The autobiography is in three parts with and appendix of her publications and life history until 1750, and her famous letter on the lawfulness of a woman appearing in print. It is a priceless treasure of an eighteenth century British Baptist woman's life, ministry, publications and contribution of Evangelicalism in England and in America. Dutton gives her own account of her own of her conversion experience, two marriages, ministry contributions with her yokefellow husband, Benjamin Dutton and his death at sea. Dutton's autobiography is important. Because it highlights important moments in her life and records her influential publishing carrier and correspondence. it includes her famous letter on her right to publish influential theological and spiritual works. Her autobiography shows firsthand the vast contributions and prolific career and ministry of a woman in this era. Her areas of ministry include writing, correspondence, books, and tracts. These show her great contribution to the evangelicalism and her great spiritual and theological life and contribution to the Baptist ministry and church and Evangelicalism in America and England. A work of a woman in her own hand is a great rarity from the eighteenth century.
Volume II contains Anne Dutton's once well-known and widely circulated A Discourse upon Waling with God (1735). Once read and referred to by George Whitefield, it contains spiritual insights for practical daily living. Dutton's hymns and poetry are also included in this volume. Dutton's poetry, A Narration of the Wonders of Grace (1734), was a prominent publication in her day. It contained 1,504 lines of poetry in six parts based on themes of salvation. Her biographer, J.C. Whitebrook, referred to it as her chief literary production. Sixty-one of Dutton's hymns composed on several subjects are also included in that volume. Her biographer, J.A. Jones, noted that these were written for plain and homely folk in the midland countries. Dutton's contribution to evangelical spirituality, poetry, and hymnody in the Baptist tradition is significant.
A collection that includes letters about the Moravian Brethren, ""A Postscript to a Letter Lately Published on the Duty and Privilege of a Believer"" (1746); ""Letters on Spiritual Subjects: Sent to Relations and Friends""; and, ""Letters Sent to an Honourable Gentleman for the Encouragement of the Faith"" (1743).
Volume 4 of Dutton's writings includes her early work The New Birth(1734); her unique pseudonymous work Treatise on Justification (1778); her work on grace A Discourse concerning God's Action of Adoption (1737); A Discourse on the Inheritance of the Adopted Sons of God (1748); and her theological letters on the marks of a child of God (1761) which offer advice in holiness from the end of her literary career. Anne Dutton's many writings are significant because they impacted evan-gelical revival in England (and in the colonies). Particularly significant is her voice as a Baptist writer responding to revival in England and in America. She addressed the issues of free grace, election, justification, and the new birth in Christ.
This collection of Anne Dutton's writings pulls together a variety of her correspondence and shows her significant involvement in theological debate and controversy. It also illustrates her ministry of letters for spiritual direction and insight. Highlights include her engagement in the Sandemanian controversy, encouragement of African American converts in the American colonies, and excerpts from her spiritual magazine.
While books about the lives of women in church history are abundant, in this book Simonetta Carr focuses on the important questions they asked—relevant both in the past and today. Throughout church history, women like you (single, married, mothers, and grandmothers, with careers both in and outside their homes) have carefully considered theological issues and asked intelligent and penetrating questions, faithfully seeking the answers in Scripture. You will be encouraged through “Food for Thought” sections at the end of each chapter to consider their questions, raise your own, and discuss them with others. Join your sisters from the church of all ages in taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ! Table of Contents: 1. Marcella of Rome (ca. 325–410): “How Do I Understand the Scriptures?” 2. Macrina the Younger (ca. 330–379): “Should a Christian Live Separate from the World?” 3. Monica of Tagaste (ca. 331−387): “Will My Son Be Lost?” 4. Dhuoda of Uzès (ca. 800–843): “How Can I Nurture a Distant Son?” 5. Kassia (ca. 810–865): “The Fullness of My Sin Who Can Explore?” 6. Christine de Pizan (1364–1430): “Is Woman a Defect of Creation?” 7. Argula Von Grumbach (1492–1554): “Should We Speak against Injustice?” 8. Elizabeth Aske Bowes (ca. 1505–1572): “How Can I Be Sure I Am Saved?” 9. Renée of France (1510–1575): “Should We Pray for God’s Enemies?” 10. Giulia Gonzaga (1513–1566): “How Can I Find Peace of Conscience?” 11. Olympia Morata (1526–1555): “What Can I Do if My Husband Neglects Me?” 12. Charlotte de Bourbon (1546–1582): “What Should I Consider in a Marriage Proposal?” 13. Charlotte Arbaleste Duplessis-Mornay (1550–1606): “Does God Care about Hairstyles?” 14. Dorothy Leigh (d. 1616): “What Should a Mother Teach Her Sons?” 15. Bathsua Makin (ca. 1600–1675): “Should Women Be Educated?” 16. Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672): “How Do I Know the True God Is the One Described in Scriptures?” 17. Elisabeth of the Palatinate (1618–1680): “Are Mind and Body Separate?” 18. Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681): “How Can We Trust God’s Providence?” 19. Mary White Rowlandson (ca. 1637–1711): “Why Am I Troubled?” 20. Anne Dutton (ca. 1692–1765): “Can Women Write about Theology?” 21. Kata Bethlen (1700–1759): “Can I Marry a Nonbeliever?” 22. Marie Durand (1711–1776): “Can I Be a Secret Christian?” 23. Anne Steele (1717–1778): “Must I Forever Mourn?” 24. Isabella Marshall Graham (1742–1814): “How Can I Help Neglected Families?” 25. Phillis Wheatley (ca. 1753–1784): “How Can I Not Oppose Tyranny?” 26. Ann Griffiths (1776–1805): “What Have I to Do with Idols?” 27. Betsey Stockton (ca. 1798–1865): “Are These the Beings with Whom I Must Spend the Remainder of My Life?” 28. Lydia Mackenzie Falconer Miller (1812–1876): “Can True Science Disagree with the Bible?” 29. Sarah Miller (d. 1801): “Can Christians Have Disturbing Thoughts?” 30. Anne Ross Cundell Cousin (1824–1906): “Can We Sing in Heaven if Our Loved Ones Are Missing?” 31. Jeanette Li (1899–1968): “Can the Church of Christ Be Destroyed?”
In 1740, Benjamin Franklin published the first American edition of Gospel Sonnets, by the eminent Scottish Presbyterian minister Ralph Erskine. The work, already in its fifth British edition, quickly became an American bestseller and remained so throughout the eighteenth century. Franklin was aware of what most scholars of American religion and literature have forgotten -that poetry played a central role in the "surprising works of God" that birthed evangelicalism. The far-reaching social transformations precipitated by the transatlantic evangelical revivals of the eighteenth century depended upon the development of a major literary form, that of revival poetry. Literary scholars and historians of religion have prioritized sermons, conversion narratives, periodicals, and hymnody. Wendy Roberts here argues that poetry offered a unique capacity to "diffuse celestial Fervor through the World," in the words of the cleric Samuel Davies. Awakening Verse is the first monograph to address this large corpus of evangelical poetry in the American colonies, shedding light on important dimensions of eighteenth-century religious and literary culture. Roberts deftly assembles a large, previously unknown archive of immensely popular poems, examines how literary history has rendered this poetic tradition invisible, and demonstrates how a vibrant popular poetics exercised a substantial effect on the landscape of early American religion, literature, and culture.
The five-volume Oxford History of Dissenting Protestant Traditions series is governed by a motif of migration ('out-of-England'). It first traces organized church traditions that arose in England as Dissenters distanced themselves from a state church defined by diocesan episcopacy, the Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty-Nine Articles, and royal supremacy, but then follows those traditions as they spread beyond England -and also traces newer traditions that emerged downstream in other parts of the world from earlier forms of Dissent. Secondly, it does the same for the doctrines, church practices, stances toward state and society, attitudes toward Scripture, and characteristic patterns of organization that also originated in earlier English Dissent, but that have often defined a trajectory of influence independent ecclesiastical organizations. The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, Volume II charts the development of protestant Dissent between the passing of the Toleration Act (1689) and the repealing of the Test and Corporation Acts (1828). The long eighteenth century was a period in which Dissenters slowly moved from a position of being a persecuted minority to achieving a degree of acceptance and, eventually, full political rights. The first part of the volume considers the history of various dissenting traditions inside England. There are separate chapters devoted to Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists and Quakers--the denominations that traced their history before this period--and also to Methodists, who emerged as one of the denominations of 'New Dissent' during the eighteenth century. The second part explores that ways in which these traditions developed outside England. It considers the complexities of being a Dissenter in Wales and Ireland, where the state church was Episcopalian, as well as in Scotland, where it was Presbyterian. It also looks at the development of Dissent across the Atlantic, where the relationship between church and state was rather looser. Part three is devoted to revivalist movements and their impact, with a particular emphasis on the importance of missionary societies for spreading protestant Christianity from the late eighteenth century onwards. The fourth part looks at Dissenters' relationship to the British state and their involvement in the campaigns to abolish the slave trade. The final part discusses how Dissenters lived: the theology they developed and their attitudes towards scripture; the importance of both sermons and singing; their involvement in education and print culture and the ways in which they expressed their faith materially through their buildings.
