“Though I am a Stranger to You by Face, yet in Neere Bonds by Faith”: A Transatlantic Puritan Republic of Letters

The model of a religious republic of letters has recently been put forward as a way of approaching the epistolary relationships of a group of Catholic humanists during the Renaissance. This centers upon the notion that “friendships were not ‘set apart’ or private but were instead public, religious relationships developed in order to navigate the dangerous world of public transactions” (Furey 5). The exchange of letters enabled individuals to “demarcate a realm of spiritual meaning—a new kind of religious community bound together by affective relationships and a shared interest in spiritualized scholarship” (Furey 5). These relationships formed a community that embraced the lives and works of the individuals involved which functioned “as a hermeneutic, a locus of spiritual practices, a manifestation of spiritual values, and a pathway for intimacy with each other and with Christ” (Furey 9). The incorporation of religion within the traditional rubric of the republic of letters deconstructs its usual binary opposition to secularization and allows the exploration of “ideas and relationships that are imbued with a transcendent dimension” fostered through the creation of “affective, activist friendships” (Furey 170, 13). It may seem odd to move from Catholic humanists to American Puritans, but the concept of a religious republic of letters can be usefully deployed in understanding the correspondence of two American ministers, John Eliot and John Woodbridge, with the prominent English Nonconformist Richard Baxter. These men were part of a similar spiritual “communion of saints.” This association was nurtured through an affective understanding of divine and human relationships, shared theological values and reading, a commitment to learning and scholarship, and the constant possibility of persecution by the authorities. The transatlantic pastoral and professional network resulting from these ties was maintained by the exchange of letters.¹

While Richard Baxter (1615–91) is best known for his work as a pastor and theologian, like many intellectuals of his day, he had an inveterate curiosity about all forms of knowledge and a passionate conviction of the need to integrate these diverse aspects into a comprehensive scheme. In 1659 he commented, “[W]e parcel arts and sciences into fragments, according to the straitness of our capacities, and are not so pansophical as uno intuitu to see the whole.”² This curiosity finds its clearest expression in his prolific correspondence with men and women of almost every variety of intellectual and religious persuasion both in Britain and on the Continent. The genre of letter writing is in itself an invitation to engage in dialogue, rather than a more didactic mode of expression. It is in and through the practice of such epistolary exchanges that Baxter evidenced his understanding of the ways in which knowledge develops within an intellectual community nourished by letter writing. His resolute refusal to separate theology from philosophy and other forms of knowledge also shaped a distinctive moral ethic as to the goals of such an exchange and its rules of conduct. Friendship is ameliorated by the concept of fellowship; the avid pursuit of knowledge, tempered by transformation of character. In this essay I will explore aspects of Baxter’s epistolary exchange of knowledge, the moral values it embodied, and the ways in which it contributed to the formation of a distinctive kind of republic of letters.

Friendship was critical to Baxter’s emotional equilibrium and spiritual comfort. It was something that he drew upon especially during the English Civil War and in the period of persecution that Nonconformists experienced after the Restoration (1660) and Act of Uniformity (1662), which imposed a specific form of worship and belief on all who belonged to the Church of England (Keeble, “Loving” 4). It finds particular expression in his correspondence with many of those who were his close friends and acquaintances, including some 70 ministers who were ejected from the church along with Baxter (Keeble, “Introduction” xxv). However, Baxter’s understanding of friendship was deeply enriched by his biblical appreciation for the “fellowship of the saints.”³ Intellectual exchange and epistolary communion were by no means limited to those who had acquaintance...