Godly Dispositions and Textual Conditions: The Literary Sociology of International Religious Exchanges, c. 1722–1740

Abstract

Summary From the seventeenth century onwards, English Reformed ministers engaged in lively correspondence and publishing exchanges with men from different countries and Protestant traditions. In the eighteenth century, appreciation of their shared intellectual and cultural heritage and a desire to sustain the patterns for religious living it encouraged inflected the content and style of textual interactions among Halle Pietists, English dissenters and New England Congregationalists. Interest in the present state of religious life was also important, and therefore news about awakenings and materials for pastoral care circulated around Europe and North America through existing channels and by new means. Their encounters and the texts that they produced were mutually generative, and the language and manner of the participants' personal interactions were important features of published works. These personal associations, publishing activities and discursive styles can be understood as aspects of the literary sociology of a religious culture that valued intellectual and emotional engagements and sought to inculcate religion through education and friendship.