FINLEY, SAMUEL [1715-1766] – Presbyterian minister and educator who was born in Ireland and migrated to America in 1730. He studied at the “Log College” in Pennsylvania for the Presbyterian ministry. He was licensed in 1739 and sent out as an itinerant preacher in the Great Awakening as it grew in intensity. Finley was aligned with the positions held by John Dickinson [see 1729] and Jonathan Edwards [see 1740]. He founded an Academy on the Maryland Pennsylvania border which helped to feed the College of New Jersey with youth aspiring to the New Side ministry. He was elected as the fifth president of Princeton in 1761 and served in that post until his death five years later.
JOANNICUS III – Patriarch of Constantinople [1761-1763] succeeded Seraphiem II [see 1757]. There is no additional information readily available.
1762
TOPLADY, AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE [1740-1778] – Anglican hymn writer who was educated at Trinity College Dublin and converted through a Methodist lay preacher. He was ordained in 1762 and had a living in Devon. In 1770 Toplady became pastor of the French Calvinist chapel in London. He was a powerful preacher and a vigorous Calvinist bitterly opposed to John Wesley. He is best known for his hymn “Rock of Ages”.
1763
CANADA – The Churches under British Rule. After the transfer of Nova Scotia to Britain in 1713 and of the rest of Canada in 1763, Protestantism and English speaking Catholicism became established in the former French territory. In personnel and financial support they came originally from France, Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies. There were controversies such as “clergy reserves” [see 1791]. From this period five groups have made up the Christian community in Canada: Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists. In general the French Catholic clergy were loyal to the British as seen by the relations bishops Jean Briand [see 1766] and Joseph Plessis [see 1806] had with the British.
The Anglicans drew support from pre Loyalist New Englanders, United Empire Loyalists [see 1789], British garrisons and administrators, and immigration from the British Isles. The Methodists consisted mainly of British Wesleyans and American Episcopal Methodists. Presbyterians, while derived from Britain and America, reflected the traditional breach between the Church of Scotland and the various Secession churches. The Baptist Church was pioneered in the Maritime states from New England and the Scottish Highlands. The Lutheran Church in Canada was bolstered by emigrants from Germany and Scandinavia.
Early missionaries of the expansion into the west were Joseph Provencher [see 1818], John West [see 1820], James Evans [see 1840] and John Black. By 1840 it was clear that education would be in the hands of the state but with some religious instruction on a non denominational basis. Upper Canada, later Ontario, allowed for separate Roman Catholic schools while Lower Canada, later Quebec, developed into Catholic and Protestant sections. [See Canada – The Church of New France 1612 and Canada the church since 1867 at 1867.]
ROWLAND, DANIEL [1713-1790] – Welsh Methodist leader who with Howel Harris [see 1735] had the distinction of being co-founder of Welsh Calvinistic Methodism. The son of a parish priest he was ordained in 1735 and served as a curate to his brother John in the parishes served by their father. He was converted under the ministry of Griffith Jones and began a preaching ministry of great power. He began to found societies where his converts could be established in their newly found faith. The Calvinistic Methodists in Wales were split into two groups in 1752 with Harris leading one group and Rowland the other and ten years passed before reconciliation was made. When his brother was drowned in 1760 the authorities passed over Daniel Rowland had gave the living to his son to whom he now became curate. He was finally dispossessed in 1763 but continued his ministry in the “New Church” that had been built for him. It is said his sweetness of spirit and magnetism of his delivery kept congregations spellbound sometimes for hours on end.
SAMUEL I Chatzeres – Patriarch of Constantinople [1763-1768, 1773-1774] succeeded Joannicus III [see 1761]. There is no additional information readily available.
1764
HAWEIS, THOMAS [1734-1820] – Co-founder of the London Missionary Society and trustee executor of Lady Huntingdon. He was converted, called to the ministry, and at Oxford University started the second Holy Club [see 1734] among the undergraduates. He took the living of All Saints, Aldwincle, in Northamptonshire in 1764. His church quickly became a centre of evangelical influence throughout the area. When the London Missionary Society was formed in 1795 he was instrumental in ensuring that Tahiti was the first field to be evangelised.
HERDER, JOHANN GOTTFRIED VON [1744-1803] – Lutheran scholar who was born in East Prussia and studied at the University of Konigsberg where he came under the divergent influences of Immanuel Kant [see 1770] and J. G. Hamann [see 1758]. He became a Lutheran pastor at Riga in 1764 before becoming a court preacher at Weimar where he lived uncomfortably opposed by the official clergy, for the rest of his life. His study of the Gospel of John in 1797 indicated that the Gospel could not be harmonised with the synoptic, and that while a life of Jesus could come from either John or the synoptic, it could not be derived from a harmony of them all.
HILL, ROWLAND [1744-1833] – Preacher who was educated at Cambridge but entered in 1764 at a time when evangelical views were unpopular. He believed at first that he was the only evangelical Christian there, except for the shoe black at the gate, but soon led several students to Christ. Following ordination he was appointed to Kingston and preached to great crowds, often in the open air. Some 10 years later he inherited money and built Surrey Chapel, Blackfriars, where he had a powerful London Ministry. He welcomed advances in science as shown by himself vaccinating the children of his congregation. He was instrumental in founding the Religious Truth Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the London Missionary Society. Sir Rowland Hill of the penny post was named after him.
HONTHEIM, JOHANN NIKOLAUS VON [1701-1790] – Assistant bishop of Trier who was known by the pseudonym ‘Justinius Febronius” and was the founder of Febronianism. After 18 years of work he published a work of his doctrines which reflected Gaelic and Protestant motifs although remaining devoutly Catholic, and not secular. Clement XIII condemned it in 1764 but intense public debate continued throughout Europe. Hontheim later unconvincingly recanted in 1778 while others, including Austrian chief minister Kaunitz, used his ideas to support a more secular Josephinism.
SANDEMANIANS – A group of Bible loving Christians, founded by John Glas [see 1719], which flourished from 1725 until about 1900. Robert Sandeman [1718-1771], Glas' son-in-law, became the leader and attacked Calvinistic evangelical work on the grounds that it made faith a work of man which earns salvation. Sandeman held that the bare assent to the work of Christ alone is necessary. After the controversy many churches were founded including the London church in the Barbican area of which Michael Faraday [see 1827] was a member. Sandeman left England in 1764 to found churches in the United States of America where the groups survived until 1890. They upheld infant baptism and foot washing as practices as well as excommunications. The sect was exclusive and intermarriage was usual. One of the conditions of membership was that the church could control the use of members’ private money.
1765
COUGHLAN, LAWRENCE [1738 -1785] – Pioneer preacher in Newfoundland was brought up as a Catholic but was converted at the age of 15 and became an itinerant preacher in Ireland. In 1765 he went to Newfoundland under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and was ordained by the bishop of London. A revival broke out and he was soon in trouble with the leaders of the colony as he preached against the conditions of the ordinary person in Newfoundland. Opposition and long journeys broke his health and he returned to England in 1773 leaving the work in the hands of two merchant converts.
JOHNSON, SAMUEL [1709-1784] – Moralist, essayist, and lexicographer. Educated at Oxford Johnson unsuccessfully attempted school mastering before he went to London with the actor Garrick. He was famous for his writings including his edition of Shakespeare in 1765. Tory and Anglican he held deeply sincere religious views, though these are expressed more in moral than in spiritual terms. Nowhere is this better shown than in the last lines of the “Vanity of Human Wishes”.
MANNING, JAMES [1738-1791] – Founder and first president of Brown University, USA. He graduated from Princeton University and by 1765 had secured a charter for Rhode Island College and founded a Baptist church in Warren, Rhode Island. He was appointed first president of the college in 1765 and held the position of professor of language until his death. He represented Rhode Island in the Congress and in the summer of 1791 wrote a report that suggested the creation of the State's present free public school system.
1766
BRIAND, JEAN OLIVER [1715‑1794] – French born Catholic bishop of Canada who went to Canada in 1741. During the siege of Quebec by the British he directed the diocese in the absence of the bishop. He kept the French passively loyal to the British after their conquest of Canada. Due to his efforts the Quebec Act and Habeas Corpus Act of 1774 broadened the privileges of Catholics in Canada although Roman Catholicism was officially banned. He is generally hailed as the second founder of the Catholic Church in Canada and he consecrated his successors before resigning his see.
CYPRIAN Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria [1766-1783] see 1746 and 1783
EBERHARD, JOHANN AUGUST [1739-1809] – German philosopher and theologian who had studied philosophy, theology, and classical philology under such teachers as J.S. Sember. After 1766 he moved into the Berlin Circle of F. Nikolai and M. Mandelssohn. He wrote a significant criticism of Kantian philosophy and a critique of such ideas as original sin, caused controversy, for which he was attacked. Eberhard was appointed a professor of philosophy at Halle where he was recognised as being in the tradition of Leibnitz [see 1703].
EPHRAIM II Patriarch of Jerusalem [1766-1771] see 1737 and 1771
GIBBON, EDWARD [1737-1794] – English historian. Born in Surrey, England, he was of independent means throughout his life. His “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” in seven volumes [1766 -1788] helped to make church history a critical discipline. In some ways his works is still unsurpassed. He looked at Roman history from the view of the ironic humanism of the 18th century. He was a friend of Voltaire and Diderot. Gibbon did not believe in the supernatural and sought to explain the growth of Christianity naturalistically, on the principle that the religious is at least a phenomenon of human experience.
LEE, ANN [c.1736-1784] – Founder of the Shakers who were originally called the Shaking Quakers. Her movement formed near Manchester England from 1758 to 1772. After unfortunate experiences in marriage, childbirth, and loss of four children she withdrew from her husband in 1766 and announced her “complete conversion”. Assuming leadership of the local Shakers shortly thereafter, she outlined her cardinal doctrines: confession was the door to regenerate life, celibacy its rule and cross. She migrated to New York in 1774 where the movement grew rapidly. She was largely responsible for the formulation of the characteristic beliefs of the Shakers: celibacy, communal living, pacifism, and millennialism, elitism, and spiritual manifestations through barking, dancing, and shaking.
PHILEMON Patriarch of Antioch [1766-1767] see also 1724 and 1767
ROMAINE, WILLIAM [1714-1795] – Evangelical Anglican who was educated Oxford and ordained in the Church of England. He was chaplain to Daniel Lambert in his year of office as lord mayor of London in 1741. One of his absorbing interests was the Hebrew language. Romaine was a friend of George Whitefield, the countess of Huntingdon, and others. Excelling as a preacher he attracted large crowds in London and on preaching tours in the country. He wished to see the Gospel penetrate the whole Church and nation and organised days of prayers to this end. In 1766 he was appointed rector of St Anne’s Blackfriars and remained there to his death. His message was a warm Calvinistic evangelicalism.
1767
DANIEL Patriarch of Antioch [1767-1791] see also 1766 and 1792
JOSEPHISM – The Austrian Habsburg policy of secular state control of the church implemented in the 18th century by Empress Maria Theresa culminating with intensity under Joseph II [1780-1790]. Its motivation was secular and rationalist, aimed at “rationalising” the organisation of the whole of society through an “enlightened” programme of state centralism. Instructions in 1767 and the following year by the chief minister Kaunitz initiated a program. As part of the project the Law of Toleration [1781] ended the Catholic monopoly, allowing Protestants and Jews certain freedoms to worship, a step permitted by Joseph as he argued that any church could be made obedient to the state. Monasteries were either dissolved or their members reduced in number on the grounds that many were useless, or wasteful; their properties were confiscated, and the revenues used to fund state reorganisation of parishes, and state-controlled schools, shops, or factories. All links between the papacy and the Hapsburg Church were abolished or controlled, since the pope was viewed principally as a foreign political power.
PRIESTLEY, JOSEPH [1733-1804] – Nonconformist minister famous for his work in the chemistry of gases who also published his ideas on philosophy, religion, education, and political theory. Priestly was born into a strict Calvinist family then became a dissenting minister and by 27 was a teacher of classics and literature at a Dissenting Academy in Warrington. He received a doctor of law degree from University of Edinburgh and a fellowship of the Royal Society [see 1662]. In 1767 he became the minister of a congregation in Mill Hill Leeds which shared his views. Although before this he had rejected the doctrine of the Atonement and of the Trinity, now he took the final step to Unitarianism [see 1558] and argued that Christ was only a man. When the French Revolution broke out Priestley supported it and because of this a Birmingham mob broke into his house and destroyed his belongings. Discouraged by the turn of events he went to America in 1794 settling in Northumberland Pennsylvania where he spent the last 10 years of his life.
1768
BOEHM, MARTIN – American Mennonite of Swiss ancestry who was chosen by lot at the age of 31 to become the pastor of the Mennonite congregation to which he belonged. In his itinerant preaching he was willing to preach in English which displeased the Mennonites and they denounced and expelled him. He met Philip Otterbein [see 1752] at a preaching meeting at Lancaster in 1768 and they co‑founded the Church of the United Brethren in Christ with both of them bishops.
CORNWALLIS, FREDERICK – Archbishop of Canterbury [1768-1783]. He was born in London, the seventh son of Charles Cornwallis, 4th Baron Cornwallis. He was educated at Eton College and graduated from Christ's College, Cambridge. He was ordained a priest in 1742, and became a doctor of divinity in 1748. Cornwallis was able to ascend quickly in the Church thanks to his aristocratic connections, and in 1746 was made chaplain to King George II and a canon of Windsor. In 1750 he became a canon at St Paul's Cathedral, and later that same year became bishop of Lichfield and Coventry thanks to the patronage of the duke of Newcastle, then secretary of state. On the death of Thomas Secker in 1768, his friendship with the then prime minister, the duke of Grafton, resulted in his appointment as archbishop of Canterbury. As archbishop, his social skills and good humour made him popular. He was a consistent supporter of the administration of Lord North, and led efforts in support of dispossessed Anglican clergy in the American colonies during the American Revolution. On the whole, Cornwallis has generally been judged as a competent administrator, but an uninspiring leader of the eighteenth century church whose lack of zeal paved the way for the differing responses of both the Evangelicals and the Oxford Movement in the early 19th century. His nephew was Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquis Cornwallis who was a British general during the American Revolution and later became governor-general of India. He succeeded Thomas Secker [see 1758] and was succeeded by John Moore [see 1783].
COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON CONNECTION [1707-1791] – A body founded by Countess Selina Hastings after her conversion and joining the Methodists. More calvinistic than Wesley she appointed evangelical Anglicans as her chaplains among them George Whitefield [see below]. She funded in 1768 a college in South Wales for the training of evangelical clergy. The Countess also helped to sponsor Whitefield’s orphanages in Georgia, took interest in American Indians, and encouraged the beginnings of Dartmouth College and Princetown University in America.
EMS, CONGRESS OF [1768] – This was a meeting at Ems of the representatives of the three elector-archbishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier and the prince-archbishop of Salzburg. It sought to prevent a papal move to establish a new see at Munich that would have enabled the Bavarian Crown to communicate directly with the Romans instead of going through the archbishops as before. Another see was created at Cologne. The leaders of the congress said that they would accept only a limited primacy of the pope, require Episcopal agreement to papal communications and decrees, discontinue appeals to Rome and payment to the Roman Curia and hold authority over members of religious orders themselves. Joseph II approved the recommendations of the congress but many bishops and German princes opposed them as an unwarranted use of authority by the archbishops. The effect of the French Revolution in Germany terminated the controversy.
WITHERSPOON, JOHN [1723-1794] – President of Princeton University, Witherspoon was a descendant of John Knox. He graduated from Edinburgh and ministered in the parishes of Beith and Paisley. He attacked abuses in the church and satirised the Moderates [see 1733] as “paganised Christian ministers”. He accepted the presidency of Princeton in 1768 and held it for 25 years. He made a number of improvements and lectured in divinity, moral philosophy, and eloquence. He worked for union with Congregationalists and Dutch Reformed, and favoured a general assembly, and influenced Scots and Irish Presbyterians to support the Whigs. Witherspoon encouraged the Declaration of Independence and was the only cleric and educator to sign it.
1769
CLEMENT XIV – Pope [1769-1774]. He received his education from the Jesuits at Rimini and in 1724, at the age of nineteen, entered the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor Conventual. He became a friend of Pope Benedict XIV (1740–58). In 1758 he was appointed by that pope to investigate the issue of the traditional blood libel regarding the Jews which he found to be untrue. He was elected Pope Clement XIV on 19th May 1769 and was installed on 4th June, 1769, after a conclave that had been sitting since 15th February 1769. Deliberations were heavily influenced by the political manoeuvres of the ambassadors of Catholic sovereigns who were opposed to the Jesuits. His policies were calculated from the outset to smooth the breaches with the Catholic crowns that had developed during the previous pontificate. The dispute between the temporal and the spiritual Catholic authorities was seen as a threat by Church authority, and Clement XIV worked towards the reconciliation of the European sovereigns. The pope went on to engage in the suppression of the Jesuits, the decree to this effect being written in November 1772, and signed in July 1773.
Pope Clement XIV and the customs of the Catholic Church in Rome are described in letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his father Leopold Mozart written from Rome in April and May of 1770 during their tour of Italy the same year. Leopold found the upper clergy offensively haughty, but was received by the pope with his son after Wolfgang demonstrated an amazing feat of musical memory. The papal chapel was famous for performing a Miserere mei, Deus by the seventeenth-century composer Gregorio Allegri whose music was not to be copied outside of the chapel on pain of excommunication. The fourteen-year-old Wolfgang was able to transcribe the composition in its entirety after a single hearing. Clement XIV knighted the young Mozart, the only ruler who ever accorded him a similar honour in his lifetime. Ever after, Mozart was able to pass himself off as a noble when he cared to. Clement XIV succeeded Clement XIII [see 1758] and was succeeded by Pius VI [see 1775].
MELETIUS II – Patriarch of Constantinople [1769] succeeded Samuel I [see 1763]. There is no additional information readily available.
OBERLIN, JEAN FREDERIC [1740-1826] – Alsatian Lutheran minister and philanthropist. He studied theology at Strasbourg and in 1769 became a pastor in Waldersbach. He was a social reformer through his endeavours in the formation of schools, building roads and bridges, encouraging better agricultural techniques, and establishment of factories, stores, and savings and loans associations. Although deeply pious and devoted to his parishioners he had an ecumenical outlook which embraced both Catholics and Calvinists. He welcomed the French Revolution. Under various French regimes he was admired for his philanthropic ways and many in the church regarded his love of Christ and deep mystical devotion combined with a desire to promote the welfare of mankind as a symbol of hope.
THEODOSIUS II – Patriarch of Constantinople [1769-1773] succeeded Meletius II [see above]. There is no additional information readily available.
1770
CARLYLE, ALEXANDER [1722-1805] – Moderator of the Church of Scotland in this year. A Scottish minister known by the nickname “Jupiter” because of his imposing appearance and a brilliant conversationalist who scandalised many by going openly to the theatre and playing cards at home “with unlocked doors”. He was very capable at pastoral work being ordained as a minister at Inveresk in 1746, a post he held to his death.
HOPKINS, SAMUEL [1721-1803] – Congregationalist theologian of the New England Theology or Hopkinsianism [see 1750]. He trained at Yale and was ordained in 1743 as a pastor in Massachusetts. In 1770 he became pastor of the Congregational Church in Newport Rhode Island. He was an early exponent of the abolitionist cause seeing slavery is a moral evil. He was even better known for his modification of Calvinism.
KANT, IMMANUEL [1724-1804] – German philosopher born into a Pietist family in Prussia and lived there all his life. He was professor of logic and metaphysics in the University of Konigsberg from 1770. His contact with the ideas of David Hume [see 1739] awoke him from his dogmatic slumbers and turned him into the critical philosopher of the “Critique of Pure Reason” and later works. Kant had a view that any knowledge of God is impossible and this has been extremely influential in Protestantism ever since. Theology has become anthropology. With the view that God is unknowable has gone a recasting of classic dogmatic theology from the notion of revelation onward.
WELSH BIBLE – Published by Peter Williams and led to a revival of interest in the Scriptures.
YOANNIS XVIII - Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria [1770-1797] see 1745 and 1797 He became a monk in the Monastery of Saint Anthony. At the death of Pope Markos he was unanimously chosen to succeed him. During his papacy, Pope Pius VI of Rome attempted to attract the Eastern Churches to Roman Catholicism. Thus, he published the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon and distributed it in all the countries of the East. Pope Pius VI of Rome even sent an envoy to Pope Yoannis XVIII of Alexandria asking him to unite with the Roman Catholic Church. The famous scholar and theologian Joseph el-Abbah, Bishop of Girga responded to the message, refuting its claims and defending Orthodoxy. During his papacy the Copts were persecuted by the Ottoman rulers. The ”Jizya” was increased to unprecedented amounts of money, and those who could not pay it had to convert to Islam or be executed. The commander of the Ottoman army stationed in Egypt seized the treasury of the Patriarchate and confiscated all its funds. Pope John XVIII had to go into hiding for some time. The Pope was a good friend of the famous Coptic layman Ibrahim El-Gohary. Together, they worked on restoring monasteries and churches. They also prepared the Holy Myron.
