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a. THREE OBJECTS OF PIETISM. MISSIONS. 321
death of the Apostles and Evangelists
"
(c. 16), and then
"
that the command to preach the Gospel to all nations
continues to bind the Church .... and that apostolic
authority is necessary for it"
(c. i7).
7
It is noticeable how naturally these principles were
associated with the episcopal polity which Saravia found
and admired in England. The same spirit, however,
continued during the time of the Commonwealth in which
our first missionary society was founded, generally called
11
The New England Company," a society which still
exists and administers a small income. In Sweden the
missions to Lapland and Finland and the work done in the
colony of New Sweden, both early in the seventeenth cen
tury and at its close, are interesting parallels. How far
either country directly contributed to foster the missionary
spirit of the pietistic movement in Germany I cannot say,
but certain it is that some of the leading continental
Pietists were associated with the missionary movement in
England at the end of the seventeenth century. That
movement arose from the
"
Religious Societies of London
and Westminster," which were founded in 1678, and the
11
Societies for Reformation of Manners," founded in
1691, which must surely have owed some part of their im
pulse to Spener s collegia pietatis. These societies were
the direct antecedents of our first great comprehensive
society,
"
The Society for Promoting Christian Know
ledge
"
(S.P.C.K.), founded in 1698, and its offshoot, the
more distinctly missionary society, "The
Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
"
(S.P.G.),
founded in i/oi. The "
Religious Societies
"
were more
closely allied to the Church than those for the
"
Reforma
tion of Manners "
and were of more abiding value. The
latter became offensive because of their inquisitorial spirit
and the encouragement given by them to informers.
Amongst the earliest corresponding members of the
7
See Saravia s Diversi Tractatus Theologici, pp. 171-178,
London, 1611.
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