding father of the famous Halle dispensary is reflected in The Angel. Of the well over two hundred fifty medical writers that Mather quoted in his magisterial compendium, none was affiliated with the University of Halle, nor is it possible to trace any prescription given in The Angel or any treatment described therein 73 to the university or the Francke institutions.

“[W]hy did this strong relationship between New England Puri- tanism and continental pietism break up so completely in the second half of the eighteenth century?” Ernst Benz asked in 1960 in the course of a lecture at Harvard University on the ecumenical rela- 74 tions between Boston Puritanism and German Pietism. In fact, it ended much earlier: with a letter Cotton Mather’s son Samuel (1706– 85) sent to Gotthilf August Francke (1696–1769), the second son of 75 August Hermann Francke, in June 1733. In the spring of 1728, Samuel had written to the elder Francke to inform him that his father Cotton had died the previous February. From Halle, Gotthilf responded that his father had died even earlier, in June 1727. Since this letter survives only as an undated draft, it is not clear whether or 76 not it was sent and, if so, whether it arrived at Boston. Aside from a letter to four Francke missionaries in Tranquebar, nothing indicates 77 that Samuel Mather corresponded with Halle after 1733. In the absence of hard evidence from letters, diaries, or other ﬁrst- hand sources, modern researchers are for the most part conﬁned to speculating about why the relationship between Boston and Halle came to an end soon after the deaths of Cotton Mather and August Hermann Francke. The available material strongly suggests that it did

73 The Angel of Bethesda, p. xxxviii (Jones’s introduction, pt. 4). 74 Benz, “Ecumenical Relations between Boston Puritanism and German Pietism,” pp. 192–93. 75 Samuel Mather to Gotthilf August Francke, 10 June 1733, AFSt/H D 121: 6c. 76 S. Mather to A. H. Francke, no date, AFSt/M 2 H 3: 1;G.A.FrancketoS. Mather, no date (draft), AFSt/M 2 H 3: 2. 77 S. Mather to Nikolaus Dal, Martin Bosse, Christian Friedrich Pressier, and Christoph Theodosius Walther, 10 September 1732, stored in the holdings of the Evangelisch-Lutherisches Missionswerk Leipzig, incorporated into the archives of the Francke Foundations.

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so because it had never acquired the substance and intensity of a sustained theological discourse that might have promoted institutional cooperation between the two centers of science and theology, phi- lanthropy and education. Despite the many similarities between New England Puritanism and Halle Pietism and their most prominent rep- resentatives, certain features of Mather’s and Francke’s personalities and religiosity were fundamentally incompatible. As Richard F. Lovelace has stated, Mather’s brand of piety was prone to instrumentalization, that is, its ultimate purpose was “not the celebration of God’s grace for the believer but rather the dif- ferent methods of obtaining spiritual graces in the believer.” This instrumentalization expressed itself in a tendency “to ﬁx the attention on the manipulation of the channels of grace”—for example, 78 in the ambitious “porismatic method” of meditation that Mather practiced in his later years to make scripture real in his personal experience, or in the eagerness with which he immersed himself in the sciences in an effort to advance medical knowledge and to un- ravel the laws of nature for the glory of God. Fully in line with the “typical Puritan preoccupation with devotional machinery that Mather exhibited,” the pious individual was always at risk of in- dulging in “spiritual self-aggrandizement, the polishing of an image of devotional heroism,” inasmuch as “[t]he ideal of sainthood ex- alted in Puritanism was that of the spiritual athlete, not the forgiven sinner released from sin and religious compulsion to be merely— 79 but truly—human.” Consequently, Mather’s mood used to oscil- late frequently and vehemently between feelings of anxiety, or even despair—nourished by fears of personal failure and of falling from God’s grace—on the one hand, and of ostentatious pride in his rigor- ous devotional exercises, liberal charity, and superb erudition, on the other. Like most New England Puritans of his day, Mather held that gen- uine Christians not only had to be “precise” in their observance of

78 According to Lovelace, later in his life, Mather “adopted an even more ambitious technique of making Scripture real in his experience, which he called the porismatic method....Whilehisearlierpracticehadbeenasortofutilitarian processing of verses to mine their doctrinal and practical implications, this new technique sought the re-creation in his own soul of the emotional or affective state of the author. ...Mather implies that both in his earlier and later methodology he obtained his teaching from no man, but directly from the Spirit; but his whole approach in the porismatic method is redolent of European Pietism.” In his diary, “Mather notes that he concurs with Francke in the use of the porismatic method” (American Pietism, p. 115). 79 Lovelace, American Pietism, pp. 142–43, 115–16, 204, 143.

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God’s word and Christ’s commandments but they also had to “be- come visible saints” whose fellowship with Jesus would be “known by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16, 20), that is, by means of a public demonstra- tion of their unwavering faith and godly conduct. However, unlike Francke and the German Pietists, Mather and other Puritans “could not permit themselves to relax in the honest confession that they were both sinners and believers in Christ, the essence of the fresh breeze of spiritual liberty that blows through Luther’s [commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the] Galatians....Instead, they had to turn their attention away from Christ and the atonement and look inward, either for the witness of the Spirit or the marks of a gracious 80 character.” As a result of his quest for “precision” and “visibility,” Mather—for all his lifelong generosity toward and social concern and sincere compassion for the needy—developed a propensity for ostentatious piety and for outlandishly marketing himself and his charitable and intellectual accomplishments, thereby inviting charges of hypocrisy and of relying on justiﬁcation by his own works instead of by faith in God. It was exactly “that particular Lust, my Pride, . . . affectations of Grandeur, and Inclinations to be thought Some- body” that Mather, with remarkable candor, diagnosed as his greatest weaknesses and that many contemporaries found self-righteous and repellent. Francke, in his early adulthood, seems to have displayed some character traits that were quite similar to Mather’s. Egocentric in his keenness to please God with ritual devotions and good works, young Francke, too, was driven by a strong urge for success and public recognition, which he considered to be manifest signs of God’s continuous grace. But, as he reported, his sudden and thorough conversion to Jesus Christ at the age of twenty-four radically altered his perspective. Henceforth, he abstained from the “idol of erudition” which, he thought, had previously tempted him to try to apprehend God by means of his limited reason and not through unquestioning trust and faith. Instead of relying on godly conduct, benefaction, and academic scholarship to evoke God’s mercy and thus to effect his deliverance from sin and his reception into God’s eternal kingdom, Francke now viewed himself as a tool at the service of his creator. Francke’s ﬁrm conviction of God’s omnipotent and ubiquitous guidance and his Christocentric faith freed him from the existential anxiety that young Martin Luther had experienced two centuries before and

80 Lovelace, American Pietism, pp. 144, 143.

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that Mather wrestled with throughout his life: the awareness of hu- mans’ incapacity to redeem themselves from evil and the fear of God’s everlasting damnation. Thus was Francke released from his “fervent zeal for success and recognition” and for exceptional sanctity, which was rooted not in “current spiritual performance and achievement” (as was the case with Mather and other Puritans) but in a “dependent 81 faith” in God and Christ. Just like Mather, Francke was a “consummate businessman.” He managed “the largest public concern in Prussia,” and he was adept at marketing, commercial networking, and stewarding worldly goods 82 for pious ends. As his 1705 tract Pietas Hallensis and his 1714 report on the progress of the educational, charitable, and missionary institutions in Halle reveal, Francke did not shy away from advertising his impressive achievements and casting a favorable light on himself. At the same time, however, the religious assurance he had received upon his conversion guarded him against self-conceit, self- righteousness, and a craving for admiration—human frailties to which Mather, much to his frustration and according to his own testimony, repeatedly succumbed. Whereas Francke emphasized that sanctiﬁca- tion proceeded from an arduous, dynamic, and lifelong process of spiritual growth in which even the faithful were occasionally stunted, Mather focused on it as a static goal to be achieved at any cost and under all circumstances, especially through “the cultivation of rigor- ous spiritual discipline and heroic sanctity.” In short, “[t]he Puritan whose sanctiﬁcation was not making exceptional progress could an- 83 ticipate providential judgments.” In addition to their differing personalities and religious attitudes, the lack of a robust spiritual vocabulary precluded a stimulating dis- cussion between the two talented pastors and evangelists. Neither Mather nor Francke was a theoretical systematizer; neither formu- lated a clear-cut taxonomy of tenets and principles that might have provoked fruitful intellectual debate. Instead, their subjectivist approach to religious practice and to man’s relationship to God and their eclectic bent for ecumenism—both, although especially Francke,

81 Beyreuther, August Hermann Francke, 1663–1727, pp. 48, 53, 48; Lovelace, American Pietism, p. 144. 82 A. Gregg Roeber, Palatines, Liberty, and Property: German Lutherans in Colonial British America (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), pp. 69, 70. 83 Lovelace, American Pietism, pp. 143, 144.

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84 were receptive to moderate Catholic Quietism —occasionally invited charges of unorthodoxy. It is, then, a decided exaggeration to refer to the intermittent, limited contact between Mather and Francke as a “correspondence.” After all, no more than six letters are known to have been written in thirteen years, ﬁve of which reached their destinations. More telling, however, is the fact that, despite Mather being “extremely desirous of maintaining a correspondence” with Francke and his disciples, among Francke’s 5,495 letters preserved in the Staatsbibliothek at Berlin, not 85 one is addressed to Mather and just two by him can be found there. Whether Francke had snubbed Mather or was simply disinterested is not clear, but the effect was the same: Francke did not reciprocate Mather’s attentions.

84 Lovelace, American Pietism, p. 159, and Beyreuther, August Hermann Francke, 1663–1727, pp. 52–53. 85 See http://192.124.243.55/cgi-bin/nachlass.pl?t maske (in search function, enter “Francke, August Hermann” and “Mather, Cotton”).

Wolfgang Splitter is a Research Associate with the Center for United States Studies at Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany. He is the author of Pastors, People, Politics: German Lutherans in Pennsylvania, 1740–1790 (1998) and, most recently, cotranslator and coeditor of The Correspondence of Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg,¨ vols. 3 and 4 (2009–10).

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